SpaceX Files Suit Against US Air Force 176
Today Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has decided to challenge the U.S. Air Force's restrictions on rocket launches related to national security. Such launches are done with a Russian rocket right now, and that contract is not up for competition with other rocket makers, like SpaceX. Musk says the company has exhausted other options to become part of the bidding process. "We're just protesting and saying these launches should be competed. And if we compete and lose, that's fine, but why were they not even competed?" He also said it's the "wrong time to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kremlin," referencing events in the Ukraine.
At the same press conference, Musk announced that SpaceX's recent attempt to soft-land a rocket booster stage was successful. It landed and was in "healthy condition" immediately afterward. Unfortunately, they weren't able to recover it because it landed in the middle of a rough storm, which eventually destroyed the stage. The storm was rough enough that the Coast Guard wouldn't even send a boat out to help recover it. Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time." SpaceX also plans on landing the stage on shore at some point, which makes recovery easier. Musk made this prediction: "I expect we will be able to land a stage back at Cape Canaveral by the end of the year."
At the same press conference, Musk announced that SpaceX's recent attempt to soft-land a rocket booster stage was successful. It landed and was in "healthy condition" immediately afterward. Unfortunately, they weren't able to recover it because it landed in the middle of a rough storm, which eventually destroyed the stage. The storm was rough enough that the Coast Guard wouldn't even send a boat out to help recover it. Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time." SpaceX also plans on landing the stage on shore at some point, which makes recovery easier. Musk made this prediction: "I expect we will be able to land a stage back at Cape Canaveral by the end of the year."
Russian Engine (Score:5, Insightful)
"Such launches are done with a Russian rocket right now"
more correctly, the launches are done with an American rocket, using a Russian engine (RD-180).
see: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lo... [forbes.com]
http://www.parabolicarc.com/20... [parabolicarc.com]
(the article [techcrunch.com] has it right; the summary is inaccurate).
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With that all said, no bid contracts are shit. The price delta between SpaceX and ULA are large enough that provided SpaceX can demonstrate the same reliability as the the Atlas 5 (so far it has) and the same capabilities (it has) then why not go with the chea
Re:Russian Engine (Score:4, Informative)
I could be wrong on this, but I thought Pratt was going to be building the RD Amross (which is the american version of the RD-180) starting a couple of years ago. If that's the case then the RD-180's being used on the Atlas V are completely domestic.
no. they spent a small fortune on 'investigating the possibility' of building the engines in the US, which culminated in building one small part of an engine. then concluded that it was too expensive (a billion dollars to start production, and the US engines would also be twice the price).
RD-180s are built in Russia. they have a two year stockpile here in the US.. but ULA have just been awarded a five year block buy.
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For anyone who's interested, Musk's announcement at the Nat'l Press Club is up on YouTube. [youtube.com] It's 32 minutes long, and the lawsuit issue comes around 15:30. (The first 15m is about reusable rockets.)
"Contract is not up for competition" (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation: some Air Force brass are getting board seats in some corporation X after retirement, so of course they don't want to open the bidding and allow SpaceX to take the contract.
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wasn't Apollo and almost every other space program the same way? the aerospace companies created a joint company that got the work and divided up the profits
No (Score:3)
In what way is one company getting the work like a job being split up among many companies? According to the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), over 20,000 different companies and universities worked on the Apollo program.
In short, the answer to your question is no.
https://www.asme.org/engineeri... [asme.org]
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More like 10 years ago the company that designed and built the rocket, at great expense, did so because of a no-compete contract they signed with the government. Everyone likes to rail on these agreements but they are rarely signed just for shits and giggles.
Re:"Contract is not up for competition" (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you saying that if they put out contracts for competition, nobody would build anything? Seems absurd on its face. Sure, there's no reason not to build the thing if you have a guaranteed payday, but there's plenty of reason to do it without the guarantee. I'd even be okay with the government footing a small portion of the bill for a handful of serious designs in competition with one another just to get more companies interested. But to simply hand the whole thing over to someone with a fat check and an unlimited credit card for the overages? Ridiculous.
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The USAF did that. They even demanded to have two suppliers. Lockheed Martin and Boeing won the EELV contest. However they decided to do a 'joint-venture' i.e. a monopoly afterwards claiming it was uneconomic to have two suppliers. Since then US government launch prices went up believe it or not...
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Just because you supply something do the government, it doesn't mean they should be guaranteed a profit.
Federal procurement rules would require a competition once there are two suppliers to compete for it.
ULA was the only game in town, not anymore, hence the requirement that DoD payloads that the already fully operational SpaceX F9R rocket can handle to be competed on.
Elon is very clear that he isn't contesting payloads that he can't handle yet (need Falcon Heavy ready). He's only contesting payloads that h
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Real translation: They have something that works.
Developing and testing a heavy lift rocket takes years and piles of money. Once they have one they use it. Competing the procurement means anyone can come in with a low bid and provide some paperwork "proving" they have the expertise and resources to build the rocket. So now the government has to go through years of project management and cost overruns before finding out the contractor is incompetent. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
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Competing the procurement means anyone can come in with a low bid and provide some paperwork "proving" they have the expertise and resources to build the rocket.
SpaceX has a bit more than paperwork.
Re:"Contract is not up for competition" (Score:4, Informative)
...space-x, who privately built a rocket with no cushy contracts...
Space-X privately built the Falcon-one "with no cushy contract". This was their small rocket-- about the equivalent of the smallest Delta.
The Falcon 9, on the other hand, was funded by NASA.
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So now the government has to go through years of project management and cost overruns before finding out the contractor is incompetent. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Yes. That's better than the current situation. Just hold the contractors responsible. In China, defrauding the government for billions will get you shot. In the US, you get a no-bid contract and guaranteed profits for life.
It's sad when the Chinese government is so much more efficient than the US.
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Only if you believe China actually works that way. Certainly people are shot by the government for any number of reasons. And I'm sure from time to time the actual reasons are the stated reasons. But you can be sure that if a CEO gets killed for "defrauding the government" the truth includes "and the right guy didn't get his cut".
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Correction: people get shot in China when their fraud embarrasses the government.
What's with the hard-on that some right-wingers have for autocratic governments? Wait - don't answer that. It'll be depressing.
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You fix that by having more than one supplier.
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You fix that by having more than one supplier.
That pretty much doubles the price of the contract right from the start. Good luck getting funding for that.
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Maybe I've misread the summary, but "Corporation X" here seems to be the Russian government and I don't think a whole lot of retired US military types end up working for them...
United Launch Alliance = Boeing + Lockheed (Score:3)
The RD-180 business is minor.
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They Russians not sell the engines direct to the US.
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AIUI russia makes the engines and then some US company turns them into complete rockets.
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Less cynically, Air Force brass have been burned over and over again by companies who lowballs bids and can't deliver. It's human nature to try to steer contracts to companies that have made good on promises in the past.
My was in the Air Force and worked on big contracted projects. You would not believe how often the AF has to deal with companies taking progress payments and then declaring bankruptcy.
Of course the really big contracting decisions are all made on Capitol Hill *cough*F-35*cough*.
Welfare & Keeping Tabs (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect the current arrangement with the Russians providing lift tickets to the ISS performs a similar function to the intelligence treaties we signed in the 90s allowing the U.S. and Russia to perform overflights of each others' countries to verify ICBM numbers and troop movements, plus the CIAs fanatical attention to assist the Russians in tracking and controlling any and all nuclear materials to keep it from wandering off in the hands of men like Viktor Bout, "Lord of War" arms dealer.
By subsidising the Russian space program with this sweetheart no-bid contract, we, the U.S., help ensure that dozens of very highly skilled engineers and scientists with the ability to lead a team interested in designing and building short, medium, or long-range rockets - for whatever purpose - are kept "on payroll" and reasonably content safely and securely inside Russia. Exactly where we want them. Instead of helping a potential aggressor nation like Iran, North Korea, or theocratic / military dictatorship Du Jour develop accurate, long range weapons for suitcases full of cash, women, mansions and national hero-worship.
The current deal also forces a certain level of cooperation between the space agencies, governments, and builds political good will on both sides. Good Will that Putin is destroying at the moment, but will return providing he doesn't go all Poland '39 on the remainder of Ukraine.
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By subsidising the Russian space program with this sweetheart no-bid contract, we, the U.S., help ensure that dozens of very highly skilled engineers and scientists with the ability to lead a team interested in designing and building short, medium, or long-range rockets - for whatever purpose - are kept "on payroll" and reasonably content safely and securely inside Russia. Exactly where we want them. Instead of helping a potential aggressor nation like Iran, North Korea, or theocratic / military dictatorship Du Jour develop accurate, long range weapons for suitcases full of cash, women, mansions and national hero-worship.
It would be an order of magnitude cheaper if we flew those guys to the US, handed them suitcases full of cash, and bought them all houses in southern California. If we really wanted to get fancy, we could even offer them jobs.
Or we can pay their government tons more money to build a rocket engine we don't need.
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Too bad there are no southern Californian companies employing rocket scientists these days... OH WAIT!
(Yes, that was probably the joke.)
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It certainly worked on the German rocket program after WWII. As Tom Lehrer put it so brilliantly in in the 1950's: "That's not my department", says Werner von Braun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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In other words, the US and Russia are engaged in the kind of keep-the-workers-from-moving deal that the US just dinged Apple, Google, etc. over. B-)
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That's cute - you think rules apply to the government?
"National Security."
Just utter those two words, and brush everything aside. "In The Interest / Not In The Interest of __National Security___. "
I have a friend - who is quite possibly reading this, Hi, Beavis - who has Top Secret security clearance and a tidy officers' rank in the U.S. military. Many years ago, while undergoing the personal reference interview portion of his background check, I had a man from the Department of Defense come to my house.
I've heard this before. (Score:5, Funny)
Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time."
Is he retrieving a booster or a shark [urbandictionary.com]?
Bloody rocket dealerships (Score:5, Funny)
+1 Funny (Score:2)
ROFL!
Wish I had mod points just now.
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You seem to have completely missed the point of Photonic's post, which was to take a comment on Tesla's problems with dealerships, and swap Tesla/SpaceX, Dealers/Air Force, and Cars/Rockets.
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They are pretty much the same thing, other than the unit cost of the vehicles involved.
less than a third of the cost (Score:5, Interesting)
As a taxpayer, I wouldn't usually care about these corporate tiffs, but SpaceX can probably save the government hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars which could be used towards additional capabilities in space... so using SpaceX for launches could allow the Air Force to double its launch capacity at the same cost. Forget about sending money to Russia using ULA rockets, using SpaceX could double or more than double US space capabilities which translates to more communications satellites, more surveillance satellites and more R&D payloads.
It is boggles the mind that the procurement folks at the air force would sign long term contracts with ULA just a few months before SpaceX has finished jumping through all the Air Force hoops for certification. Seems like a pretty blatant multi billion dollar gift (going out of business gift?) to the United Launch Alliance and is a bad deal for the Pentagon.
Given the likelihood of certification for SpaceX, at the very least the Air Force procurers should have limited the contract to nearer term launches and not so many.
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As a taxpayer, I wouldn't usually care about these corporate tiffs, but SpaceX can probably save the government hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars
It's not just the US government, it's the US military. Start in the billions and work your way up from there.
The way military contracting usually works, you may as well fold up some paper into a paper airplane and throw it across a room, then tell the Air Force your design does everything they want for $1. Then spend the next 20 years learning about aeronautical engineering and how to build jet fighters while sending the Air Force bills for $5 Billion a year (don't worry, they'll direct deposit immediately)
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... SpaceX can probably save the government hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars which could be used towards additional capabilities in space...
Or left in the taxpayer's pockets for THEM to use as they see fit - which would probably do a LOT more for them and the economy - including private space missions.
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I'm all for saving billions, just don't think that saving a billion is enough to buy a lot of classified spy or big DoD comm satellites, those cost over a billion a piece.
Perhaps that should be the next step in Elon's endeavours, applying his SpaceX formula to DoD satellites. The he could save tens of billions of USA money over a decade.
On the other hand, US$ 2 billion would pay for the production and launch costs of 12 GPS satellites (using SpaceX booster).
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Probably not. Even as expensive as launches are, they're still only a fraction of the total cost of developing and delivering an operational payload on orbit, and a *very* small portion of the total budget including operations costs.
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Probably not. Even as expensive as launches are, they're still only a fraction of the total cost of developing and delivering an operational payload on orbit, and a *very* small portion of the total budget including operations costs.
Do the math on this. With 36 launches costing about 450 million each that would be over $16 Billion. So, using SpaceX could save over $10 Billion over those 36 launches. Even if you go with a satellite that costs $1B to get to the launch pad that would mean you could launch an extra 5 to 10 satellites just by going with the Falcons instead of the Deltas. That is a significant enough difference. Heck you could toss in a couple hundred cubesat experiments on top of that with all that savings and extra l
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What makes you think I didn't? You don't seem to grasp my point, so I'll repeat it more plainly: Saving money on launches does not mean more money is available for procurement and operations. Goverment budgeting doesn't work that way.
"Much bigger boats next time..." (Score:5, Funny)
Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time."
Knowing Musk, that means he's going to build a flotilla of fully autonomous fusion powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers constructed entirely from carbon fiber. They'll probably haul the booster up with carbon nanotube wires and preserve it in amber, then transform into robots and fly back to fucking Cybertron.
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Pull Musk's geek card. The correct line is, "We're gonna need a bigger boat."
Carbon fiber stiff-airfoil sailboats. (Score:2)
Knowing Musk, that means he's going to build a flotilla of fully autonomous fusion powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers constructed entirely from carbon fiber. They'll probably haul the booster up with carbon nanotube wires and preserve it in amber, then transform into robots and fly back to fucking Cybertron.
Actually I COULD see Musk building a carbon fiber hulled, wind driven,Knowing Musk, that means he's going to build a flotilla of fully autonomous fusion powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers constru
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Hmm... I don't think I've seen any references of Unicron engaging in food play before. A cauldron of human creativity, this site is.
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Funny score 10
Reality score 0
Musk wouldn't build anything useless
He already said next launch will land much closer to land.
Next payload is 8 pretty small orbcomm satellites, it will use in the order of 50% of F9R payload capacity for the target orbit.
It expect him to land no further than 50 miles from land, perhaps as little as 10-20 miles.
The demand on the next launch as far as recovery will be much easier. The plan will likely be to tow the stage instead of placing it onboard.
One idea that has been persis
I look forward to when they sue CONgress (Score:2)
Umm... (Score:2)
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US Government contracting is insane paperwork wise, and bureaucrats have thrown every roadblock they can at SpaceX. When it looked like they couldn't stop them from competing with ULA they then went ahead and signed a huge multi-year sole source contract with ULA. The timing is pretty suspicious in and of itself. It reeks of corruption and kickbacks.
If SpaceX wins the lawsuit, then the bureaucrats will have to justify going with the more expensive option that uses Russian made engines. They'll probably
Umm, friendship matters? (Score:2)
So let's see if I understand the situation -- I don't live in your country, so this is damned confusing.
Not so long ago, you had a huge military enemy. They were bigger than you. They were scary. Many lives were lost on both sides. Then there were decades of espionage. Movies, history books, and even comic book super-villians were written about your relationship.
Then, you finally became allies, working together against many things. Once again, movies, history books, and even comic book super-heroes we
I'd Wondered About That Soft Landing (Score:2)
I missed what happened to it after the report of a successful soft landing.
"Unfortunately, they weren't able to recover it because it landed in the middle of a rough storm, which eventually destroyed the stage."
Well, if it's so damned smart and clever and capable and all, why didn't they tell it to land somewhere else?
Land at sea in the middle of a bloody storm, you get what you deserve!
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Well the thing is we told Ukraine that if they gave up their nuclear weapons, we'd help protect them from foreign aggressors; they did and then got invaded by Russia. Unless we do something effective pretty soon, it's going to be a hard sell to get anybody else to give up their nucs.
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It's not a treaty, no signer has ratified it. The "memorandum of understanding" states only that the US (and UK and Russia, and in a separate agreement, France) agrees not to use or threaten to use nukes on the Ukraine (which it hasn't), not to challenge the territorial integrity of Ukraine (which it hasn't), to respect the then existing borders of Ukraine (which it does), and to raise any attack by another party against the Ukraine in the Security Council (which the UK did, with US support.) There's no req
Re:Well the way things are going internationally.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with this plan is that Russia and its leader don't want goodwill from the United States. They want a monster that can be slain with saber-rattling like in the old Cold War days - even if they have to manufacture one out of an ally. Putin isn't interested in who dies in the process in his quest to cement his legacy as the greatest leader of the NEW Soviet Union that ever was - we (not just the United States, but the International community at large) can't be so foolish as to just ignore it. The only way he can get what he wants to have us in a position of weakness - and giving his nation the only means to get to and return from the International Space Station is about the best leverage that we can give him.
Its not a matter of *if* the relationship between the United States and Russia goes bad, its *when* it goes bad if Putin remains in power.
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You would rather than the country you live in be on the shit list of the U.S. government as opposed to being on a list of supporters?
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You would rather than the country you live in be on the shit list of the U.S. government as opposed to being on a list of supporters?
This argument is often raised, but Haiti and Cuba are countries that make you stop and think about it. Haiti received government support from the U.S. and it not doing well by any measure. Cuba has had an embargo with the U.S., Bay of Pigs, etc. and is doing relatively okay for it in comparison.
Now I like the U.S. and respect it for holding to its principles as a country, but there are a couple of supporting countries that have had their countries pretty well screwed over.
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Cuba isn't really doing all that well either, although I think their PR efforts are better than what Haiti does. It really isn't a fair comparison and Cuba has definitely been hurt with the various blockades and embargoes done against it. Don't forget, Cuba is still being ruled by a communist dictator that has even more control and authority over that country than Adolph Hitler had over Nazi Germany. About the only thing I can really say that is positive is that Cuba seems to be doing better than North K
Re:Well the way things are going internationally.. (Score:4, Insightful)
We need goodwill now.
"If I be real nice to him maybe he won't hit me again! It's all my fault!"
Is such thinking any less heartbreaking on an international scale? No.
Re:Well the way things are going internationally.. (Score:5, Insightful)
We need goodwill now. Money is of no concern when you're thinking of the results of what could happen if Russia and USA blood goes bad.
So we're supposed to just throw all our money down the shitter to keep Russia from getting sad/angry? What are they going to do? Their economy is already collapsing and they've proven once before that you can't pose a real, sustainable military threat to much of anyone if you don't have the economy to keep it going. If we isolate Russia, their economy will take a dive and Putin will end up on the wrong side of pissed off Russians. They'll have a hard winter, then they'll come asking for money telling everyone they've changed their ways.
We're pretty dumb, so we'll give them some money and the cycle will restart. We don't need to buy their stupid rocket engine in no-bid contracts. Let the best solution win.
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Just because you love your crazy axe murdering brother doesn't mean you should buy him an axe.
The problem is, it will go bad unless Putin gets what he wants, and what he apparently wants is to take over the neighbouring countries and rebuild Soviet Union. Which, of course, wi
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The idea of brotherly love is supposed to be two-way. And right now, US is seen as enemy #1 not only by the Russian government, but by the majority of the Russian society (which is being fed propaganda about how US is behind everything bad that's happening in Ukraine from their TVs).
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The other thing is, even if CIA is truly behind every single thing happening in Ukraine, Russian populace at large believes that all those events have the singular purpose of getting at them. Basically, the "patriotic" picture of the world in Russia is that the country itself is sort of the center of all that is good and holy in the world (some people link it to Eastern Orthodoxy / Third Rome, some to Soviet legacy, many even combine the two), and the Western world (led by US) as a force of evil that would
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I didn't say anything about how the perception in US might be skewed, only how it's skewed in Russia. There's nothing black/white about it.
And yes, I do actually know what I'm talking about - I'm a Russian citizen, I watch the state media as well as private blogs in Runet, and have plenty of friends there who fall on all sides of the spectrum.
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We need goodwill now. Money is of no concern when you're thinking of the results of what could happen if Russia and USA blood goes bad.
So, this is danegeld.
Beta Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm not sure what world he lives in, but unless he's reusing his reusable rocket, he failed."
Uh, you do, you know, realize that there was never, you know, any plan to, you know, reuse the first stage even if it was recovered? And that, you know, the actual, like, goal of launching the rocket was not to recover the first stage, but, you know, to launch the payload into space to, like the space station?
Back in the real world, rather than whatever wacky alternate reality you live in, the goal of the recovery test was to perform a fake 'soft landing' over the sea to prove that such a thing was possible, and ensure that, if they screwed up, no-one would get hurt. That goal was successful. They only wanted to recover the stage so they could take it apart and see what had happened to the hardware in the process.
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several fish were severely burned. probably.
Re:He said it worked, except we can't prove it (Score:5, Informative)
The idea was to test a soft landing, but not damage anything in case of failure. SpaceX determined that it would have landed safely on land, so next launch they can prepare a proper landing pad and worry less about frying the next town over.
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Re:He said it worked, except we can't prove it (Score:5, Insightful)
This was a TEST, in case it's not terribly clear.
Specifically, it was a test of the rocket's ability to fly back from a launch, and hover over the ocean (the previous attempt to do this, without the landing legs, spun out of control).
It was hoped that the rocket could be recovered, so they could evaluate the condition of the rocket after reentry.
The design test - reentry plus hover over the ocean - worked just fine. Hence the test was successful.
The bonus part - recover the first stage - failed because of stormy seas. They couldn't reach the rocket before it sank.
Note that the design intention for the F9R is that it do the rocket thing, then brake to a landing and land on a pad back at the launch complex.
It is likely that they'll repeat this test at least once more (mostly because they're scheduled to do another launch next month, and aren't going to change the launch profile at this late date), then try to land the thing on the ground on later launches.
Note also that after they've worked out the problems with landing the first stage, they plan to start working on recovering the second stage (which will be REALLY interesting, since it'll essentially have the flight profile of a FOBS (Fractional Orbit Bombardment System), and might make several Space Defense Commands wet themselves.)
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Note also that after they've worked out the problems with landing the first stage, they plan to start working on recovering the second stage (which will be REALLY interesting, since it'll essentially have the flight profile of a FOBS (Fractional Orbit Bombardment System), and might make several Space Defense Commands wet themselves.)
:popcorn
soon it will be black orchid time, don't you worry (Score:2)
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I think that the really amazing bit was that they were able to land over the ocean, in stormy seas. I wonder what the wind-speed was at that time?
Re:He said it worked, except we can't prove it (Score:5, Insightful)
Elon Musk is a billionaire. Tesla builds electric tanks that are somehow street legal. SpaceX builds rockets and launches things into outer space. You sit around at home scratching your ass and tossing out criticism.
Musk 3
You 0
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He designs and builds electric supercars and rockets. When you fart it just smells bad.
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Elon Musk is swimming in the waters of international politics. Big "no no" with this administration currently in office. He's about to get bitch slapped down and possibly lose it all.
Probably not. The administration hasn't shown that it's terribly interested in the details of Air Force contracting. There are probably Pentagon officials who are very annoyed and would like to slap him down, but this is simply Pentagon conservatism: the Pentagon likes to keep on doing things the way they do them, because that's they way they do them and it's too much trouble to change.
To the extent that the administration cares at all, they want to sever contracts with Russia (they've already given other
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You nailed it with regards to the Obama administration with regards to space policy issues in particular, and defense issues in general. Apathy is the only word you really need to understand.
On the positive side for SpaceX and Elon Musk in particular, he was a major donor to the Obama campaigns in both 2008 and 2012, which I'm sure has paid off somewhat here as well. I'm not saying that Elon Musk endorsed Obama, but he definitely saw a rising star and made sure he was covered with a legitimate bribe (*ahe
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Actually the Air Force when it did the EELV contract considered it a problem important enough that AMROSS got a license to build the engine in the US and got all the technical documentation to do it. They were supposed to have an assembly line in the US. But they ended up not building engines in the US because it was 'too expensive'.
After what happened in Crimea the 'reset' is over.
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I'll have to rethink the realism of Moonraker [imdb.com]. I used to think it was the most ridiculous of all the Bond films but Musk is well on his way to being a real life Hugo Drax.
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this is why we can't have nice things. (Score:2, Interesting)
Man, you make me sad. I remember how COOL that was at the time, it was the FUTURE, landing on a pillar of fire like a proper spaceship. Then we pissed away another 20 years doing nothing with it. May Space X have better luck.
Re:this is why we can't have nice things. (Score:4, Insightful)
The ones that really dropped DC-X was MD/Boeing since they never would fund it.
Now, OTOH, look at SpaceX. They are acting like our companies from the 40's-70's. They are out about long-term massive profits. Boeing, MD, L-Mart, etc are ran by GOP MBAers and they are all about short-term, lets-feed-on-gov-teat-for-everything, kind of companies.
Re:this is why we can't have nice things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely.
There are certain companies whose core competency is engineering around the government procurement process.
Then there's SpaceX, whose core competency is rocket engineering.
Re:What about the DC-X? (Score:4, Informative)
DC-X started landing from zero kilometres per hour at a maximum altitude of ~3km without ever having to re-light the engines. A Falcon 9 first stage starts landing from 11,000 kilometers per hour (mach 10) at 80km and has to re-light the engines twice (retro burn and landing burn). There's an enormous difference.
DC-X is more comparable to Grasshopper, not an actual orbital Falcon 9 rocket.
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Secondly, DC-X cost the gov. loads of money, but was poorly built. The fact that they lost a leg speaks volumes.
Third, when NASA offered loads of help, MD/Beoing insisted on loads of money.
Finally, DC-X never went that high, nor anywhere near as fast. As mentioned, DC-X was a very small version of grasshopper which never got as high or fast, while F9R just flew TO SPACE and succeeded.
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GP AC was unfairly dissing SpaceX. Yes, this *is* a big deal.
OTOH, you are unfairly dissing the DC-X. It was a proof-of-concept model of the eventual full-size Delta Clipper ship. Of course it didn't go very high or far, it was a small scale model built for testing the initial concept before shelling out the big bucks for the real thing.
It was revolutionary for its time. Up until the DC-X flew, many in the industry did not believe a rocket could be made to hover in midair and fly sideways. The fact that som
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MD/Boeing sucked the milk dry from the teat and the whined about it, just like you.
The fact remains that SpaceX is putting their money where they expect profits to come from.
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The DC-X was a small scale experimental vehicle built to demonstrate vertical takeoff and landing under rocket power. It was never able to or intended to fly very high or very fast.
This was the first stage of a Falcon 9 orbital launch vehicle, returning after boosting the second stage and payload, on a launch that actually delivered a payload to the ISS. It's far bigger (the empty Falcon 9 first stage masses about as much as the fully fueled DC-X), far more capable, and it's currently being mass produced. I
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Hurt people hurt people. Hurt, people hurt people. People hurt hurt people, I could go on all day, but you get the point. I've been trying to fuel their hurt less, and encourage them towards harmony, like a good hippie, but it's hard, brother.
Yep, jealousy (Score:2)
I think you're right: jealously. Musk has runs on the board - multiple runs in multiple arenas. He should be every geek's action hero, but instead people are calling him a con-man, a fake, a wannabe. It's absurd in light of the observable facts, and the only explanation that fits is that a collection of true wannabe's are sitting at home chucking sour grapes.
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... SpaceX hasn't managed to launch a single rocket without it having some mayor failure.
I think the correct tense form is *mayoral* failure.
Oh, unless you actually meant something else and just fucked up coz you were too distracted bootstrapping your own space launch business.
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SpaceX hasn't managed a single flight with an acceptable level of reliability.
Acceptable to who? NASA seems pretty happy the last time they delivered supplies to ISS.
Hell, every Apollo flight had some kind of major failure. That's why you build in redundancies.
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NASA telling them they couldn't relight the engine in case it hit ISS.
No, NASA told them they couldn't relight the engine in order to keep a sufficient reserve in case Dragon had to make multiple approach-aborts while attempting to dock with the ISS. Which, as it turned out, it didn't.
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His first ex-wife once said, Elon has big brass balls. Besides the awesome ability to get things done, his apparent total lack of fear of anybody really defines him.