LockMart F%#@S SpaceX

[frodo1008]

Neither have I seen anything specifically negative from you that I can think of. So don't get into an uproar! I had to use some post to attach my post to, sorry if it offended you. I could use my own posts, but then it would look like I wass so conceted that I only talk to myself!!<br /><br />I was referring to a general situation. I am certain that you too, have seen such negativity. If it weren't for this I would be more than happy to be VERY positive on Elon Musk, and spacex. However, what he is attempting to do isn't going to be easy. He is well aware I am certain of the pitfalls in what he is doing. I even believe that sometime ago he even stated himself that it was harder than he had anticipated to get Falcon I ready for flight. At least HE is being honest, even if some of his supporters here are not! This is a business where humble goes a long way, at least with me anyway!<br /><br />I have been disappointed since the end of the Apollo era by various space efforts that have not panned out as expected, both NASA and private efforts qualify here. I truly, truly hope that I won't be disappointed again!!

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Here we have a case where the cost/mass of the payload has continually increased, while the launch costs have apparently stayed the same. "</font><br /><br />As I was driving home last night, I was kicking myself for not making mention of communication satellites. It's not quite right to call them the <b>exception</b> as they are probably the single largest 'class' of satellites being launched today. However, because of their purpose and needs, they will not be one of the types that shrink in size/weight due to advances in technology or reductions in launch costs.<br /><br />Communications satellites are placed almost exclusively in GEO (Iridium being one of the rare exceptions). Because of their purpose, they must have relatively large antennas, and have huge appetites for electricity because their primary purpose *is* pumping out power in the form of EM radiation. This means that in addition to large antennas, they must have huge solar arrays and correspondingly large battery banks to store the power. Also -- because of their usage, if a comm sattelite <b>fails</b> or service is interrupted, the owner will lose huge amounts of money due to the downtime.<br /><br />For these reasons, communications satellites will continue to be monsters for the forseeable future. I don't see a change so long as the conventional EM spectrum is used to return data from these sats, as this will always dictate large antennas and large power requirements. Comm satellites have been growing larger in recent years as broadband requirements are going up and providers are looking to be able to stream larger and larger amounts of data through them -- requiring more power and more antennas. As electronics shrink and tech improves -- it's likely that the satellites will stay the same size (or increase) and simply add additional functionality over previous generations.<br /><br />SeaLaunch, as a dedicated GTO system sends up largely communications sats -- so ye

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"I am not going to spend so much time fighting with you people. "</font><br /><br />I'm not 'you people', I'm me. And I'm not fighting, I'm debating. I'm doing so in a completely non 'Free Space' style and you're still complaining. I'm sure you'd be happier if I replied to all of your posts and said 'I agree completely. You rock, frodo.' However -- that's not going to happen, if for no other reason than the fact that if I agree with a post -- I don't see any reason to make one of my own that adds no value.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"If Boeing and LM are really as evil as you seem to think, then they WILL stop spacex. "</font><br /><br />I didn't say they were evil. I explained why I believe they have justifiable reasons to worry about SpaceX succeeding. I think that they will use all legal means in their power to try to minimize SpaceX's chances of success. I expect any business to do the same -- this is part of an economic system called Capitalism. Here in Orlando, Home Depot drove the local Scotty's hardware stores out of business by placing all the new HD's right next to existing Scotty's stores. This wasn't being evil. It wasn't illegal. It was just a business decision... and one that worked.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"I would suspect that both Boeing and LM are indeed monitoring these boards."</font><br /><br />Anything is possible. However -- so what? I suspect that Boeing and Lockmart know their own business well enough to figure out the same points I've presented. If my posts are teaching them something about their business that they couldn't figure out on their own, then they're a bunch of ignorant rubes and Elon will tear them a new one.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"I was trying to be nice here, and all I get is detailed rationalizations. "</font><br /><br />I'll uh... try to be less detailed in my replies. <br /><br /><i>Note to self: When replying to frodo... just say "I d</i>

 

[frodo1008]

I am sorry, and I owe you an apology! You were correct all along and I was wrong. Boeing and LM Do have much to fear from spacex. But NOT for the reasons that the more idealistic people think!! One of the greatest money makers for the traditional aerospace companies has been the US military. At least in the past. I know, as I was also a part of these efforts. We developed the IRBM’s or Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, and the ICBM’s or Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles for the US military. These programs were the backbone of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) that kept mankind from blowing itself off the Earth for the period of the Cold War. I always felt some degree of sadness over my own contributions to this enormous build up such destructive power. I believe that we still have an arsenal capable of destroying every man woman and child on the Earth some 15 times over! It DID work however, eventually our ability to afford both guns and butter drove the USSR into bankruptcy while trying to keep up. So we basically won the Cold War.<br /><br />I know that this may seem a little off topic here, but please bear with me here for awhile! What brought this to mind is that over on free space there have been some threads dealing with the NEW build up of increased Nuclear Destructive capability that the US military under the current administration is pushing. What specifically brought this to mind was a part of a post by “formulaterp” who has been most helpful in this debate. In one of his answer to “mrmorris” he states:<br /><br />“The goals of the USAF/DARPA Falcon program are very different from those of the EELV's. The initial phase of Falcon is to launch a mere 1,000lbs to LEO on short notice. The ultimate goal is to put 12,000lbs on a target 9,000 miles from the continental US within a 2 hour period. This is straight from the DARPA website. It is a weapons program, not a low-cost satellite launcher.”<br /><br />I see no reason to disbelieve this.

 

[spacefire]

So Musk is in a way the Von Braun of this age! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"So what Elon Musk and spacex are really basing its future on is developing the next launchers for the next round of the nuclear weapons race. "</font><br /><br />Hand your keys to the bartender, please and call a cab. Pretty please do some more research before you get quite this hot and bothered. Here's a link with fairly detailed info about the project. There are no nukes involved. The payload sizes should tell you that. If the were sending nukes -- they wouldn't <b>need</b> to have a 12,000-pound payload. This is conventional explosives. If you're still worried about Elon potentially building these launchers, let me know and I'll continue the argument -- I think your assumption of a nuclear connection was what triggered your post, however.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"NASA already has a quantity of very reliable Delta II’s that NASA uses to launch its satellites and deep space probes."</font><br /><br />1. He's (hopefully) building launchers for commercial use, at prices that are (hopefully) commercially viable.<br />2. The Delta II's are probably going away in favor of EELVs. This was supposedly a deal with DoD in exchange for them not pushing NASA to use EELVs for the VSE.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"We have already discussed the lack of a present commercial market"</font><br /><br />Was that the discussion where we talked about how there is no launcher available for small payloads? That would be the hole big enough that there are about three other small launchers being developed right now to fill it?<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Falcon for perhaps the Air Force mascot?"</font><br /><br />Actually it's named after the Millineum Falcon. Elon's a geek (like most of us here).<br /><br /><br /><br />I'm not going to bother pulling out the remainder and rebutting it. Elon's a space geek. The Falcon Small Launch Vehicle progra

 

[tap_sa]

<font color="yellow">"So what Elon Musk and spacex are really basing its future on is developing the next launchers for the next round of the nuclear weapons race.<br />"</font><br /><br />This <i>got to be</i> some form of highly sophisticated aerospace-industry humour <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> US military spent half a century to develop from first LOX/kerosene Atlas via storable hypergolics (Titan) to latest ultra-storable solid missiles in order to now jump back to square one? Good one!

 

[frodo1008]

If you have any arguments on this I suggest that you talk to "formulaterp". I may even be guilty of accepting what he said in his post (Please READ what I quoted from him) without admittedly trying to go to the DARPA site as he suggested. I did make an assumption that he had already gone to the DARPA site, as his post clearly stated that he had done that and gotten HIS information from that very site. I am sometimes naive in that as I myself try very hard NOT to lie, I expect others to do the same!!<br /><br />The question is what does this DARPA site say?<br /><br />I went to the DARPA site, there may be more infromation than I found (theree probably is, but this should be sufficient to verify what "formulaterp" wrote in his post), but here is something interesting that I pulled out (obviously as this information is readily available, none of it is classified in any way)<br /><br /><br /><br />"WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2003 – Nine contractors have begun work to place a small satellite or other payload weighing about 1,000 pounds into a low Earth orbit. <br /><br />The project is part of the Force Application and Launch from the Continental United States, or FALCON, program. Task 1, Phase 1on the small launch vehicle includes developing conceptual designs, performance predictions, cost objectives and development and demonstration plans. <br /><br /> A Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle capable of taking off from a conventional military runway and striking targets as far as 9,000 miles away is one of three aerial vehicles under conceptual development under the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's FALCON initiative. . (Click photo for screen-resolution image) <br /><br />Three more contractors have also begun work on the phase's Task 2, hypersonic weapon systems. This includes the common aero vehicle, the enhanced common aero vehicle and the hypersonic cruise vehicle. "<br /><br />Perhaps I am being somewhat naive here again, but it would seem to me that evidently spacex was a winner in

 

[spacefire]

are you saying that the Falcon rocket will be the second stage of the FALCON? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">" I did make an assumption that he had already gone to the DARPA site, as his post clearly stated that he had done that and gotten HIS information from that very site. "</font><br /><br />I didn't say that he lied -- or that his post was wrong. I also didn't say that <b>you</b> lied -- only that your post was wrong, and ill-researched. Look through formulaterp's post... does it say 'nuclear' anywhere? Look through any of the AF FALCON links -- do <b>they</b> say 'nuclear' anywhere? The payloads they're looking for are too heavy to be nuclear warheads (unless we're talking MIRVs -- which isn't consistent with the goals of the project.).<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"why would the Air Force waste this kind of money on a conventional weapon system that is going to go orbital?"</font><br /><br />Used to launch the CAV, the flight path would essentially be suborbital. If you have a booster capable of taking a 1000 pound payload into orbit, you essentially have a booster capable of taking the CAV <b>plus</b> 1,000 pounds of payload on pretty much any suborbital path you want.<br /><br />As far as conventional explosives being useless, are you aware of the daisy-cutter? Interestingly -- it's weight is pretty close to what they want for the payload of the HCV...<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"If you actually read the above DARPA release, do you still think that these rockets (paid for by the militaries DARPA agency) are just being developed for pure peaceful communications satellites? "</font><br /><br />Do you actually read my posts? What I said was -- that nothing indicates the FALCON program is about nukes -- which was ~85% of what your post ran on about. <br /><br />Phase I of the FALCON program is primarily about developing technologies to be used to develop the HCV. If you read what the HCV is, you'll see that it has nothing

 

[frodo1008]

I am probably being a little too harsh here. Most people who have wanted to develop such expensive (even if the cost is being reduced, let us face it these are far too expensive and risky an item for pure private civilian interests to develop) rockets have had to come to the inevitable conclusion that they would have to work for the military to get the necessary funding to build their own dreams. As spacefire pointed out this was also the case for one of the greatest rocket scientists of all in Wherner Von Braun. In order to be able to afford going on into building the advanced rockets that he hoped would eventually take human beings into space he had to work with the German military to develop the V2. Heck, he was even arrested by them once for not working hard enough on such a weapon systems, and being such a dreamer about developing rockets for space travel instead!<br /><br />Also, the first rocket to place an American into space was a Redstone, and the first rocket to place an American into orbit was the Atlas, both were military developments. <br /><br />Strangely enough one of the only agencies to ever develop such rockets for pure civilian uses was NASA. An agency that some (not all) on these boards just love to beat up on! I was a part of Apollo, certainly one of the greatest projects in human history that was NOT devoted to military develpment.<br /><br />The only person that I can think of that seems to be capable of breaking out of this delima appears to be Burt Rutan. Both the CXV of t-space, and the development of spaceshiptwo and the successor to White Knight I called "Eve" are pure private commercial civilian developments. One (the CXV) is for NASA, and the other is for placing tourists (rich tourists, admittedly) into sub orbital flight.<br /><br />By the way, the "Daisy Cutter" type of bombs are deliverable by almost any attack aircraft in the US military. There is almost no place on the Earth that can't be reached by either the Navies aircraft

 

[nacnud]

The way I see it the Falcon I program is the lowest investment program with the highest likely hood of success AND that could be easily developed into a vehicle that could launch reasonable sized GTO craft. <br /><br />That the Falcon I fits well into the DARPA Falcon program is a happy accident.<br /><br />

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"...but doesn't it even seem logically possible to you that if entire new nuclear weapons themselves are being devoloped that it would then be possible that newer delivery systems would also be developed?"</font><br /><br />As TapSa joked in an earlier post -- modern ICBMs are delivered via solid rockets. Ther's a very good reason for this... they're cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and can be launched in literally minutes. Minuteman missile are just about perfect for their designed purpose. They also don't have the payload capacity of even the Falcon I. That's because <b>they don't need it!!!!</b> Nuclear warheads are small. Try to grasp this -- it's the third time I've brought it up and you continue to ignore the concept. Small. Small. Small.<br /><br />I've seen some of the studies for the next generation of nukes (a Newsweek article a few months back if I recall correctly). They want essentially two things: Rumsfeld's bunker-buster -- which doesn't apply here at all, and modern ICBMs to replace the aging ones sitting in silos. The modern ICBM classes being proposed are... wait for it... <b>smaller</b> than the ones currently sitting on top of minutemen this moment. Not only are the electronics smaller, but the military wants smaller yield explosions... pinpoint nukes (an oxymoron of major proportions). If they have to use them, they want to have extremely selective destructive capability. So if they are making a new generation of nukes smaller and lighter than the present generation, they don't need a flipping booster with twenty times the payload of Minutemen missles!!!<br /><br />So the answer to your question is an emphatic 'No' -- this is not logically possible because there is no logic involved in connecting boosters of this size to nuclear payloads.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"By the way, the "Daisy Cutter" type of bombs are deliverable by almost any attack aircraft in the US military. "</font><br />

 

[frodo1008]

Sorry, I was confused and should have gone to the site that you suggested on the Daisy Cutter thing. I was thinking of Nukes! <br /><br />I also saw the picture of this hypersonic craft that DARPA is proposing. The Falcon I and further developements of the Falcon are to be used as boosters for such a craft? It sounds somewhat like the original dynosaur program.<br /><br />This does sound less objectionable than another level of ICBM's. Of course, if these "small, small, small" nukes could just as easily use such craft, but at least they would be recallable instead of using ICBM's. I hope that I am NOT being too presumtious to believe that such craft would, again, like the original dynosaur design, be piloted. <br /><br />Such a program would have civilian uses also. As any space craft that is going to be carrying paying passengers is going to be passing through the hypersonic region similer to the shuttle. <br /><br />I am VERY much against mankind taking its petty squables into space. I sometimes wish there really was a Klatu as from "The Day The Earth Stood Still"!! <br /><br />After all, defense against a bunch of fanatics getting on civilian commercial aircraft flights with box cutters to fly such aircraft into tall building doesn't seem to me to need to be Cold War types of weapons. But I am getting off topic, other than to somewhat explain my prejudice against such military work. However, I will admit that once again I am quite probably being too idealistic myself. Humanity is far more probably going to be zipping around in fighters with lasers similer to "Star Wars" than to be just peacefully spreading thought the solar system, and eventually the stars themselves. <br /><br />

 

[formulaterp]

OK. I need to clear up a couple of things. There appears to be some confusion regarding two seperate programs which unfortunately have the same name, "Falcon". <br /><br />DARPA's FALCON program is intended to be a weapons delivery platform. One of the companies which have received development contracts just happens to be SpaceX. <br /><br />The Falcon rocket being developed by SpaceX is a seperate program designed to reduce satellite launch costs. Now some of the technologies developed by SpaceX may contribute to their participation in the DARPA project, but they are seperate projects. Further confusion probably arises from the fact that SpaceX's largest customer to date for the Falcon I has been ... the Air Force.<br /><br />My original mention of the DARPA program was in response to an earlier post by mrmorris. The implication was that the Air Force was unhappy with the EELV's and were searching for cheaper means to orbit. Now I'm sure the USAF would be happy to pay less money for launches if the option existed, but that's not why they are participating DARPA program. <br /><br />Edit: I did not intend to imply that SpaceX's Falcon program was a front to develop a new weapons system, or anything nearly as nefarious.<br /><br />I do however have some reservations about SpaceX, but they relate to Musk's business practice history.

 

[frodo1008]

I am sorry, but your paragraph that I quoted did make it sound like spacex was participating in primarily a weapons program. Even the eventual goals of some 12,000 lbs placed 9,000 miles away in 2 hours went along to some extent with what some on these boards have been saying about spacex's more ultimate goals of eventually building EELV sized rockets. I am glad that you have cleared this up, but you can see where I would possibly get confused.<br /><br />Thanks for your clearing up effort!!

 

[nacnud]

I very much doubt the Common Areo Vehicle CAV would be maned. Although it is labled a space plane in this global security article http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/x-41.htm I think it will turn out to be a UCAV.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"DARPA's FALCON program is intended to be a weapons delivery platform. "</font><br /><br /><b>One</b> of the goals of the FALCON program is for weapons delivery. And if you really want to get right down to it -- anything the military launches is a weapon. The Air Force <b>also</b> wants a small and responsive satellite launcher. One link here:<br /><br /><i>"The contractors are bidding to build and launch prototype versions of their rockets in 2007 under the Pentagon's Small Launch Vehicle initiative. <br /><br />Pentagon officials plan to use the new class of cheap rockets to launch small satellites and also test components of an unmanned hypersonic vehicle that would be capable of destroying targets halfway around the world."</i><br /><br />An article from Jane's here:<br /><br /><i>"The air force envisages a 'responsive' spacelift force that can launch within hours or days of receiving clearance for a mission as opposed to the months currently taken to plan and carry out a launch. Scenarios for these systems include meeting the need for a surge in deploying intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites over a region during a crisis, quickly replenishing assets destroyed by an enemy or perhaps delivering weapons to strike targets across the globe (Jane's Defence Weekly 12 March)."</i><br /><br />Not everything has to be done for a single reason.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Of course, if these "small, small, small" nukes could just as easily use such craft... "</font><br /><br />By the same token, you could use the USS Nimitz as a nuclear delivery system. Put a few hundred thousand pounds of nukes up on the flight deck -- pilot the ship into into the enemy harbor and then press the big red button. Mind you this is a really dumb delivery system, but it's possible.<br /><br />Your original post where you went nuclear about nuclear was saying this program is all about nukes and starting the arms race all over again. This is simply not reasonable as I've demonstrated -- there are much easier and cheaper ways of delivering nukes without the need for this level of R&D. If you're now going to worry about the fact that this system <i>could</i> deliver nukes even though that's not the reason it's being developed, then you're really SOL. Pretty much any system that can reach orbit <b>could</b> be used to deliver nukes. Heck -- the Shuttle <b>could</b> deliver them... albeit the fact that it'd be only slightly better suited for the job than my aircraft carrier example...

 

[tap_sa]

<font color="yellow">"unmanned hypersonic vehicle that would be capable of destroying targets halfway around the world."</font><br /><br />Any idea why USAF would want such thing? Already in the 60s the generals realized that deploying a nuke to the other side of the world is much more effective using missiles than a bomber, thus ending programs like XB-70. Why would they want to go back there now, what's the gain apart some coolness-factor? Additional precision for conventional munitions?

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Any idea why USAF would want such thing? "</font><br /><br />My best guess is still a monster bomb of conventional explosives. It's the only thing that I can think of that is that heavy and would need delivery rapidly. Picture this -- US intelligence gets a firm fix on Osama's location -- he's at Cave 14B in the Limestone Acres subdivision. A Trident cruise missile doesn't have the oomph to take him out. They send in the Goliath HCV with a 15,000 pound 'bunker-buster' (aka cave-collapser).<br /><br />It's politically difficult to use nukes, chemical agents, or biologicals... but world opinion doesn't decry the use of flipping insane amounts of chemical explosives. Go figure.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"The only person that I can think of that seems to be capable of breaking out of this delima appears to be Burt Rutan. Both the CXV of t-space, and the development of spaceshiptwo and the successor to White Knight I called "Eve" are pure private commercial civilian developments. "</font><br /><br />My mind works in mysterious ways -- it just clicked back to this statement of yours and I had to laugh... and then post. Ever heard of the X-37? Were you aware that it's currently being run by that evil military agency called DARPA? Were you aware that the X-37 drop tests are currently being done by... wait for it... Scaled Composites... using White Knight.<br /><br />So does that make Burt one of the evil ones? Hypocritical? Shame on him for taking money from the military. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[frodo1008]

Think on this then. One of the main reasons that the space shuttle is such a kluge as it is, was that NASA itself had to get in bed with the Air Force in order to obtain funding to build any kind of reusable space craft.<br /><br />The Air Force in turn took NASA's far more reasonable requirements and built up the cargo size to be able to carry the largest possible spy satellite that could be envisioned at the time. Also, the design had to have the greatest crosswind capability that could possibly be done at the time. This is now one of the main reasons that the shuttle is as big and expensive to operate as it is.<br /><br />What many on these boards (with your superior knowledge and intellect I am certain that you do) don't seem to realize is that the budget of the military for space activities is far larger than NASA's budget. Heck, congress itself doesn't even know how big such a budget truly is due to the Black programs that are shielded from even them. I read complaints from many about NASA's bloated budget, but next to none about the totally runaway budgets of the military. What is somewhat ironic to me is that even Rumsfelt realizes that the kind of expenditure that is being made on Cold War Technologies does not necessaily relate to the current War on Terroism. <br /><br />So if all of the so-called private space efforts, are going to get into bed with the military, then perhaps we can end up in the future with many such kluges as the space shuttle for more people to complain about. <br /><br />No I don't believe that ALL such military research is necessarily evil. I am indeed sorry that I got upset earlier, I had been somewhat led to believe that the efforts of these purely private companies were indeed at least somewhat idealistic. Should I be called a hypocrit because I would like to believe (and therefore am vulnerable to that belief) that these people ARE really as idealistic as they say they are? I fully realize that they do have to have a plan to a

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"So if all of the so-called private space efforts, are going to get into bed with the military, then perhaps we can end up in the future with many such kluges as the space shuttle for more people to complain about."</font><br /><br />It's not a binary solution set: <br />0 - Build independently and end up with good design.<br />1 - Get in bed with military and end up with kludge design.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Should I be called a hypocrit because I would like to believe (and therefore am vulnerable to that belief) that these people ARE really as idealistic as they say they are?"</font><br /><br />I didn't call you a hypocrite. I asked if you felt that Burt was one. In the post I was replying to, you had painted him with a white hat for going it alone without using money from the military even as your previous post had painted Elon with a black hat (also I think there was some blood dripping from his fangs) for being involved with DARPA. This is silly on the face of it, as Scaled's been involved with numerous military contracts -- it's difficult to be involved in the aerospace industry and <b>not</b> be involved with a military contract somehow. The X-37 was just the most ironic because it involved the very project you were touting as purely privately funded, and a DARPA contract at that.<br /><br />However -- what the X-37 contract <b>really</b> is for Scaled is simply a means to make back some of the private funding that they put into WK. Incidently -- Elon's Falcon I predates the FALCON project... it just happened that the goals of the FALCON project matched the specs of the booster well enough that they had a chance to double dip... and possibly make back some of the private funding Elon has put into developing it.<br /><br />Such was the reason I was amused.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"...who never stop to think at all that what they are designing and building could eventually be used for mass destruction..."</font>

 

[thecolonel]

Has anyone here ever seen the movie "Tucker"?