[HN Gopher] Crew Dragon Docks with ISS
___________________________________________________________________
Crew Dragon Docks with ISS
Author : Kaibeezy
Score : 374 points
Date : 2020-05-31 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spacenews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (spacenews.com)
| _ah wrote:
| I am so excited by this achievement, and offer hearty
| congratulations to SpaceX and NASA.
|
| That said, I think that everyone anticipating a dramatic
| reduction in orbital cost needs to temper their enthusiasm a bit.
| UAL was expensive, as many other have previously noted, because
| it was a political jobs program. The _existence of UAL_ gave the
| necessary cover for Musk & Co to envision radically more
| efficient designs.
|
| However, that was then. As SpaceX continues to succeed, it will
| be harder to justify continued funding of UAL at the previous
| levels. Costs will be cut. People will cheer. And then, a well-
| meaning congressperson or two (with their eye on re-election)
| will introduce a rider onto the next funding bill: "Yes we want
| these great launch capabilities, but at least $1B must be spent
| within the state of Alabama" (or whatever).
|
| This will work for a little while, but then more members of
| congress will jump on the gravy train. In order for SpaceX to
| maintain their launch contracts they will need to perform more
| and more work in distributed places. This will result in reduced
| organizational efficiency and increased launch cost.
|
| The big opportunity here is commercial launch. If SpaceX can grow
| their civilian and international order book enough, they become
| less beholden to the US Govt and can push back on make-work
| contract requirements. But if not... I await their inevitable
| induction into UAL v2.
| hinkley wrote:
| I recall Elon was hoping to get an order of magnitude reduction
| in cost per launch, but Wikipedia claims it costs $160 million
| per launch versus the Soyuz price of $76 million per astronaut.
| That would "only" be a 3x reduction with a crew of seven, but
| they've configured for a crew of four, which is a hair under 2x.
|
| I wonder how reuse affects the math, and what they'll be able to
| do to lower those prices further. Obviously the optics on getting
| a domestic launch for half the price makes it an easy sale for
| Congress, but we were all hoping for more. An order of magnitude
| reduction might have gotten us 20x as many launches.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Worth noting that Dragon also carries tons of cargo, whereas
| the Soyuz "sticker price" is for just a seat.
| olex wrote:
| NASA has also so far insisted on only flying on new (unflown)
| boosters and only using freshly built Crew Dragon capsules.
| Both of those are able to refly multiple times, reducing
| costs further, once their reliability is sufficiently proven
| for NASA certification standards.
| avian wrote:
| > Dragon also carries tons of cargo
|
| Does it? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the
| "trunk" section will be mostly empty on crewed vehicles.
|
| It makes sense. We've seen that Dragon aborts with the trunk
| attached for aerodynamic reasons. It seems likely that
| hauling a bunch of cargo together with an escaping crewed
| capsule isn't feasible.
|
| You could also see that during the Demo-2 launch stream when
| the Dragon separated from the upper stage. There was a short
| segment where camera from the stage showed the underside of
| the Dragon and you could see that it was mostly just empty
| space inside.
| joshvm wrote:
| During an abort they would dump the service module, which
| is where the unpressurised cargo is stored.
| IdontRememberIt wrote:
| Could not find back the values. By memory (USD/kg), Soyuz is
| 20k, (futur launcher) ESA 5k or 8k, and SpaceX 2K. (Can someone
| confirm?)
|
| Whatever the values, what are interesting are the magnitudes.
| fma wrote:
| Per this interview in 2012:
|
| "There were times when I thought he was off his rocker,"
| Mueller confesses. "When I first met him, he said, 'How much do
| you think we can get the cost of an engine down, compared to
| what you were predicting they'd cost at TRW?' I said, 'Oh,
| probably a factor of three.' He said, 'We need a factor of 10.'
| I thought, 'That's kind of crazy.' But in the end, we're closer
| to his number!
|
| https://www.airspacemag.com/space/is-spacex-changing-the-roc...
|
| This is in response to the engine. Maybe they got the engine
| price 10x cheaper, but the other components not so much?
| marvin wrote:
| Well, we don't know what it costs SpaceX to do these launches.
| We only know what NASA pays.
|
| SpaceX could have very nice margins.
| hinkley wrote:
| Wikipedia is either wrong or out of date but the ratios are
| slightly worse at 40% cheaper than Soyuz:
|
| https://www.space.com/spacex-boeing-commercial-crew-seat-pri...
|
| > NASA will likely pay about $90 million for each astronaut who
| flies aboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule on
| International Space Station (ISS) missions, the report
| estimated. The per-seat cost for SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule,
| meanwhile, will be around $55 million, according to the OIG's
| calculations.
|
| > To put those costs into perspective: NASA currently pays
| about $86 million for each seat aboard Russia's three-person
| Soyuz spacecraft, which has been astronauts' only ride to and
| from the ISS since NASA's space shuttle fleet was grounded in
| July 2011.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| If they filled the dragon to its capacity of 7 it would be
| closer. I believe hearing that NASA will only use up to 4
| seats.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It would be interesting if they made a seven person variant
| to serve as the long overdue lifeboat on ISS.
| bkanber wrote:
| I read once that a lot of the cost NASA pays per astronaut is
| there to manage the overhead of all the bureaucratic stuff and
| extra regulations required for sending a NASA astronaut up. I
| believe that it is (/ will be) cheaper per seat for citizen
| space tourists.
| tomp wrote:
| I'm guessing the current price has to pay for a whole new
| rocket, as NASA probably won't use a used ("flight-proven") one
| for humans.
|
| Eventually I expect used ones to be not only cheaper, but also
| more reliable. Like for (water)ships - they say "it's new after
| you've owned it for a year", the implication being that you
| spend the first year discovering and fixing manufacturing
| defects.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| What happens to the rockets after they're flown for a single
| mission? Do they belong to SpaceX for later re-use in
| commercial cargo missions, or does NASA own them?
| saberdancer wrote:
| NASA pays for the mission, transport XY amount of tonnage
| to the ISS. The rocket remains owned by SpaceX. In majority
| of situations, owning a rocket means little as it cannot be
| reused. Also very few customers have the means to "run" a
| rocket, NASA fits the bill and it's conceivable NASA could
| buy a F9 and use it after quite a bit of training, but this
| makes little sense for them and little sense for SpaceX.
| arrrg wrote:
| I think you might be confusing price and cost.
|
| What NASA pays doesn't necessarily reflect the cost since we do
| not know the margins.
|
| However, I do agree that it's valuable to be skeptical of
| unproven claims regarding cost reduction, though most of what
| we say is that we do not know much about the current real cost.
| loufe wrote:
| I would be interested to see the quote. Was he hoping for a
| 10-fold drop right off the bat for the first mission or rather
| for that drop "a un moment donne". I imagine the costs will
| continue to go down with time for the base model as things
| become more reusable, R&D costs drop, and more business comes
| their way.
| orisho wrote:
| They mentioned something about the suit pressure for one of them
| being lower than expected and asked them to check for "white
| teeth" on 3 zippers, which they reported seeing on all 3. Can
| anyone explain what that is?
| rtkwe wrote:
| They did a leak check and one of their suits wasn't 100% sealed
| so it had a lower pressure differential to the capsule during
| their tests meaning there was a seal that wasn't completely
| sealed. The teeth thing is that they use different colored
| teeth on zippers so they can see visually when they've closed
| the zipper fully. They said it was still within the margin of
| keeping them protected during an emergency though.
| anewdirection wrote:
| If the suits are pressurized more than the environment,
| escaping gasses often cause moisture or frost to form at the
| point of escape due to differential cooling condenstion. Could
| that be what they were seeing?
| scrumbledober wrote:
| Sounds like when the zippers are fully closed the white teeth
| of the zipper should be covered by the seal around the zipper.
| If any teeth are visible the seal is not complete.
| hinkley wrote:
| Or perhaps the seal is behind the zipper and high contrast.
| hinkley wrote:
| I thought maybe they put some sort of chemistry into the zipper
| to detect gasses and change colors, but I can't get google to
| cooperate. And what gas in the suit isn't already in the cabin?
| hansoolo wrote:
| Why is it such a big deal this time? Don't the Russians fly to
| ISS all the time?
| djhworld wrote:
| Few reasons, it's been 9 years since the last crewed spacecraft
| took off from American soil.
|
| Second reason is this is the first time the spacecraft has been
| built and run by a commercial company (spacex)
| hansoolo wrote:
| For me (as a European) it is mainly exceptional because of
| the SpaceX effort. It just appeared to me as if it was
| something America was proud of, because they invented space
| flight or something, which they didn't. It's just never
| "celebrated" anywhere when the Russians fly to space over and
| over.
| saberdancer wrote:
| It's a capability NASA lost and is not close to achieving, it's
| a feel good story for USA, it's a really nice thing to improve
| competition in crewed launch space allowing NASA to go further
| with bigger missions (Moon and Mars).
| hansoolo wrote:
| Feel good story nails it imo. Not just for the US, for the
| "West" it seems...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Yes, it seems they do - I assume that the fact all other
| countries relied on Russia for the last decade to ferry
| astronauts and cosmonauts to ISS doesn't fit with the narrative
| of them being the sworn enemy of the West?
| hansoolo wrote:
| Yup, exactly my thoughts...
| swimfar wrote:
| SpaceX Live Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIZsnKGV8TE
|
| Docking begins to occur around 3:10PM GMT in the video. This link
| may send you to that point:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIZsnKGV8TE&t=695m0s
|
| Is there an easy way to link to a specific time in live videos? I
| had to manually play around with the time to find the right
| point.
| cletus wrote:
| So when seeing this I had two questions, one of which I've found
| the answer to, one of which still remains a mystery.
|
| 1. Why only two astronauts? and
|
| 2. How much is Crew Dragon costing?
|
| For (1), it's stated [1] that Crew Dragon has a capacity of seven
| astronauts but only 4 for NASA? How does that work? Does that
| mean the NASA configuration only has 4 seats? I found this [2]
| saying seats 1 and 4 were empty.
|
| Why not 4 astronauts? The answer seems to be that this is
| technically a test flight (Crew Demo-2). Passing this will fully
| certify Dragon. I guess it's better to risk 2 astronauts than 4.
| It probably also depends how many people you want to have on the
| ISS.
|
| As for (2), I found this [3], which states the cost at $55m per
| astronaut. This seems... high? A full complement of 4 would cost
| $210m. Falcon 9 launches cost a fraction of that. Even Falcon
| Heavy is ~$90m.
|
| For some reason I thought SpaceX was enabling sending up 7
| astronauts for <$100m.
|
| Compared to Soyuz [4], which cost NASA $80m/astronaut, that's a
| saving but not as much as I would've thought.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_2
|
| [2]: https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/05/30/all-
| aboard-...
|
| [3]: https://www.space.com/spacex-boeing-commercial-crew-seat-
| pri...
|
| [4]: https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-launched-two-
| astronauts-c...
| blueblisters wrote:
| Yeah the per astronaut cost will still keep human spaceflight
| an R&D and tourism project. I, for one, was hoping we would get
| to see some things being done in space that are currently too
| expensive on earth (like superclean vacuums) or need
| microgravity.
| ape4 wrote:
| Minimum number of astronauts in case of disaster
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| > _Why not 4 astronauts?_
|
| You've been in the teamwork game a long time, right? You know
| that each new team member added to a team does something like
| double or quadruple communication overhead. They're trying to
| work out the kinks - they're going to with a small team of
| experienced people to stay focused.
|
| There's probably also a limit to how many people they want to
| keep track of on ISS, like you said. It's also less risky like
| you said - you need two people in case one gets incapacitated,
| and also for psychological support, but you don't want to risk
| any more people on the maiden voyage than you have to.
|
| > _Compared to Soyuz [4], which cost NASA $80m /astronaut,
| that's a saving but not as much as I would've thought._
|
| There's more to it than costs. We now have the agency to launch
| as many astronauts as we want, when we want, rather than
| filling in a vacant seat the Russians have. Something not
| considered in just costs is we can also charge other nations
| for rides on our rockets, and as long as it's less than $80m,
| we'll make profits and it'll be a win for those nations who'd
| normally ride on Soyuz.
| walshemj wrote:
| Reduces risk for the first flight
| InTheArena wrote:
| Edited - wrong number of seats for the next mission.
|
| NASA asked SpaceX to change the configuration of the capsule to
| only support 4 astronauts for two reasons. The first is that
| they wanted a more mellow Load profile on the passengers in the
| case of a high-altitude (almost orbit) abort, so they wanted
| the seats in a different position. The first design had the
| seats fixed, and the screen pivoting down above them. This
| design has the seats pivoting, and the screen fixed. It also
| drops the maximum crew from 7 to 4. I'm not sure if SpaceX will
| use the larger configuration for their own private
| configurations.
|
| The other reason is that seven is a lot, and NASA doesn't plan
| on sending that many up on a single mission.
|
| Seats 1 and four are empty on this mission. For future missions
| that only have three they will remove the extra seat. That
| said, the capsule seems amazingly spacious, for being a
| capsule.
|
| As far as costing, the contract was written similar to how NASA
| pays the Russians (though that number is upwards of 87 million
| per seat right now). SpaceX itself owns the rockets and the
| spacecraft - not NASA. Think of it as a airline seat.
|
| Finally, the vast majority of cost at this point are not the
| hardware - but rather the cost of complying with NASA's
| testing. Everyone was assuming that NASA would do what they did
| with commercial cargo, and simply expect the cargo to show up
| with a minimal number of design reviews. With commercial crew,
| NASA took a much more proactive approach which led to a
| complete redesign of the capsule (SpaceX's original plan was
| simply to reuse cargo), plus many many many design reviews.
|
| Finally SpaceX has full pricing control right now. SpaceX is
| running some pretty massive margins (from what I have heard) on
| everything - but they are flushing all of that money into the
| goal of getting starship and spaceship and their insane next
| generation engine up, as well as starlink. They have
| deliberately only lowered their costs below their competitors,
| soaking margin for a while.
| _Microft wrote:
| Crew-1 is flying four astronauts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCV-1
| ape4 wrote:
| Watching now.. they were unable to get the "hard line" voice
| working. VOIP?
| yellowapple wrote:
| Considering how long the ISS has been up there, it could be
| POTS or something similarly-analog. Dragon-ISS was clear, but
| ISS-Dragon was not, making me think that maybe there's some
| wire or connector in the latter direction that's shoddy (and
| that'd be more common for analog/POTS than digital/VOIP, where
| such garbling would be bidirectional and/or nothing would be
| heard on either end).
|
| Then again, I ain't exactly a space telecom engineer, so what
| do I know? ;)
|
| They've since switched back to RF, so apparently it ain't the
| end of the world.
| ape4 wrote:
| Makes sense. They just fixed the hard line
| yellowapple wrote:
| Was that the hardline or did they reroute through RF and/or
| "Big Loop"? I heard the loud and clear (and earlier about
| the cameras possibly interfering) but missed if that loud
| and clear was through the hardline.
| ape4 wrote:
| Sorry dont know. Did hear mention of big loop
| zoomablemind wrote:
| Probably a comm channel in the umbilical, kinda 'landline'. I'd
| assume the radio comm should be operational.
| 205guy wrote:
| Am I the only one who can hear the Blue Danube Waltz just
| thinking about Dragon docking at the ISS?
|
| https://youtu.be/0ZoSYsNADtY?t=210
| MobileVet wrote:
| Hatch opening scheduled for approximately 12:30pm EDT
|
| Edit: time slipping
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| What's with the gradient shadow? The space station shadow crossed
| the module, and it was blurry. I thought shadows in space were
| knife-sharp. The nose-cone shadow was.
|
| Its not the stream resolution, is it? Other knife-sharp features
| were visible.
|
| Maybe the space station is fuzzy? Maybe the module material blurs
| shadows? What am I missing?
| mkl wrote:
| Where do you mean? If it's a shadow caused by the light of the
| Earth it will be very fuzzy due to the size of the light
| source. Even shadows from the sun will be fuzzy if the
| shadowing object isn't close to the shadowed surface, as the
| sun is no further away than on Earth, and hence much bigger
| than the point light source needed for perfectly sharp shadows.
|
| If you mean the contrast between lit and shadowed areas, LEO is
| quite different from e.g. the moon, as even though it's out of
| the atmosphere, there's a lot of ambient light from the huge
| close Earth below.
| [deleted]
| colordrops wrote:
| shadows are not blurry because of atmosphere. It's because of
| non-point light sources. The sun is not a point, but a disc.
| pygy_ wrote:
| Shadows are blurry unless the source is a point. The gradient
| is the part of the shadow where the source is partially
| occluded.
| teraflop wrote:
| Shadows in space aren't, in general, any sharper than on Earth.
| The "penumbra" of a shadow -- the blurry, partially-shaded
| region -- is basically a simple geometric effect, caused by the
| light source being partially obscured. The penumbra's size is
| approximately equal to the product of the light source's
| angular size and the distance from the shadow-casting object to
| the illuminated surface. (Diffraction has some effect as well,
| but only on very small scales that aren't particularly relevant
| here.)
|
| The sun has almost exactly the same apparent angular size from
| either Earth's surface or LEO, because it's almost exactly the
| same distance away. But since that angular size is only about
| half a degree, shadows observed _at short distances_ appear
| fairly sharp, either on Earth or in space.
|
| What you may be thinking of is that, in many cases, shadows are
| _darker_ in space, because the _sky_ is dark, even in broad
| daylight. There 's no atmospheric scattering to provide
| indirect, ambient illumination of regions that are shaded from
| direct sunlight. But there can still be indirect lighting from
| other surfaces.
|
| For example, in photos of Apollo astronauts on the moon, shaded
| regions of the astronauts' spacesuits are still fairly-well
| illuminated by light bouncing off the lunar surface. But
| shadowed regions of the surface itself appear almost pitch-
| black, because the only thing they can "see" is the dark sky.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| "flew exactly like the simulators"
| gpm wrote:
| They did complain about the thermal camera cutting out as the
| thrusters fired in real life and not in the simulator at one
| point. Was that fixed in the later test?
| bkanber wrote:
| I thought what I heard is that the thermal cameras did cut
| out even in the sim, but that on-ship they cut out
| differently. My assumption is that this is something that
| gets fixed on the ground.
| jtdev wrote:
| How much AI/ML do you think is running on the software associated
| with this launch and docking? I suspect there's a great deal of
| very explicit, well tested code, but very little AI/ML.
| moftz wrote:
| Very little in terms of what you would consider AI or ML. It's
| a lot of trig and control theory. You do a lot of the math
| beforehand to figure out the script the craft will follow to
| reach the ISS. Once it gets close, you either use manual
| controls or let autopilot do the docking. The autopilot is
| basically looking some dots on a camera and firing the
| thrusters to make the dots line up right. It's more like a dumb
| PID controller than an AI. The autopilot isn't learning
| anything or somehow making connections that weren't already
| programmed. This is all stuff NASA figured out how to do in the
| 60s so it's nothing novel except for the mission and the
| hardware the math is done on.
| landa wrote:
| What you wrote is what I would have _guessed_. Are you also
| guessing or do you know for sure? It sounds right, but I 'm
| very curious about the actual answer to this question.
| bkanber wrote:
| I don't work in the industry, but I have the training, and
| can confirm what he said. No AI or ML. We use a combination
| of closed-form solutions and deterministic numerical
| analyses. There is no actual need for AI or ML in this
| problem domain, outside of perhaps the design phase.
| Sometimes dynamic programming and some ML techniques are
| used when, I dunno, figuring out the best configuration for
| an antenna or profile of a nozzle. But flight dynamics and
| control do not need AI, as the physics are well-understood.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| No one is putting non deterministic code anywhere near one
| of the most expensive objects ever produced
| InTheArena wrote:
| Just like regular autopilot on the ground, the AI/ML is
| really just in the image / signal recognition. After that
| it's mostly control law (rules based system, and force
| calculations0.
| Animats wrote:
| Dragon is using a flash LIDAR made by Advanced Scientific
| Concepts.[1][2] 128x128 pixels.
|
| The Russians used a KURS unit, which is a cooperative (the
| ISS has a transponder to talk to it) radar-based system. That
| was from Ukraine, and after going to war with Ukraine, Russia
| had to develop an in-house system.
|
| All of this stuff is older technology, predating machine
| learning.
|
| [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201
| 400...
|
| [2] http://advancedscientificconcepts.com/products/older-
| product...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurs_(docking_navigation_sy
| ste...
| jtwaleson wrote:
| I agree (having no actual knowledge). What would be the
| benefit?
| ahsima1 wrote:
| I would guess none. Maybe some in testing/simulations, but I
| highly doubt there is any ML doing actual flight control.
| jari_mustonen wrote:
| We are a small step closer inhabiting Mars.
|
| When we will, it will be the most important event in the five
| billion years history of our solar system. In other words, we are
| witnessing some pretty cool stuff.
| adamsea wrote:
| What's the point of inhabiting Mars if it's inhabited by a
| society no one would ever want to live in?
| monadic2 wrote:
| I admire the confidence and romance, I don't know how you do
| it.
| Hamuko wrote:
| How does this get us closer to getting people to Mars?
| [deleted]
| sq_ wrote:
| SpaceX has now successfully launched humans into orbit and
| rendezvoused with an orbital station.
|
| Of course, it's a different vehicle than what they hope to
| one day take to Mars, but that's still a _huge_ step for any
| spacefaring organization to have made, especially when the
| stated overarching goal is to move huge numbers of people to
| a new planet.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Can't tell if serious or troll.
|
| Successful human spaceflight on reusable hardware > lower
| cost to orbit of personnel > increased economic activity in
| orbit > construction of manufacturing facilities > scale up
| of materials, capability, endurance and knowledge > ability
| to construct and launch Mars ships and supply a colony
|
| Or something like that.
| toyg wrote:
| The problem of getting to Mars is bigger than "just do more
| spacey stuff in space" though. There are some massive
| physical limits, in terms of fuel efficiency, that make it
| really really hard to get there _and come back_. That's the
| main challenge and I don't think SpaceX moved us
| particularly closer on that point.
|
| I'm in my forties and I don't expect to see us on Mars in
| my lifetime, except on some poetic suicide mission (nice
| sidestep of euthanasia laws: "I'm not dying, I'm going to
| Mars!"). We might make something a bit more useful out of
| the Moon, though, if we don't screw up too much.
| gfodor wrote:
| Why is coming back particularly challenging? Isn't it by
| definition easier because Mars is less massive than
| Earth? It seems like what you're talking about here is a
| different problem: getting enough resources and manpower
| to Mars to be able to bootstrap what's needed for return
| trips. But it seems like that is pretty inductive and
| just a matter of time once an economically sustainable
| one-way flow of people and goods opens up. (Knowledge,
| obviously, being instantly transferable already.) This
| will certainly be challenging and all but certain, and
| especially fragile to start, but it seems more in reach
| than ever before in my lifetime.
| helldritch wrote:
| It's also worth mentioning that coming back isn't
| necessarily a fixed requirement. I would happily live a
| shorter live on Mars - with the risk overhead of being
| stranded in the event of a catastrophic failure - for the
| chance to be one of the first Martian settlers.
|
| Foreign colonists in the Americas (ignoring any political
| aspect of this) faced disease, starvation and attacks
| from natives but still colonised America because of a
| dream they had.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Wasn't it more that trying things in [the continent of]
| America seemed more likely to yield success than staying
| with what they had where failure was relatively certain.
| Like religious persecution at home was certain for the
| Pilgrim Fathers, but in all likelihood they could form
| colonies where they could freely practice their religion
| by risking it in North America. For others it was abject
| poverty at home, or try carving out a piece of frontier.
|
| Seems like colonising Mars is the other way around, we
| stand more chance of fulfilment on Earth and failure
| going to Mars?
|
| Some of us have an explorational spirit, a desire to be
| pioneers at all costs - isn't that why we want to go?
| Maybe it's toxoplasmosis.
| thechao wrote:
| In case you're wondering why I, and others, are
| downvoting you: it sounds like you don't have an even
| basic understanding of the technical aspects of a Mars
| mission, yet are spouting off -- seemingly very
| confidently -- statements of feasibility. Your comment
| doesn't add to the conversation, and is at complete odds
| with nearly universal scientific and engineering
| consensus. SpaceX is going through billions of dollars
| with explicit near-term goal of a Mars mission. Perhaps,
| next time, try asking questions, rather than throwing
| baseless assertions.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Lower cost to orbit, sure. Increased economic activity in
| orbit? Where does that part come from?
|
| It's not like we haven't sent people to the ISS before. And
| it's not like SpaceX hasn't managed to reuse hardware
| before. It's basically just a mix of those two things.
|
| Really the most significant things about this were that
| astronauts were launched to space from the US and it was a
| private company. And out of those, the first thing is
| really more symbolic than anything else.
|
| The ISS is about 400 km from the surface of the Earth. Mars
| is like what, 225 000 000 km?
| mercer wrote:
| Well we're not gonna get to Mars with that attitude!
| bamboozled wrote:
| Mars is key ! We must get to Mars!!!
| rtkwe wrote:
| I'm not so sold on the planetary backup drum beat. If we
| can live on Mars we can live on an Earth affected by
| basically anything using the same tech. The only real
| bonus is there'd be less people there to support, which
| feels like running away and letting the planet burn.
| monadic2 wrote:
| Seems like that's exactly the attitude you need.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Lower cost to orbit, sure. Increased economic activity
| in orbit? Where does that part come from?
|
| Lower cost to orbit translates pretty directly to
| increased economic activity in orbit, since said economic
| activity is less expensive to do (and therefore more
| accessible to more people).
|
| But agreed. This ain't a _huge_ achievement... yet. It 's
| essential groundwork for that achievement, though.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Elon Musk will have cities on planets names after him for
| generations to come.
|
| The legacy he leaves will be greater than that of Ghengis Kahn,
| Ceasar, or Alexander the Great.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Until someone else comes along :)
| option wrote:
| If he manages to make humans multi-planet species he'll be
| the greatest man who has ever lived.
| tnli wrote:
| Elonville, Musktown?
| gfodor wrote:
| I put like 90% liklihood we'll have a nation state named
| "Musk" on Mars in 50 years.
| justinator wrote:
| X AE A-12-ville
| elliekelly wrote:
| From NASA's Mission Updates:
|
| > The Crew Dragon arrived at the station's Harmony port, docking
| at 10:16 a.m. EDT while the spacecraft were flying about 262
| miles above the northern border of China and Mongolia.
|
| It's hard for me to wrap my brain around this. They seem so far
| away but 262 miles above earth is about the distance from NYC to
| DC which doesn't seem far at all.
| jandrese wrote:
| There is a fantastic what if that talks about this.
|
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
| bobwaycott wrote:
| You're right. That was fantastic. Hadn't seen that one
| before. Thank you.
| bane wrote:
| SpaceX runs basically as a giant R&D program that also happens to
| accomplish useful things as byproducts of its approach (with the
| miracle of insurance to cover costs if things get explody). Every
| flight is data for incremental improvement.
|
| If you think of all SpaceX has ever done was try to get to this
| point, with somewhere around 80 flights on the Falcon 9, but for
| a variety of mission buyers (NASA, USAF, Commercial Sat
| companies, SpaceX itself!), somewhere around $5b (~$60m a launch)
| has been spent getting an entirely new, ground-up manned space
| program up and running to include launch vehicle with a majority
| re-usability. But along the way, numerous satellites and other
| stuff ended up in space as well. This allowed NASA to also split
| the R&D bill with multiple "partners".
|
| To put this into context, the Mercury program ran about $2.25b in
| today's dollars, Gemini ran $7.3b ($723m per mission!).
|
| The Space Shuttle program had a lifetime cost of $209b ($1.5b per
| flight!!!) If you think the Shuttle program is not comparable,
| the F9Heavy program, a derivative of this other work, can put up
| more mass than the Shuttle, managed to split much of the
| development costs with the Falcon 9, can land most of its mass,
| and has a per flight cost of $90m.
|
| We now have the capability to put up another ISS _today_ ,
| resupply it, and staff it, at a fraction of the cost, all with
| launch equipment made by a single company that started a decade
| ago as a side project for a guy who was trying to make electric
| cars after making money on the internet.
|
| This is a ridiculous bargain and Spacex isn't even close to done
| yet.
| holyDictionary wrote:
| > a single company that started a decade ago as a side project
| for a guy who was trying to make electric cars after making
| money on the internet.
|
| I believe this is backwards, SpaceX was created first and it
| was implied in the biography that it's more as if Tesla was the
| side project.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla was a hostile takeover by Musk who was already an
| investor (arguably the largest/primary investor), as existing
| leadership was not focused on getting revenue in the door
| fast enough for the org to survive (circa 2007).
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-fired-tesla-
| ce...
|
| Disclaimer: Long time TSLA investor
| conradev wrote:
| > all with launch equipment made by a single company that
| started a decade ago
|
| SpaceX was founded in 2002, almost two decades ago
| yellowapple wrote:
| > We now have the capability to put up another ISS today,
| resupply it, and staff it, at a fraction of the cost, all with
| launch equipment made by a single company that started a decade
| ago.
|
| This is the part that's exciting for me. Whether it comes in
| the form of more space stations like the ISS or a much bigger
| and reinvigorated ISS, either way is a vital step in the right
| direction toward making humanity less beholden to a single
| planet.
|
| Lots of challenges still to come, but this is a reminder that
| those challenges can someday be overcome.
| toyg wrote:
| I love space exploration like the next guy, but I have a
| massive fear that a proliferation of space-stations will lead
| to unpleasant situations. With all its tensions, the ISS has
| been an amazing tool for soft diplomacy; if we start having
| country-specific stations we'll soon end up with nasty
| arguments. Already we have competing satellites rumoured to
| have classified capabilities, I hate to think what they could
| do with manned stations.
|
| I guess it's inevitable.
| yellowapple wrote:
| My hope would be that all (or at least most) such new space
| stations would be "international" space stations. Stations
| should be differentiated by purpose rather than
| nationality, I think. Space doesn't have borders.
|
| But yeah, this is definitely a reason why I hope we can
| keep _the_ ISS going and just keep building on it.
| Additional space stations should be for good reason (for
| example: orbiting the moon, or - my crazy dream scenario -
| one orbiting in the past-GEO graveyard orbit to collect and
| refurbish dead satellites).
|
| That means we should allow China to participate in the ISS,
| too. There are some national security concerns, apparently,
| but we overcame those with the USSR/Russia, and China
| should be no different.
| bane wrote:
| Your fears our valid, and something we _have_ to learn to
| work through as a species.
| the_duke wrote:
| China plans to launch the first part of their own space
| station next year. [1]
|
| They actually wanted to join the ISS effort, but were given
| a firm no and had no other option than to do pursue their
| own. [2]
|
| I don't think we will see any other country-specific
| stations for a long time, but modular commercial stations
| that can be shared for research and potential business
| endeavors (hotels, specialized manufacturing, ...).
|
| If efforts like SpaceX Starship actually succeed in very
| significantly lowering launch costs, that is. Right now it
| is simply not affordable either for nations or businesses.
| A single Starship would actually be a great temporary space
| station on it's own, comparable to the ISS in usable area.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_large_modular_spa
| ce_st...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Internati
| onal_...
| bane wrote:
| Don't forget the Tiangong program [1], which resulted in
| this spectacular docking and entry [2]
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_program
|
| 2 - https://youtu.be/rPqJyS26e60
| fpoling wrote:
| I read Russia considered to disconnect their module from
| ISS when the agreement about ISS expires.
| vermontdevil wrote:
| Imagine this started when Musk wanted to send seeds to Mars.
| toshk wrote:
| Incredible.
|
| Also Tesla seems to be extremely focused on r&d.
|
| How does Elon Musk push and run his organisations so
| differently that he seems to be one of the only few, if not
| only one, capable of running big organisations that are able to
| accomplish this extreme level of innovation paired with
| tangible results?
| tomp wrote:
| My extremely naive interpretation: he's at a sweet spot
| crossroads of a few favourable features:
|
| - he's technical enough so that he actually understands what
| he's doing (unlike a "non-technical cofounder")
|
| - working on _actually_ inspiring projects (unlike "let's
| sell ads" Google, "let's make rich people richer" finance,
| "no innovation" Boeing or "Instagram for dogs" bullshit
| startups)
|
| - he's rich enough to be able to start his own company with
| extremely capable people, with less need to please the
| investors (at least in the short term)
|
| - he's actually driven, not just money/power-hungry like 99%
| of billionaires who use their wealth to buy
| goodwill/influence/art.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Elon Musk did not start SpaceX, Tesla or any of the other
| companies.
| cameronbrown wrote:
| He did start SpaceX, not Tesla.
| tenpies wrote:
| > Also Tesla seems to be extremely focused on r&d.
|
| How so? Tesla spends a tiny bit of revenue on R&D and a solid
| chunk of that is on "research" grants that get converted to
| manufacturing grants (e.g. the NY plant).
|
| See: https://ir.tesla.com/static-
| files/bbc6e137-897a-4543-857a-59...
|
| Don't get me wrong, I guess there could be research spending
| elsewhere since Tesla is notoriously bad at financial
| reporting (e.g. the only company in history to double its
| factory count without increasing OpEx, or the only company in
| history to build a factory with zero CapEx spending), but I'm
| curious what the "extremely focused" claim is backed by.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I think of it like this. It requires massive amounts of money
| to do the types of things we are talking about, but when the
| other big players have gotten so used to suckling at the teet
| of the military industrial complex and it's wars, and
| comfortable in that utterly corrupt cycle, Musk was a man
| with a narrow focus to "get shit done" much more than "line
| the C's and boards pockets" .
| jeffdavis wrote:
| You only do new things if you believe you will fail if you
| don't.
|
| Established companies have an expectation of success if they
| just keep doing what they are doing, so anything new is an
| unacceptable risk.
| toshk wrote:
| At the same time "startups" are also not able to reach any
| of the tangible results musk is producing.
|
| He seems to be able to benefit from the resources of a big
| company, while at the same time keep the fresh mindset of a
| relatively small company.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| He has a goal he wants to accomplish with this company,
| and unlike almost anyone else, his goal isn't to enrich
| himself and spend it on luxuries. He really wants people
| to colonize space.
|
| An actual non-monetary goal is what's missing, IMO, for
| most companies.
| jeffdavis wrote:
| It's about having any specific goal, really.
|
| Money is more of a general goal, like happiness. Hard to
| stay focused.
| cryptonector wrote:
| SpaceX is the most amazing demonstration of can-do spirit
| coupled with simple and good ideas. Elon Musk is the epitome of
| the can-do, unafraid, business man, but combined with great
| engineering chops and vision.
|
| And think of the fact that all of this is nothing compared to
| what a fully-deployed StarLink will do, and what weekly or
| daily launch capabilities would mean for the U.S. armed forces.
| The number of satellites to shoot down in a war is going up,
| and the rate at which they can be replaced is also going up.
| Moreover, the cost of sending up new interesting military sats
| is going way down, which means we'll see greatly upgraded
| capabilities in many areas. Civilian science too will be
| benefiting greatly.
|
| SpaceX's commercial and non-commercial competition is hobbled
| by subsidies. Ahhh, what a great demonstration that subsidies
| are dangerous to business. Otherwise, if they really wanted to,
| the competition is not that far behind SpaceX, and could catch
| up, and pretty quickly if they want to, but in the meantime,
| SpaceX continues to innovate and get ahead.
| mulmen wrote:
| In his post launch statements yesterday Elon said something
| like "maybe I just blank out the word doubt."
|
| I think that's a prerequisite to start a rocket company.
| WatchDog wrote:
| I would probably say courageous rather than "unafraid", there
| are plenty of things Elon is afraid of, most recently he was
| expressing how nervous he was about the dm-2 launch.
|
| There is nothing wrong with fear, it's healthy to have a
| realistic view of things.
|
| It doesn't take any courage to do something you aren't afraid
| of.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There was an article floating recently about the death of
| corporate R&D .. SpaceX might be one exception (or maybe first
| of a new wave ?)
| computerex wrote:
| Whilst I agree with the general sentiment, the Space Shuttle
| was the single most capable spacecraft that has ever flown. You
| are not being fair in measuring it simply on the basis of how
| much mass it could put in Orbit.
| simonh wrote:
| It was an amazing vehicle and highly capable in some way, but
| severely constrained in others. The main problem is it was
| almost completely useless for any missions or activities
| beyond LEO. In theory you could use it to put up a small
| boost stage for a light interplanetary probe, but its cargo
| capacity was a bit small for that, and there's just no point
| using a whole shuttle to do it.
|
| Now that we have Falcon 9 and Heavy moon missions are back on
| the table, but the Shuttle was incapable of supporting any
| effective Lunar mission profiles.
| peter303 wrote:
| A considerable portion of any modern engineering project is
| computing, whether its rocketry, automobiles or genomics. And
| they can leverage Moores Law which has continued for six
| decades.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> We now have the capability to put up another ISS today,
| resupply it, and staff it, at a fraction of the cost,
|
| Capacity to put mass into low orbit, but building a multipart
| space station requires far more than cobbling modules together
| KSP-style. Shuttle and the Canadarm(s) built the space station.
| SpaceX doesn't have that construction/manipulation capacity. It
| doesn't have the spacewalk capacity. To match Shuttle and build
| another ISS SpaceX would need to send people and cargo _on the
| same flight_ , something that is certainly physically possible
| but remains logistically complex. NASA doesn't spend millions
| training astronauts in that giant swimming pool because they
| like the water.
| starik36 wrote:
| All true, however, (splitting hairs, yes), the reason FH9 can
| best the shuttle boosters is because they had to carry the
| shuttle itself, which was around 50 tons.
| bane wrote:
| I wonder, as a percentage of launch vehicle, how much mass
| the shuttle program managed to reuse after a mission vs. the
| F9Heavy?
|
| It turns out not having to "shuttle" half a dozen humans up
| to orbit every time you want to get something up there is a
| good idea.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Was the full crew necessarily just to put things in orbit?
| My impression was that most of the crew was doing other
| sorts of science and such because they might as well do so
| while the Shuttle's out in space (and later to get as many
| people into the ISS as possible per trip, which the Crew
| Falcon should now be able to do - maybe not to the same
| degree as the Shuttle, but certainly to a better degree
| than Soyuz).
| bkanber wrote:
| Most shuttle missions had 5-7 crew members.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews
|
| At minimum, each mission had a commander and pilot. Then
| there were missions specialists and payload specialists,
| which depended on the specific mission the shuttle was
| carrying out.
|
| There's always a lot of work to do, so it makes sense
| that they'd maximize for productivity.
| VLM wrote:
| Its cheap light and easy to haul a half dozen humans home
| in a capsule, but its complicated and heavy to haul down
| immensely heavy satellites with a decent cross range such
| that you could land next orbit on friendly territory at all
| times.
|
| Remember the shuttle "had to" be all things to all people,
| and the military demands ended up being VERY heavy and
| expensive.
|
| At this time AFAIK nobody has the technical ability to
| snatch a Soviet spy sat and take it home, or haul strange
| and heavy (many ton) electronic warfare payloads over a
| target and land next orbit on NATO turf. Now, WHY you'd
| want to, or SHOULD you want to, are outside the bounds of
| this discussion, but the shuttle certainly had that kind of
| military stuff as a very expensive and very heavy design
| req.
| calaphos wrote:
| Turns out it is a lot more useful to (potentially) reuse the
| first stage than to carry a lot of additional weight to reuse
| the last stage.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable.
|
| The only non-reusable part was the external fuel tank.
|
| But yeah, sending something as big as a bus up and down was
| probably the bane of it.
| cdash wrote:
| If you call rebuilding an engine every time reusable.
| SRBs and reusable do not go together at all.
| avmich wrote:
| > Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable.
|
| But to use them again a lot of efforts had to be spent,
| comparing to what's possible with first stages of F9.
| That's why Shuttle boosters are called refurbishable.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Incredibly impressive, but you have to take into account both
| more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able
| to build off the shoulders of giants. It is still amazing of
| course, but I doubt they could've done the same thing during
| the era of the mercury program, so not really apples to apples
| comparison.
| acheron9383 wrote:
| Yeah. It is great that Nasa and the US military paved the
| way, like has happened before (The internet, etc). SpaceX
| feels like a new era of spaceflight, harnessing so much of
| the potential that US government created in the previous era.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > but you have to take into account both more modern
| technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build
| off the shoulders of giants.
|
| NASA is _currently_ developing the Space Launch System (SLS)
| and has spent over $20b with almost nothing to show for it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
| pfdietz wrote:
| Guidance systems are vastly less expensive now, and can take
| advantage of things like MEMs, fiber laser gyros, and GPS
| (and, of course, modern computing power).
|
| The tanks on Falcon are welded using Friction Stir Welding,
| which was invented in the early 1990s.
|
| The landing algorithm for the first stage uses convex
| optimization algorithms based on interior point methods,
| which were not available in the 1960s.
|
| However, something very much like an expendable F9 could
| probably have been built in the 1980s. Simply evolving the
| Saturn 1B (which was cheaper, per lb of payload to orbit,
| than the Saturn V) could have easily beaten the Shuttle's
| economic performance.
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| One dimension to this that is often forgotten is that
| SpaceX does things, though. Of course, many problems are
| solvable now that everything is more advanced, but putting
| them to use and creating actual progress for humanity is
| the real fantastic feat of SpaceX.
| jes wrote:
| I had not heard of Friction Stir Welding previously. Video
| that demonstrates the technique is here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNbQH8XBgxQ
| 725686 wrote:
| Smarter Every Day has a very interesting video[1] inside
| the factory of United Launch Alliance in which, among a
| lot of other things, shows the friction stir welding used
| in their Atlas Rocket[2]:
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/o0fG_lnVhHw
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/o0fG_lnVhHw?t=1933
| jes wrote:
| This is a great video. Thank you for sharing it.
| mulmen wrote:
| We had something like an expendable F9 in the 1980s. It's
| called Atlas. We used it to launch GPS. We used it during
| the Shuttle era and we still use it.
| barbegal wrote:
| > The landing algorithm for the first stage uses convex
| optimization algorithms based on interior point methods,
| which were not available in the 1960s.
|
| Is this level of optimisation really needed? I thought most
| of the landing was having enough fuel margin and then
| running a PID control algorithm during the landing burn.
| usrusr wrote:
| I believe that the biggest obstacle in SpaceX's "hover
| slam" landing isn't calculating and controlling the burn
| but getting sufficiently precise input in time for those
| calculations. It must be a miracle of sensor fusion.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Apparently yes. See Lars Blackmore's chapter in the 2016
| "Frontiers of Engineering" (National Academy Press) (free
| registration required)
|
| https://www.nap.edu/read/23659/chapter/10
|
| https://www.nap.edu/download/23659
|
| "SpaceX uses CVXGEN (Mattingley and Boyd 2012) to
| generate customized flight code, which enables very high-
| speed onboard convex optimization."
|
| This is actually a great example of a true NASA spinoff,
| btw. Lars Blackmore was at JPL before moving to SpaceX.
| Landing on Mars and landing a first stage back on Earth
| aren't the same problem, but they're close enough for the
| work to transfer.
| azernik wrote:
| Not to mention CFD modeling - the F1 engines' combustion
| stability took enormous amount of iterative development and
| exploding test articles to get right, whereas new engine
| designs are much closer to working when the first
| prototypes roll out.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Yes, mass scale optimization software (CPLEX, GUROBI,
| XPRESS) is all pretty recent and has completely changed
| countless industries and saved billions of dollars.
| LanceH wrote:
| I'm going to go with SpaceX doesn't have to source from 50
| states. It also hasn't had its funding turned off and on.
| pfdietz wrote:
| More generally, SpaceX doesn't have to pay the cost of
| crossing organizational boundaries. When that happens,
| unless the parts are standardized and commoditized, then
| requirements have to be formalized, contracts and costs
| negotiated. Time and again SpaceX found it was cheaper
| and faster to just do things themselves rather than buy
| from traditional aerospace contractors.
| kbenson wrote:
| > Simply evolving the Saturn 1B (which was cheaper, per lb
| of payload to orbit, than the Saturn V) could have easily
| beaten the Shuttle's economic performance.
|
| I don't know how much it applies, but sometimes evolving
| something requires switching out components for other ones,
| which are more expensive. Not everything scales. Marketing
| isn't the only reason why 50% more capability often costs
| 100% more. I imagine with rocketry, you're often operating
| at the edge of the capability for certain materials and
| approaches.
| pfdietz wrote:
| We have an example of a better component, that is
| otherwise very similar: the first stage engines of the
| Saturn IB and the Falcon 9:
|
| H-1: https://en.wikpedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_H-1
|
| Merlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin
|
| The Merlin has considerably higher specific impulse and
| thrust/weight ratios. It also has very fast throttling, a
| necessity for vertical landing. And, it's remarkably
| cheap (less than $1M per engine). I don't have the figure
| for the inflation-adjusted cost of the H-1, but I suspect
| it was much more expensive.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Maybe not during Mercury, but definitely during the 70s all
| the technology was there to build a cheap, reusable rocket
| and capsule.
|
| The dream was that the shuttle could be that system, but it
| did not turn out that way. And giving in to the 'sunk cost
| fallacy' they supported the shuttle for the next 40 years.
|
| Arguably you could say we are 50 years behind where we should
| be. Unfortunately driving down costs is probably the hardest
| thing for any government organization to do. Given that there
| is no competition, no shareholders, no profit motive etc..
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Didn't Space X also benefit from NASA launch facilities? I
| imagine their payroll also includes quite a few NASA
| trained people too. They certainly aren't doing rocket
| science from scratch or in a vacuum.
|
| Not too say this isn't a big deal. Just that it's not all
| Elon and his wunderkind.
| acheron9383 wrote:
| Yeah of course, SpaceX would be stupid to not use the
| resources NASA will make available for them. Honestly,
| NASA would probably much rather be out of the business of
| building rockets, so they can focus on the next
| generation of space experiments. The less money NASA has
| to spend on hauling stuff into space, the more they can
| spend on what they put up there.
| chipsa wrote:
| SpaceX leases the launch pad and Eastern Range, but those
| are paid either on a yearly basis, or per use. The
| NASA/DoD personnel that support the launch are getting
| paid whether there's a launch or not, because they're
| needed for any launch from the Cape.
| ta17711771 wrote:
| Some are meant to teach, others are meant to do.
|
| NASA and their bureaucracy have been sliding out of the
| "do" category for some time.
| bargle0 wrote:
| They've been doing plenty, but it's all in unmanned
| missions.
| ghaff wrote:
| Furthermore, NASA has _always_ relied heavily on the
| aerospace /defense industry and related organizations to
| design and build spacecraft.
| [deleted]
| bane wrote:
| Sure, there are likely many small advantages that add up. For
| example, 3 flat panels and a few buttons probably weigh less
| than a metal panel full of dials, allowing for a better
| payload ratio. That technology wasn't available during the
| Mercury/Gemini/Shuttle period for _any_ price.
| piyh wrote:
| You can't buy company culture either, but that could have
| been built 40 years ago
| VLM wrote:
| sensors and wiring always weighed more. Of course now the
| wiring COULD be CANbus or similar in concept instead of
| individual (heavy) wires. Or move the analog processing and
| microcontroller to the sensor itself instead of running
| wires all over the place to a central computer.
| dnautics wrote:
| Iirc the computers are connected by commodity cat 6e
| Ethernet.
| riffic wrote:
| Industry proven technology and easy as heck to replace
| on-site.
| plorg wrote:
| Do you mean ethernet as the link layer? I ask because
| I've encountered a number of systems where CAN bus is
| operated over a cat 6e physical layer.
| [deleted]
| crocal wrote:
| Did it really cost only 5B$ to get there? I just ask because if
| confirmed it's unbelievably cheap. I am /stunned/.
| gpm wrote:
| There's also been a few (2 to 3) billion in stock based
| financing. I think that the 5b estimate sounds right order of
| magnitude.
| manquer wrote:
| In direct investments perhaps yes, but like all things it is
| bit more complicated, it _can_ be cheaper in each generation,
| you can leverage existing talent and their experience from
| before .
|
| _In theory_ a new entrant could achieve similar feats with
| lesser money . For example rocket lab is doing pretty well
| for their size with some real innovation based out of New
| Zealand! Extremely likely part of their staff would come from
| spacex ULA, NASA etc . Similarly spacex would have leveraged
| from ULA , NASA as well .
|
| NASA also does help them in some areas as part of this
| program and others and also the money they (and others) have
| spent during the last 15 years especially without validation.
| Very few customers would invest in 10 year product
| development journey they way NASA has with CCS.
|
| That would not possible without NASA's own budgets being so
| large to support kind of projects like the shuttles and ISS
| in the first place . Only then the couple of billion they
| spent will look small enough to take that risk.
| adventured wrote:
| > For example rocket lab is doing pretty well for their
| size with some real innovation based out of New Zealand!
|
| Rocket Lab isn't out of New Zealand, that's a popular
| underdog myth at this point. They're an American company,
| funded overwhelmingly by big US venture capital, that built
| their current technology primarily in the US.
|
| The initial low scale efforts for Rocket Lab originated out
| of New Zealand, with sounding rockets. They moved to the US
| because they could go no further with the limited native
| aerospace and funding capabilities of New Zealand.
|
| Their name is now Rocket Lab USA. Their headquarters has
| been in the US for most of their existence and progress.
|
| And most of their efforts and expansion are now also
| focused in the US:
|
| https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-
| expands...
|
| New Zealand didn't have the native aerospace engineering
| capabilities to build what Rocket Lab has. Most of the
| advanced engineering was done in California, leaning on the
| massive aerospace resources of the state.
| manquer wrote:
| Sorry, I was not very clear on that point, I didn't mean
| to imply they are doing it all in New Zealand. I meant to
| say that with hiring and support they get from U.S.
| aerospace industry (NSA, SpaceX , ULA etc) they have been
| able to launch out of New Zealand, for a small private
| country to that is remarkable and sign of lowering
| barriers of entry.
| calaphos wrote:
| SpaceX developments have a clearly defined goal with most
| engineering and production decisions made according to mission
| + cost constraints. The space shuttle development had
| dramatically changing requirements from multiple stakeholders
| (cheap launches, crossrange capability, recovery of military
| satellites, etc.) with production facilities based on jobs in
| voting districts. As impressive as the space shuttle was from
| an engineering perspective, from an economic and safety
| standpoint it was a complete desaster.
| haunter wrote:
| Currently they have problems with the voice between ISS and
| Dragon. There is a huge interference and they can't read it.
| Funny enough we the viewers hear it loud and clear
| moftz wrote:
| I'm sure an easy workaround would be to use Houston as a relay
| rather than direct communication.
| haunter wrote:
| Yep that's what they are doing now
| ducktective wrote:
| I thought they already could communicate on wireless bands? No
| need for relay... They wanted to have a "wired" communication
| set up correctly IIUC.
| neals wrote:
| Did Doug bump his head on the way in?
| war1025 wrote:
| Came here hoping to find an answer to this. It looked like it
| was bothering him quite a bit
| neals wrote:
| Apparently, space is hard...
| olex wrote:
| Station hatches sure as hell are. Looks like it happened
| during the hug session, while still mostly inside the
| hatch.
| pks016 wrote:
| Yes. I noticed that too. Seems like he bumped his head hard. It
| was quite red.
|
| And whats up with the guy with baseball bat while taking photo?
| Is that normal?
| OctaviusCrassus wrote:
| Unbelievable what Elon Musk has been able to create for humanity.
| So grateful for him and this administration. Looking forward to
| see more free market ingenuity
| mchusma wrote:
| I was surprised they slept on the trip. I assume they took turns.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Autopilot :)
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Right? It's basically a Tesla.
| [deleted]
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yeah. Except autopilot is easier in space than on the road,
| because it doesn't have to take into account the multitudes
| of vehicles (and pedestrians) without an autopilot, just
| zooming around.
| yellowapple wrote:
| I mean, not yet. Someday, though...
| [deleted]
| InTheArena wrote:
| Not usually. They learned early on in the space program that in
| capsules, you don't have enough sound isolation to make
| different sleep schedules work. My understanding is that they
| then plan on having the crew sleep at the same time.
| rtkwe wrote:
| No need, the burns are all scheduled and they can plan that to
| avoid doing anything while the crew is asleep.
| flixic wrote:
| You can try docking yourself at https://iss-sim.spacex.com
| ericol wrote:
| Took me 3 tries to do it; my bad was not carefully reading the
| instructions.
| ozim wrote:
| Am I kind of weird? Did it first time without reading
| anything just looking at numbers on the HUD. Maybe a bit of
| common sense?
| cbhl wrote:
| First three times I tried doing it by eye and ended up
| hopelessly lost. Needed to pull out my trigonometry to figure
| out how to line up the capsule to get the Y/Z aligned...
| yellowapple wrote:
| I got it on the first try, but only because I've got 600+
| hours of Kerbal Space Program under my belt (where docking
| is much harder when you consider that docking in KSP
| entails actually getting to the target and doing it with
| imbalanced RCS thrusters that I placed on the craft willy-
| nilly; SpaceX's online docking sim was a breeze in
| comparison).
|
| Trick was to get rotation aligned first, then worry about
| translation. And yeah, might as well ignore visual; just
| went by the numbers.
| stoneman24 wrote:
| I had a terrible first attempt. Then discovered the same
| procedure, sort the rotation to 0, then minimise the
| translation and finally approach the dock. Head down And
| concentrate on the numbers. I didn't have the KSP
| experience to fall back on. I wish they had added a timer
| as I am now trying for my fastest time.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Yeah, the live stream mentioned the ability to switch
| between coarse and fine controls, and that ability would
| be invaluable for a speed run.
| nickez wrote:
| You can do that by clicking in the middle of the
| controls.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Well shit. That would've been useful to know. Time for
| some speed-running!
| gpm wrote:
| There's a really simple strategy to this.
|
| One at a time move pitch, yaw, and roll to zero (with 0
| velocity). Before touching any translation buttons.
|
| Never touch the pitch yaw and roll buttons again. Start
| moving x, y, and z translation to zero using transnational
| thrusters. Make sure you zero out y and z before you get
| close to zeroing out x.
| flixic wrote:
| Using this strategy docking is much, much easier than
| trying to follow hexagons.
| mulmen wrote:
| The hexagons tell you when something is wrong, not how to
| make it right.
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