Space - The Final Frontier

[DrRoy]

I enjoyed the video of Falcon Heavy the other day. I am thinking that I might like to go see the first launch of SLS in maybe two years.
On Wednesday I got tickets to Spacefest IX. DW and I went two years ago. I am so glad we did since several astronauts have died since then. Anyone else want to come along?

.

 

[CaptTom]

Anyone bothered by the headlines that say "... Blasting David Bowie's 'Space Oddity'"?

There's no air. There's no sound.

I've become so accustomed to journalists being totally clueless about basic science that I just let that one pass with only a small wince.

 

[stephenson]

Hmmm ...perhaps those that recover the car have an atmosphere requirement - assuming they bring it aboard, it will still be making music?

 

[TromboneAl]

Well, the speaker cones would still be moving - does that count as 'blasting'?

And if there is no one there to hear it, does it matter? It's kind of the space-age version of "if a tree fell in the forest...".

-ERD50

To me, jiggling cones do not count as blasting.

The tree-in-the-forest thing bothered me from the first I heard it. Even if there's no one there, the air molecules vibrate.

Sound: vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear.

------------

There are better paradoxes:

If a man is talking in the forest, and his wife isn't there to hear him, is he still wrong?

--------------

Blast.
Noise.

 

[CaptTom]

I noticed the following line in this article about a new Mars rover:

NASA says that the rapid progress of Mars 2020 is due in part to using so much of Curiosity's design. This allowed the development team to use tested systems and already built components in the three earlier design and fabrication phases.

So, maybe building spares isn't such a bad idea...

 

[Chuckanut]

A very interesting transcript of the launch and flight of Apollo 11. It includes a few diagrams and explainations of what is happening during launch. Great Techy reading for a long rainy day:

https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap11fj/01launch.html

[The transcript begins over two-and-a-half hours before launch. With the Apollo 11 spacecraft sitting atop its Saturn V launch vehicle on Pad 39A, announcements on the progress of the countdown are made by the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) Jack King, the 'Voice of Apollo'. The record of communications between the crew and the Mission Control Center, through 'CapCom' (the Capsule Communicator) commences soon after lift-off. This section of the journal will follow the flight through the launch and staging of the Saturn V launch vehicle, and insertion into Earth orbit about 12 minutes later. It concludes with the confirmation of orbital parameters and the safe check-out of the S-IVB third stage in orbit.]

Plenty of explanations about why the rocket did various things as it climbed. Apparently space flight is not easy.

If things went wrong, the Launch Escape Tower (LET) would lift the Command Module away from the booster. The problem is that the CM needs to be taken away out to sea and the vehicle has not yet imparted much horizontal velocity. Therefore, a small 'pitch control' motor would additionally fire to send the CM away from the vicinity of the impending conflagration. The CM then goes through an automatic sequence to carry out a safe landing on Earth.]

Especially interesting is the landing part of this huge transcript. It seems that fuel, sloshing around in the Lunar Module's tanks caused a lot of problems for Armstrong and Aldrin as it set the LM rocking back and forth.

"At the end of the yaw maneuver, you can really see in the descent film how dramatic the propellant slosh problem is becoming. As the propellant level gets to near fifty percent, there is more room for the fluid to swirl and slosh yet still enough mass for that movement to really torque the LM out of its tight deadband. This is the reason that there is much more thruster activity than Neil has been expecting. In the absence of slosh, slow gimbaling of the engine would be keeping them level. The effects of the sloshing reaches its peak right about here, with the spacecraft wiggling 2 to 3 degrees back-and-forth and side-to-side every couple of seconds. Later, more seriously, the spacecraft motions caused by slosh will render the LPD essentially useless and then, at 102:44:45, will cause the propellant low-level sensor to latch nearly 30 seconds early."]

 

[Chuckanut]

Immerse yourself in the sounds of the Falcon Heavy Launch:

You will need headphones.

 

[REWahoo]

A very good article on what appears to be some interesting and innovative competition for SpaceX - including using boosters with six-cylinder internal combustion engines.

SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance stakes future on new Vulcan rocket

 

[GalaxyBoy]

SpaceX has a link to a new YouTube video of the Falcon Heavy launch. At about 1:13 you can see the central core booster dropping into the ocean just missing the drone ship.

 

[Koogie]

SpaceX has a link to a new YouTube video of the Falcon Heavy launch. At about 1:13 you can see the central core booster dropping into the ocean just missing the drone ship.

Nice, thanks. Hadn't seen any footage of the lost central unit until now.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Nice, thanks. Hadn't seen any footage of the lost central unit until now.

Here's a (too?) detailed video analyzing and speculating on the core booster landing failure. I couldn't stand to watch all of it, but there were a couple of interesting points:

1. The core has a much longer coast and a harder re-entry than any other Falcon 9 booster to date, so the fact that the ignition fluid was exhausted might be related to things like sloshing, boil-off due to longer exposure to near-space, or any number of factors.

2. The Falcon 9 is apparently programmed to miss the drone ship in the event of failure, but it's not clear if this actually happened. [Edit: it missed the ship; I mean it's not clear if this was due to the control system working.]

 

[Chuckanut]

It seems that Virgin Galactic has had some success:

Virgin Galactic completes first rocket-powered Unity space craft launch

Virgin Galactic successfully launched and landed its Unity spacecraft by rocket power, completing its first powered flight in almost four years.

The vehicle reached about 84,000 feet in this test.

The name Virgin Galactic still seems a bit presumptuous to me.

 

[stephenson]

VA is standing - precariously - on the shoulders of giants.

 

[Koogie]

It seems that Virgin Galactic has had some success:
Virgin Galactic completes first rocket-powered Unity space craft launch
The vehicle reached about 84,000 feet in this test.
The name Virgin Galactic still seems a bit presumptuous to me.

Especially since I just read that this new Virgin ship, Unity, won't even be capable of making it to "space" (+100km from sea level) since it has been made too heavy based on safety improvements made after the crash of their last ship.

Galactic indeed. Not even a space craft. Virgin Really High Flying Airlines might be more apt...

 

[braumeister]

Falcon 9 Block 5 launching in just a couple of minutes here.

Edit: Well, let's call it tomorrow, same time.

Second edit: Second try went perfectly.
https://www.space.com/40545-spacex-new-falcon-9-rocket-launch-landing-success.html

 

[Koogie]

Yeah, great landing again on the drone barge.

Watching that take-off and landing just doesn't get old for me.

 

[braumeister]

What I think of as the coolest part is that from my perspective this is being done by a bunch of kids. I love it!!!

 

[Chuckanut]

Amazing stuff.

 

[mpeirce]

Yeah, it was good to see the new block 5 version of the Falcon 9 have a successful liftoff.

The block 5 is an (final) evolution of the Falcon 9 using all SpaceX has learned about power, reliability, and reusability. Each Block 5 1st stage should be able to be used 10 times or more.

Future SpaceX efforts will be focused on the Falcon heavy and the truly amazing BFR interplanetary rocket.

 

[CaptTom]

Yeah, great landing again on the drone barge.

Watching that take-off and landing just doesn't get old for me.

Still brings a tear to my eye every time. It's hard to be part of the generation which made the first tentative steps off our planet, and not wonder about our future as a species. I have to keep reminding myself that it took Europeans about 200 years between Columbus first showing the way to the "new world," and actually starting to come here to settle.

I only hope it doesn't take that long to start settling somewhere off the planet. And that we don't drive ourselves back into another Dark Ages, first.

What I think of as the coolest part is that from my perspective this is being done by a bunch of kids. I love it!!!

This is what gives me hope. There ARE smart, ambitious, creative, hard-working young people with a vision and passion for the future. Maybe they'll find a way to overcome the forces arrayed against science and reason.

And don't forget this is being done by a private company, not a government. This is a huge step forward. Government priorities come and go with the political wind. Businesses can (although many don't) take a longer-term view. So it not only bodes well for our species, but for the whole concept of capitalism.

 

[Chuckanut]

Here are some of the doubters from 2014:

https://aviationweek.com/blog/nasa-cnes-warn-spacex-challenges-flying-reusable-falcon-9-rocket

[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Christophe Bonnal of the launcher directorate at French space agency CNES, agrees.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“If you reuse, you stop producing, depending on the level of reusability,” he says. “So you end up with a permanent prototype, and to keep costs down you need to have a high rate of production.”[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]One of the most challenging aspects of reusability, he said, is the weight penalty added by hardware and propellant. He says the latter means reserving 30% of first-stage fuel in order to return a booster to the launch site.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“You end up designing much larger vehicles, with landing gear, with legs or wings, so it's heavier and you need more propulsion, at least 25-30% more propulsion on the stage,” Bonnal said, adding that a previous study by CNES and Russian space agency Roscosmos looked at the feasibility of making the Ariane 5 solid-rocket boosters liquid-fueled and reusable, but scrapped the idea after the hardware grew too large.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“The thing that shocked me was that at the beginning, this reusable flyback booster was just a cylinder with engines and little wings, just a turbo fan in the back,” he said. “And three years later these were complete Airbuses in terms of size with four engines in each of them.”[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]But beyond performance, says Bonnal is the impact of rocket reusability on ground installations. As an example, he said CNES has found that safety requirements would make return of a boost stage problematic at Europe's South American space port in Kourou, French Guiana.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“I will be very interested in seeing the three Falcon Heavy boosters coming back to Vandenberg with propellant sloshing,” he said, referring to SpaceX plans to start flying a heavy version of the Falcon 9 from the U.S. Air Force's California launch installation next year. “In terms of safety, it must be quite challenging.”[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

 

[Koogie]

Going to be a heck of a chance for a lot of people to see an Antares launch on Monday morning..

https://www.space.com/40627-watch-antares-launch-east-cost-visibility.html

 

[harley]

Darn, I'm out of town at the edge of light blue and pink, instead of at home right in the red. I love watching those launches.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Going to be a heck of a chance for a lot of people to see an Antares launch on Monday morning..

Ugh. 4:39 A.M.

I do want to go over there some day to witness a launch, though. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[Chuckanut]

An interesting article on how some Europeans sees the 'threat' from SpaceX.

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...ed-with-spacex-for-driving-down-launch-costs/

Charmeau said the Ariane rocket does not launch often enough to justify the investment into reusability. (It would need about 30 launches a year to justify these costs, he said). And then Charmeau said something telling about why reusability doesn't make sense to a government-backed rocket company—jobs.

"Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'"

Note: SpaceX has already has 10 launches in 2018. Well, nine if you don't count the test of the Falcon Heavy. Oops! Falcon Heavy, another bad cuss word when used at Ariane's HQ.

I am wondering if re-usability drives down the cost of launches enough, maybe there will be more launches? Or, once a dozen Block 5 Falcon 9s are built, maybe there won't be a need to make many more? Is it lack of a market for frequent launches or lack of vision by the top dogs at Ariane Group? Or something else?