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NASA Space Technology

Elon Musk Shows Off Near-Complete Falcon Heavy Rocket (newatlas.com) 150

Posted by BeauHD from the long-time-coming dept.
Eloking quotes a report from New Atlas: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket has been a long time coming. The successor to its Falcon 9 and the vehicle hoped to carry humans to Mars, this booster will be one of the most powerful ever. And we've just gotten our best look at it yet, with CEO Elon Musk tweeting out photos of an almost complete Falcon 9 Heavy in the hangar ahead of a planned maiden launch next month. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 first stages rolled into one, with a second stage sat atop the middle one. The nine engine cores in each first stage work together to provide thrust equal to eighteen 747 aircraft, making it the most powerful rocket currently in operation and the most powerful since the Saturn V rocket last lifted off in 1973. In a series of tweets, Musk revealed that when the Falcon Heavy does lift off for the first time, it will do so from the same pad used by the Saturn V rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Musk has said recently that the Falcon Heavy will carry his own cherry-red Tesla Roadster as its first payload, but as an earlier tweet professing his love for floors has shown, it's not always easy to tell how serious he is about such matters.
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Elon Musk Shows Off Near-Complete Falcon Heavy Rocket More

Elon Musk Shows Off Near-Complete Falcon Heavy Rocket

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  • Lucky.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) * on Friday December 22, 2017 @02:10AM (#55787887)

    If you are a live now, have been born from 1960 onwards, you are privileged. As am I.

    We've seen the computer revolution, Internet revolution, and now a space revolution.

    Jobs will be diminished, Musk will be remembered.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      Jobs will be diminished, Musk will be remembered.

      Jobs are diminishing, all right. And people get paid under $15/hr to work in the Tesla plant, assembling their $40k+ cars.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Jobs will be diminished, Musk will be remembered.

        Jobs are diminishing, all right. And people get paid under $15/hr to work in the Tesla plant, assembling their $40k+ cars.

        For 80% of world's population that is a lot of $/hr.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

          Jobs are diminishing, all right. And people get paid under $15/hr to work in the Tesla plant, assembling their $40k+ cars.

          For 80% of world's population that is a lot of $/hr.

          For people who live near the Tesla plant, it's barely enough money to be able to afford to live in your car. Which, at that level of pay, will not be a Tesla.

          • Troll mod, really? I'm a big proponent of EVs, and actually a pretty big fan of Musk overall (get your ass to Mars!) but the low amount Musk is paying his assemblers literally ought to be illegal.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      We've seen the computer revolution, Internet revolution, and now a space revolution.

      Because of a rocket that almost does what a bigger rocket did ~50 years ago? Replacing crew and cargo supplies to the ISS? Cheaper satellite launches? Sorry, but the world remembers the first guy who climbed Mount Everest not the first guy who climbed it on a budget. To be a revolution you'd have to be able to one-up the guy who says "Well, our generation put a man on the Moon" and to be honest I think we're well short of that. Maybe in another ten years with the BFR and a plan for Mars that isn't just on t

      • in the grand scheme of things, this is not a rocket that will make history.

        It's making history because it's reusable and cheap. Going to the moon is impressive, but not really useful.

      • Re:Lucky.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Megane ( 129182 ) on Friday December 22, 2017 @08:19AM (#55788703)

        We remember Henry Ford more than we remember Karl Benz. This is a rocket that almost does what another one did a few times 50 years ago in a skunk works project with strong financial backing from a large government, a level of financial backing that only lasted a decade or so. SpaceX also is starting to account for a major fraction of all space launches as of 2017.

        Oh yeah, and there's that minor detail about getting an orbital rocket's first stage to land on its tail like some 1950s space opera flick, then nailing all the next 20 attempts in a row after the first success. They didn't do that 50 years ago. So F9 certainly has made history. But if you're saying FH won't be historic, I won't disagree with that, it seems destined to become a footnote between F9 and BFR.

      • Because of a rocket that almost does what a bigger rocket did ~50 years ago?

        Well, other than the whole "reusable" thing, of course. And an order or magnitude cheaper.

        But, other than that, just like a Saturn V, only smaller....\

      • So unless someone just up and goes to Mars tomorrow or it doesn't count?

        Apollo 13 wasn't NASA's first launch, or even it's 20th successful launch.

        This is going to be an iterative process, just like going to the Moon was. You can't just go and stab Old Glory in the dirt; you first have to learn how to do it, each step at a time. Learn to go to orbit, learn to rendezvous, learn to maneuver, learn to dock, learn to navigate by star position, develop hardware, etc. Only then can you put it all together to do

        • You can't just go and stab Old Glory in the dirt;...

          "There has never been a problem among the affairs of men that could not be solved by the strategic application of sufficient firepower."

          You just need a big enough Old Glory-gun. The Old Glory gun for reaching Mars would be the BFOGG.

          Strat

    • ... a space revolution.

      Having read Bradbury's "Rocket Summer" or "R is for rocket", at a young age, the whole idea of rockets still feels exciting and romantic to me; I'm very glad there is a revival in interest after the long (and unexpected) 50 years slump.

      This said, and with all respect for Musk and the people at SpaceX, I don't believe rockets can deliver the space revolution we're hoping for. The rocket equation [nasa.gov] puts a hard limit on their capabilities. And if some hypothetical very energetic propellant is discovered, having

  • Wonder how Elon plans to solve the water issue in Mars.. unless he plans to go and quickly come back.

    • Re: how about the water problem? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      He plans to use his Amazon prime membership to get water shipped for free.

      • What a move! Not only get the water problem solved, but also force a competitor in the space race to handle the heavy expenses of delivery!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      What water issue?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      "More than five million cubic kilometers of ice have been identified at or near the surface of modern Mars, enough to cover the whole planet to a depth of 35 meters"

    • Water in concentrations of ~0.5% is present in Martian soil; it's also heavily saturated with various salts, primarily perchlorates, so obtaining and purifying it is a serious scientific and technological challenge - but not unsurmountable one. I guess a machine that strip-mines Mars for water would help; the base would recirculate all water it can retrieve, so only "leakage" losses and expansion needs would need to be supplied from the soil.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        IIUC, there's still a lot of uncertainty as to just how much water exists on Mars, and where it is. Some people talk about a subsurface ocean, though they probably mean ice pack. It's possible, I guess, but I'd give it less than 50% chance of being real.

        OTOH, recycling water will go a long way. When you need to maintain vacuum tight facilities anyway, water leakage should be minimal.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gatkinso ( 15975 )

      It is all frozen underground, waiting to be melted by an alien 3 fingered hand.

  • As all private enterprises will, Musk will fail on his ambitious plans of conquering the space. The reason is that private companies will never be able to engage in projects of such magnitude, because they will be stopped sooner or later by their #profit fixation, by shareholders' limited views, and, simply, by basic greed. Large projects are the area of governments, of people enthusiast enough to work for free or sacrifice themselves for a higher purpose. Not for penny-counting companies. Those can only
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ColaMan ( 37550 )

      Going to Mars means taking lots of equipment with you. All that stuff doesn't magically appear in low Earth orbit.

      A big rocket to launch stuff to LEO means that you can sling a larger amount of payload (+fuel + transfer vehicle) to Mars in one go. Otherwise you need more launches, and have to fiddle about with the costs of multiple Mars transfer vehicles and etc. It's cheaper to go bigger, basically.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by phayes ( 202222 )

        Bigger also makes making launchers reusable much easier. Even with FH, the weight penalties for making the second falcon stage reusable were determined to be difficult to overcome.

        Which is why Space-X has decided to develop and migrate all their launches from F9 to BFR much as they abandoned F1 once it had served it's purpose. BFR will be much larger than F9 but also 100% reusable.

    • More thrust (or prolonged thrust, which requires additional fuel / reaction mass to be sent up) gets you to Mars faster. Not a big deal for regularly scheduled supply flights, but very important for the ship carrying the actual meatbags.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Strider- ( 39683 )

          Sorry, but in Space, navigation is all about gravity and dealing with it. Yes, you're weightless when not under thrust, but that doesn't meant hat gravity isn't having an effect. To reach Mars from Low Earth Orbit, you need about 4.3km/s of Delta-V. That is you need to be able to increase your speed by 4300m/s. That takes propellant and energy.

          Right now, the standard Falcon 9 has just enough power to put a geostationary communications satellite into its transfer orbit. To go from LEO to Geostationary Transf

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      Once you are in the space, the thrust requirements are very low and having more power shouldn't matter much even when dealing with big distances.

      True, unless you're sending up meatbags. At that point, extra thrust means a shorter flight. Right now, a trip to Mars and back on a free trajectory will take two years: six months one way, eighteen months the other way, you get to choose which way. With constant thrust, such as from an ion engine, the trip will take a lot less time.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Strider- ( 39683 )

          coming back and not colliding against anything else are way more worrisome

          Actually the bigger worry would be *not* colliding with anything, and drifting off into deep space. At both ends of the trip, you want to collide with the atmosphere of your target so that you don't need to expend the propellant to brake yourself into orbit. In between? Well, to quote the Hitchiker's Guide. "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

          The

  • Right about now is when you people claiming things about people being part of the "Cult of Elon" and bullshit about how it's all a scam. I just like that he's advancing technology to help humanity advance rather than simply exploit it.

  • Vertical (sic) Integration? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Friday December 22, 2017 @05:29AM (#55788281)
    If we look at the various different market sectors that Elon Musk has developed businesses for, then with the possible exception of Tesla, all of them, potentially even The Boring Company and Hyperlook [granted he isn't directly investing in this now] would seem to have the potential to be integrated at some future time.

    For example, if mankind were to use "Boring Company" technology to cut an access tunnel up to a point near the 5,980-metre peak of the mountain, then use Hyperloop technology to provide a platform on which a rocket could be placed, put a stack of Solar City panels in the vicinity [to power the super-conducting magnets used by the maglev technology and perhaps also to synethsise the Methylox fuel, then essentially he has most of the components needed for a launch system that grabs another order of magnitude of cost savings/efficiency gains - because potentially the vehicle itself could do away with a potentially significant amount of fuel.

    I took a quick look at the most recent launch, CRS-13, in which at 6km of altitude, the vehicle had achieved a speed of 938km/h, a little shy of MaxQ. I would have to concede that we are still a long way short, engineering-wise, of being able to achieve that even with a maglev track in an evacuated hyperloop tunnel. But Musk is all about continual, iterative improvement.

    I would be the first to concede that all I've done here is borrow ideas postulated by science fiction writers for many years now: but if you go back to the 1950s and 1960s and look at the writing of Heinlein-era sci-fi writers, rockets that landed on their tails and took off again were a staple fare. It took real life 60-70 years to catch up, but SpaceX did it. With our rate of development increasing, what I outline here could be as little as 20-30 years away.

    Which I guess leads to a question - which would be the most cost-effective solution: Falcon Heavy or a ballistic launcher? FH has massively lower development costs, but the operating expenses will be higher. A launcher will cost several metric f@ktons of money to develop, but, once done, should be significantly cheaper to operate.
    br? Which would you go for?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      There's a slight problem with using a hyperloop style tunnel to launch a rocket - the rocket eventually will need to exit the tunnel, which means the tunnel can no longer be sealed to maintain a near vacuum. Using a maglev, or similar propelled "cart", to provide a first stage launch vehicle for a spacecraft isn't a new concept though - as you say, there are numerous 20thC sci-fi works that depict this approach, almost certainly based on the technique used by the V1 and V2 rockets in the 1940s - so removin

    • Re:Vertical (sic) Integration? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Friday December 22, 2017 @06:29AM (#55788435)

      Gun launch (incl rail guns, hyperloop etc.) is a dead end. Getting to orbit is about speed - and you can only gain a (relatively) small amount of speed using a gun, because you're limited by air resistance in the lower atmosphere.
      Going to a vacuum tunnel removes the speed problem, and introduces a new one: you have to exit the tunnel at some point. Even if you can create a vacuum seal that the rocket can pass through, it'll slam into the atmosphere at 5 km altitude - which is still significant. Building the tunnel exit at higher altitude isn't possible either (building cost is prohibitive).
      Going by your own numbers, you could save 300 m/s of delta-V out of about 9000 m/s. 3% savings would make the rocket a few meters shorter, and you might be able to remove 1 engine, but the rocket doesn't become significantly cheaper.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ytene ( 4376651 )
        I totally understand that. However, if you could accelerate a Falcon 9 to ~ 1000km/h without burning any of the carried fuel, then manage to ignite it at the point of emergence, would the cost of building the launch mechanism pay for itself?

        In other words, it's the gain you make by providing the first 1000km/h of launch velocity without burning carried fuel. In theory this means that you can get the same amount into orbit for less [energy] cost, or put a larger payload in to orbit for the same cost.

        I

        • The savings is mostly in the fuel. You still have a $60 million rocket, using $200k - 10% worth of fuel. You'll need a very large number of launches before the $10B tunnel system pays off.

        • Except that it just wouldn't work. Going 1000 km/h (or about 277 m/s) at even the height of a tall mountain would turn your rocket into a pancake. The air is just too thick.

          That isn't even considering the idea that the tube could be a vacuum. It would be like hitting a brick wall.

          Look at the altitude vs velocity graph here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.c... [nasaspaceflight.com]

          Rockets have to be really high up before they really turn on the speed.

          Now, look at your "1000 km/h". That is exactly nothing. To reach the ISS you need

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ytene ( 4376651 )
            On this one point, I think you may find that you are wrong.

            Check out the latest SpaceX launch cast on Youtube, which you can find here:-

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

            Now fast forward to approx 16 minutes and 54 seconds from the start of the broadcast. You will see that the vehicle is at an indicated altitude of 6km [the approximate height of Kilimanjaro] and is travelling at 939kp/h [OK, not quite 1,000, but I hope you'll agree, close enough for examination of this point.

            Absolutely *nothing*

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Eloking ( 877834 )

        Gun launch (incl rail guns, hyperloop etc.) is a dead end. Getting to orbit is about speed - and you can only gain a (relatively) small amount of speed using a gun, because you're limited by air resistance in the lower atmosphere.
        Going to a vacuum tunnel removes the speed problem, and introduces a new one: you have to exit the tunnel at some point. Even if you can create a vacuum seal that the rocket can pass through, it'll slam into the atmosphere at 5 km altitude - which is still significant. Building the tunnel exit at higher altitude isn't possible either (building cost is prohibitive).
        Going by your own numbers, you could save 300 m/s of delta-V out of about 9000 m/s. 3% savings would make the rocket a few meters shorter, and you might be able to remove 1 engine, but the rocket doesn't become significantly cheaper.

        Granted, adding a sort of big slingshot in the complex engineering of a rocket launch doesn't seem fausible. But, then again, what would you have said 10 years ago if I brought the idea of bringing back the first stage to land it at the pad where it was launched?

      • Air resistance is a problem because of the heat it generates not necessarily because it prevents you from hitting escape velocities, right? So why not heat shield the launch vehicle such that it can withstand the intense heat. Even with the extra shielding you'd likely end up having to accelerate less mass.

        I expect it'd be a logistical nightmare but I wonder if you couldn't suspend a vacuum tube from a ground based launcher up to significant altitudes using dirigibles.

    • Unless you can change the direction of the ballistic launcher, it won't be of much use. Rockets launch to various orbital directions. It requires a lot of delta-v to change orbital direction once in orbit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ytene ( 4376651 )
      Bother... When I wrote "the mountain", I meant to say, Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa...]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elistan ( 578864 )

      Which would you go for?

      I would use traditional chemical rockets to leave deep gravity wells with atmosphere barriers (like the Earth), and I would use a ballistic railgun launcher to leave shallow gravity wells with no atmosphere (like the Moon.) Point one railgun towards the Earth to ship home manufactured goods, point another railgun in whatever direction is appropriate to send stuff towards the inner or outer solar system.

  • When will we build a better launch system than giant explosions? I want a nice giant railgun
  • Making it all look like Kerbal Space Program?
    This would be really funny. But it is also interesting if it is an Asparagus configuration, as it was planned earlier.

  • Sputnik, and Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space are lost in my memory. The lunar landing, and my excitement at earlier Apollo launches, are still clear. I'd like to see us go back to the moon and gather inspiration that has been lost in the intervening time, and knowledge that could not have been gathered with the relatively crude instruments and extremely limited payload of the Saturn based lunar missions. The effective loss of our space program to the profoundly flawed Shuttle program cost us dreams,

  • I know SpaceX is thinking things are good, but could anyone comment on what kind of leeway might be available with those connection points? From what I can see, there are only 4 per side booster, and they really don't look that big. Will that truly be enough? By what kind of margin? I'd almost expect the rocket to tear itself apart once those two boosters kick in.

    Obviously, I'm nowhere near a rocket scientist...

    • All of the rocket motors fire at once, and they don't do full power right at startup. So I think the idea is to ease in to it right at liftoff.

      The SRB on the Space Shuttle was full power as soon as it was lit and it only had a problem... once.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Strider- ( 39683 )

        All of the rocket motors fire at once, and they don't do full power right at startup. So I think the idea is to ease in to it right at liftoff.

        Actually no, the 27 Merlin 1Ds will be starting sequentially, in balanced pairs, much like was done with the Saturn V or the space shuttle. Once the engines are all running, it will throttle up to max, the systems will check the engines to make sure they're all performing properly, then the launch clamps will be released. I don't know the exact sequence, obviously, but shortly after launch the engines on the center core will be throttled deeply to conserve propellant, while the engines on the side boosters

  • Roadster Payload (Score:3)

    by lazarus ( 2879 ) on Friday December 22, 2017 @11:32AM (#55789845) Journal

    Look like the Tesla Roadster payload [electrek.co] is almost ready for launch as well. Musk has said he is just hoping this thing gets high enough not to do pad damage when it explodes, but I'm hoping he is able to give his Roadster a Mars flyby.

  • The old joke is new again. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ancient_Hacker ( 751168 ) on Friday December 22, 2017 @11:39AM (#55789899)

    As the story goes, German-born rocket guru Werner Von Braun asked his ( mostly-german) rocket engineers whether the Saturn 5 was going to meet it's 99.999% reliability goal, and they said down the line "Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein!

    Actually, it did really well, with 13 successful or at least survivable launches.

    Now with Elon's 9 engines, again it's time to ask, and even more so, the likely answer is "Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )

      As the story goes, German-born rocket guru Werner Von Braun asked his ( mostly-german) rocket engineers whether the Saturn 5 was going to meet it's 99.999% reliability goal,

      It has been written the Apollo 17 Saturn V is not much different than the Apollo 8 Saturn V. Apollo 17 LM and CSM (J series) were vastly upgraded from earlier LM and CSM series. Story goes Von Braun and his engineers did not fully disclosed the total mass lift capability otherwise LM and CSM engineers would design spacecraft mass to that limit with little margin.

      Regarding the FH, it is amazing to see photos of actual hardware instead of computer graphics (I hope these have not been extensively photoshopp

  • Showing off his big rocket to everyone in public!? THE INDECENCY!

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