Falcon 1, The World's Lowest Cost Rocket to Orbit |
Falcon 1, The World's Lowest Cost Rocket to Orbit |
Nov 19 2005, 06:28 PM
Post
#1
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but here goes:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18353 http://www.spacex.com/ Looking forward to launch videos... -------------------- |
|
|
Mar 26 2006, 02:53 PM
Post
#2
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
I'd like to point out one or two things...
First, one reason SpaceX is having a really hard time getting these test flights in the air and proving out their engineering is they keep having to kludge together fixes and workarounds based on the lack of liquid oxygen on their base island. If part of "cheap access to LEO" is based on choosing not to develop *required* elements of infrastructure (like an oxygen liquification plant on the same land mass as your launch site), then that element of "savings" is not really valid. It's just a *deferred* expense. Second, from what little detail can be seen in the RealPlayer version of the launch video, I'll bet you any money that the thing failed because the jerry-rigged insulation blanket (that was supposed to be ripped off the rocket at launch, but wasn't) flew back against the motor housing (and into the engine plume) and ruptured a fuel line. If a NASA rocket had suffered a failure because some similar kludged-up fix had backfired, most of the people here urging patience with SpaceX's travails would be calling for the heads of the NASA managers who "ought to know better." What makes it OK for SpaceX *not* to know better? Is it because they're promising "cheap" access to space, so it's OK to cut corners? Hey, I want SpaceX to succeed as much as anyone here. But I've seen this many times before -- people loudly proclaiming that *they* know how to provide cheap access to space, only to utterly fail to deliver. Those who have succeeded to even a small degree have done so only by using second-hand military hardware that has already been proven to function and already been fault-tested by its manufacturers. I will call Scaled Composite's contributions to the field a success when they put something into orbit. It's one heck of a lot easier to do a stunt pop-up out of the sensible atmosphere, going relatively slowly, than it is to achieve orbit. So far, neither they nor SpaceX has shown me an ability to get anything as far as LEO, and the history of the industry tells me that no one has yet lived up to the vaporware they've tried to sell us. I guess this has just been a really long-winded way of saying I'll believe it when I see it, and not a moment before... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
|
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 22nd September 2024 - 09:47 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |