More Good SpaceX News (Dragon)

[thereiwas]

At first I was upset by Jim's remark about alt.space but then I realized that I felt exactly the same way about newcomers in my own industry. I have been in the back-room IT business for 35 years and in that time I have learned, sometimes the hard way, how to prevent things going wrong. I have also learned how to do an accurate schedule.<br /><br />The younger people in my industry, a lot of them from India and China, are not stupid. But they lack this experience and it shows in their code ("Where are the comments? Where is the error-handling?") and in their missed schedules. Even when there are some "old hands" in a project, if upper management wouldn't know a GANNT chart if it fell on them it is difficult to get them to agree to reasonable schedules. I doubt this problem is unique to the software industry.<br /><br />One of the big rules of scheduling, which has been mentioned here before, is that you can't accurately estimate work you have never done before. The way I dealt with that when working at the bleeding edge was to insist that I have the time to build a working breadboard/demo/throw-away version first, with emphasis on careful research in the unknown areas. On completion of the breadboard I could demo it to management and give a reasonable estimate of how long it would take to build a product-quality version of the same thing. The breadboard might use completely different development tools and methods than the final product, but the algorithms were all the same. I had enough success with this technique that management learned to allow me my breadboard time.<br /><br />I see SpaceX as doing the same thing with Falcon-1. It is their learning vehicle and test platform for new ideas, which will be scaled up in F9. And SpaceX has some "old hands" working there. I hope they are listened to by management.

 

[thereiwas]

There are some additional advantages that SpaceX/Bigelow can offer over the $20 million Soyuz-to-ISS price which I argue makes it a different market. (1) No months of learning Russian. (2) When you get to your Bigelow station you can stay there long enough to do something useful, not a "10 days and keep out of the way" trip, and (3) You can actually conduct private industrial research.

 

[jimfromnsf]

"creating the first US rocket for decades."<br /><br />What was Delta IV?<br /><br />"Hey, how many other rockets in service have an engine-out capability?"<br /><br />Shuttle, but most found just like the Futon report that Spacex paid for that less engines is better (more reliability<br /><br />"Jim, launching anything into orbit should be consider successful on some levels)"<br /><br />It wasn't into orbit. <br /><br />"100million air force contract awarded to SpaceX"<br /><br />This is an IDIQ contract and the 100M is the max possible. The USAF has yet to buy anything, so no money has been earned.

 

[themanwithoutapast]

thedream: to be honest, I have a business background. I of course can't do anything about you not agreeing with my analysis of the situation respectively you thinking that I lack the knowledge to analyse the situation properly. I will put my belief about the current LEO launch market situation and how that affects SpaceX in one sentence again and will then leave it with this - we will see in 5 years if I was right or not: "The current market situation for LEO human spaceflight has shown that there is not enough demand (outside NASA's demand that ends 2015) that allows successful commercial operations at a 10 million USD per seat price to orbit."

 

[themanwithoutapast]

(1) No months of learning Russian. (2) When you get to your Bigelow station you can stay there long enough to do something useful, not a "10 days and keep out of the way" trip, and (3) You can actually conduct private industrial research.<br />-----------<br />(1) is not an issue, however will offer non-astronauts orbital trips will have to train them first. this training will take months. the russian that space tourists in Russia learn is very basic, nobody who is willing to pay 20 million or 10 million abandoned its plans to fly to orbit because he had to learn basic russian. people are more put off by long training periods leading to a flight - if flights would be available with just a week as training period, there would be more people at such high prices interested.<br /><br />(2) does not change the fact that currently, although NASA and the international partners reached out to private industry (and back in the 90s Roskosmos did the same for Mir) and did not find anybody interested in doing commercially relevant research on the ISS with high-end technology and perfectly trained astronauts.<br /><br />(3) you could have done that on Mir - nobody was interested. if you approach either NASA or one of the international partners you could do it on the ISS - nobody seems to be interested yet.

 

[jimfromnsf]

Delta IV has no relation to Delta II. Completely different vehicles<br /><br />"I think the last reading was altitude @ 161km which is a little over 100 miles. A lot more then suborbital "<br /><br />Altitude has nothing to do with orbital. It didn't go into orbit so by definition is was suborbital. <br /><br />

 

[j05h]

<i>> This is not correct. If you had read the COTS contract you would have know that there are several milestones that depend on SpaceX completing financing rounds. For each such financing round, SpaceX is awarded another 10 million through COTS. Due to SpaceX annual cash burn rate of approximately 100 million,</i><br /><br />It's been a while since i looked, but you are right they have funding milestones. SpaceX's burn rate (that is, cash spent per year) is not $100M - they haven't spent that through their whole existence. Last I heard it was estimated $10M a year or so, but the exacts are private info. Musk said that he could bring Falcon I through several flights on his own dime. I'm not sure about F9, whcih you are implying requires more backing.<br /><br />RpK might need $500M to complete the K1, but SpaceX would be able to bring all their publicly proposed craft to flight and factory line with that much capital. They are truly the difference between the old way and new way. <br /><br /><i>> I think you did not read what I wrote. I said, you cannot create a market UNLESS you offer something different. </i><br /><br />No, you said they couldn't service that market even if they offered it at half Soyuz prices. SpaceX is most definitely offering something different, if they succeed. Cheaper, modern, more seats, American access. How is that not a different (and better) product? <br /><br />You are looking at the potential markets through a really small keyhole. You are completely discounting Bigelow's launch needs, which in a decade (2017) could be 2-4 dozen launches per year, depending on client needs.<br /><br />Why are you assuming ISS will be the only station, even now? Bigelow has 2 mini-stations in orbit, right now. No docking adapter and limited ECLS, but mini-stations none the less. Reportedly, Malaysia has signed on to send an astronaut to the first Bigelow station. You're analysis is suspect on point 1, because it is already somewhat falsified. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[themanwithoutapast]

J05H:<br /><br />The current costs of SpaceX this year is about 100 million USD. With 10 million SpaceX can't even pay the costs for its premises, let alone the salaries of its 350 employees (you can roughtly calculate total costs per employee by multiplying headcount with 200 thousand USD in the high-tech business). I couldn't find a more reliable source, but here is a blog that talks about RpK's and SpaceX's cash needs for 2007: http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2007/02/spacex_versus_r.html<br /><br />The total financing need for SpaceX for the whole COTS-I phase according to Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX is the COTS grant of 278 million USD which represents 30-40% of the total COTS financing and 60-70% of financing that SpaceX is providing itself (through external and internal financing). This means that approximately at least 400 million USD are required from non-COTS grant sources for SpaceX between 2006 and 2010. The total of 680 million USD of financing requirement from 2006 to 2010 seems about sufficient for SpaceX's operations assuming that it, as it claims, will increase the number of employees to over 500 and start building several Falcon 9 rockets as well as maintaining a Cape launch site.<br /><br />On your questions of Soyuz vs. Dragon and Bigelow's proposed space station, I outlined my views above. The LEO human spaceflight business (tourist, space agencies, private industry) is so small at the current prices, that unless you really significantly lower prices (to approximately 1 million USD per seat) you won't have a market. My belief and my analysis, I see that you have a different take on that and I respect that.

 

[j05h]

Man without a past - Thanks for the updates. Despite my flood of posting lately (vacation, baby), I'm somewhat out-of-date on things. Like I said earlier, Elon stated that he could bring Falcon 1 to flight on his dime. It sounds like the company has grown significantly beyond that.<br /><br />What I'm saying about the humans-to-LEO market is that any drop in costs opens up the potential market significantly. I agree that $1M/seat is the intuitive target price where it really takes off. I think SpaceX is well on their way to offering something like that (though it'll take a while)<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

Delta III upperstage was completely different from any other Delta II and a variation is used in the Delta IV. This was done in the late 90's and therefore Delta IV still qualifies as a "new vehicle" in the last 10 years

 

[j05h]

<i>> "The Delta IV family of launch vehicles is ...<br />Every single piece of the Falcon I rocket was built from scratch.</i><br /><br />Those are shades of the same thing. Integration is the major issue with any aerospace project. Delta IV might use common heritage hardware, but it has been steadily improved. The RS-68 motor, however, was the first new US liquid rocket since the SSME, that might be what you are thinking of. Falcon's Merlin/Kestrel line of motors are the second liquids since SSME. <br /><br />j <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[j05h]

Explorer I went something like 1500 miles up, then came right back down. Altitude doesn't mean much, it's velocity that counts.<br /><br />Acknowledging semi-successes and achievements would be more civil.<br /><br />j <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Looks like you have bad info there.<br /><br />"Explorer-I was placed in an orbit with a perigee of 224 miles and an apogee of 1,575 miles having a period of 114.9 minutes. Its total weight was 30.66 pounds, of which 18.35 pounds were instrumentation. The instrument section at the front end of the satellite and the empty scaled-down Sergeant fourth-stage rocket casing orbited as a single unit, spinning around its long axis at 750 revolutions per minute."<br /><br />From here <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[j05h]

Man, I'm 0-2 today. What satellite was it that had a very high ballistic loft? It was an early American sat, apparently I don't remember which one. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[thereiwas]

Some of the early Vanguard attempts went straight up and then straight down, but not very far. 4 feet?

 

[Boris_Badenov]

<font color="yellow"> From what I looked up Falcon I made it a little under half-way to orbit at about 7,000 mph. </font><br /><br />It was a little faster than that.<br /><br /><br /><i> Posted March 27, 2007<br /><br />Having had several days to examine the data, the second test launch of Falcon 1 is looking increasingly positive. Post flight review of telemetry has verified that oscillation of the second stage late in the mission is the only thing that stopped Falcon 1 from reaching full orbital velocity. The second stage was otherwise functioning well and even deployed the satellite mass simulator ring at the end of flight! <b> Actual final velocity was 5.1 km/s or 11,000 mph, whereas 7.5 km/s or 17,000 mph is needed for orbit.</b> Altitude was confirmed to be 289 km or 180 miles, which is certainly enough for orbit and is about where the Space Shuttle enters its initial parking orbit. </i><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>

 

[comga]

" Actual final velocity was 5.1 km/s or 11,000 mph, whereas 7.5 km/s or 17,000 mph is needed for orbit."<br /><br />Not to diminish what SpaceX did accomplish, but it should be noted that 5.1 km/s is only 41% of the kinetic energy of 7.5 km/s. As Musk said, the speed builds disproportionately in at the tail end of the powered flight.<br /><br />On a separate note, it seems unlikely that the slosh/instability was instigated by the contact of the Krestel engine bell with the interstage. The rocket flies quite stably for another minute or so before the oscillations become visible at ~4:45 elapsed time. It looks like a control system problem. Extremely difficult to test for on the ground. Hopefully not hard to correct once it is seen.

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>As Musk said, the speed builds disproportionately in at the tail end of the powered flight. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />When he said that, IIRC he was pointing out the fact that normally more speed is imparted on the stage towards the end of flight, because its lighter.

 

[hipar]

I know there are lots of you ot there who are excited about SpaceX. I'm not.<br /><br />They really aren't getting anywhere fast. When will they really launch a substantial payload for a good paying customer? My casual observation .. there is too much promise and not enough performance for me to have confidence in them.<br /><br />It would be nice if someone could take on the ESA for payload launch tonnage capability but SpaceX has too much catching up to do to challange existing launch services.

 

[thereiwas]

Their currently planned launch schedule is on their web site. It shows two commercial launches in 2008. Of course they can't do it today, so in that sense they are catching up.

 

[j05h]

SpaceX probably fails to qualify for the America's Space Prize on two counts. First, they now have NASA money helping pay Dragon development. Second, the ASP requires significant reusability that SpaceX isn't planning for. It's not just reusing the first stage, IIRC, it's like 90% of the like by dry mass needs to be reused. <br /><br />There are no likely entrants for the ASP.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[rybanis]

...but he is talking about Bigelow, not SpaceX. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>