4 days ago, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 booster for the second time. It took them 1 year to refurbish it for re-launch, but their goal is to achieve a turnaround time of 24 hours.
This means they will be able to launch a rocket, re-fuel it and launch it again within 24 hours. The Falcon 9 rocket is designed to re-launch basically indefinitely. At least 100 times.
Of course it will take them a few years to get that far, but its fair to say this is a quantum leap for spaceflight technology. We now have re-usable rockets!
Also, are russians aware that their space program is basically screwed, just like ESA?
I'm pretty hyped about this stuff OP. SpaceX is doing some cool ass shit.
Austin Martinez
>tfw currently in interview process with spacex >new phd grad in EE from top-15 school >apply online >takes 4 months of working 2nd-degree linkedin connections to even get noticed >pass first round phone interview with recruiter >pass second round phone interview with engineer >pass third round phone interview with engineering manager >just turned in my 4th-round week-long take-home assignment >if i pass, the next round is the final round; an on-site interview
pray for me, Sup Forums
Jonathan Flores
inb4 marine lovers start crying about ocean noise pollution with these ear breaking loud rockets
Carson Jones
Good luck user-kun!
Luke Johnson
>Also, are russians aware that their space program is basically screwed, just like ESA Don't know avout the russians, but ESA is probably glad to have a low cost option. They are a research group and don't aim to profit on space lifts
Jaxson Phillips
ESA is not a launch service provider
Camden Stewart
As a mech eng i'm jealous af. Good luck user!
Nolan Jenkins
If you don't reply to this post with "Thank you ~xx~Pigeon_Master~xx~" you will fail to land a position at SpaceX.
Caleb Jackson
The falcon rockets are CGI
You'd have to be an idiot to think that those waffle things can direct something of that size coming in to land.
Fucking idot kids these days
Camden Torres
How much time and energy did you put so far in getting hired there? Why no one ever attempted that before? Was it too hard without today's level of computer programs?
Mason Hall
>tfw got a job offer from spacex >tfw turned it down to work at a comfy silicon valley company
i wonder how things would have been different
Brody Gutierrez
It still costs a fuck ton of monies to lunch a sat and set it to orbit.
Adrian Jones
wow I'm so hyped for what is basically an inferior Space Shuttle
good job elon
Gabriel James
This. Not to mention whatever fell in the cracks when the space went private and the government program """stopped""".
Fucking gee teenagers don't have a fucking clue about the world.
Julian Martin
*the space industry
Jack Young
space shuttle and virtually half of NASA's contracted industries are no more private than SpaceGoy.
SpaceGoy takes money from them just like Rocketdyne, Lockheed, Thiokol, etc.
this PR meme bullshit needs to stop.
Hudson Collins
>This means they will be able to launch a rocket, re-fuel it and launch it again within 24 hours.
unless it blows up on the launch pad ...
Liam Powell
Is there a reason why they are launching rockets from a barge out at sea? Isn't launching from solid ground easier?
Lucas Young
That was the landing.
Tyler Peterson
Reminder the Space Shuttle had 100% reusable engines
Reminder it actually turned out to be more expensive to do this than use expendable engines like the Russians do
Reminder this was the same idea they had with the shuttle, to reuse the engines and crew vehicle
Reminder it was a disaster and the shuttle cost over a billion dollars per launch
Turned out it was cheaper to make new engines on an assembly line than to have used engines painstakingly rebuilt by hand dealing with different issues on every engine after every launch to get them back to 100% human launch capable rockets
Reminder Musk only wants to reuse his engines a few times anyway, they are not infinitly reusable and very expensive parts must be replaced by techs who can certify the rebuilt engine is OK to be responsible for human lives
Reminder people have been saying the Russian space program is done for 40 years after the moon race..., during that time they have logged more man hours in orbit with more men/women astronauts and fewer fatalities than the USA
Reminder the USA has no way to put a man into orbit right now (and has not for many years) and relies on the Russians and their single use rockets to get to the space station
Reminder Elon can only figure out how to get back his first stage rocket, his second stage rocket will still be expendable... the space shuttle reused all it's rocket stages
mfw
Aaron Hill
>It still costs a fuck ton of monies to lunch a sat and set it to orbit.
this, just the fuel is millions of dollars per 150lb person
Caleb Nelson
>Is there a reason why they are launching rockets from a barge out at sea? Isn't launching from solid ground easier?
wow
Parker Rodriguez
>Of course it will take them a few years to get that far, but its fair to say this is a quantum leap for spaceflight technology. We now have re-usable rockets!
WOW IT'S 1977 ALL OVER AGAIN
When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg (approximately $27,000 per pound) to LEO.[5] This should be contrasted with the originally envisioned costs of $118 per pound of payload in 1972 dollars (approximately $657 per pound adjusting for inflation to 2013).[6]
The fuel for the entire space shuttle was like 1 million per launch, it's not a lot really
Owen Butler
>4 rounds and no offer yet You must really want it lol
Joseph Powell
disgusting feet desu
Thomas Adams
>When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg (approximately $27,000 per pound) to LEO.[5] This should be contrasted with the originally envisioned costs of $118 per pound of payload in 1972 dollars (approximately $657 per pound adjusting for inflation to 2013).[6] KEK it's literally happening all over again and everyone is falling for the reusable meme, again
Justin Green
>The fuel for the entire space shuttle was like 1 million per launch, it's not a lot really
That is not true if you take into account the expense of handling the fuel and managing it
Especially the solid rocket fuel for the boosters
Additionally this was what seduced people into the total reusable system back then, but overall the space shuttle cost more to get a pound of cargo to orbit than the russian non reusable system
largely due to the effects that fuel has on engines when they actually run, it tears them up and the rebuilds were costly, upkeep on the reusable orbiter was costly
reusing the rocket engine has been tried and it was not the magic cure to get teachers to space
Ryan Stewart
Well the current non reusable falcon 9 carries at $2000 per kg which is already 30 times more efficient than the shuttle. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the space shuttle was an idea simply too ambitious for that time. On top of that it was very inefficient because muh government program needs to make every state make one part. Nowadays the technology is just better, more durable materials are available and more powerful computers and faster mechatronics allow for more complex maneuvers (like landing a pencil shaped rocket on its base rather than landing like an airplane with massive heat shields)
Ian Gonzalez
The SSME (space shuttle main engines) were works of art. They operated at super high pressures, and they had unreal specific impulse. They were lightweight. They were also run at 105%-106% of their design thrust on a normal basis for a SS launch.
To run the turbo pumps most rocket engines burn some fuel with reduced oxygen (to drop the flame temps) then take that gas and run it though a turbine.
The SSME took the liquid hydrogen and 1st passed it around the hot nozzle to cool the nozzle. Then they allowed that hydrogen to expand, and that hot, expanded gas ran the turbopump. No wasted chemical energy to run the turbopump, just scavenged heat. (~30,000hp - number pulled from my ass)
tldr, the SSME was so expensive because it was a cutting edge Thoroughbred, not a Plain Jane 350 V8. It had to be completely refurbished after each launch because it was pushed so hard and was operated with very little design margin.
>>the space shuttle reused all it's rocket stages
it did throw away the main tank, not an inexpensive bit of kit.
Ayden Scott
>Well the current non reusable falcon 9 carries at $2000 per kg which is already 30 times more efficient than the shuttle.
can't compare
The falcon 9 is not currently man rated, you would have to compare cost to orbit to a freight non-man rated rocket like the Boeing delta series
launching a man rated vehicle on a man rated engine costs a fucton more than a cargo ship, the shit needed to keep men alive (that does not count as cargo) takes up a lot of weight and thus fuel
Connor Murphy
>It had to be completely refurbished after each launch because it was pushed so hard and was operated with very little design margin. Which is fucking retarded if you think about its use as a reusable engine.
I heard that by the hydrogen running through btw it would be possible to touch the engine on the outside running at full power without burning your hand. Not sure if this is just a myth or not
Jackson Richardson
>it did throw away the main tank, not an inexpensive bit of kit.
ACTUALLY it was inexpensive comparitivly and was designed to just be a big pressure vessle that would be discarded Spacex is throwing away it's whole second stage and fuel tank and rocket motor
not an inexpensive piece of kit
Luke Morris
What a waste of reaction mass.
Lucas Perez
>this is a quantum leap for spaceflight technology >quantum leap
Ayden Nelson
>Spacex is throwing away it's whole second stage and fuel tank and rocket motor >not an inexpensive piece of kit
Yes. What they are trying to do now is the best they can.
What finally killed the SS was that the entire concept was shit. Not only did its particular implementation never live up to cost expectations, but the ice and insulation shedding from the main tank always was a risk to the main vehicle.
I have always wondered: At one point they changed the foam insulation covering the main tank to get rid of the CFC's. Did this particular change compromise the foam's integrity?
That would be a fucking riot.
Owen Wright
That sounds like a ridiculous hiring method
Logan Carter
It would be such a shame if someone ... accidentally... created the Kessler Synrome...
Alexander Davis
>What finally killed the SS was that the entire concept was shit. Not only did its particular implementation never live up to cost expectations, but the ice and insulation shedding from the main tank always was a risk to the main vehicle.
If you look at the original engineering estimates and requirements for the shuttle it shows just what a failure it was, they were supposed to launch a shuttle every 2 or 3 weeks year round, it was supposded to get the price down so low that regular people could ride it, It was supposed to cost like half a billion per year for the whole program, not 1.5 billion per launch with a turnaround time of 6 to 9 months
As and oldfag who remembers all this (remember the canceled 2 trips to the moon to move along with the shuttle, the shuttle came on the heels of the success of Apollo) it just strikes me how Spacex is basically promising the exact same shit for the exact same reasons as the shuttle program promised int he late 70s.
Musk has not yet lost people in space, he has not lost a major billion dollar DARPA sat or anything like that. Those setbacks are inevitable and when they happen so much bureaucracy and redundancy goes into fixing them to get back to flight after killing people that it will triple his cost per pound of payload to orbit. All the other players have learned this lesson the hard way, Musk will too.
It's not the cost of fuel and the cost of the engine that kills you, it's the entire program apparatus around a "safe" human spaceflight program that does you in price wise
Owen Kelly
>the goyim fell for the balding old man while the military has had tr3b for decades
Isaiah Thomas
Five shuttles were built, Two blew up and killed everyone inside. Not a good success rate.
Mason Peterson
I suspect that the risk profile for spaceX will be different. NASA tries to be perfect. In spite of that about 1-2% of every rocket launches kill their crew (every nation combined). It is the most dangerous occupation.
People are fully willing to die in a journey to Mars for example. Hell, the first woman in space (Russian) is willing to go on a one way trip to Mars. The risk profile that NASA wants to have is absurd. Because NASA and the space program is ostensibly a national treasure, and so much political weight is put behind not slaughtering a bunch of national heroes (or spam in the can), safety and risk management have gotten out of hand.
What were the odds of survival of the first people crossing the Atlantic? Not great. Yet they got on with it.
Jacob King
Everything I hear about the work ethic there is you put in 90 hours a week and you love it or you quit.
Jackson Green
NASA is willing to take big risks when trying to go to the moon or mars, but not when trying to take some engineer to LEO and the space station, which is where we are now.
I don't know if Spacex will really get to take US Astronauts into orbit, but I suspect that Orion will be run and managed by nasa
if musk starts getting space tourists killed at the 2% rate it will put him out of business IMO
Camden Lopez
You sound like an intel shill
Landon Bailey
>if musk starts getting space tourists killed at the 2% rate it will put him out of business IMO
Hang with me here: SpaceX is the single most valuable company right now on the planet. Not because of what they have right now, it is because of what they will/may become. The opportunities to create LEO private satellite internet. global coverage. low latency. This one company has the tools and technology to replace every single communications company on the planet and get a monthly fee from everybody on the planet.
No shit, they are working hard on the Interplanetary Transport System. This hardware is insane.
They expect a launch to mars with the Falcon Heavy by 2020. They expect to privately land a craft on mars.
All of the resources of the entire solar system are in the reach of being tapped by a single company led by a guy that just wants to kick ass and take names.
NASA, the Russians, Boeing; they are all punks.
This single company has the potential to be "The Company" from the alien/aliens movies.
Amazing potential, and being privately held so they don't have to answer to shareholders right now.
Asher Flores
Sup Forumsentooman in spacex?
Ian Roberts
...
Jacob Cruz
luck user!
John Parker
...
Hunter Jones
...
Christian Clark
>The opportunities to create LEO private satellite internet. global coverage. low latency. This one company has the tools and technology to replace every single communications company on the planet and get a monthly fee from everybody on the planet.
It would be amazing if they did this and it is within their means, they should focus on this. But that makes them a telecom company.
>They expect a launch to mars with the Falcon Heavy by 2020. They expect to privately land a craft on mars.
They might land a rover by 2020 but taking people to mars is a long way off and would require everyone (nasa ATK, lockhead etc... all working together) Go look at how many companies were involved in the moonshot, they had literally 100,000 engineers employed at one point, it would require that kind of effort, spacex can't pull it off alone and with no expected direct profit return
I don't hate spacex or anything, but I have heard their line of reasoning before and it did not work out. Running deliveries to the space station of cargo and putting sats in orbit are what they do, they have never put a human into LEO, they should put a human into LEO or land a man on the moon before they start talking smack about colonizing mars in the next 20 years
Angel Harris
...
Logan King
ummm that does look like cgi?
Josiah Torres
>Not knowing the benefits of waffle fins >Implying it's not a mostly empty aluminum can at that point >Hurr durr what is torque
Same reason you don't get a new car when all you need is an oil change.
Chase Johnson
>NASA, the Russians, Boeing; they are all punks. >This single company has the potential to be "The Company" from the alien/aliens movies.
Literally all spacex does is deliver supplies to the space station (built by NASA mainly). They are a cargo delivery company, that's all. NASA puts rovers on mars and operates Hubble and the ISS, spacex literally takes out the garbage from the ISS, delivery of cargo and garbage removal, that's their thing.
I don't think it's time to write of NASA and the Russians just yet
Christopher Cooper
Are you retarded?
Noah Walker
>It would be amazing if they did this and it is within their means, they should focus on this. But that makes them a telecom company.
They are working on it, I think with google. Maybe a year or two ago it was in the news. They basically are going to have lots of rockets (?how many have they landed?) These things are now already paid for, and can launch satellites for the company itself. Even if a used rocket could never be man-rated, it can launch lots of satellites.
>>I don't hate spacex or anything, but I have heard their line of reasoning before and it did not work out.
The only reason they have not already launched people is they are working on improving the safety of the systems enough to satisfy NASA. Their rockets are already much better than anything used to launch the first people.
Watch this video (99% sure this is the right one). It almost seems like a bunch of sci-fi bullshit until the end, when they show hardware. youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg
They are much further along the design and engineering than their launch manifest would indicate.
Carson Turner
I know about their internet LEO constellation promises, I keep up with space news
>The only reason they have not already launched people is they are working on improving the safety of the systems enough to satisfy NASA. Their rockets are already much better than anything used to launch the first people.
not much of a measure of safety as the first rockets were converted ICBM boosters flown by military test pilots who knew they might die
They just lost a rocket last year, I don't think spacex is going to beat that 1-2% death rate
But where is the money to get to mars going to come from? Let's say you have to employ 100,000 engineers for 5 years and then build the space ship, and your target market is people who want to die on mars, there is no direct profit in it for them, how can they spend 500billion dollars on a trip to mars with no return?
That is the kind of thing governments and nations do
Ryder Long
>Watch this video (99% sure this is the right one)
That's the right video, see the ~1:20 mark
Hunter Martinez
musk is so pretentious, he's the steve jobs of space except he makes wild claims and does not deliver
Brandon Allen
Good luck user!
Isaiah Jackson
Sounds to me like SpaceX will only hire people who are willing to put the work in. Not a bad thing.
William Long
>But where is the money to get to mars going to come from?
I think a lot of the $$ will come from governments and nations. Musk can say, to NASA and anybody else, "we are going to do this with or without you, do you want to be a part of it?" You would have to be a total fool to say no.
NASA struggles to do anything beyond probes on time and under budget. If Musk has a massive rocket ready, one big enough to take people beyond Mars, do you really think Congress is going to say no?
That rocket could have a big NASA painted on the side (right below SpaceX) or not. Do you think NASA is going to say no?
I think the real market is going to be colonization and materials. Once you get a colony established for whatever reason, you need a lot of cargo going back and forth.
Jaxson Turner
Looks flat to me.
Eli Robinson
good post
If you call SpaceX a cargo delivery company then so is NASA, so are the Russians, just biological cargo. Basically your argument is bullshit because USA could not even get to the Space Station without Russian rockets. NASA buys Soyuz rockets to get people to and from ISS, that means your tax dollars are funding the Russian rocket industry. Not sure why you're so willing to shit on the only USA based company that can build a rocket to get to the ISS?
Brody Hughes
Good luck user! You are going to make the space industry great again.
Aiden Garcia
attempt what before? Getting hired by spaceX or sending rockets repeatedly into space?
if it's the latter, because they don't care about efficiency or saving materials
Brody Turner
God willing
Ayden Rivera
be sure to leak us awesome info
Elijah Clark
>I think a lot of the $$ will come from governments and nations. Musk can say, to NASA and anybody else, "we are going to do this with or without you, do you want to be a part of it?"
no he really can't, he does not have the capital
You know the Space Launch System is going on right?
Musk is a master marketer but the idea that NASA is full of punks and the Rrussians don't know what they are doing is laughable
NASA's budget is 18 billion dollars per year, musk makes most of his money taking out their trash, he will never have tens of billions of dollars to play with without having to show a return on investment, but that's what NASA can do
Zachary Howard
Yeah the guy is a hell of a salesmen, but landing a rocket on its ass in the middle of the ocean is batshit insane. Do you think NASA or Boeing would EVER have even tried this? Not a fucking chance. Too much risk of failure. Those organizations are allergic to failure, and yet failure is required for success.
Parker Gray
>If you call SpaceX a cargo delivery company then so is NASA, so are the Russians, just biological cargo. Basically your argument is bullshit because USA could not even get to the Space Station without Russian rockets. NASA buys Soyuz rockets to get people to and from ISS, that means your tax dollars are funding the Russian rocket industry. Not sure why you're so willing to shit on the only USA based company that can build a rocket to get to the ISS?
Delivering human cargo may be a privilege musk never earns
humans are not cargo, conflating cargo success with having man capable systems is foolhardy at best and disingenuous at worst
Gabriel Evans
>Yeah the guy is a hell of a salesmen, but landing a rocket on its ass in the middle of the ocean is batshit insane. Do you think NASA or Boeing would EVER have even tried this? Not a fucking chance. Too much risk of failure. Those organizations are allergic to failure, and yet failure is required for success.
ATK Ratheon and Boeing built the space shuttle
they are not immune or allergic to faluire
Connor Wood
Which group is stranger. The one that thinks Elon Musk is a super human sent by god to save humanity or the one that thinks he's literally a low IQ / Steve Jobs type who doesn't known anything about math science and engineering?
Adam Phillips
>or the one that thinks he's literally a low IQ / Steve Jobs type who doesn't known anything about math science and engineering?
I don't think that, I think he is grandiose and so far from sending men to mars that it's comical to hear him talk about it happening anytime soon
he's no idiot but he has drank his own kool aid
The people who like him have no idea what NASA does or how much work goes into it, the group writing off nasa as a bunch of fags lumped with boeing who never did anything and the Russians who are fools is the worst group imo
Bentley Nguyen
>you need a lot of cargo going back and forth.
You need a lot of cargo going there and hardly any going back. As elon put it, you could have pre-packaged pallets of crack cocaine and it would still not be profitable to send it back; output of mars will be for mars exclusively. This is not including humans and research materials which will surely be sent back.
The main output of Mars will be software. That is the only export of Mars that will make sense to send back. And Martians (that is, people who are from Earth who live on Mars) will be writing a fuck ton of software, I guarantee it.
Why does our software on Earth suck? Because we're suckers for convenience: You pick convenient software (Windows) to use, and it becomes supported; you don't study harder because it's easier to jerk off and get high, and so our engineers write worse softaware; we work for oil companies or government or other subsidized industries, where the quality of the software doesn't matter, and so we produce bad software AND let our skills decline.
These are kind of hand-wavey (very hand-wavey) reasons, but I feel like the intense resource constraints that Martians will endure is going to help us produce some insanely good software. We don't have as much energy, compute power, sure. But also we don't have wide open spaces, freedom of picking our foods, we could die anytime, our systems could leave us open to radiation poisoning or without water, or stranded without a fuel refinery/factory. The intense restrictions on human and compute resources will produce better software, just like the intense competition for mates on Earth produces Humans through evolution.
I surmise that AI revolution and Mars colonization will come around the same time
Levi Richardson
>something might never happen >humans are not cargo, you're foolhardy etc Try telling a ferry operator or Boeing that humans aren't cargo.
Austin Gomez
>no he really can't, he does not have the capital
I think he is going to get the capital from satellite internet eventually.
He just about has the capability to own the entire global market for satellite launches. Except for nation states that might refuse to launch on his system out of pride, his operating costs are what, 1/5; 1/10th of anybody elses. That money is pure fucking profit. He drops the price of a 'launch tested' rocket by 30%, the insurance rates to up by 20%, the customer is still super happy even if it has a slightly higher chance of blowing up.
Nobody can match the dude on $/lb to orbit. He will have a stream of $$$ to plow into R&D as he sees fit.
The SLS is only going to be bigger than the Saturn V in its later revisions. The Saturn V put I think like 140 or 150 tons in LEO once. The SLS is going to start out at ?70? tons IIRC.
Hell, NASA can't even fund mission to put on the SLS. Maybe what, one launch a year? Musk is going to be recycling most of the falcon heavy each launch.
Anthony Morris
>I think the real market is going to be colonization and materials. Once you get a colony established for whatever reason, you need a lot of cargo going back and forth.
?
they are going to need food and water and machines and computers and rockets and other heavy shit, what are they going to send back? rocks?
how big will the colony be? 50 people? that's not going to pay us back for the trillion dollars it will take to land them there
Austin Flores
He needs to deliver on the internet thing and then put one person in orbit one time, then start talking the far fetched "we mars now" shit he talks
Parker Campbell
>Also, are russians aware that their space program is basically screwed, just like ESA?
Russians won't move their arses until thunder strikes.
Jordan Stewart
>ATK Ratheon and Boeing built the space shuttle >they are not immune or allergic to faluire
No shit, they fail. Failure is going to happen. They engineer business systems to avoid something that could not be avoided and all they do is spend more $$$ and operate slower.
All they really want is a bullshit front to say, "well we did everything we could have done to prevent it"
Asher Jones
>All they really want is a bullshit front to say, "well we did everything we could have done to prevent it"
That front comes in engineering studies and all kinds of committees and shit that cost literally billions of dollars
carrying humans drives up the cost
ask richard branson about be caviler regarding putting humans in space
you don't hear about his shit anymore do you? one day musk will fuck up like that and his company will become boeing or LM, it's just the way it works
Austin Powell
>what are they going to send back? rocks?
Footlockers full of gold, platinum, rare earth minerals.
Humans have been scraping the best part of the earth away for a thousand years. Can you imagine being the first gold miner in California? You can't turn over a bolder without finding a nugget.
A virgin planet is just sitting there that has never been seen by a prospector.
Adam Mitchell
I think that this post is OK, poster clearly appreciates the work that goes into rocketry, how hard it is, etc. Those are good things, which are better than their opposites, arrogance and foolishness. This user has learned the lesson of humility and to be cautious with taking risks.
But perhaps you are making the mistake of thinking it's too hard - What if rocketry can be re-invented and made more reliable and cheaper, so that we can get to Mars? Your claim is that it's simply too hard, but you might have learned the wrong lesson in that you take too little risk and don't try hard enough. Peter Thiel (I know, I'm name dropping a bit too much) talks about how you can learn the following unique lessons:
1. Something is doable, and you just have to try hard enough, when it is actually impossible 2. Something is too hard, and you can't do it no matter how hard you try, when the thing is actually possible 3. Something is doable, and you just have to try hard enough, when that thing is actually possible.
Elon and SpaceX are in category 3 and this poster is in category 2. No shame on him, better to be in category 2 than category 3 most times and end up like Terry Davis, but still he is wrong.
Ethan Rodriguez
You could launch solid gold from mars to earth and lose a million dollars a pound, you have no idea how expensive this shit is
Chase Hill
>But perhaps you are making the mistake of thinking it's too hard - What if rocketry can be re-invented and made more reliable and cheaper, so that we can get to Mars? Your claim is that it's simply too hard,
I am not saying it's "too hard" to do, I am saying it's "too hard" for musk to do alone while wearing a cape and giving the finger to NASA
Ethan Roberts
I am the guy you are talking about, I am in category 3 firmly, we have the tech to go to mars right now if we wanted to, but the nation is not behind it like they were for the moon
we lack the national will to fund a trip to mars at this time
Isaac Mitchell
Branson sure is happy for a guy whose space ship blew up and killed a guy
David Morales
>inferior The Space Shuttle never worked correctly. It was supposed to be a gas-and-go spaceplane but instead it had to be completely rebuilt after every flight. Each of the shuttles was like a Ship of Theseus. It was meant to be the cheapest flight system in the world and ended up as the most expensive - half a billion dollars for every launch.
The Falcon 9 may be the first launch system to fulfill the original Space Shuttle's design promise - a ship that can fly into space, send off its payload, fly back to earth, get refueled and fly right back into space again.
Evan Bailey
>after replacing the whole second stage and rocket
it's not totally reusable user
Nathaniel Ortiz
if you think a nation is needed for colonization of Mars, you are mistaken
we need the entirety of -humanity- behind it, at least first world countries with the ability to go into space. dividing ourselves into nations does not help our cause to colonize space.
i've always said reluctantly that space travel and colonization is a meme. it's simply not possible unless we cooperate.
Nolan Torres
You're right, of course. Then again, the first stage is a big enough deal in and of itself that it means a $62 million launch now costs $40 million.
Maybe it won't be possible to revise this design to recover the second stage, but that means we're stepping towards a design that can be.
