SpaceX Falcon 9R Vertical Take-Off and Landing Test Flight 105
schwit1 (797399) writes "The competition heats up: SpaceX [Wednesday] released a new video of the most recent Falcon 9R vertical take-off and landing test flight. The flight was to test the deployment and use of fins for controlling the stage during its return to Earth. Watch them unfold and adjust themselves beginning at about 1:15 into the video. In the second half you can see them near the top of the stage. Yet another video from SpaceX of the world's most blase cows. You can imagine new cows to the herd, reacting to the launch as the conditioned cows just yawn, just another 100 foot tall rocket launching and landing nearby. Nothing to see here."
Fins (Score:3, Funny)
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(Don't tell the cows.)
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Kerbal Space Program (Score:3)
Re:Kerbal Space Program (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you don't fly a rocket in reverse ... you fly it less forward than usual. ;-)
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Too much credit to cows ... (Score:5, Funny)
I have it on the authority of several friends who have been involved in the raising of cows ... cows are far too damned stupid for what you're ascribing to them.
I believe the entire cow decision tree comes down to: Does it look like it will eat me? Are the other cows moving and do they seem scared? Can I eat it? Can I poop on it? Is it time for a nap?
Everything else, apparently, is mostly random chance and blind luck.
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There's got to be a Farside cartoon in there somewhere.
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For the record, if Gary Larson wishes to use that to create a Far Side cartoon, he may use it free of charge. ;-)
More Far Side would be awesome.
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Obligatory Far Side [mcphedranbadside.com]
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Is it bad that my first reading I had substituted Farscape for Farside?
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They're very dumb animals that are hard to scare with things they should be scared of. On offroad rallies they aren't bothered by trucks driving right past them at high speed. And if they get in the way, they usually don't want to move. I once had a bull posture as if he was going to charge my truck, but he changed his mind after a couple of seconds and lazily began to stroll out of the way. Honking and revving didn't make him speed up.
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As a rider, no. But around horses and people who do, quite a bit.
I know for a fact you can train a horse. I've seen it.
I have never seen a trained cow.
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Horses are also very good at body language. There are a lot of very subtle cues that a good horseman learns, that a horse already knows. IMHO there's good evidence that, like dogs, we have co-evolved horses to be good at working with humans. At one time I could make my horse turn either from the front or back, moving forward or backward or staying in one place, with my arms folded and just turning my head and adjusting my posture.
The historical way of teaching horses is rather crude, but has improved gre
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well, you haven't spent much time around horses, then.
cows can be relied upon to figure their way out of a pasture sooner or later, don't often injure themselves, and are generally fat, dumb and happy.
horses, on the other hand do none of these things. they get scared and break legs (and that's the end for the horse), they seldom manage to get out. cows are downright einsteins in comparison.
Cow's get out because the herd is effectively the animal equivalent of a superfluid; A superfluid will also escape from an unsealed container and it's not remotely intelligent...(except in the case of fiction)
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You left out eating pieces of barbed wire. One must be VERY careful when stringing the fence that no pieces get left around, or they are likely to be eaten.
So their "Can I eat it?" decision seems to revolve around capability rather than likely results.
confused (Score:2)
I'm still confused how you can fire a rocket in reverse going mach 17 and not have problems with exhaust doing something to the nozzle.
also, start at 2m20s to watch the cows run away!
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Did you notice some shrapnel at the 4:00 mark?
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Air resistance will slow the rocket most of the way down and then when it starts to fall they use the engine to land.
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Simple. You don't.
First stage separation happens at a very modest mach 6 (which accounts for part of the 30% performance loss when reusing the 1st stage) and pretty high up at a fraction of the normal atmospheric pressure. There had been doubts as to whether you could use rocket engines that way or not, but as it turns out the answer is: hell yeah.
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mach 6 not so bad still much impress
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also, start at 2m20s to watch the cows run away!
And at 4:20 as it lands, the cows run back again. Very suspicious.
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lol
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If I remember correctly, the stage is so light by that point that they believe they can turn around and fly back using 10% of the fuel. That cuts payload somewhat, but a 20% lower payload for 10% of the price would still be a big win.
The other option is to launch such that there's a convenient spot to land around where the stage would come down. That would take much less fuel, but you have to fly it back to the launhch site afterwards.
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Why can't you just drive it back? It's got fins; surely it has wheels too!
Yeah, but it corners like a whale.
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You wouldn't have to fly it back to the launch site; the Falcon 9 travels by road, and the diameter (3.66 metres) was specifically chosen to be the largest diameter that can be transported by truck on regular roads. It's a cost-saving measure.
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In a real launch the vehicle is a couple of hundred miles downrange at separation. I'm guessing that one of the purposes of having a launch site in Texas is that then they can let the stage coast downrange some more, and land it at Canaveral. This would require less energy than returning to Texas. However Canaveral is pretty far downrange, so my guess may be bogus. This also depends on what type of orbit the launch is intended for.
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This is wrong, they said specifically that they aim to land back at the launch site, for quick refuel/restart (less than 24h turnover in production). No plans to return to other pads and carry via road/waterway.
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Huh? No the first stage never makes it into orbit. Otherwise you wouldn't need a second stage and it would be a SSTO vehicle.
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Thank you Elon (Score:5, Interesting)
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In 12 years, Musk has gone from having no involvement in space to actually having a company that's designed and flown several rockets.
Actually having a first stage that is reusable (the first stage of the last rocket launched hit the ocean slow enough that if it'd have had legs, and been on land, it'd have been reusable with little more than refueling)
Having actual customers for a new rocket which exceeds all current launchers lift capacity is also notable.
Mars is a hell of a stretch, yes. But he's already
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Yes but he hasn't actually done anything that hasn't been done before. You're extrapolating that to things that no one's done before.
No-one in the West has built rockets so cheaply before. Look at Arianespace floundering because they're planning to build a new rocket that no-one will want to use if SpaceX are offering similar reliability for a fraction of the cost.
No-one has ever landed a first stage after launching a rocket into space. SpaceX haven't quite achieved that yet, but their last demo clearly brought it down to sea level and would likely have recovered the stage if it had returned over land.
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I'd mod you up if I had points. Elon Musk is a true visionary of our times. I hope he continues to have success with his current endeavors, and even more with future projects.
I can't think of anyone who is changing the world in constructive ways like he is.
Re:Thank you Elon (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm right there with you.
I believe that a landable full sized rocket is somewhat of a big deal. I know we've been hearing about it for a while, but seeing is believing.
I needed some good news today.
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He's many things but an engineer he is not.
"In 1992, after spending two years at Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ontario, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he received a bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School. He stayed on a year to finish his second bachelor's degree in physics. He moved to California to pursue a PhD in applied physics at Stanford but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations"
By the time he finished his economic
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Not having a formal qualification does not - in other than the strict legal sense that is almost meaningless make you not an engineer.
Being a civil engineer - for example - would not particularly help developing rockets.
Spending ones own time to gain an understanding of the mechanics of rocketry well enough to be able to do broad conceptual design with somewhat realistic numbers that you hand off to others to check and implement is quite possible.
This is the normal role of a lead engineer in a proje
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The test stage shown in the video above is a test vehicle used to test - amongst other things the aerodynamic surfaces.
The prior launch of falcon 9 had a first stage which came down in the sea, at a low enough velocity that if it was on land, it would have landed safely.
The aerosurfaces tested yesterday will help enormously in fine control and reduce the need for lighting the engine during some parts of the descent or fuel for vernier engines on the proper full sized and weight stage.
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You are aware that they already did the landing (albeit in water) on CRS-3 with a fully orbit-capable production Falcon9(R-dev)? They turned around, slowed down, and soft-landed in the water, exactly what was planned for that flight. The next one will be on water again, but aims closer to the cape, and so on. It is an iterative concept... and, what you said Falcon9R does not do (and is a scam for it) it will do later when they have the new test site in texas ready to go, which they are currently lacking per
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It will do so when they have the permission to fly out of McGregor, where the Falcon9 Dev-2 will be stationed. Where they are right now, they are not allowed to do acutal launches, so they have to wait.
Also, they test on production flights right now, see CRS-3 last time or the upcoming AsiaSat flight in a few days.
New ULA anti-SpaceX campaign is apparent (Score:5, Interesting)
If you watch the Tesla news lately, I think it is apparent that the current American launch monopolists have initiated a wide ranging propaganda and political campaign against SpaceX. Examples of this are here [washingtonpost.com] and here [bloomberg.com], as well as comment boards on various articles about Space X. The memes I have noticed emphasized are first and foremost that SpaceX is cutting corners (aimed at legislators), that Space X is the beneficiary of "corporate welfare", and that Musk is a "communist bum" (aimed at right-leaning readers).
One of the primary reasons I think this is evidence of an organized campaign is the timing. Space X initiated the campaign against the Russian rocket engines being used by ULA, as well as objecting to the bulk purchases of launch contracts by the Airforce from ULA, thus locking Space X out of a significant number of launches before it gains certification. I can imagine this as a directive from ULA exectives being given around that time. Such campaigns typically take a few weeks to work-up. They take studies of public opinion, come up with themes to base their campaign around, and then test those themes with the public, often with focus groups. This lag of a few weeks for propaganda campaigns is typical when an organization suddenly decides to initiate a campaign based on new information. Watch for it next time you see a government or corporation being attacked by a new threat. This lag of two or more weeks between threat and response is typical I believe of an organized propaganda campaign.
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and that Musk is a "communist bum" (aimed at right-leaning readers).
Hahaha they called the guy who is closest to one of their mythical Randian supermen a communist bum!? LOL!
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And who is it that actually buys Russian rocket engines? ULA
Who makes their own engines in California? Space-X
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I am a right leaning libertarian and I think Musk is doing well. It is his business and he can try to accomplish whatever he wants.
I too believe that Elon Musk is awesome. He embodies the best of the free enterprise system. The problem is that most on the right, and that includes the funders of the tea party movement, espouse policies that will result not in a proper system of free enterprise where the best and brightest rise to the top, but rather a system where entrenched players act ruthlessly to maintain there positions of power. Whenever a small player looks too competitive, they will just absorb that player.
The idea that the r
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The State will always wield its power badly. The more power you give them past what is 100% absolutely needed results in worse than what you want to be protected from. Always.
You completely missed my point. If you try to eliminate the democratic State, the corporation will become the State. Only it will not be restricted by the laws of a democratic government. It will make its own defacto laws.
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Every single time you hear about reducing government power over its people you can only hear "Destroy the state, Anarchy Rules!"
This is childish. What people are saying is that the State has for quite some time now over stepped its righteous authority over the people and started to become our parents. It has gotten so bad that when you even mention it the masses flip out and wonder why some evil bastard wants to steal all the free shit they "Come up on
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So then, what is the purpose of the State?
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Off the top of my head. You could look to the constitution. There you will find the actual enumerated powers of the Federal government. They were enumerated for a reason. The Feds have been chipping away at the freedoms the individual states, local governments and people had to experiment and try
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National Defense, Infrastructure, Foreign Relations, Border Security, Protecting Individual Rights, Protecting trade between the states, Ensuring a uniform set of laws that normal people can understand and follow.
What happens when the rights of an individual conflicts with the rights of a huge corporation?
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If you are talking about environmental damage and or pollution. This is one of the areas where government does need to step in under "Protecting Individual Rights". It historically has. EPA ring a bell? The issue is that as a people we need to distrust this as much as possible. That way the individual rights can be protected but the EPA is constrained by the mistrust of the people into not abusing and expanding its powers.
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Government should be small, on the side of the people and transparent when at all possible. Also, Importantly we should never have a regulation or law that we are compelled to live under that can not be easily explained and understood.
Ok, I agree with the "on the side of the people" and the "transparent" part. The "small" part might be nice. However, I would like you to consider a thought experiment, basically a reducto ad absurdum. Imagine a world in which there is only one corporation that controls all trade. I mean all. All goods must be bought through this corporation, and all people work through this corporation. What would the role of government be then? What if a person disagreed with that corporation? What if that corpora
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We already have common sense monopoly laws. They are getting a bit convoluted due to corporations influencing the legislation and regulations. But this is the fault of the voters. If we keep voting in the same people and bitching about the results ...
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What you are looking at IS the State, unless you stay constantly vigilant.
Yes, exactly. And obviously we are not there yet. However, from what I can see, we are going towards this. It may not be once corporation, but even if it is ten, twenty or thirty corporations that control most economic activity, this is concerning to me. Of particular concern is the American food supply, both its creation and its distribution. Small farms are disappearing, with huge corporate owned farms becoming dominant. I believe this is a dangerous concentration of power.
However, the elephant in t
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Lets look at the real important stuff. What information do I have access to? How easy is my life? What is being poor now? Can you move up and down the ladder?
Information is power. Today. Most people have more access to information than ever before. Our lives are easier. We have more things making our lives easy. We spend less time keeping the basics up. Poor used to be starvation and death. Now ... Poor is shitty computer, Slow DSL, a crappy feature p
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You completely missed my point. If you try to eliminate the democratic State, the corporation will become the State.
Only if you read too many Cyberpunk novels.
How do you have a corporation without a State, when the very idea of a corporation is the product of the State? How long would Microsoft survive if they had to pay to enforce copyright themselves, without a State to do it for them?
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By that logic, we should abolish the police and rely on the murderers and rapists and robbers to police themselves, since the police are worse than them. Also, do you really want to return to pre-EPA days, or are you young enough not to remember them? The river in Cleveland catching fire? Love Canal?
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No. They did not.
They continually decide that more regulations need to be made. That less pollution is acceptable. They pull more power into their sphere. They go to far. Name 3 regulations put in place to solve a problem tha
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I read them both and it is gratifying to see that every comment so far (there aren't many) attached to the two stories you listed (WashPo and Bloomberg) rips ULA and Sen Shelby new ones for their attacks on Space X. I guess ULA's astroturfing isn't quite up to speed yet.
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society's high IQ groups, while nothing is left for African-Americans and Latinos
- that's a pretty racist remark. Are you implying that only whites have high IQs? You're also incorrect - there have been a number of astronauts of all races, and almost every space (and engineering) company actively works to increase the number of minorities and women in engineering disciplines. And it's working, slowly. I was just at a conference for internet hosting companies, and the percentage of 'minorities' and women was much higher than I would have seen even 10 years ago.
But it's still difficul
Prelude to Mars? (Score:2)
With a thick atmosphere and oceans and wide open plains everywhere there is little engineering justification to landing a rocket when you can simply pop a parachute.
But Mars has a thin atmosphere and you need a working rocket to come home. Are the fins a lattice to simulate mar's thin air?
Elon is nothing if not forward looking...
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It'd be impossible to land something the shape of a Falcon 9 first stage precisely enough (and on its landing legs) when using a parachute, and it's easier to simply refuel a rocket than to refuel a rocket and replace the parachutes (which tends to be a somewhat destructive process, if you've seen pictures of the Dragon after parachute deployment, where the parachute cords are stored beneath ablative insulation that they rip out).
The fins have greater surface area, and work better at high speeds than regula
Parachutes and fins.... (Score:2)
Good to know about the fins... It was just a guess.
I don't see why parachutes are inevitably destructive for Earth re entry however... Dragon design aside ...
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Parachutes won't slow down something that big slow enough for it to survive landing on dry land. They put parachutes on the early Falcon 9, it didn't survive even a water landing.
The shuttle's SRBs used parachutes and survived, but they also hit the ocean, and you can't land in the ocean and be rapidly reusable (need to refurbish after the saltwater damage).
You also have little to no control over a parachute landing (if you also want to land at a sufficiently slow speed), so instead of being able to land ra
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little engineering justification, sure. But there's a whole lot of financial justification.
It's all about operational costs. To retrieve something like an Apollo capsule that pops a parachute and lands in the ocean, they have to deploy fleet of ships and bunch of personnel, which all costs money even though it has nothing to do with rocket engineering. Also landing in salt water will mean extensive refurbishing and/or making the rocket marine-resistant, which leads to even more downtime and money.
Like in th
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Interesting reply. Thinking about the economics. Gotta love Elon's Elan in any event...
spacex 2014 is... (Score:2)
like apple circa 1978.
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Not only supersonic - it seems likely that they'll perform quite adequately even down to the ~80m/s that it hits while freefalling down to a landing.
I'm not sure about added weight.
Certainly, it's added weight, if the stage is not intended to be recovered.
However, the extra control authority right down to the point you need to light the main engine to start the 3-4G burn means that you may gain back the
mass in less fuel needed both for the main engines and attitude control systems.