totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, Terwin said:

servo-assisted bending could also counter stiffening, I suspect.

That is called power armor.

[sevenperforce]

6 minutes ago, cubinator said:

That is called power armor.

Indeed.

However, it's my understanding that even without servo assist, mechanically constrained joints can solve the ballooning problem all on their own.

The possibility to later add servos is surely not lost on Musk.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Musk isn’t kidding when he says he views China as his competitor.

What's their price-point per launch tho?

 

Once they succeed in reusables... then the game is on

[tater]

 

[mikegarrison]

21 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

What's their price-point per launch tho?

Whatever they want it to be.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Whatever they want it to be.

Laughing b/c true!

[tater]

There's no commercial market for China for many countries, it would be internal.

SpaceX has no serious price competition now, if Starship flies, then it's SS vs NG, Vulcan, and... Neutron? None would be close even with SS expended for large payloads. Obviously reuse then makes the operating cost closer to the propellant cost vs tossing a few million bucks of upper stage, but all near future competition also expends the upper stage.

Meanwhile SpaceX can charge a lot, and still br grossly cheaper per kg than anyone else.

[tater]

 

A little more than 24 hours from now:

 

[Tellurium128]

Last week spacex installed water deluge manifold on LC39A pad.

So i have a couple questions:

1.Why install manifold in the ground with nozzles pointing up,wont it be better to install it around the table,and pour the water top to bottom.Also nozzles at ground level are quite vulnerable to FOD.

2.What about boca pad?

I think they cant install it know,it will require a lot of ground and gse work.Also there is no water tower to provide enormous quantities of water needed.

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

What's their price-point per launch tho?

 

Once they succeed in reusables... then the game is on

What I meant was cadence and *stuff* rather than cost.

China’s space based observation capabilities have expanded at a ridiculous rate when compared with Russia, India, or the EU. Space historian David S. F. Portree has criticized SpaceX’s (and basically everyone’s) fixation on cost and stated that in his opinion, we just need to accept that space is expensive and get over with it. I think China may have temporarily adopted such a stance, which is why they are so willing to launch expendable rockets at the rate they do while Japan has been taking two decades to build a simple 10~ sat missile early warning constellation that apparently doesn’t work.

The various Sino-Falcon 9s and the Long March 9 will come by 2030. I think SpaceX will certainly overtake China when Starship gets going, but China will make a comeback in the 2030s.

Still, with rapid reuse/tanker launches SpaceX will probably be in an eternal lead in number of launches. Long March 9 is basically a giant Falcon 9 (semi-reusable only) and thus would have similar cadence limitations.

[Beccab]

2 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Space historian David S. F. Portree has criticized SpaceX’s (and basically everyone’s) fixation on cost and stated that in his opinion, we just need to accept that space is expensive and get over with it.

Well yeah, that doesn't make him right. Independently for how good his blog is (i love it), he has also shown to have an extremely "old space" way of thinking, like saying that the Shuttle proved reusability isn't the way to go (which honestly is the dumbest thing i have seen him say, ever) or hating the commercial crew program when Dragon first started flying for "being nothing we haven't already done" while still cheering for Starliner quite frequently even after the failure of OFT 1.

Portree's space history knowledge is extremely deep, but his takes on current space industry are honestly a bit clueless; i still haven't seen him show one reason to think NASA made the wrong decision with HLS other than "my National Team friends think it's bad"

[tater]

5 hours ago, Tellurium128 said:

1.Why install manifold in the ground with nozzles pointing up,wont it be better to install it around the table,and pour the water top to bottom.Also nozzles at ground level are quite vulnerable to FOD.

They might cap them with angled sprayer caps (Other deluge systems at KSC do this, pipe points up, cap sprays water.

They might be worried about erosion at TX and are doing it at FL because NASA is requiring it.

[tater]

 

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

What I meant was cadence and *stuff* rather than cost.

China’s space based observation capabilities have expanded at a ridiculous rate when compared with Russia, India, or the EU. Space historian David S. F. Portree has criticized SpaceX’s (and basically everyone’s) fixation on cost and stated that in his opinion, we just need to accept that space is expensive and get over with it. I think China may have temporarily adopted such a stance, which is why they are so willing to launch expendable rockets at the rate they do while Japan has been taking two decades to build a simple 10~ sat missile early warning constellation that apparently doesn’t work.

The various Sino-Falcon 9s and the Long March 9 will come by 2030. I think SpaceX will certainly overtake China when Starship gets going, but China will make a comeback in the 2030s.

Still, with rapid reuse/tanker launches SpaceX will probably be in an eternal lead in number of launches. Long March 9 is basically a giant Falcon 9 (semi-reusable only) and thus would have similar cadence limitations.

China has been willing to spend money like it was the 60's space race. Few will but China wanted to play catch up. 
Launch costs matter, yes space is expensive but it get more expensive then you has to maximize for low mass and also ensure the satellite last a long time because they are hard to replace as its not many launches. 

To copy falcon 9 you first need an two stage rocket with 5 or more easy reusable engines. 
SpaceX was very lucky with the Falcon 9 design as it has many engines you could land with one and the engine was reusable as they did a lot of test firing for testing. 
They also had the benefit of testing on spent first stages keeping the development cost down. 
And they launches plenty of rockets so reuse made sense.

[Beccab]

Seems like undocking polled for go this time, undocking procedure begins in 20 mins and detaches from ISS at 12:05 pm ET

[tater]

59 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

China has been willing to spend money like it was the 60's space race. Few will but China wanted to play catch up. 

Nope.

CNSA budget is just shy of $9B.

China's total budget is ~$2.8T

So they spend ~0.3% of their budget on Space.

US spent ~3% of budget on NASA peak (1966).

So China is spending 10X less than the US in the 60s.

Edited October 14, 2022 by tater

[Beccab]

Docking sequence begun

Undocking complete, exiting the keep out sphere now

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Nope.

CNSA budget is just shy of $9B.

China's total budget is ~$2.8T

So they spend ~0.3% of their budget on Space.

US spent ~3% of budget on NASA peak (1966).

So China is spending 10X less than the US in the 60s.

My bad I thought it was 2-3%. 
NASA is .2% of the federal budged. Now I assume China's budget is an larger fraction of GNP than the US federal one but the U GNP is larger. 
On the other hand lots of the military and intelligence stuff are not included in the NASA budget as they pay ULA and SpaceX directly. 
So its looks like US and China is pretty even. 
 

[tater]

5 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

NASA is .2% of the federal budged. Now I assume China's budget is an larger fraction of GNP than the US federal one but the U GNP is larger. 

US total budget is substantially larger than China, with a fraction of the population. NASA spending is a little less per GDP looks like (~3X CNSA spending). Course both also have military space, then we have whatever private spends on its own.

[RealKerbal3x]

Crew-4 Dragon trunk has been jettisoned, the deorbit burn is in progress

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[darthgently]

19 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Whatever they want it to be.

Everything has a real cost, even in a communist centrally planned economy.  Now finding an honest appraisal of that cost, and who really ends up paying it, would be an incredible challenge

Edited October 14, 2022 by darthgently

[Beccab]

 

[SunlitZelkova]

12 hours ago, Beccab said:

Well yeah, that doesn't make him right. Independently for how good his blog is (i love it), he has also shown to have an extremely "old space" way of thinking, like saying that the Shuttle proved reusability isn't the way to go (which honestly is the dumbest thing i have seen him say, ever) or hating the commercial crew program when Dragon first started flying for "being nothing we haven't already done" while still cheering for Starliner quite frequently even after the failure of OFT 1.

Portree's space history knowledge is extremely deep, but his takes on current space industry are honestly a bit clueless; i still haven't seen him show one reason to think NASA made the wrong decision with HLS other than "my National Team friends think it's bad"

I didn't say he was right 

I think saying "screw cost" is feasible for simple catch up like China is currently doing. Once they need to maintain that level of space capability, they will need reusability.

They are aware of this, which is why Long March 9 will no longer be an expendable rocket, and the Long March 5DY and its LEO variant, which will replace the LM-2F and LM-7 in the space station transport and crew launch role, have also shifted to a semi-reusable configuration.

Edited October 14, 2022 by SunlitZelkova
SEMI-reusable