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On 1/9/2018 at 8:15 AM, GoSlash27 said:

tomf,

Another possibility: They changed the name to "Zuma" because "crossbow" was too obvious. Expect an MIT professor to wind up with a house full of popcorn shortly.

Best,
-Slashy

This was a fine post, but I need to correct you. Expect a Caltech professor to wind up with a house of popcorn shortly.

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1 minute ago, sh1pman said:

Is prop load that big of a milestone? They just pump RP-1 and LOX into the tanks until they're full. 

Yeah, it is. They are testing all the propellant loading gear for 2 extra boosters that has never been used before.

 

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5 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, it is. They are testing all the propellant loading gear for 2 extra boosters that has never been used before.

 

Whilst I understand prop loading is a big milestone, surely the whole point of the Heavy is it’s easy because you just get what works for the F9 and add 2 more exactly the same. 

 

Should almost be mundane by now surely? 

Edited by Jaff
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12 minutes ago, Jaff said:

Whilst I understand prop loading is a big milestone, surely the whole point of the Heavy is it’s easy because you just get what works for the F9 and add 2 more exactly the same. 

 

Should almost be mundane by now surely? 

All the mechanical systems are untested. They of course need a dress rehearsal. What if there is debris in the fuel lines, etc, etc.

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34 minutes ago, Jaff said:

Whilst I understand prop loading is a big milestone, surely the whole point of the Heavy is it’s easy because you just get what works for the F9 and add 2 more exactly the same. 

Should almost be mundane by now surely? 

Rocket science has all the intricacies, systematic dependencies, and precision of a professional pit crew, albeit without quite so much haste.

So take any racing pit crew and tell them "okay, now instead of doing one car at a time, we're going to bolt three race cars in tandem, and you can change the tires and refuel all of them at once."

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39 minutes ago, Jaff said:

Whilst I understand prop loading is a big milestone, surely the whole point of the Heavy is it’s easy because you just get what works for the F9 and add 2 more exactly the same. 

 

Should almost be mundane by now surely? 

Having been present at the first launch attempt of EFT-1 and hearing that there was a fault with the Delta IV's fuel valve (wouldn't shut iirc); I personally don't think they can test fueling enough.

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1 hour ago, Jaff said:

Whilst I understand prop loading is a big milestone, surely the whole point of the Heavy is it’s easy because you just get what works for the F9 and add 2 more exactly the same. 

Should almost be mundane by now surely? 

That's what they thought a year ago...

 

Edited by KSK
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12 minutes ago, Jaff said:

 

No doubt but they’ve learnt from that and have had many successes since. And like I said orevioudlybthe idea is these are just 3 F9’s 

Indeed no doubt they learned from THAT. Undoubtedly, one of the things they learned is that there are many more "thats" which they don't know about, and every time you change something, and even if you don't, those "thats" can creep up on you.

Remember, there are millions of things that can happen to a rocket, and only one of them is good. 

Edited by Lukaszenko
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Venting.

 

 

18 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Is NASA suffering from "favorite son" syndrome? Since when was Starliner further along than D2?

It's not Starliner, I bet it's LV certification. Atlas V is already man-rated. F9 requires 5 block 5 flights to get a certification.

Live stream of venting:

 

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55 minutes ago, tater said:

It's not Starliner, I bet it's LV certification. Atlas V is already man-rated. F9 requires 5 block 5 flights to get a certification.

You reckon NASA will accept one booster flown five times? :wink:

 

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2 hours ago, Lukaszenko said:

Indeed no doubt they learned from THAT. Undoubtedly, one of the things they learned is that there are many more "thats" which they don't know about, and every time you change something, and even if you don't, those "thats" can creep up on you.

Remember, there are millions of things that can happen to a rocket, and only one of them is good. 

Whilst I agree with the general sentiment, this is actually untrue for SpaceX specifically. Getting the payload into the correct orbital position is the outcome that's required. Whether or not they get a flight-proven first stage back means that there are shades of good. (Still vastly outnumbered by the number of possible bad outcomes)

Edited by Damien_The_Unbeliever
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