Paypal Founder's Merlin Rocket Engine Fires Up 252
Baldrson writes "Wired News reports that after 2 years of development, Space Exploration Technology Corp ('SpaceEx') successfully test-fired their new LOX/Kerosene Merlin rocket engine for the 160 seconds required for orbit. SpaceEx was founded by Elon Musk from the proceeds of the 2002 sale of his prior start-up, Paypal, to Ebay. According to Musk, 5 Merlins bundled with the first stage of SpaceEx's powerful Falcon V booster will launch 5 people to orbit by 2010, thereby winning America's Space Prize which was endowed by Robert Bigelow."
Re:The 'insightful' moderator missed 'troll' (Score:2, Interesting)
I bet you feel all warm and fuzzy when you've lost (or spent poorly) hard earned money, when you see the mogul who received a chunk of it, having fun while you struggle with Windows Security, Ebay's Enigmatic Policies or PayPal's Inattention to Customers. I loved it when someone with a 'Power' account forwarded on to me special email addresses and phone numbers that get actual human beings employed by eBay/PayPal, while little fish get form replies or overtaxed volunteers...
Seriously, it takes the fun out of it unless I visualize some of these same people being on that 5-man rocket and hitching a ride on a wayward asteroid.
Uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)
Now here's one person who hasn't left the proceeds of his sale into his PayPal account. I mean, imagine that, buying rocket and space stuff like that, they'd have frozen his account immediately, for no reason, without any explanation besides "what goes on looks strange".
Well done Elon! (and when you have time, please tell your former employees to f*)(*&@$ing give me back my $150 in my account they locked up about, oh, 5 years ago...)
DOD Sat launch? (Score:2, Interesting)
In March, once the final checkouts are completed -- akin, said Musk, to software beta testing -- Falcon I will lift a Department of Defense satellite called TacSat-1 into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Do commercial entities normally do DoD satellite launches? That doesn't seem right to me.
NOT PayPal founder (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Big rockets? (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously though, the reason rockets are expensive is because they aren't launched very much- mass production would slash the cost. But because the cost is high, production is low, and so nobody can afford to go, so the cost stays high.
If that sounds utopian, consider that the fuel to put somebody into orbit is only about as much as to send someone on a round the world trip by jet...
Rocket hardware, contrary to popular opinion, isn't very complicated, your car probably is about as complicated.
Incidentally, the projected cost of Space Elevators is likely to be about as high as rockets- it's only if the launch rate goes really high will the initial higher R&D costs of Space Elevators cancel out.
Then there's the Van Allen radiation belts around the earth- people would get radiation sickness and possibly die if they go up an elevator. Shielding is extremely heavy and expensive, but rockets go much faster so you get less dossage and rockets can do what Apollo did, steer around the worst of the belts- but elevators have to be above the equator where the belts are, so they can't do that.
Even then, there's another fly in the ointment, the power costs of a space elevator are much higher than you would expect- currently the costs per kg to orbit are thought to be higher than the cost of cheap rocket fuel to do the same thing. This is mainly because the laser power beaming system looks like it may turn out to be about 2% efficient for various reasons (and even that's optimistic- current tech is 0.5% efficient), and other techniques aren't practical for sending power 38000 km up a nanotube rope. It turns out that rockets are if anything more efficient, and may even be cheaper in the long term. :-(
[or :-) if you like rockets, personally I like all ways to get to space :-) ]
Re:Big rockets? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Russians got it right with their shuttle - instead of a big main engine on the shuttle, have much more payload space in the orbiter, and launch the thing with a big-ass conventional rocket. Shame the Russians couldn't afford to run their shuttle.
Re:Big rockets? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why SpaceX is a big deal (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, launch costs are the biggest barrier to having lots of cool things (orbital hotels, factories, lunar bases, etc.) zipping around in space. According to this interview [hobbyspace.com], Musk was previously planning on self-funding a mission to put an experimental greenhouse on Mars, but decided to start SpaceX when he realized that the overall mission cost would be dominated by the launch price.
SpaceX's Falcon I [wikipedia.org] is designed to compete with the Pegasus rocket [astronautix.com], which currently dominates the "low-cost" launch market. The Pegasus costs around $20 million to launch 375kg into space. The Falcon I will cost $6 million to launch 670kg into space. Stated differently, the Pegasus costs around $53,000 per kg, while the Falcon I will cost around $9000 per kg.
Things change even more with SpaceX's larger Falcon V [wikipedia.org] rocket, scheduled for a launch this November. This will compete directly with the Delta IV Medium [astronautix.com], which costs $90 million to lift 8600kg to LEO. The Falcon V will cost $12 million to lift 6020kg to LEO. That's around $10000 per kg for the Delta IV Medium and around $2000 per kg for the Falcon V.
One of SpaceX's goals is to reuse as much in terms of engines, components, and software as they build larger and larger rocket. As they benefit from economies of scale and build larger rockets, the costs will only drop.
Re:Getting up is only the first part (Score:5, Interesting)
From the link:
The Chinese had developed another novel but usable "low tech" solution. They glued up wooden blocks, appropriately contoured, with the end grain facing the reentry air stream. The wooden heat shield would char and ablate during reentry, just like the caulk material on the Apollo capsules. The fact that you could build a serviceable heat shield for reentry from space out of wood certainly showed that the basic problem was not insurmountably difficult, so Tom had always regarded this too as a rather straight-forward challenge.