I was there. I’ve had a cold for a few days, so it got a little grueling toward the end (not much in the way of seating for four hours) but it was pretty impressive, as you’ve probable seen from pictures and video. Alan Boyle was there, and has already posted the story.
[Friday-morning update]
Megan Geuss was there last night too. Here‘s her report.
Wow! Now THAT is a spaceship. I like the fold-down control console and what appears to be four Tesla displays. Provisions for a co-pilot with the hand controller positioning.
Several interesting features there. It doesn’t use deployable solar arrays but instead has panels mounted on the trunk (with tail fins!). The instrument panel (touch screen?) is much lighter than hard wired switches and gauges like used in Apollo and other spacecraft and can be reconfigured by software depending on flight mode but has critical functionality on regular buttons. The interior showed the isogrid construction. I wonder if they’ll leave it that Spartan or will they have insulation? I like the way they paired the SuperDraco thrusters and can perform parachute or propulsive landings. I’m looking forward to the first flight and wonder if it’ll have a crew on board.
The integral Draco thrusters to be used both for Launch Escape as well as soft landing is very clever.
Solar cells on the trunk rather than deployed panels is very clever – saves all that deployment gear weight. I am assuming that half the cells being lit is enough power to operate the thing.
glass screens are the way to go. Even General Aviation a/c are migrating to glass panels.
But…..
The interior is too empty to be real…..
I’m sure you can design that support for the instrument panel to hold up, but it looks unnecessarily flimsy and glitzy. Will it vibrate a lot?
Where will they store all the gas for soft landing using 4, 16,000 lb engines?
The hinge/arms for the hatch look too flimsy.
I dunno, it looks like a mock up and not a real spacecraft. It doesn’t look real. But I’m happy to be wrong.
The interior doesn’t have any of the insulation or stowage that it’ll have when it goes into service. Dragon v1 looked much the same at one point. Everything else is real hardware. The “gas” goes in the carbon overwrapped titanium spherical tanks that we were shown, around the perimeter of the vehicle.
Where will they store all the gas for soft landing using 4, 16,000 lb engines?
The terminal velocity of the vehicle would be about 300 feet/sec, so it would take only about 800 pounds of propellant to land softly (even accounting for the atmospheric and cosine loss in Isp due to the scarfed and canted nozzles). They have lots more than that in current Dragon. In fact, that’s only two 28″ diameter spherical tanks worth.
“The terminal velocity of the vehicle would be about 300 feet/sec”
How do they achieve that? Chutes?
By keeping the blunt side down. Aerodynamic drag will do the rest, although I’m not sure what the terminal velocity would be. It could be higher than 300 fps (~200 MPH).
The video was puzzling in regards to the solar cells. At first it looked like they curved around the exterior sides of the trunk. Then later they were in the deployed configuration. If they were really around the exterior of the trunk initially then they would be subject to damage on launch.
Bob Clark
From the animation, it appeared that a Dragon V2 (with cylindrical solar panels surrounding the trunk) was docking with the station while a cargo Dragon V1 was already berthed with the station. the Dragon V1 had the normal rectangular solar arrays deployed. Could you be referring to the cargo Dragon?
In the video, at the ISS, there are two Dragons docked. One is a Dragon cargo craft, with extended solar cells, the other is a Dragon version 2 with solar cells wrapping around the trunk. The video doesn’t address how the solar cells are protected during the launch, but it is consistent regarding the solar cells.
Which is an interesting point, actually; seems they may be considering keeping Dragon V1 around for cargo runs and Dragon V2 for crew transport? If so, I wonder if a Dragon 1.1 (with, say, the new PICA shield and trunk) would be incoming, or if that’s not worth the validation effort now.
I wonder if SpaceX will want to go for maximum commonality between the cargo and crewed versions. They could even leave in the propulsive landing capability to reduce turnaround time and reusability. It would simplify production and launch prep considerably if they did this.
“I wonder if SpaceX will want to go for maximum commonality between the cargo and crewed versions.”
I am pretty sure that Shotwell addressed this in her last SpaceShow appearance.
“I am pretty sure that Shotwell addressed this in her last SpaceShow appearance.”
Do you have a link to her comments?
I don’t think we can conclude from the video that there will be a lot of overlap between V1 and V2. Even if SpaceX stops building V1 as soon as V2 completes test flights, you could still have a scenario where a V2 arrives at ISS while a V1 is still docked.
“Do you have a link to her comments?”
Not really but here is a link to the show, http://www.thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=2212
She didn’t go into any great detail but I think she mentioned autonomous docking for both versions and she might have said something about the dracos. It was a great interview.
In the first seconds of the flight animation video the solar cells are not visible on the exterior of the Dragon V2 trunk, there appear to be protective panels in place covering them.
I’m sure you can design that support for the instrument panel to hold up, but it looks unnecessarily flimsy and glitzy. Will it vibrate a lot?
So would you rather it be made of wood? No different than all the glasspits on modern airliners. A mind-numbing array of mechanical switches and lights is too confusing and takes up way too much volume and mass.
“So would you rather it be made of wood? ”
No I’d rather it NOT be made to sit at the end of a long stick of metal. I’d rather see it affixed to the main structure in a more solid way.
“No different than all the glasspits on modern airliners. A mind-numbing array of mechanical switches and lights is too confusing and takes up way too much volume and mass.”
You’re totally missing my point. In fact you didn’t even read my post. I said the glass displays are very good. My only concern was that they were perched at the end of a long stick, subjecting them to vibration WHICH would make them hard to read or possibly fail.
But if, as others say, the interior is completely un-done then maybe the shiny, glitzy stick is only for display to show us where the panels would go.
Full transcript for people who prefer that sort of thing.
Notice that an illustration appears to show it headed toward a landing at a new, small circular pad at CCAFS, north of the runway at about, plus or minus a meter or so, 28.47111 N, 80.56410 W.
Speaking of landing, the Boca Chica FEIS released yesterday mentions the possibility of a down-range water recovery of the first stage, but not a return-to-site scenario that I saw. I suspect that that’s a matter of SpaceX moving faster than the FAA and that corrections and supplements will appear in due time.
As expected they showed a prototype with the SuperDraco engines installed. I did not expect them to change the orbital module, i.e. trunk, that much including the solar arrays but I guess this Meteosat like solar array configuration has less parts saves weight and is probably cheaper to manufacture overall.
Yeah the interior will probably need some storage racks and whatnot but they probably still have not decided how much space they want to reserve for that. As for not having any interior coating that was probably to save space and weight. When Elon says this is flyable hardware I would not be surprised if it is but it will probably have some design changes made to it after the Dragonfly tests.
It is interesting that they changed the isogrid pattern.
The fins on the trunk implies to me that in the event of a launch abort, the trunk will go along so the fins provide some stabilization. Since the trunk is used to carry unpressurized cargo, it would seem reasonable to believe they have a very fast way to jettison that cargo since it’s just dead weight at a time when you really don’t want anything slowing you down.
Or they have baked in the max trunk mass into the worst case calculations. The jettisoning mechanism would require power/mass/volume.
Not necessarily. A few explosive bolts could drop the cargo pretty quick.
In fact, “Trunk Release: [ ARM FIRE ]” were two buttons on the hard-wired part of the control panel they showed.
Sharp eyes Mike.
Those buttons are likely to jettison the trunk before reentry. In the case of a launch abort, you want to have the sequence fully automated.
I wonder if the mechanism you all refer to actually is an explosive bolt. SpaceX has been notably negative about use of pyro devices in other traditional applications, like stage separation and unzipping payload shrouds, preferring to use pressurized helium and pistons in place of explosives. “Arm” and “Fire” do not have to refer to setting off an actual chemical explosive charge.
It seems a shame to throw away those solar cells on the truck every time. Why not leave them in orbit to be used?
That would make little economic sense at the current level of technology.
Certainly today that would be true since they would need to be retrieved from whatever orbit they were left in and would require EVA to attach. Are they flexible panels? Could Bigelow wrap them around one of their modules? What value (including cost to orbit) might they have (assuming at or below zero today?)
With an actual ready capsule and launcher, will Congress now provide the funds to accelerate commercial crew?
Bob Clark
Sure. They’ll provide all of it to Boeing.
Sadly, that’s what the push by some members of Congress is probably about. Boeing has bought far more congressmen than SpaceX, although Musk may have the sizable California delegation on his side, perhaps with a few from Texas as well.
I’d prefer for it to be two, based on what happened when the shuttle went down.
Bob Clark
So far, Congress is providing neither funds nor instructions for any acceleration of Commercial Crew IOC. That’s in the House Auth and Appropriations bills, though. Still time for the Senate to say something, or for it to happen in conference. No way to say whether they will do anything, though. It’s entirely possible it will end up a matter of what the White House and NASA HQ want to and are able to do within the funding and other constraints Congress hands them.
One interesting point: Somehwere in the coverage I saw mention of SpaceX planning a first Dragon 2 flight with test pilots sometime in 2016. Interesting politics involved there, private test pilots going where NASA astronauts aren’t allowed to yet. Boeing made similar noises a few years back but quickly dropped the subject, presumably under pressure from within NASA.
OK, what Elon actually said was a bit more conservative. From the Arstechnica story: “Musk told Ars tonight that NASA is being characteristically cautious: “from a SpaceX standpoint we expect to be ready to transport crew by 2016,” he said. “We feel fairly confident that we’ll be ready in two years.””
Yes, all SpaceX needs now is NASA funding to build and fly it…
Actually, sorry to disappoint, but they don’t need that. Elon said last night that it will fly even if NASA doesn’t give them a contract. Bob Bigelow was there.
Rand,
I am sure if NASA offers him money Elon Musk will dump Mr. Bigelow again as he did when COTS came out. Who do you think Mr. Bigelow was focusing his America Prize on? And you will then see the first crew flight on NASA’s schedule, not the one SpaceX is selling.
Hopefully NASA will not select SpaceX in the next round so Elon Musk will have to look for real commercial markets like Bigelow Aerospace. And perhaps he will finally move forward on the DragonLab they promised to fly in 2011, assuming the biotech firms haven’t written SpaceX off like they did the Space Shuttle.
Elon will do whatever he needs to do to get to Mars. I don’t think that in the long run help from NASA will get him there. He will use them only as long as he finds it useful to do so. But I don’t think you’re as smart as Elon in that regard.
SpaceX has Bigelow Aerospace on their flight manifest for 2015. Bigelow stated he would not launch a BA330 until there was commercial crew services. A late 2015 launch of a BA330 paired with an early 2016 launch for dragon II , this is what looks to be in the future.
Thomas, your point is valid but entirely too pessimistic. Bigelow can afford to hold out however long it takes. They expand and shrink but there is absolutely no sign they are going to go out of business before they have vendors to provide the capabilities they need. Now how about you get a little excited like every other space cadet now is?
Hopefully NASA will not select SpaceX in the next round so Elon Musk will have to look for real commercial markets like Bigelow Aerospace.
I’m starting to come around to this way of thinking.
I’m delighted to hear that Bigelow was there. That’s IMHO a possible match that could benefit everyone; if SpaceX can succeed in reusability (LV plus spacecraft) that’ll lower launch costs by a lot, which would make a Bigelow station (tourism or research, or both) a very viable proposition.
I also consider it fantastic news that SpaceX intends using the manned Dragon with or without NASA – a craft like Dragon 2 deserves to fly.
I hope like heck that I’m wrong, but it looks to me like Boeing’s CST-100 is the odds-on favorite to win the downselect. It doesn’t exist yet, it won’t be ready by 2017, and it uses the embargoed Russian RD-180 engine on the LV (Delta IV isn’t human rated), but facts won’t matter any more than they do with SLS.
“… a craft like Dragon 2 deserves to fly. ”
There is no deserve. It should fly and it probably will fly, and soon.
But one thing I have observed from watching this industry closely for the last 15 or so years is that there is one immutable law of nature which dominates everything to do with spaceflight.
It isn’t the rocket equation or the Newton’s third law or Kepler’s law. It’s Murphy’s law.
Cool. Perhaps Bigelow’s presence was the reason why Musk spoke positively even about bases on the Moon.
Bob Clark
Hopefully.
On her Space Show appearance, Shotwell said that SpaceX was not working on anything Moon related because it was a distraction from their main goal of reaching Mars. She did leave the door open if a customer wanted to go to the Moon but it didn’t sound like they were interested in making too many hardware modifications to make it happen.
Needs? Why that assumption Thomas? But if NASA will give them money (with strings limited to NASA flights) why not take it?
The only major NASA string I know is required to get used vehicles for others.
There are currently something like 1000 NASA human-rating requirements, which will be baked into the design. There’s no (realistic) way they can be limited to NASA flights. Removing those “strings” would mean redesigning every single system. In other words, developing Dragon v3.
Then, of course, there’s FAR-based cost-plus contracting, which will infect every aspect of their business processes.
“NewSpace” fan clubs, who cannot believe that NASA requirements won’t run up costs by even a single dollar, will be shocked, yes, shocked by the outcome.
Harry Stine warned us that government requirements and commercial requirements were incompatible. But of course, he was “old space,” so the “Children of Apollo” won’t listen.
Maybe SpaceX will spin off their NASA related services someday.
So far SpaceX seems to be handling the NASA requirements well. One example is the mandatory LAS which they repurposed to also work for propulsive reentry.
Really? For years, we were told that CCDev was going to be cheaper than traditional contacting because it would use Space Act Agreements. Now that SAAs are out and cost-plus FARs are in, the “NewSpace” story has changed. Now, we’re told that government contract requirements don’t matter one bit. And monopolies are fine, too, because “Elon is magic” and not subject to the laws of economics.
So, what was the point of all that talk about SAAs?
With SAAs it was guaranteed that it could be fixed price. It’s more likely to be cost plus with FAR, but it isn’t a requirement. We won’t know until contracts are negotiated. Boeing may want cost plus, SpaceX will probably insist on fixed price. I think that, given the current situation, SpaceX will have the upper hand in negotiations.
There’s nothing but institutional habit that would require NASA to go to cost-plus. If Boeing wins, that’s what they’ll push for because that’s the way they roll. As to the cost savings, from what I’ve read the total spent for SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada will be around a billion dollars. That’s how much Lockheed has received each year for Orion – over $5 billion so far and climbing – with no end in sight.
There’s nothing but institutional habit that would require NASA to go to cost-plus.
That’s always been enough in the past.
It has to have a compliant contractor to follow that institutional habit. If SpaceX refuses to play (as XCOR always does), it may have to change its habits.
It has to have a compliant contractor to follow that institutional habit.
Boeing will certainly be compliant. So will SpaceX and Sierra Nevada, if they want to have any chance of winning.
NASA, for its part, has no reason to believe that complaints about cost-plus contracting are genuine. In the past, the same people complained about FARs, government picking winners and losers, etc. — only to do an instant heel spin as soon as they won government funding. It is logical for NASA to assume the same thing will happen this time.
“NewSpace” contractors are always threatening to walk away if NASA doesn’t do things their way, but none of them has ever been willing to walked away. Their threats no longer have credibility.
Boeing will certainly be compliant. So will SpaceX and Sierra Nevada, if they want to have any chance of winning.
Ed, you don’t understand how government contracts work. The contract negotiations don’t start until the contractor has won. After that, the nature of the contract is a negotiable item.
Very good point.
Bob Clark
The contract negotiations don’t start until the contractor has won. After that, the nature of the contract is a negotiable item.
In previous CCDev phases, the nature of the contract was stated upfront in the RFP. Where did you hear of this change?
I haven’t read the latest RFP. But the nature of the contract is always negotiable.
Care to place a small wager on it? Say, ten thousand quatloos? 🙂
I haven’t heard that they have to move to cost plus. FAR doesn’t require it.
You’re out of touch. NASA has been saying publicly since January that it plans award “one or more cost-plus contracts” in the next phase.
http://aviationweek.com/awin/safety-next-step-nasa-commercial-crew-work
Privately, they’ve been saying things like that since last summer.
At the SpaceUp Houston event in January, Garrett Reisman said there was no longer “any significant difference” between the final phase of commercial crew and traditional NASA contracting.
Well, we’ll see if that changes after contract awards. They still have to be negotiated. As I said, there’s more pressure on NASA now.
Looks like someone in NASA did say “cost-plus” for that Jan 27 story. Whether they were actually in a position to make that stick is an interesting question.
On a quick search, I can’t find anything either way since, and I can’t remember where I (much more recently than January) saw that it’d be FARs fixed-price.
Well, we’ll see.
I can easily imagine a NASA careerist using the phrase reflexively out of habit, because they’re unfamiliar with any other kind of FAR contract.
Increased pressure could also have the opposite effect. If Congress suddenly decides Commercial Crew is important, they may also decide it needs more “help” and supervision, to make sure it succeeds, stays on schedule, etc. Even if the cost goes up. Because, after all, it’s a national priority.
Last I heard, the plan is for the next CC phase to be done under the FARs, but fixed-price, not cost-plus. So, not as flexible as working under an SAA, but not quite as bad as it could be.
There was an attempt to amend the House NASA Auth bill to mandate cost-plus, but that fortunately went nowhere.
The argument for cost-plus is that it’s necessary to ensure compliance with NASA’s safety requirements: no company would sign a fixed-price contract that allowed for unlimited design changes, and renegotiating a fixed-price contract for each “safety-related” design change would be too burdensome for NASA.
Well, that will be an interesting argument, won’t it? I look forward to actually having an argument.
Ayup, that’s the argument the old NASA side has been making for years, and they haven’t stopped trying to impose their development model on Commercial Crew.
The other side of that coin is, with fixed-price NASA’s options to impose endless arbitrary changes is much more limited. NASA HQ and the people who want CC to succeed are not unaware of this distinction.
As best I know, old NASA hasn’t won this one yet. We’ll see.
And worst, once the NASA human spaceflight requirements are built into the government version of the Dragon 2 its quite possible the FAA AST will just buy into them- after all, isn’t NASA the expert of human spaceflight.
And even worst than FAA AST buying into them, the space insurance industry might decide that since the requirements come from the NASA “experts” they are a should adopt them to “lower” risk of failures.
This has always been the danger of CCP, that NASA’s requirements end up being the industry standard making commercial uses too expensive to be practical for many markets.
I recognize that danger as well. I even wrote a book about it. We have to be eternally vigilant, but NASA and the government lose credibility with every advance of the private sector.
You are absolutely correct Edward, ‘major’ may not have been enough of a qualifier for my point. I worked for the FAA. I know something about FARs. Govt. requirements are a cost, but often mostly one time (most cost being up front and even though recurring are not so odious.) Of those costs, requiring a new vehicle each time is probably more of the cost than a thousand other rules. However, that is probably mitigated by the fact that they will need first flight in any case to provide used vehicles.
Ken, the FARs we’re talking about here are the Federal Acquisition Regulations, not the Federal Aviation Regulations.
With that in mind, I suggest you go back and re-read the conversation, which has nothing to do with FAA.
Thank you Edward. I misread.
I don’t think anyone here has ever disagreed with the notion of public/private partnerships. There are no institutional problems today that have stemmed from the US Government contracting out private companies for air mail service. There are, however problems from say, social security, which was instituted at roughly the same time.
There is a huge difference between partnerships and outright control of an industry.
I don’t think anyone here has ever disagreed with the notion of public/private partnerships. There are no institutional problems today that have stemmed from the US Government contracting out private companies for air mail service.
Air mail was not a “public/private partnership.” The US government was a customer for air mail. It was never a partner in the operation, except for a short time when the Army tried to carry air mail. That experiment was a disaster.
At last year’s “NewSpace” conference, one venture capitalist dared to question the public-private-partnership religion, suggesting it would be better to have government as a customer for private enterprise than a partner in it. (No one else commented on his statement, and I suspect he will not be invited back again.)
There is a huge difference between partnerships and outright control of an industry.
Only when people are naive enough to think the government will allow them to retain control. The government *always* believes it is the senior partner, in any partnership. Even the Bible says, “Put not your faith in princes….”
But, of course, people would prefer to believe happy thoughts.
I would also point out that “public-private partnership” is a misnomer.
What people really mean when the say that is government-private partnership.
In this case, the public is not included at all. The goal is to transport government astronauts to a government space station, period. Developing a commercial space industry servicing the general public is specifically identified as a non-goal. If you don’t believe that, read the statements made by Rep. Frank Wolf, among others.
Those who advocate the settlement of space through “public-private partnerships” should spend some time living in a New York City housing project.
Edgar, I will defer to your expertise in this matter.
Washington said that government was like fire, it was a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. I’ve always thought the government could manage short-term projects with a fixed date such as a dam. What is your opinion on say, the Hoover Dam? Was that a waste?
Also, I’ve always thought the post office worked well, since private companies could always decide not to deliver in certain areas for cost reasons. Do you disagree? (Perhaps UPS is an obvious rebuttal to that argument.)
Actually, Washington’s quote was:
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
I think that is simply the best observation ever about the nature of government. He had no illusions whatsoever about it. And what is most remarkable is that it came from a man who could have easily made himself a military dictator if he had so desired.
Jon,
It works for some things and not others.
Dams, roads, bridges and light houses are classic examples of projects that work well for the government to finance since they don’t require creativity or break through technology and produce free-rider effects that discourage private firms from doing them.
But every effort by governments around the world to build commercial airliners has ended in economic failure. Just look at the shambles the English government made of the British aircraft industry with its “master plan” for developing airliners following WWII. Similarly the U.S. government’s decision to “help” the American merchant ship building industry in the 1930’s basically killed that industry and might have lost us World War II if Henry Kaiser hadn’t come along.
Space commerce has far more in common with the commercial aircraft and ship building industries which is why the less involvement NASA has the better.
I don’t think anyone here has ever disagreed with the notion of public/private partnerships.
Oh, I sure do. I call it “fascism”.
Unfortunately, it seems to be the dominant political/economic system in the world today.
Any alpha nerds care to comment on the printed engines? Curious how that compares to traditional means of production.
Or on the power/mass ratio, ISP, etc. IIRC both Draco systems use hypergolic propellents?
Yes. Currently.
They probably use hypergolics in order to have propellants that are both reliable to ignite quickly, possibly multiple times, and that can the stored for long amounts of time in space while the capsule is docked to the space station. It is not easy to find some other propellant combination that does the same. I have heard proposals to use LOX/Methane or HAN on other vehicles but you either need catalysts or complex ignition systems to get it to work.
Hypergolics you just mix both propellants together and boom they burn up. No complex ignition system required.
Hypergolic propellants are toxic and corrosive, but they work very well for attitude control thrusters and for rockets that have to work after months on orbit. No igniters are required, eliminating any delay and a failure mode. They’re easy to throttle as well.
As for the additive manufacturing, NASA and others have been experimenting with it for a while. Musk reports it’s cheaper and faster to use that approach than conventional manufacturing techniques.
I’m inclined to believe Elon about the superiority of 3-D printing for this application. I believe the Super Dracos are printed such that the combustion chamber and bell are a single piece. You could produce this part by conventional machining, but you’d either have to start with an expensive-to-produce casting, an even more expensive-to-produce forging or a solid Inconel billet. In the first two cases, you can get fairly close to net shape before machining, but the cost of getting there is pretty high. In the billet case, you avoid casting or forge tooling, but most of your purchased metal ends up as chips. And making chips out of Inconel is a comparatively tedious and expensive process. It’s tough stuff and can only be machined at a small fraction of the speed one could carve something comparable out of mild steel or aerospace grades of aluminum. The tooling would be complicated too – both O.D. and I.D. lathe tools, I would think, with most likely some custom form tools mounted to boring bars for the inside of the chamber. Most of this complication goes away by laser sintering the thing a few thousandths at a time starting at the maximum diameter of the bell and working upward. 3-D printing keeps the metal input to near-net too, though the cost of sintering powders for 3-D printers is a lot higher per pound than for an equivalent mass of rolled bars or other shapes. And I’m guessing there’s at least some conventional machining still required for things like the pintle valve surfaces. 3-D laser sintering still can’t match lathes and mills for surface finishes on mating parts. Metallurgically, though, I’m told that current-generation laser sintering machines can produce parts that perform as well as forgings.
The additive tech will get better, and flexible adaptation with appropriate milling will make new things possible. I usually think about Dr. Greer’s team at CalTech when thinking about where the tech is going.
http://www.jrgreer.caltech.edu/home.php
Even with that, the Hydrazines and Nitrogen Tetroxide are a problem for operability at the end of a flight. It will stretch turnaround, though perhaps not as much as the OMS safeing for landed shuttles did. Better one of the “Green” propellant combinations. My favorite for that is still NOFBX. As a monopropellant it should be less dangerous than the HT peroxide used on the X-15 and Mercury spacecraft which is caustic, though not as much as Hydrazine.
http://satellite.tmcnet.com/topics/satellite/articles/2012/05/17/290846-green-propulsion-demo-passes-space-station-safety-review.htm
In spite of the above announcement NOFBX seems to not be on the manifests for a flight to ISS. An equivalent to the SuperDracos using NOFBX propellant would seem to make turn around operations much easier. Anyone know why the test at ISS has not gone forwards?
The additive tech will get better, and flexible adaptation with appropriate milling will make new things possible.
Agreed. Significant penetration of additive fabrication technology onto shop floors will be in the form of hybrid additive-subtractive machine tools that can optimize the overall fabrication process under control of more sophisticated software systems than either conventional CNC on the subtractive side or the “slicing” software employed by purely additive systems.
In this video Elon explains a bit about the 3D printing process and why SpaceX uses it, starting around 2:58.
It works for some things and not others.
The problem is the premise that only government can do some things (others can waste money too ya know.) It’s just not true. The reality of why we use government is because many people like theft when they aren’t accountable for it.
They even like to tell us no theft is involved.
On the other hand, whenever two or more people work on something, that is a form of government but to be preferred to the more recognized kind (with more enforcement and less consent.)
Ken,
Its kinda of hard for someone to build an F-22 in their garage, let alone organize a squadron of them….
Like it or not government was a consequence of the agricultural revolution, the need for individuals to band together to protect their farms and build irrigation ditches to them from rivers. As society became more complex so did government.
Its kinda of hard for someone to build an F-22 in their garage
And yet, that is exactly what SpaceX is doing in a sense. Just because government often has funding stolen from others does not make it superior.
Ken,
Some garage. I suppose you would have called Willow Run a garage as well 🙂
Dr. Matula
Well, I’ve seen some of his detractors – of whom Ken is definitely not one, by the way – refer to Elon Musk as a “hobbyist.” By that standard I guess the Hawthorne plant is a “hobby shop.” One wonders what these worthies will call the Vertical Assembly Building after Elon leases it to go along with Pad LC-39A in a few years?
Dick, why would SpaceX use the VAB? They integrate their rockets horizontally.
NASA has already put marks in the VAB for the SLS.
NASA has already put marks in the VAB for the SLS.
With an optimistic launch rate of one every other year, either the VAB will be sitting empty a lot or the SLS will require a massive amount of on-site preparation. There are (or were) four bays in the VAB. It was built to hold four Saturn Vs at one time. It’s hard to see how the SLS could use all of that space.
Thank you Thomas (can I still call you that, or is Dr. Tom now? ;-0 ) for making my point.
Yes Willow Run was a big garage owned and operated by Ford. So don’t you suppose Ford could have done that if some other customer other than government wanted them to build B-24s? What’s the difference…
Funding. So you’ve made my point. Thank you.
GM even decided that garage was worth having to build transmissions.
Ken,
But what other customer would need B-24’s in such volume? Sure they make great collectibles to today, but they aren’t exactly the same as the muskets the Minutemen used…
Dick, why would SpaceX use the VAB? They integrate their rockets horizontally.
I posted that at least partly in jest, but there are non-humorous reasons such a scenario might come to pass. It’s true SpaceX is strictly a horizontal integration operation now, but, as recent events have underscored, SpaceX wants into the national security launch market. Most of the target payloads in that market are designed for vertical integration and aren’t tolerant of being laid on their sides. Then there are upcoming crew ops, which also seem to favor a vertical integration approach.
SpaceX may well be able to repurpose infrastructure at LC-39A to accommodate both sets of requirements, but leasing all or part of the VAB might still be attractive as the tempo of launch ops – especially crew ops – increases in a future of more and more Bigelow-centric LEO-and-beyond destinations. I’m not sure SpaceX will ever have need of the crawler-transporters, but the VAB itself might prove quite useful, especially for whatever Raptor-powered BFR’s are in SpaceX’s future.
And who knows? Even the crawler-transporters might be useful for Elon’s BFR’s. Without the mass of huge solid boosters, even a vehicle with three 10-meter booster cores strapped side-by-side would be a far less formidable burden to haul to some future super-pad than poor doomed SLS. Lightly used, the crawler-transporters might have another half-century or more of life left in them.
As to Rand’s point, it is valid enough for the present. I don’t see SLS surviving the next change of administrations, though, so I don’t assume it will exist as a program beyond early 2017. When SLS gets the – in my view – inevitable axe, the VAB is suddenly just one of several conspicuous white elephants on NASA’s books. Surplus Orbiter Processing facilities and pad LC-39B are others. SpaceX may find the former useful for flyback booster processing and the latter useful to support an increased ops tempo for FH at Kennedy/Canaveral.
SpaceX will be in a splendid position by then to relieve NASA of its growing burden of under/unutilized assets. Another facility I have previously speculated might be a good fit for SpaceX and NASA’s SLS-free futures is the Michoud plant. Elon will need somewhere to build his Raptor-powered BFR – or maybe even an alternate to Hawthorne for Falcon Heavy. Most probably both. Barges out of Michoud could straightforwardly deliver to both Kennedy/Canaveral and Brownsville.
What other customer would need B-24′s in such volume?
Now you’re talking markets. Does this mean you’ve conceded my point about funding?
It doesn’t matter who the customer is, the point is private enterprise can fill needs to any scale. Government tends to be a very fickled customer though.
Often govt. funds things that have no real need. Or benefit just a few. If the need for anything is understood, people willingly contribute. They don’t need thievery for that. The role of govt. and media then should be to accurately report those needs (and show they are real or not without prejudice or bias.)
How can you have so much faith in govt. when they are releasing top level enemies to continue to war with us?
About the PicaX below the Superdracos… would it ablate less or more than the main shielding on the bottom?
During entry, the bottom is almost normal to the axis of entry while the walls of the “engine sconces” are nearly parallel so the bottom takes by far the worst beating. This goes on for several minutes. As the vehicle gets lower into denser atmosphere and reaches terminal velocity the slipstream ceases to become a source of heating and becomes a source of cooling. By the time the Super Dracos fire, both the bottom and side sconces of the heat shield will have cooled down a lot. And the Super Dracos will only fire for, at most, 30 or so seconds. If they fire for that long, they will do so at much less than maximum throttle. The exposed heat shield sconce sections will not heat up too much in that amount of time at low throttle, especially given the still considerable slipstream flowing by. The condition of the bottom of the heat shield will be the item that controls when it’s time to swap that whole component out.
I also imagine with experience they will vary the thickness at different points for uniform life. They seem to think PicaX 4 will be significantly better which gives some insight about how internal developments are going. Between hovering before landing and Dragon V2 this has been an exciting year and we’re only half through.
this has been an exciting year and we’re only half through.
Yes it has. I have a feeling what’s left of it will be even better.
I’m intrigued by the curious geometry of the Super Draco exhaust structure. Possibly related to the linear aerospike engine of the X-33?
Not really. The Super Dracos have exhaust bells, but they aren’t exposed.
Dams, roads, bridges and light houses are classic examples of projects that work well for the government to finance since they don’t require creativity or break through technology and produce free-rider effects that discourage private firms from doing them.
Thomas,
That was the point I was trying to make. I think the post office is another example. I think the idea that the government is completely bad is as misleading as the idea that government is completely good.
A private entity could (and has historically) financed all of those items. As well as canals. The issue isn’t that a company can’t make money serving the public good. It’s that large civil engineering projects invariably involve rampant application of eminent domain. And the partner problem of -avoiding eminent domain seizure -after- you’ve finished. “Hey, I’ve built a nice toll bridge. … No, I need the toll for five years to break even. No, wait, that was -my- freaking bridge!” Or: “What do you mean it’s now illegal to charge a toll on it.”
Weird little (originally privately funded) roads like many of the ‘turnpikes’ in the New England area that drive around single homes (that flat refused to sell) are typical. And you’d have to own the entire watershed to even think of making a sizable dam.
Weird little Seattle eminent domain: They’re shifting a raised viaduct and making a tunnel. (And … don’t get me started on the tunnel.) But a nearby landowner requested a permit for a large parking lot (he’s near two stadiums). The city basically said “Hey, that’s nice. Let’s seize his land -now-, while it’s valueless since it has nothing on it and no access (due to the way the -current- roads are). … And then build the parking lot. His plans look good though.”
Actually, the early lighthouses were private, too.
Rand,
Sorry, but beyond some cave critter building an occasional bonfire the early lighthouses were government projects.
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/pharos.htm
The Great Lighthouse at Alexandria
http://www.unmuseum.org/colrhode.htm
The Colossus of Rhodes
Efforts to build private lighthouses in England mostly ended with them going out of business, which is why the government took over.
Those are great points. You also have to wonder what the price of a privately built Hoover Dam would have been. Just as Musk went from PayPal to SpaceX, could there have been a Guilded Era Tycoon who would have built the Hoover Dam for a fraction of the cost.
Before endless government regulation and red tape, America used to be able to build things. They started construction on the Empire State Building on Jan 22, 1930 and the building opened on May 1, 1931. The cost was just under $41 million, which is about $625 million in 2014 dollars. Compare and contrast that with the new World Trade Center building.
Larry,
Also the Empire State building, like most of the skyscrapers of the time was a private venture. And with private ventures time is money…
Again, when its possible to make a profit, private firms will do it, but the business model simply won’t close for some infrastructure needs, which is when the government steps in.
Also the Empire State building, like most of the skyscrapers of the time was a private venture. And with private ventures time is money…
And with government ventures, “time is money” is often true. The more time, the more money. The Davis-Bacon Act makes that possible.