The Falcon Heavy Mission Booster Separation and Return from TV.
Apr 12, 2019 17:05:45 #
DIRTY HARRY
Loc: Hartland, Michigan
The Falcon Heavy Mission Booster Separation and Return from TV.
Not the best as my monitor is older and not the highest quality..
Not the best as my monitor is older and not the highest quality..
Just before BECO (BECO-1:50)
Booster separation sequence (Start - 2;33)
(Download)
(Download)
(Download)
Booster Return
(Download)
Apr 13, 2019 09:22:26 #
Still a fascinating sequence and not bad quality at all. You know, it amazes me to see Musk's progress. For 60 years NASA (ie we taxpayers) has been paying for "throw away" rockets and at this point is way over budget and way behind schedule their SLS heavy lift rocket. In a little over a decade, Musk has figured out how to reuse rockets, flies a booster almost as powerful as the Saturn V, has a human-rated spacecraft ready to fly and is planning on going to Mars. NASA or Musk...guess who'll get there first?
Apr 13, 2019 09:54:45 #
Apr 13, 2019 10:02:37 #
It was shown on tv, he recovered the not book from young Sheldon Cooper.
Apr 13, 2019 10:31:59 #
Hornet Driver wrote:
Where do you think he got his technology from?
Agreed. In their defense, NASA's suffered constant budget cuts and has slowly made progress in spite of routinely being forced to change priorities to suit the whim of the current President or Congress.
Apr 13, 2019 12:18:07 #
I don't think we'll get any humans to Mars until we solve the basic problem of cost per pound to orbit. The problem isn't getting a craft that can support humans into orbit…the problem is getting enough food, water, air, spare parts and fuel into orbit to build a craft that can successfully support life for the 2 years plus a Mars mission would take. That's an enormous amount of cargo to orbit. The ISS took over 20 years to complete…and even assuming that Musk/SpaceX could cut that by a factor of 10 that's still going on 2 years just to get the consumables and spares to orbit. The craft would probably require a human crew throughout those two years to maintain it…that part is easy but still means more food, air, water, fuel, and spares for the construction period.
NASA has these grandiose plans…as does Musk…but simple economics says that we're not sending people to Mars anytime soon. I don't even think we will successfully send people back to the moon…not because it's technically unfeasible but because it costs too much. The ISS cost something like $150B so far…resupply missions to a moon base would be both more complex and more costly…again not unfeasible but given the grandiose promises of our political parties…funding a moon or Mars manned mission is pretty much a pipe dream…just like Medicare for All, guaranteed basic income, or an impenetrable wall on the southern border.
Musk and SpaceX have achieved a lot…but the basic capabilities and research were done long ago on NASA's nickel…the Falcon IIRC uses a Russian designed engine for instance…and they've lowered the cost of pound to orbit…but it's still way too high to really talk about getting enough pounds to orbit cheaply enough. There's also the problem of…even if the money wasn't an issue…there's a launch capacity issue. SpaceX launched 21 missions last year and is on pace for a few more this year as I recall…but all of those launches already have cargo's assigned and under contract. Does either SpaceX…or the launch facilities over in Kennedy have enough additional launch capacity to put up the number of missions needed? How about the building and certifying space flight capable parts capacity? It takes years to design and build a satellite…even longer for NASA developed human certified hardware. SpaceX did the Dragon faster…but again they didn't invent anything…they just did like Apple did and figured out a way to redo what had already been done cheaper. Building a Mars lander isn't something that's been done before and the moon landing technology was too long ago and not designed for an extended stay so I'm not sure how much of that would need to be reinvented.
Biggest problems remain cost and launch capacity…there is a finite amount of both of those critical path items.
NASA has these grandiose plans…as does Musk…but simple economics says that we're not sending people to Mars anytime soon. I don't even think we will successfully send people back to the moon…not because it's technically unfeasible but because it costs too much. The ISS cost something like $150B so far…resupply missions to a moon base would be both more complex and more costly…again not unfeasible but given the grandiose promises of our political parties…funding a moon or Mars manned mission is pretty much a pipe dream…just like Medicare for All, guaranteed basic income, or an impenetrable wall on the southern border.
Musk and SpaceX have achieved a lot…but the basic capabilities and research were done long ago on NASA's nickel…the Falcon IIRC uses a Russian designed engine for instance…and they've lowered the cost of pound to orbit…but it's still way too high to really talk about getting enough pounds to orbit cheaply enough. There's also the problem of…even if the money wasn't an issue…there's a launch capacity issue. SpaceX launched 21 missions last year and is on pace for a few more this year as I recall…but all of those launches already have cargo's assigned and under contract. Does either SpaceX…or the launch facilities over in Kennedy have enough additional launch capacity to put up the number of missions needed? How about the building and certifying space flight capable parts capacity? It takes years to design and build a satellite…even longer for NASA developed human certified hardware. SpaceX did the Dragon faster…but again they didn't invent anything…they just did like Apple did and figured out a way to redo what had already been done cheaper. Building a Mars lander isn't something that's been done before and the moon landing technology was too long ago and not designed for an extended stay so I'm not sure how much of that would need to be reinvented.
Biggest problems remain cost and launch capacity…there is a finite amount of both of those critical path items.
Apr 13, 2019 12:33:20 #
Talking about mars, take the attention away from the fact that family live in the street because they can’t find and/ or afford decent housings on this planet, but so many political dollars come from aerospace industries that we’ll never see the end of it and same for the lucrative Middle East war business thanks to George’s W(ar) Bush
Apr 13, 2019 13:15:29 #
fourlocks wrote:
Agreed. In their defense, NASA's suffered constant budget cuts and has slowly made progress in spite of routinely being forced to change priorities to suit the whim of the current President or Congress.
I worked for one of the companies that designed the cryogenic pipes as lead engineer, and I hadn't ever had an issue with either NASA or Boeing in my design of the main pipes. In all my years working with NASA on the Shuttle and SLS the biggest issue were the constant changes required by the government, and not NASA.
Apr 13, 2019 13:24:33 #
I agree. In 1783 the first manned aerial vehicle flew..the Montgolfier's hot air balloon. Human balloon flights became fairly common over the next 120 years but it was never practical and any idea of quickly and cheaply transporting humans by air was ridiculous. It took an entirely new technology, internal combustion engines, to make air travel practical and affordable. Chemical fuel rockets are the hot air balloons of the space age. It's going to take an entirely new technology to allow us to safely and cheaply climb out of earth's gravity well before space travel will become as air travel is, today.
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.