SpaceX Updates (Thread 8)

[SALSN]

That is all well and good, and I really like the Dream Chaser, but are there any actual advantages to that over Dragon 2? Theoretically Dragon 2 should be able to land even more places than the Dream Chaser with the rocket powered precision touch down.

[DocM]

3 hours ago, SALSN said:

That is all well and good, and I really like the Dream Chaser, but are there any actual advantages to that over Dragon 2? Theoretically Dragon 2 should be able to land even more places than the Dream Chaser with the rocket powered precision touch down.

Dream Chaser's re-entry is low-G, making it best for delicate samples & experiments. med-evac etc. It also has a 1,500 km cross range so it can land on alternate & commercial strips - especially useful since the FAA is gradually integrating spacecraft into the Air Traffic Control system. The ATC transponders have been tested on Dragon for a few years. 

[Blue-Vision]

I agree with @ above.  

 

And Virgin Galactic is really, really missing the whole point about the word "Galactic". The stupendously lackluster funding, seriously questionable design choices and the ridiculous amount of time it's taking them to get any kind of momentum going is just embarrassing now. Yes, they had an accident. Yes, it was human error. Yes, it was completely preventable on multiple fronts. Seems like Branson & Co. would have had this venture doing something more interesting than test flights for the past 10 years, though. Like, I dunno ... hauling paying customers into near-space by now?? What happened to doing it by 2012?

 

Oh wait .. they didn't actually have a real, workable plan? Meh. More vaporware after all.

[SALSN]

9 hours ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Oh wait .. they didn't actually have a real, workable plan? Meh. More vaporware after all.

But the weird thing is that the spaceship one did it over a decade ago, I know scaling up is not just multiplying by 2 but you would think it would be fairly easy considering that the concept has already been proven and they had a lot of funding for it..?!

I really don't think people are going to be as impressed with suborbital flight after all the latest space tech, but hopefully they can morph the concept into some super quick point to point travel.

[Blue-Vision]

12 hours ago, SALSN said:

But the weird thing is that the spaceship one did it over a decade ago, I know scaling up is not just multiplying by 2 but you would think it would be fairly easy considering that the concept has already been proven and they had a lot of funding for it..?!

I really don't think people are going to be as impressed with suborbital flight after all the latest space tech, but hopefully they can morph the concept into some super quick point to point travel.

I mean it's got a market ... but not on that small of a scale. We're in the era where people are seriously looking at suborbital hops for intercontinental travel. RAPID intercontinental travel. As in "we need to get someone someplace now.". That was, I believe, the whole reason Branson & Co. invested in Scaled Composites in the first place. To forward this capability.

 

I'm just not seeing a commitment. They haven't given it enough of a push to make it happen. Baby steps? They could have simulated what they needed to find out -- the technology has been there to do simulations. A company like Virgin Airways has the means to pioneer way, way better than this and they just haven't gotten behind it at all. That's what I'm seeing here.

 

Sure, the technology is interesting and useful. But it's "outside the box", perhaps too much outside. There's a lot of ... inconvenience associated with it. It can't take off under its' own power, for instance. The engine does not allow for restarting if you're off-course. Ya burn it out and it's done. It pretty much has all the pitfalls of the Space Shuttle once you're back in the atmosphere.

 

As much as I hate to be the one to say it, this technology tree is a dead end as it currently sits unless there are some breakthroughs.  

[DocM]

They are stuck by being too committed to Rutan's winged concepts, which introduces mass penalties, and hybrid rocket engines which are likewise heavy, have non-trivial acoustics, use a potentially spontaneously explosive oxidizer, can explode if a piece of fuel grain dislodges and plugs the nozzle, and by the way they aren't than reusable.

 

Other than those.....

 

Rutan was going to use an XCOR engine, which would have been great as their companies were neighbors at Mojave, but he and Jeff Greason got into a kerfuffle and that was that.

Edited April 9, 2017 by DocM

[Blue-Vision]

Yeah. Too much against it at this point, in this configuration. And time's passing it by when the technologies to do better things are also passing it by. They could have done something like Dream Chaser with engines, on steroids, scaled up and already had it paying bills by now. Adapt the "wing thing" to DC's design if they're that stuck on it ... 

 

Now SC is just looking OCD at this point. And that's a NG.

[DocM]

Dream Chaser doesn't need the wing thing, and said thing isn't applicable to orbital re-entry unless it's built of unobtainium.

[+John. Subscriber¹]

I've been trying to figure out why there is a need for a 24hr turnaround window for 1st Stages. Is there some commercial viability in this, or is it just a target that Elon wants to meet, just because?

[DocM]

They're going to have a 12,000 satellite internet backbone constellation going uphill soon, replacing 20% (2,400 birds) of it every year. This with Google. The FCC and ITU permitting are making progress, and the factories in Seattle are ramping up and hiring. They're also making their own Hall effect ion thrusters for these.

 

That and FH Red Dragons scouting Mars colony and probe sites where ever; their commercial astronaut program (Crew Dragon to the Moon etc.); their usual satellite, DoD & NASA/ISS business; the ISS partners likely lunar exploration gateway station in lunar orbit will need logistics flights and so on. Another could well be DoD Launch On Need - roll a DoD spec'ed core out of warehouse hangars at KSC or Vandenberg and launch an urgent defense payload within an hour.

 

That stage refurb queue is going to have to move, and quickly.

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by DocM

[+John. Subscriber¹]

Thanks for the reply, that certainly helped a lot.

[Blue-Vision]

And all @ above going on while R&D happens for ITS/BFR/BFS .. plus the logistics for the same.  

[DocM]

Guy in Springfield, Louisiana was making a web ad for his hot dog stand and got photobombed by a Falcon 9

 

 

 

[SALSN]

Great way to get a lot of views, just film your commercial with a rocket in the background :-P

[+rdlenk Subscriber²]

9 hours ago, DocM said:

Guy in Springfield, Louisiana was making a web ad for his hot dog stand and got photobombed by a Falcon 9

 

*snip*

 

"We got Hot Dogs! .....What the heck is that...?"

I lost it.

[DocM]

"Wowwwww!! Hey man...that was way longer than 53 feet!! Huh??"

 

[DocM]

Shotwell presented this video at the Space Symposium. Landings, and some snapshots of CRS-10 refurbishment.

 

 

 

[DocM]

Hope the fairing landing video is next

 

 

[DocM]

Gee, wonder what they'd use this for? 

 

Small company in Ohio.

 

Technical article: Composites World....

 

Link....

 

Quote

SpaceX is working with this local company. Heres what you should know about it.

 

Spintech, a spinoff company founded in 2010 from Cornerstone Research Group, has recently announced that Elon Musks SpaceX is watching their company and its specialty shape memory polymer smart tooling solutions.

"Our technology will allow them to make composite parts that have complex geometries and/or or trapped geometry, Craig Jennings," President of Spintech said.

And SpaceX is just the kind of manufacturer that could use lightweight composite parts for, say, a rocket ships body or landing gear.
>

 

SpinTech senior composite technicians Abe McNutt, left, and Jim Leschansky work on tooling for rocket parts.

 

[Blue-Vision]

 Interesting indeed.

[DocM]

 

 

 

 

[SALSN]

Could not find the thread on the boring company and it was posted by a SpaceX guy, so you get it here:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/take-a-look-at-the-first-boring-machine-for-elon-musks-boring-company/

Including a picture of the beast :-D

[Jim K Global Moderator]

20 minutes ago, SALSN said:

Could not find the thread on the boring company and it was posted by a SpaceX guy, so you get it here:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/take-a-look-at-the-first-boring-machine-for-elon-musks-boring-company/

Including a picture of the beast :-D

Haha... The Boring Company. Brilliant

[DocM]

Rock is a great radiation shield, so some percentage of tunneled habitats into Martian cliffs make tons of sense. 

 

Some could be initially bored by a SpaceX optimized TBM, Musk thinks he can improve their efficiency by an order of magnitude, and others - or custom-shaped chambers - could be shaped by remote controlled Roadheaders - an off the shelf technology widely used today.

 

 

 

Another interesting tech is From MIT: Digital Construction Platform, which "prints" structures. Looks good for Earth and offworld habs.

 

It can be fitted with a range of different tools, including a foam insulation gun, a welding attachment, a thermoplastic extruder that squirts out melted plastic, a glorified squirt gun, and even a simple bucket.

The Verge....

 

 

 

[DieVlieg]

Video of Elon Musk at TED2017 in Vancouver

https://www.teslarati.com/video-elon-musk-ted2017-vancouver/