Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[Ultimate Steve]

19 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

One thing is for sure, if this venture does get successfully pulled off... it should put an end to all the naysayers regarding stuff like the 'you can't survive the Van Allen Belts' crew, and the 'we've never been to the moon' crew, and the 'Earth is flat' crew. They'll all need new hobbies.

Unfortunately, we won't get rid of all of them.

Maybe 90%. Which is still a lot. But not enough!

When we land someone on the Moon again/Mars, we'll get rid of another 90% of that 10%. So, 1% will be left.

Until we have a regular one month NTR powered Earth-Mars taxi service, we won't be rid of them.

2 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

You could take one of them along for the ride. Heck, you could land and rub their nose in the gritty, gunpowdery-smelling lunar regolith then beat them over the head with the bleached flag left by Apollo 11, and they still wouldn't believe. 

Or maybe...

If we sent naturehacker to the moon, would he believe?

[tater]

The first crew Orion mission will be in a spacecraft that has never flown at all. Yes, the actual hull will have literally flown (they plan on reusing the EM-1 capsule, though they have to tear it down to the bones for reuse). None the less, EM-1 will not be a real, all up Orion, so the critical systems related to the crew will be untested in flight. It will fly on the second SLS launch.

Its hard to imagine this idea being any different except that the components would have been more tested (flight tested, anyway).

Edited February 28, 2017 by tater

[munlander1]

I thought about the idea of sendin any hoaxer involving space, the moon, or the earth, and I desided that they would make up another excuse they made in 5 minutes.

[regex]

Wow, some good stuff in this thread, I had no idea NASA wasn't really that hot about the SLS.

In terms of time frame this is doable by Space-X; the U.S. has done much more on far less in a similar time, and Space-X can build on what has already been done. That doesn't mean I'm not skeptical. The Falcon Heavy is still a unicorn until it's sitting on the pad but, as has been said, maybe this is the payload it has been waiting for.

[tater]

Seems like the spacecraft needs some reasonable ability to maneuver. A free return still takes some corrections, and I have to say that if I spend tens of millions or more, I'd want a CLOSE flyby.

[Nothalogh]

1 minute ago, tater said:

Seems like the spacecraft needs some reasonable ability to maneuver. A free return still takes some corrections, and I have to say that if I spend tens of millions or more, I'd want a CLOSE flyby.

My wild guess is that the 2nd stage is enough for translunar injection with enough to spare for corrections

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

My wild guess is that the 2nd stage is enough for translunar injection with enough to spare for corrections

I think the problem with the second stage is longevity. It's kerolox fueled, after all. LOX boils off and kerosene some some nasty things if it's heated/cooled too far. Anyone know the theoretical endurance of the standard F9 second stage? Or the delta-V of the existing Dragon, for comparison?

[Nothalogh]

Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

I think the problem with the second stage is longevity. It's kerolox fueled, after all. LOX boils off and kerosene some some nasty things if it's heated/cooled too far. Anyone know the theoretical endurance of the standard F9 second stage? Or the delta-V of the existing Dragon, for comparison?

Fair enough, how much UDMH and N2O4 can be crammed in the trunk?

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Respectfully, you and others seem to be ignoring that before any of this ever happens, the FH will have two or three flights under its belt and the D2 as well.

Respectfully, you missed kerbiloids point - which is that, as of today (when the announcement was made), all of the requisite hardware is unflown and largely untested.
 

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Like someone said above, all the hardware does actually exist in some form, ala Apollo 8 when they started thinking about sending it round the moon. 

Complete and utter nonsense.  When the Apollo 8 mission was proposed to go around the moon (in August of 1968), the Saturn V had already flown twice.  F9H hasn't flown even once.  While the Apollo CSM hadn't been flown manned yet, it had flown the Little Joe 2 mission, two suborbital flights, and one orbital flight.  (Not to mention the thermal vac testing - including two manned runs, culminating in the 177 hour long 2TV-1 test.)  Dragon 2 has flown exactly one flight - the pad abort test.

[tater]

43 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

Complete and utter nonsense.  When the Apollo 8 mission was proposed to go around the moon (in August of 1968), the Saturn V had already flown twice.  F9H hasn't flown even once.  While the Apollo CSM hadn't been flown manned yet, it had flown the Little Joe 2 mission, two suborbital flights, and one orbital flight.  (Not to mention the thermal vac testing - including two manned runs, culminating in the 177 hour long 2TV-1 test.)  Dragon 2 has flown exactly one flight - the pad abort test.

I compared it to the timeline of 2 years from a Saturn 1B flight with CSM, to Apollo 8 2 years later. Call the 1B the F9, and the SV the FH for this analogy. So 2 flights is just about right. D2 tests begin (that's our Apollo 6 analog), then some FH tests, along with more F9/D2 tests, then this mission. (I'd start the clock when D2 is actually flown, and I assume there is no way they hit 2018).

I'd bet money they slip this at least a year, maybe 2, so their could be even more testing of both FH and D2 before any such flight.

I would add that I was mostly comparing to Orion, not Apollo. But a short time span from announcement to Moon obviously fits, and Orion will not have a full-up flight until the crew mission.

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by tater

[kerbiloid]

12 minutes ago, tater said:

D2 tests begin (that's our Apollo 6 analog)

Apollo 5 & 6 have performed orbital flights. So, D2 can be A-6, but yet not is it.

12 minutes ago, tater said:

I'd bet money they slip this at least a year, maybe 2, so their could be even more testing of both FH and D2 before any such flight.

So, they're making a next-year claim, believing it's unreaistic, themselves?

P.S.
D-2 has bought additional radiation protection?
Iirc, a year ago D-2 and CST-100 were LEO ships, while Orion - an oceanic class ship with thick hull allowing to leave the Earth protection.

Edited February 28, 2017 by kerbiloid

[DerekL1963]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

I compared it to the timeline of 2 years from a Saturn 1B flight with CSM, to Apollo 8 2 years later. Call the 1B the F9, and the SV the FH for this analogy. So 2 flights is just about right. D2 tests begin (that's our Apollo 6 analog), then some FH tests, along with more F9/D2 tests, then this mission.

In their currently crowded schedule, that's going to be a pretty tall order even without their habitual rightward slippage.

Either way, my original point stands - CatastrophicFailure is way out to lunch...  SpaceX's current hardware experience (to say nothing of their operational experience) is in no way comparable to where NASA stood when they first started considering a circumlunar mission in August of '68.  Granted, SpaceX "stands on the shoulders of giants", but NASA had a tons of experience (Mercury, Gemini, all the Apollo engineering tests and flights cited above) when they started to even consider the possibility - and then had Apollo 7 under their belts when they committed to it.

 In another group (which includes actual, NASA and commercial, rocket scientists) the general opinion is that 2018 is aggressive even by the standards of  SpaceX's normally extraordinarily optimistic PR outlook.

[CatastrophicFailure]

I'd say they're in an even better position. Like you said, they're standing on the shoulders of giants. Nothing involved here is new technology-- it's evolutionary, not revolutionary. The FH is an extension of the well-tested F9. The D2 is an extension of the well-tested D1. And they have plenty of NASA experience to glean from, too.  I think it's entirely plausible that they pull this off. 

Now is it probable? Ask me in about December. It depends on how the rest of this year goes for them... and on just how bad this rich dude wants to go to the Moon. 

Who might just be Jeff Bezos with a Truly Awesome but fake mustache. 

 

ETA: an article with more details:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/02/27/spacex-to-send-two-private-citizens-around-the-moon-and-back/

Edited February 28, 2017 by CatastrophicFailure

[Nibb31]

5 hours ago, tater said:

The first crew Orion mission will be in a spacecraft that has never flown at all. Yes, the actual hull will have literally flown (they plan on reusing the EM-1 capsule, though they have to tear it down to the bones for reuse). None the less, EM-1 will not be a real, all up Orion, so the critical systems related to the crew will be untested in flight. It will fly on the second SLS launch.

Its hard to imagine this idea being any different except that the components would have been more tested (flight tested, anyway).

I have a little more faith in NASA's flight record that in SpaceX's.

Cutting corners in sourcing, experimenting new procedures on the customer's dime, employing junior staff, blowing stuff up to see if it works... I admire SpaceX, but I'm not confident at this stage with man-rating the way they work.

They haven't even proven they can do a Mercury program and they want to do Apollo 8 next year.

They currently have their plate full with: Reusable F9, Fly Falcon Heavy, Reuse F9, Fly Dragon 2, Reuse Dragon2, Internet constellation, DoD Raptor US, RedDragon, ITS, Mars colonies, and now the Moon. As I said above, they need to stop adding goalposts and strike a few actual goals, without blowing up customer's payloads. A little less conversation, a little more action.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Nibb31

[Streetwind]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

And they don't need to expend resources pursuing it further, either. They're smart guys, they can likely see the writing on the wall that with a functional, reusable Falcon Heavy (and more so the New Glenn) would make SLS obsolete. I'm given to wonder how much support SLS actually has within NASA's ranks, and how much is just politics. 

Not quite so, I'm afraid. New Glenn is a long way from flying (SLS will be launching well before it), and we know little to nothing about its detailed capabilities. And Falcon Heavy? Well...

You need to consider what a rocket can actually launch. And I'm not talking about payload to LEO. For most launchers on this planet, that's a fantasy figure that will never be reached, based purely on propellant available on board but ignoring other considerations like structural limitations. For example: a Falcon 9 that SpaceX will sell you today has an advertised expendable payload to LEO of 22,800 kg. But do you know what the maximum mass is that you can physically mount onto a Falcon 9 before you roll it out onto the launchpad? It's 10,800 kg, as per the Falcon 9 User's Guide, section payload adapters. And while we don't have a Falcon Heavy User's Guide yet, keep in mind that it uses the exact same stage 2 as the Falcon 9, and therefore uses the exact same payload adapters. Thus I would not be surprised at all if the maximum payload you can physically mount onto Falcon Heavy also ends up being exactly the same 10,800 kg.

So all that theoretical >54 tons to LEO performance is most likely only going to be available for a mix of two jobs: pushing a lighter payload beyond LEO, and returning booster cores. SpaceX says that Falcon Heavy can push about 13.5 tons to Mars in fully expendable mode. But IMHO it's possible like that's the only scenario we'll actually ever see Falcon Heavy flying expendable, because for destinations closer to home, it might not have any way to mount more payload to make use of its capabilities. Even sending a Dragon around the Moon may be possible while expending only the center core. GTO payload in that configuration is estimated as 14 tons, and Dragon V2 is specced at a maximum possible loaded mass of around 9.5 tons, which is unlikely to be tapped out on 2-3 people leisure cruise. A free return just might be possible with recovered side boosters, especially if the SuperDracos add their >400 m/s to the mix.

As such, SLS offers something Falcon Heavy cannot, and that is raw payload mass. As a much bigger rocket, is has structural capabilities far greater than a Falcon 9 upper stage, so more of that theoretical 70-120 tons to LEO can actually be physical payload. And the fact that it will have more than 100s of specific impulse advantage over the F9 upper stage will also help a great deal in space.

SLS may be the last own launcher that NASA ever operates... and it may not be the best it could have been, had NASA had a free hand with it... but the commercial market will not yet be quite where it needs to be to replace it within the coming ten years.

 

3 hours ago, regex said:

Wow, some good stuff in this thread, I had no idea NASA wasn't really that hot about the SLS.

I dunno, there weren't any sources on that claim. And even if there were factions inside NASA lobbying against it, NASA is a huge organization. You need to consider the whole of it.

I mean sure, I can believe that many people at NASA aren't happy about being prescribed by laymen how to build their rockets. But I also wouldn't be surprised if many people at NASA were miffed for not having their own rocket. It limits them in so many ways - not only in terms of manned spaceflight, but also in terms of solar system exploration and public outreach.

So maybe some of NASA isn't all that hot about the specifics of SLS - I wouldn't know. But I'm willing to venture a guess that when given the choice between continuing SLS development now or scrapping it in favor of commercial suppliers... which don't have anything remotely comparable on offer today or in the near future... you'd find the overwhelming majority of NASA personel on the SLS side. The whole organization is made up of geeks and enthusiasts. Any rocket is better than no rocket, and SLS is not a bad rocket. If there wasn't a mandate to spend unnecessary amounts of money on it to employ an unnecessary amount of people in certain states, I don't think there would be nearly as many complaints (apart from those people that would no longer have a job, of course).

[Tullius]

Why shouldn't SpaceX be able to pull this stunt off? By mid 2018, they have a good chance that they have a flight-proven rocket (Falcon Heavy) and capsule (Dragon). Sure, they won't have flown a BEO mission, but that should only be a minor hindrance.

However, one must understand about this is that it isn't redoing Apollo 8 (like SLS+Orion on EM-2), but rather the Soviet Zond missions and their unmanned lunar flybys (hopefully with a better success rate than 1 in 5).

And like the Zonds with their modified Soyuz capsules on Proton rockets, Dragons lunar flyby will be a dead end in terms of space craft development, since it is the maximum the given hardware is able to do. Sure, they have a good chance of beating NASA in putting humans into lunar space, but NASA will do it with hardware that after further development can support Moon landings.

However, one should not underestimate the public opinion and the opinion of the Trump administration: If a private company can do it, why spend such a ridiculous amount of money on NASAs manned lunar (and beyond) program? But if SLS is cancelled and they still want missions outside of LEO, they have to fund a private company. In short, SpaceX will get its ITS program funded by NASA, just like they got funded their Dragon and Falcon program (2.6 billion dollars + technical assistance for Dragon to ISS!). I don't know, if Musk is speculating on this happening, but it would sure as hell solve his problem of funding ITS.

This might also be the reason, why NASA is in some sense pushed to do EM-1 manned: They can show that they are just as good as SpaceX and they have the more capable hardware.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Tullius

[kerbiloid]

Quote

Q: When will a manned Dragon capsule first fly, and will you be on it? 

Manned without people (high altitude orbit) maybe in 2010.  With people, 2011.  I won’t be on it — too risky for SpaceX and I want to see my kids grow up

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2007/09/elon-musk-q-and-a-updates-spacex-status-on-falcon-and-dragon/

[Steel]

When SpaceX launches a manned Dragon 2 to LEO then I'll believe they might be able to launch a manned Lunar flyby the following year.

[KSK]

5 hours ago, LordFerret said:

One thing is for sure, if this venture does get successfully pulled off... it should put an end to all the naysayers regarding stuff like the 'you can't survive the Van Allen Belts' crew, and the 'we've never been to the moon' crew, and the 'Earth is flat' crew. They'll all need new hobbies.

They don't believe the evidence from the last time it happened - I have zero faith they'll be any more amenable to reason this time.

As for the SpaceX announcement, right now I'm torn between excitement and skepticism, certainly with regard to the proposed 2018 schedule. And at the risk of being a thorough wet blanket, I really, really hope this doesn't turn into a half-cocked dongle-waving contest between government (SLS) and private industry (Falcon) to put a crew around the Moon. Because that way lies Go-Fever and Go-Fever never ends well.

[Nibb31]

27 minutes ago, Tullius said:

Why shouldn't SpaceX be able to pull this stunt off? By mid 2018, they have a good chance that they have a flight-proven rocket (Falcon Heavy) and capsule (Dragon). Sure, they won't have flown a BEO mission, but that should only be a minor hindrance.

Because SpaceX has a pretty bad track record of sticking to schedules. As explained above, manned Dragon is 6 years late. Same is true for flying a reused F9, which we have been talking about for ages and hasn't flown yet. And F9, and RedDragon, and that comsat constellation...

27 minutes ago, Tullius said:

However, one should not underestimate the public opinion and the opinion of the Trump administration: If a private company can do it, why spend such a ridiculous amount of money on NASAs manned lunar (and beyond) program? But if SLS is cancelled and they still want missions outside of LEO, they have to fund a private company. In short, SpaceX will get its ITS program funded by NASA, just like they got funded their Dragon and Falcon program (2.6 billion dollars + technical assistance for Dragon to ISS!). I don't know, if Musk is speculating on this happening, but it would sure as hell solve his problem of funding ITS.

If SLS is cancelled, the money is gone. NASA will have to convince Congress to fund yet another shiny new program, which is certainly not a given in the current climate. The only way NASA can end up funding ITS is if there is a fair competition for "Commercial Mars", where SpaceX wins against Boeing, LM, Orbital, etc...  and if ITS is redesigned to fit NASA's requirements (NASA has no use for 100 tons of cargo or 100 pax).

 

[YNM]

I guess that, at least, SpaceX will still have to :

- Fly FH.

- Confirm whether CCDev manned is a go.

- Fly unmanned Dragon v2.

- Fly more FH.

- End the CRS (probably on Dragon v2) and take the manned one.

- Strap Dragon v2 to FH.

- Do whatever crap they want to do, budget permit.

[_Augustus_]

12 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

If it's little more than a boilerplate, that seems plausible with minimal extra expense for them. I think I remember reading somewhere that the D2 heat shield is meant for multiple reuses without refurbishment. If true, that right there could make it lunar-ready.  

  

Possibly. 

12 hours ago, tater said:

Two, it doesn't have to be "rated" for anything if the crew isn't NASA.

EM-1 won't fly til 2019, and unless this spooks NASA into risking crew on that

Yep. The Soyuz isn't man-rated by the FAA because it's not even flown in the US.

NASA was already spooked into risking crew BEFORE this announcement.....

[Kryten]

There's currently no such thing as FAA crew-rating, only NASA standards. The FAA are only currently allowed to make regulations for the safety of uninvolved persons, not vehicle passengers.

[Tullius]

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Because SpaceX has a pretty bad track record of sticking to schedules. As explained above, manned Dragon is 6 years late. Same is true for flying a reused F9, which we have been talking about for ages and hasn't flown yet. And F9, and RedDragon, and that comsat constellation...

Sure, they might miss the schedule (or even it is quite likely that they will miss it), but it is theoretically possible.

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

If SLS is cancelled, the money is gone. NASA will have to convince Congress to fund yet another shiny new program, which is certainly not a given in the current climate. The only way NASA can end up funding ITS is if there is a fair competition for "Commercial Mars", where SpaceX wins against Boeing, LM, Orbital, etc...  and if ITS is redesigned to fit NASA's requirements (NASA has no use for 100 tons of cargo or 100 pax).

Depends on how it is done. If the Senate decides to cancel SLS in favour of private projects, then there is nothing preventing them from doing it. And relating this to the current administration is a bit difficult, since nobody really knows how their intentions are: Sure they want to save money, but at the same time they seem to have some interest in a manned Moon mission (even if it is just for the pictures on TV), since they are investigating for a manned EM-1.

For the second part: NASA is free to create the requirements they want, i.e. to adapt them to ITS. Sure, they shouldn't make it too obvious, but finding some scientists saying that, if they want to go to Mars, they should "either go big or go home", should not be that hard. Also, there is nothing preventing them from buying part of an ITS mission to Mars, i.e. only pay for 2-3 of 6 seats. For example, in case of Red Dragon, NASA essentially gifted SpaceX the necessary capacity of the Deep Space Network (in return, NASA gets scientific and technical results of the mission).

But in the end, I don't think that it would be really cheaper for NASA to fund commercial missions than doing it by themselfs: The commercial resupply missions will cost NASA a few billion dollars, and the commercial crew program already granted Boeing nearly 5 billion dollars and SpaceX over 3 billion dollars even before the first flight. Comparing those values to those of SLS program which will have cost some 40-50 billion dollars by the time of the prospected EM-2 mission, it is actually not that expensive, considering the relative size of the project. Do you really think that companies like SpaceX would be able to develop ITS for NASA at less than 10 times the cost of the Commercial Crew program? And grant to a company like Blue Origin the same support for the competition? So I think that the Senate, if they want to do the sensible thing (which is not guaranteed), will stick to SLS, if they want the US to do more in space than ISS and probes.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Tullius

[Wjolcz]

I feel like part of the whole schedule slipping thing is the fact that SpaceX is a relatively small space company. They launch almost every month so one mishap means a lot of setbacks because of the limited number of employees working on things.

Whoops apparently I'm horribly wrong. SpaceX has more eployees than ULA.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Veeltch