Jump to content

SpaceX Discussion Thread


Skylon

Recommended Posts

10 minutes ago, Kerwood Floyd said:

I don't think anyone has actually answered my question, though. Did the FAA not considered the failure to land the booster (however unnecessary and experimental that was) to be a mishap that required investigation? In other words (to quote Tom Lehrer pretending to quote Werner von Braun) "Once the rocket's up who cares where it comes down?"

I don't believe so. Looking through old web captures, they don't even mention the FAA, and the landing attempt was a small blurb. This was the first droneship attempt https://web.archive.org/web/20150717181812/http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/01/10/spacex-launches-fifth-official-mission-resupply-international-space-station

And the second attempt: https://web.archive.org/web/20150723152319/http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/04/14/liftoff-falcon-9-and-dragon-begin-crs-6-mission-resupply-international-space-station No mentions of an investigation, just talking about the landing attempt and what went wrong.

Looking for FAA investigations on Falcon 9 between Jan/Jun 2015 (encompassing the first droneship landings, and before CRS-7) didn't bring anything up either, but maybe someone who's better at digging through search engines will prove me wrong. It looks like as long as SpaceX showed landing (or the lack therof) boosters posed no risk beyond what a normal fight would have, they weren't concerned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am guessing that the faa only cares if the hazard is increased by a given action, or if something done without informing them 

The fact that a booster splashing down in an exclusion zone might only be destroyed by water turbulence instead of a hard splash-down(or disintegrating as it falls), does not seem like it would be of interest unless it might stay afloat for an extended period.(Probably why they need a guy with a rifle on-hand for starship, In case it does not sink on its own)

 

The faa might not even care to be informed of the type of splash-down, so long as it is in the designated area.(Such as landing on an unmanned barge as opposed to slamming into the waves, letting the owner risk non-human assets as much as they want, so long as it goes where they were told it would go)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Terwin said:

The fact that a booster splashing down in an exclusion zone might only be destroyed by water turbulence instead of a hard splash-down(or disintegrating as it falls), does not seem like it would be of interest unless it might stay afloat for an extended period.(Probably why they need a guy with a rifle on-hand for starship, In case it does not sink on its own)

Then it likely becomes a maritime hazard—dunno who deals with that. Close ashore, the Coast Guard, in international waters presumably the Navy?

Weather a bit hinky

Edited by tater
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/3/2024 at 4:48 PM, Exoscientist said:

A counterintuitive result: partially reusable SuperHeavy/Starship can get same price per kilo as fully reusable one IF an expendable Starship can get 40 ton dry mass:

SpaceX should explore a weight-optimized, expendable Starship upper stage.
https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/03/spacex-should-explore-weight-optimized.html

This is because of two reasons: 1.)a 40 ton expendable Starship compared to a 120 ton reusable one means you get 80 tons extra payload, and 2.)making the first stage reusable is more important because, like with the Falcon 9, the first stage makes up 2/3rds of the cost anyway.

cf.,

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1111798912141017089

  Bob Clark

Look man, with all due respect, would you please let Elon Musk design his own rockets? He is an actual engineer, and a decent one at that. He is 12 steps ahead of what you are thinking of here. just let him show you what he has planned. We are getting really close to the test flight campaign actuallty getting started.

Edited by Meecrob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally think it would be a shame if people stopped using their imaginations or exercising their thought processes. This is how we learn. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Deddly said:

I personally think it would be a shame if people stopped using their imaginations or exercising their thought processes. This is how we learn. 

I'm not debating the merits of using ones imagination. What I am getting at is there is not much point trying to figure out how to squeeze a bit more performance out of a rocket, when the answer is an industrial scale supply of rockets. This isnt the 60's anymore. NASA isn't the only game in town. Stuff is about to get real!

Edited by Meecrob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Look man, with all due respect, would you please let Elon Musk design his own rockets? He is an actual engineer, and a decent one at that. He is 12 steps ahead of what you are thinking of here. just let him show you what he has planned. We are getting really close to the test flight campaign actuallty getting started.

I am quite confident that Elon does approximately 0% of the engineering on any SpaceX rocket.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I am quite confident that Elon does approximately 0% of the engineering on any SpaceX rocket.

He did make it more pointy. I think that counts as engineering.

Seriously though, isn't he the head engineer?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Deddly said:

He did make it more pointy. I think that counts as engineering.

Seriously though, isn't he the head engineer?

He's the CEO (and has about 80% control of the voting shares). He can call himself the "head engineer" if he wants -- nobody who works for him is going to tell him otherwise.

But the higher you go in management, the less actual engineering you do, despite sometimes being the person who ultimately says yes or no about major decisions.

FWIW, he has an economics degree, not an engineering degree. Not that I'm saying having a degree is necessary, but it is somewhat indicative. If you look at his history, it's not at all clear he has ever worked as an engineer.

Shotwell, on the other hand, does have an engineering degree and clearly has worked as an engineer in her professional background.

Edited by mikegarrison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

I am quite confident that Elon does approximately 0% of the engineering on any SpaceX rocket.

Mikey, my boy, stop trying to snipe at me re: Elon Musk. Do you really think that the guy pushing to go to Mars, who is an engineer, and owns a space launch company that is building a rocket aimed at Mars has his feet kicked up on his desk while his minions do his bidding? You're an engineer, don't you love creating things? You confuse me, buddy.

If you don't believe me that he is an engineer, listen to "IRL" Rocket Scientist Lauren Lyons:

Edit: The higher you go in Public companies, what you say is true. Do yourself a favour and read up on Elon's Management style. I know you have decades of Boeing experience so you are used to beurocracy and appeasing shareholders and all that fun stuff. Bottom line is, Elon knows how to run a company. He gets specialists in to do tasks, unlike other companies who get one of the 500 or so CEO's that float around and have no real experience in anything other than management. Go look at Boeing and Blue Origin. Research their leaders, form your own opinion. I doubt you will listen to me.

Anyways, have a great day.

Edited by Meecrob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

He's the CEO (and has about 80% control of the voting shares). He can call himself the "head engineer" if he wants -- nobody who works for him is going to tell him otherwise.

But the higher you go in management, the less actual engineering you do, despite sometimes being the person who ultimately says yes or no about major decisions.

FWIW, he has an economics degree, not an engineering degree. Not that I'm saying having a degree is necessary, but it is somewhat indicative. If you look at his history, it's not at all clear he has ever worked as an engineer.

Shotwell, on the other hand, does have an engineering degree and clearly has worked as an engineer in her professional background.

I think he has been studying physics far more than average from childhood on and studied more physics in college, iirc.  He is not a credentialed engineer, but by self-education and on the job training standards he is likely a more than competent "Applied Physics" thinker and creator.  You are right though, if he wants to call himself an "engineer" within the company, then whatever.  The term predates the credential.  DaVinci and many others certainly were not credentialed engineers, but also certainly engaged in the act of engineering, AKA applied physics.

He isn't marketing his services at large as a credentialed engineer so it doesn't matter legally.  Which no one brought up, but I'm reminded of the perennial "Realtor" title kerfuffles.

Engineering is truly 90% applied physics and 5% rules of thumb and 5% compliance knowledge.  Maybe Master Applied Physics Facilitator would be more accurate? Idk.

Guessing:  I do think he could probably pass an exam on manufacturing engineering at this point, maybe rocket engineering also.  If he did decide to get the formal degree, there isn't a single engineering college that would turn him away, quite the opposite, and if allowed to test out of courses could probably do it in a year or far less.

 

Edited by darthgently
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Damn thats exciting :) I havent heard much about the thermal system lately.  They managing to keep more tiles attached?

Flight 1 had problems. Flight 3 they are trying hard to fix those problems and have individually tested every tile. We will see how it goes for them. Flight 2 they kinda gave up to focus on flight 3 and a LOT of the tiles fell off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...