Elon Musk to Provide Starship Update on Saturday as NASA Administrator Gives a Bronx Cheer
UPDATE: The presentation will be at around 8 p.m. EDT tonight. It will be webcast at www.spacex.com/webcast.
If you had plans for Saturday night, you might want to change them.
SpaceX Founder Elon Musk will provide an update on the progress of the Starship Mk1 vehicle live from the company’s test site at Boca Chica Beach in Texas.
Musk tweeted the presentation will start at 6 or 7 p.m. CDT (7 or 8 p.m. EDT).. There are reportedly plans to webcast the event, most likely via the SpaceX website (www.spacex.com). However, those details have not been confirmed.
Starship is part of a fully-reusable launch system that also includes the Super Heavy booster. The system is designed to carry large numbers of people and heavy loads of cargo to the moon and Mars.
Musk has also said Starship could provide rapid point-to-point travel between distant cities on Earth.
SpaceX engineers are building Starships in Texas and Florida. The first suborbital test is expected next month.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has weighed in on tomorrow’s event with a Bronx cheer focused on SpaceX’s lagging Crew Dragon program.
“I am looking forward to the announcement tomorrow. In the meantime, Commercial Crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. It’s time to deliver.”
Ouch!
A Crew Dragon made a successful flight to the International Space Station in March with no one aboard. However, the same capsule exploded on the test stand on April 20 while being prepared for an in-flight abort test.
SpaceX is scheduled to conduct the abort flight before flying astronauts to the station on a test flight aboard a separate Crew Dragon vehicle. The company is hoping to conduct the abort test by the end of this year.
173 responses to “Elon Musk to Provide Starship Update on Saturday as NASA Administrator Gives a Bronx Cheer”
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Not smart, as SpaceX is the only hope NASA has of returning to the Moon.
If it works, and they build them so they really can go to the Moon, NASA astronauts will go as passengers and not crew. If these things work everybody with modern shipping yards will start building them. But SpaceX has a lot of things to make work and still have a useful vehicle. This is very much like Boeing’s roll out of the 787. I doubt this thing is anywhere near ready to hop let alone fly.
there is no even a final design
Of course not, that is what test flying originally was for, when it really was really test flying, to determine the final design.
Just look at the various design changes aircraft like the P-51, B-52 and even the B707/KC-135 family went through because of test flying. And don’t forget the B737 was basically a spinoff of the B720.
And this kind of cowboy engineering is great as long as you have a big enough ranch to play on and you have the funds to do it. Don’t be surprised if the establishment at KSC have issues with 2kt of deliverable fuel air munition being experimented with around the nations primer space port. And don’t go crying when the experiment starts to run out the wallet, goes to the government to close the engineering that will no doubt be so so close to working, and Uncle Sugar says “No”. You consider this concept to be a slam dunk and already working in spirit only to be conjured by your spiritual medium Musk into physical being. The rest of the engineering world views it as the collection of high risks and pure conjecture glued together by moxie that it is. If it goes against working systems and established approaches for funding be prepared to be disappointed.
Yep experts, just like the astronomer who proven by mathematics it was impossible for heavier than air vehicles to fly…
As for “cowboy engineering”, most of the advances of the modern world are the results of the “cowboy engineers” you have distain for. Without them, starting with Galileo, you would be doing astronomy with sticks and stones as was done in the ancient world.
Every camp has people like that. Alt space had Gary Hudson and Pecrheron, and a lot more like him. With BF(x) we have unfiltered Elon, and if this turns into another Solar Roof fiasco he will have a ton of bricks fall on him. If they succeed the establishment has crow to eat.
Yep, and we should have the answer shortly based on his talk.
No we won’t. Because your faith is religious. As long as they’re trying you’ll be cheerleading no matter how long it takes them and no matter what turns they take. And to some degree that’s fine. They’re trying something very hard and most times in the end they cross the finish line after a few extra years of dogged effort. You’re just a hopeless romantic who thinks ‘the revolution’ is just one more roll of the dice away. The quick fix is just around the corner and it’s all about to happen and if you blink your eyes you might miss it. And no matter how wrong you’ve been all the times in the past buying into Space X’s schedules and goals if they just meet this next mile marker all the other delays mean nothing in light of the newest victory. Surely it seems you think all the past delays mean nothing and that surely this thing is going to fly next month, or the month after.
Even if it all works. Even if it all goes as easy and as fast as you deeply feel it will, where’s the payloads to fill these things? Who’s making them now? What’s going to fund development of the cargo, tanker, and crewed versions of this if payloads are not flying? And you probably think this thing is going to make it to orbit in 2020. Where’s the commercial payloads? You know the paying loads that bring money from outside Space X and the Elon-sphere. Everyone buying a launch is still buying rides on a Falcon. Even if everything goes right market constraints alone are going to slow things down as the market adjusts and takes advantage of what a vehicle like this can off … in theory. Even in the real world the market cannot take full advantage of what the Falcon 9 has to offer. Falcon already out paces the market both government and private sector.
I have never bought into his schedules, not even when I first heard him speak at the Churchill Club in 2002. Instead I support his goal of providing the transportation needed to enable the human conquest of the Solar System.
Elon Musk recognizes that old space firms react too slow to adjust to the increase capacity, he estimated in his talk with will be a thousand percent increase, so he is filling it himself with Starlink which sells services direct to the multi-trillion dollar communication industry. I suspect once flying he will offer other direct to consumer services.
Also like most without a solid background in economics or economic history you confuse capacity with cost. It doesn’t matter if there are enough payloads to match capacity, merely enough to cover costs. If you understood his mantra you would see it was entirely focused on reducing costs to about 2% of what they are today, which means the current industry revenue will cover his costs while the excess capacity will allow the creation of new markets.
If you studied economic history you would also know this is not without precedent. Railroads and steamboats had a similar impact on transportation during the height of their revolutions. IF Elon Musk succeeds it will have the same impact on space transportation. And that means the resources of the Solar System are now humanities to exploit and use to save the Earth.
Just as the development of the steam engine created the first Industrial Revolution that saved England from the Malthusian Trap and created the Malthusian Discontinuity society has enjoyed since 1820 Starship, IF it succeeds will do the same.
And if not what have I lost by cheering him on? I really feel sorry for Old Timers like you who have lost hope in the future to such an extent that you have to attack those who still have it. I guess that is what happens when you buy into the rhetoric of the gloom and doom herd.
Also like most without a solid background in economics or economic
history you confuse capacity with cost. It doesn’t matter if there are
enough payloads to match capacity, merely enough to cover costs. If you
understood his mantra you would see it was entirely focused on reducing
costs to about 2% of what they are today, which means the current
industry revenue will cover his costs while the excess capacity will
allow the creation of new markets.
that is where we veer off into the fantasy part of the meeting. 2 percent of todays cost…sure…lol not even the 707 did that
That is because the revolution caused by the B707 was not of the same magnitude as the ones I referenced. In terms of changes it was more evolutionary than revolutionary, part of a sequence from the Super Constellation to the B747.
The B707 just cut travel time in half while the Union Pacific replaced a trip taking 4-6 months with one of 3 days with loads of around 500 pounds per wagon replaced with ones of about 10 tons per freight car.
time is not cost…and Starship wont get to the moon any faster then Apollo, indeed with the refuel time, it might take longer
Time is money if your time has value. You must be using the slowest gas pump in history to think refuel time is a serious factor.
how long do you think it will take to refuel a second stage? I am told it takes multiple flights which well could be a month at the rate musk flies them now (and that is optimistic)
Even months of refuel time would be quicker than developing a whole new launch system. If it were that urgent to get to the moon, F9, Atlas V, Delta IV, and others could have put the fuel and gear in orbit in a short period of time. Orbital rendezvous and docking is a known technology, and refueling could be well known in months if they were serious.
there is no doubt that “anything” is cheaper and faster and more sustainable then SLS. it is the worst of a failed system that has zero commercial feed through and is simply unsustainable for any real operational capability
in a go back to the Moon scenario my “method” is to use ISS as a corbiting platform for a fuel depot where the (supposed) advantage of current first stage reuse can be used to stockpile fuel and either replenish reusable portions of a earth moon transportation system or simply replace the nodes
I have come to the belief that 1) the gateway is the wrong orbit given current lift capability 2) a Saturn V class vehicle is economically unsustainable and 3) with current and near term lift and technology things like cyclers are sustainable
what I dont see is how near or current technology supports something the size of a Starship second stage that needs to refuel to do anything once it gets into orbit. it alone is dependent on either a lot of Starships of various kinds (ie specialized tanker systems all cost money and contribute to use cost) or you have to gt quickly to quick 🙂 reusability…
and then there is the economics of it…which I dont see either
but I am convinced if we want to go to the moon, a earth orbit fuel depot is a better plan
Most of what you made up in that argument was you arguing with yourself against points I never made. I do have doubts that 20 odd launches a year at $60M per launch bringing in raw commercial revenues of $1.2 Billion covers the costs of 6000 employees, launch operations, production, and development of new projects. So I do have doubts on the whole economic case. But all I can do out bound the outside parameters. What they’re taking in from the government, investors, etc I don’t know.
I think your example of the rail roads is right on. I think that’s just the kind of mismatch between market demand and ability to transport it is what will happen. And, what did it take to keep the rail roads alive during that period? Government subsidy, government loans, and government backed loans. And it went on for a very very long time. The government did it because the rail roads served the government policy of establishing the continental United States in competition with Spain, England and Mexico. I hate to tell you, but Musk is out ahead of the government on that front as well.Cheerleading can help on that front.
Lost hope for the future? What? Ive said it before, and I’ll say it again. If BF(x) works, I just might decide to spend the last 30 years of my ability to work developing payloads tuned to fly on a truck like that. Heck, I might even start aiming for a flight position. Even without BF(x) America’s lead is space is awesome! I just don’t suffer from foaming at the mouth at a promise that’s going to take a long time happen, if it happens at all. In an earlier post you mentioned the problems that Boeing had with the 787 development. Well I’ll argue that Falcon went no faster. 787 got all it’s systems up and running before they could sell it and it took darn near a decade to go from start of project to sales. SpaceX got to sell and operate the intermediate forms of the system, but in the end still took darn near a decade to get the ‘final’ version to market.
The B787 was based on a mature technology and shouldn’t have taken that long. The Falcon was developed as fast as the Saturn family of rockets which NASA had a blank check to build.
Sad that you think that folks like me who support Elon Musk are foaming at the mouth, but I guess that is how you view anyone who disagrees with your “rational” viewpoint.
there is nothing mature about the B787…the systems to it are completely new…PACKS for the most part up until it were no different then in the B47…but with the 787 they are brand new. the wing design is unique, the first of its kind thanks to composites
silly
the Falcon is Atlas reborn 🙂
Don’t get me wrong, when it proves itself out or looks like even the basics will work. I’ll foam too.
you folks are a hooot
Musk presents somethingand to you folks “its done” of course the stuff he is building or built is either no where near done in any comparable time span or falls short
Musk has been flailing away on commercial crew for years, longer then he claims it will take to build his new, several more times complex rocket…and yet you buy his several times more complex time line
thats blind faith or as Andrew puts it “religion”
(that is also taking Boeing this long should trouble you all)
you assume green light stuff on everything…and when its not “no problem he will go another direction” as if he is doing that on Commercial crew
its the religion of space
No it’s the belief that tomorrow will be much better than today, something you seem to have lost. Maybe it comes from working for the state airline of a nation slipping back into the past under its present leader.
Elon Musk may not succeed, but unlike you and the other old time naysayers, he is at least trying to make the future better. What are YOU doing to make the future better? And please spare me all of your family hobbies that have zero effect on society.
LOL actually I am at a state airline that pays its people superbly well so that all three of my kids will (or have) entered adult hood with a core financial block well over 1 million dollars which if they wanted to at 21…they could simply sit and collect the interest on and live, and probably live better then most Americans now …particularly the vast majority of those who support trump
its also made my wife and my life “better” tomorrow then today but then that has not been at issue since I got the farm that my 8th grandfather got from Sam Houston 🙂 so I just negate your comments as a silly attempt to deflect by a personal attack
part of what you are saying of course is the evangelical mode that all true religious folks are in. “they know” they have the future nailed so no self doubt there and they are quite willing to well spread the gospel because in large measure it reaffirms their faith
nothing wrong with that of course until it interfers with clear thinking and a thought process that can distinguish reality from utter fiction
past performance is indicative of the reality of current rhetoric. Musk made claims for the F9 and FH that clearly still today are “aspirational”…and wont happen…so it is fair to say that the claims he is making for this current effort are likely to fall quite short of the goals which many, including you, already accept as fact
what the second stage of this vehicle is oddly enough morphing into is shuttle 2. the near double delta wing..the canards are all things that have been looked into before…Musk has not reinvented or invented anything novel here, he is trying by execution to do that
he may suceed but based on his past performance he will likely fall short…now that doesnt mean he does not come up with a viable vehicle…but like F9 and FH its unclear that they will “change the world”
and that is the point of discussion…
No, it just shows you are so focused on maximizing your personal future you care nothing about something bigger. But folks who oppose revolutions usually are especially when they have a financial stake in it like you do with Boeing.
I happen to care about my family and if one does not take care of their family then you can gain the entire world and lose everything
how many wives/girlfriends has musk had?
when Musk does something revolutionary from an economic standpoint in space well then we can all cheer. we could cheer to aplaud the effort but I stopped that in the shuttle era 🙂
You don’t seem to get it. If Starship Mk 3 or Mk 4 fails, SpaceX will fix what went wrong in Mk 5 or Mk 6. By the time you get to Mk 10 or Mk 20, you’ve worked all the bugs out of the design, via failures or near failures. This is an iterative design approach where you design a little, build a little, test a little, and fly a little. Anything that goes wrong sends you back a step or two in the process.
We can, however, speculate about how many failures it will take before Starship/Super Booster makes a successful flight and successful landings. You seem to be saying that Starship will fail so many times it will bankrupt the company and scare away all future investors. That seems unlikely to me, IMHO.
You lead a rich and full – and left statist – fantasy life.
“The rest of the engineering world” != Andrew Tubbiolo. Especially given that engineering grads name Elon Musk as their number one choice of who to work for.
I think the one looking to be disappointed is you. And I think, at some level, you know that as well as the rest of us do.
I have lived a rich and full life so far. Thanks. But unfortunately I’ve never extracted near as much from the tax payers as Elon and Space X. They’re much bigger drains on Congressional largess than I am.
Again, I have to say it. My counter points are not against Space X as much as they are against you. Again, you confuse your advocacy for Space X as if you are a member of the team. Unless you’re a player, don’t make that mistake. You’re a fan and that’s it. Don’t mistake yourself to be something you’re not.
I’ll be happy to see this concept work. I just think it’s much more risky an approach than you do.
I’m perfectly well aware I’m not a member of the SpaceX team.
You, on the other hand, seem panicked that Musk will succeed in the face of all the “mature wisdom” dispensed by “older and wiser heads” and to hanker after being part of the “adult supervision” the comically clueless Capt. Oler seems to think SpaceX needs.
The coming year should be interesting in the Chinese proverb sense for all sorts of people, not least myself. As has not been at all atypical of the past few years, Musk seems bent on moving even faster than I expected him to.
Until Aerojet Rocketdyne fired an RD-180 engine on their own test stand, there were still propulsion engineers in the US that said that oxygen rich staged combustion liquid fueled rocket engines were impossible. Sometimes the “mature wisdom” dispensed by “older and wiser heads” is flat out wrong.
Exactly my point. The “Get a horse!” crowd, like the poor, we shall always have with us.
I think the difference between our two points of view are as follows. You see how great things will be once the concept of BF(x) works and play down all the difficulties the concepts entails. I see all the problems and play down the “what if” should it work out. Cpt Oler is convinced the effort is doomed to fail. Should I or Oler prove right, then yes, Space X needed adult supervision. If it all works out, Oler and I are old fogies and we can go on supporting the working systems we already support and/or change our ways. Really, if the story ends/begins happy I think we’ll all be happy. Nobody here will be upset if spaceflight is effectively turned into a maritime style effort where it would be cheaper to send geologists to the Moon instead of sending a rover the old fashioned way.
I’ll take your word for it that you would be happy if things work out as I expect them to. And why would I not? You’re an experienced garage machinist and an astronomer, a combination that gives you a definite rooting interest in Starship succeeding to the point at which it’s flying “Getaway Specials” you could take advantage of to launch your own personal space telescope.
I don’t think you can say the same for Capt. Bob, though. I fully expect him to continue his usual practice of denying things even well after they’ve occurred.
The argument will, in any case, be settled fairly soon. Musk could miss his own freshly enunciated schedule in every particular and still wind up succeeding faster than the schedule I’ve previously offered as conjecture. I’m fastening my seatbelt and wishing it was a five-point harness.
You understand me right. That said, having smeared the line between high end garage hacking and real world engineering, I understand there are limits to what can be done in the garage. They’re blurry, but they are there. Also, look forward to the day when spaceflight is maritime. Having spent a few years living near the ports of Philadelphia and Elisabeth NJ I appreciate what ships can do vs spacecraft. It was/is my opinion that this requires nuclear power. Maybe I’m about to be proven wrong. I still think probably not.
Let me throw this as at you. What if neither of us is proven right or wrong in the coming year, or years? What if the returns on the work are tantalizing but there’s no breakthrough, or everything works to a point but has a million small malfunctions and the effort drags on year after year after year. If that happens we’re still going to be locked in our back and forth, where at some point you’ll be resetting your optimism and I’ll keep nagging you that “I told you so.”. I think you should be prepared for that. I think that can happen. I think it will happen.
I grew up in a town with a major iron ore transshipment facility so big ships were a part of my childhood and adolescence too. I could watch their comings and goings by walking about a block from my residence.
Starship and its quickly evolved descendants should be fine for getting people to the Moon, Mars and maybe even the Belt. I think nuclear power will be mandatory for anything beyond that and probably would confer some advantages even in the Belt. But by that time, I also expect SpaceX to still be leading the way, probably with proprietary thorium reactors built on, and fueled from, Mars. But there is at least as likely a possibility that deep space will be explored in electric propulsion ships driven by beamed energy generated further sunward. That would, frankly, be more Musk-like an approach.
You’ve grown up in a time of massive government presence, have been part of it all or most of your adult life and have bought thoroughly into the leftist belief in individual insignificance and the impossibility of progress except via the auspices and oversight of Mother State. I get all that.
But most of the really important advances in history were the product of individual genius/stubborness/indomitability, not government action. These continue even in our own time.
I see Musk as the seminal figure of the New Space Age. You see him as a dangerous loose cannon who’s been lucky so far and is due for a major change of fortune. Therefore, in your mind, there will be obstacles, reverses, failures and disappointments. By your sort of leftish notions of karma, these are absolutely necessary to balance what you see as having been a quite unreasonable stretch of good fortune to-date. Musk simply must get his eventually because no one is exceptional and everyone must answer to the Law of Averages in the end.
As has long since become obvious, I don’t agree with any of that.
In any event, Musk has made his brag, so to speak, and now we shall see if he can back it. I’m inclined to think he can – plus or minus. As noted elsewhere, even if Musk takes twice as long to reach any particular announced goal as on the schedule enunciated Sept. 28, he will still be moving at multiples the speed of any other entity pursuing broadly comparable goals including entire national governments – not least, his own. The next 90 days should tell us a lot about what to realistically expect in 2020.
Interesting times.
You have a lot of what you think about my POV flat ass wrong. But we do live in very different worlds and come at things from different coordinate systems with vastly different origins, we would not even agree on what the inertial frame would be.
Seemingly not. But I do expect the coming year to be mostly or entirely dispositive of many of our disagreements – the ones about SpaceX anyway.
One of the strengths of SpaceX to me is that they will go away if they screw up too badly and leave the field clear for the next contestant. Quite the opposite of the SLS, Orion, Shuttle situation where the “There can be only one” prevents other concepts from being tried.
Time will tell. But it’s important to remember SpaceX is not Boeing. It’s run by an entrepreneur, not a bunch of bureaucrats pushing paper and riding on its past glory.
That said every time I’m at Terminal 5 at Ohare, or the international terminal at LAX I see an awful lot of 787’s and 777’s. Their current development problems taken in stride they do some mighty fine work.
The B777 is a 30 year old design so its an example of Boeing’s past glory. And the DOJ has widen its investigation of the B737 Max certification process to include the B787.
https://www.seattletimes.co…
oh its more then 30 years old…you are silly it really dates back to the 707
tom stop talking about things you know nothing about its painful
The design of the B777 only started in the late 1980’s long after the era of the B707. Its first flight wasn’t until 1994. It was the last new Boeing airliner before they merged with McDonnel-Douglas and Boeing started their downhill slide.
Of course one could argue all Boeing jets date to the Dash-80 or even the the Wright-Flyer.?
LOL you know as much about Boeings as you know about Musk and space vehicles
the B777 is typical Boeing “uplevel” from the B707…however its origins, the basic airfoils, cabin shape etc all trace there way back to the Dash 80
it is Boeing’s perfect child. the 787 is the new child…new shape, new airfoils, completely new systems.
Tom…stop…go to something you know
Robert former Boeing Test pilot 🙂
Prior to 777, the equipment was done the old fashion way. With the 777, the designs were put in Catia, but in addition, the wings on the 777 were designed and optimized via AI, specifically Genetic algorithms. There was NOTHING like that in the stable prior to those.
The 777 is a work of art. The 787, along with 737Max, are what aircrafts look like when Business ppl take over. Just like Vega and Pintos are what cars look like when business ppl take over auto industry.
ouch. I did not know that.
Thanx.
Actually, no. Boeing is NOT ran by bureaucrats, but by MBAs. Boeing’s downfall was when we allowed the business idiots to take over and push engineers out. Prior to 2000, it was engineers that controlled the company.
I will be impressed if they hop before the end of the year. I suspect that they will be in orbit next year, but that is a whole other issue.
Me too. It will show a lot of carry over from the hopper to the Starship if they indeed hop this year. Some folks on here know more of the specifics than I do, so I ask them this. Did the hopper have the tank within a tank pressurization system? If not, I expect that to be a 1st order barrier to a hop this year. I wish them success.
if it works at a level of success no other Musk space product has worked at. Musk cannot make commercial crew work…what makes you think some “ruds” are not sitting in this vehicle like they have every other vehicle he has flown
Narration: There is no blocker to CC that can’t be overcome with current resources in short order, they just scheduled the IFA for Nov. Your statement is going to age like cottage cheese in the heat. Vehicles can RUD, that’s why you build more than one prototype in parallel.
inshallah
Well, one entirely rational reason for supposing that is that all prior Falcon RUD’s were rooted in the helium pressurant system. The D2 explosion was rooted in the hypergolic launch abort system. Starship will have neither of these – part of that “unbuilding” design philosophy Musk enunciated as part of his presentation.
meh.
I am sure that Elon was expecting it. I was. Considering that Bridenstine had voted against CCXdev funding and was part of the group that gutted it, I am surprised that it took him this long to blame elon.
“NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer.”… ? You have f’ing got to be kidding me that he said that.
first time Jimbo got something correct
It certainly is the politically “correct” smoke-ball to distract from the utterly management desaster that is the SLS…
yeah, CC is years behind schedule, but that is equal parts SpaceXs /Boeings as well as a political fault.
still CC is doing much better than SLS and SpaceX is still in the lead despite being the “low cost” option.
I think most of the issues with SLS and CC are generic fifth generation programs coupled with horrible management on all sides
That appears to be the basic problem at Boeing on the B737 Max. No wonder its taking so long to get it flying again.
https://newrepublic.com/art…
Crash Course, How Boeing’s Managerial Revolution Created the 737 Max Disaster.
By Maureen Tkacik
September 18, 2019
lol
No, Bob, IMO, he’s dead wrong and a snake-in-the-grass to boot. Very sad. He should have just bit his tongue. Now, when it comes to NewSpace, he has definitely sided with those “who are banging in the nails”. Regards, Paul.
musk cannot make commercial crew work
That remains to be seen, Bob, but, at least SpaceX is trying to make HSF (more) affordable. I wish them well. Regards, Paul.
Dopey Roberto will be standing by this perishable statement up until splashdown with a crew. However, carrying a binary state around for a Bayesian probability of near term events doesn’t make you disciplined, it makes you inept.
The thing is that it is now clear that even if commercial crew works its a dead end, maybe a dozen flights at most for Dragon2 and CST-100 each before the ISS program is over. And then there will be no destinations as the design have been so customized to NASA needs their commercial value will be limited.
its not clear at all that either are a dead end
Not 100%, no. But it’s a lot less clear just what the non-NASA future of CC or even CRS vehicles might be. Hint: Gateway is not going to be one of the choices.
Someone sounds a little threatened.
That person would almost certainly be Senator Shelby. Bridenstine knows who signs his paychecks.
The audience for that comment of Bridenstine’s was his master, Sen. Richard Shelby.
Kinda sad. Best comment would have been saying nothing – it’s not a NASA project
A little red meat for the porkers is what that was. Bridenstine knows what the real score is and he knows that SpaceX knows too.
I thought he was trying to hobble SLS from within.
They showed Starship next to the puny Falcon I–any plan to have it and a modern Falcon side by side?
That’s what I want to see.
He wants the senate to give him some more billions . so some red meat for Shelby.
Awesome looking vehicle, by the way!
It looks a lot better all put together than I imagined it would a few days ago when it was still just a bunch of semi-assembled pieces
Does Space X have their own hypersonic wind tunnel? They’ve changed the aerodynamic outlines radically in the past 2 months. Or at least that’s when we saw the change. If flights are going to provide the aerodynamic data they’ll be rebuilding these things to deal with the ugh-knowns they’re sure to encounter in the places the CFD breaks down.
Don’t know if SpaceX has their own wind tunnel, but they are known to test scale models in wind tunnels, and it’s commonplace for private aerospace companies to pay for time in NASA wind tunnel facilities for testing.
This Falcon Heavy model was used for wind tunnel testing. http://i.imgur.com/ZJfbZzz.jpg
Likely they did the same with all the different BFS / Starship designs.
Right, and that takes time. I’m wondering if they’re ‘winging’ these air control surface changes. The public design changes have come fast and furiously. I don’t think they’re conducting the full development cycle on this project.
I doubt they were “winging” it. We knew they changed the design back in May.
https://twitter.com/elonmus…
Probaby wind-tunnel-tested some models before then, and realized the advantages over the triple-fin TinTin configuration.
Even though Musk preferred the TinTin configuration, he deferred to his engineers. Good for him for not ignoring advice from those who might actually know more than he does.
Thanks for that. I don’t have friends using NASA wind tunnels right now, but 5 years ago the line was 8 months long. Either the line is shorter, SpaceX can cut in line (I doubt that) or they’re going with CFD. Those wings look modular. I’ll bet the changes are not over yet.
At least they are not doing it the Scaled Composite way of mounting it on a pickup truck and driving it real fast down a runway at Mojave. Hence the stability problems with SpaceshipOne. And who knows what problems lurk in SpaceshipTwo once they really start flying it regularly.
“wings”
That’s the great thing about building them with stainless steel like ships, it’s easy to change the design.
It is way past time to deliver on commercial crew.
I’m sure Jim takes no joy in writing another check to Russia for Soyuz seats, 6 years and counting
Then NASA needs to get realistic about it and do it’s part in moving it forward by speeding up the review process.
LOL, are you seriously trying to claim that the flights didn’t start in 2014 as SpaceX originally claimed because NASA is reviewing things ?
The evidence speaks for itself. As a NASA program commercial crew is moving at the speed of NASA.
More fabulism. SpaceX debuted the design for Crew Dragon 2 in 2014. There was never any pretense that missions were going to be flown that year.
Explain this press release from 2011 claiming 2014 flights
https://www.spacex.com/pres…
I’ll wait. Should be stellar mental gymnastics ..
Yea, that was one of President Obama’s selling points on it when he killed Project Constellation. But if there is a way to slow something NASA will manage. Look at JWST. Why do you think Starship is being built without NASA’s help?
Interesting find. The date puts that release about 13 months before the initial visit by a Dragon 1 to ISS. Dragon 1 was developed fairly quickly under a COTS Space Act Agreement so I’m guessing Elon was basing this schedule estimate on that experience, which was still on-going. He and SpaceX had never operated under a FAR contracting regime with full NASA “oversight” at that point and had no idea what awaited them. By the time 2014 rolled around and Elon put on the big Crew Dragon 2 reveal, I think he had begun to get some idea of what he was up against but by then he was past the point of no return.
The obvious independent variable anent the relative quickness of the Dragon 1 development vs. the long-running soap opera that has been Commercial Crew is the far greater degree to which NASA has been calling the shots. And yet you persist in your pathetic insistence that all the CC delays are somehow the fault of SpaceX.
And yet you persist in your pathetic insistence that all the CC delays are somehow the fault of SpaceX.
I’ve never done this. Cite please ?
I did call you on this piece of flat out bullshit, though
And I have acknowledged that I stand corrected.
Kudos. Lets stay civil
A huge vertical fin like the Shuttle is not needed? Or is it hidden on the far side? Does not look like a V tail. I guess a computer will keep it straight. I fly RC most of the time with roll and pitch. But a V fin is still needed. It looks like it will hunt from side to side. Maybe the body acts like a v fin. I guess I should have done more reading.
I fly rudder/elevator-only RC gliders, too 🙂 With those, I used to be bothered that with that kind of setup there were no ailerons like in a “full scale” glider, but it turns out it’s fine and a flight is actually more relaxing with, like you say, just R/E and some wing dihedral. Its not like you’re actually on board flying, and a flat wing takes a bit of attention from the ground, so the ailerons can be a bit much sometimes. Spoilers, however, are always a nice addition (perhaps through repurposing ailerons via a radio mix) to get out of lift or to drop right down into a small landing zone. Fun stuff.
Regarding Starship, the initial entry profile, according to the latest, will be quite shuttle-like, with nose high, then, after hypersonic, the nose pitches down more (45 degrees-ish), and then finally, I think around going subsonic, its pitch will be relatively flat, like an airplane in straight ‘n level flight. The difference will be, by the time the pitch is flat, it won’t be gliding forward at all – it’ll just be dropping straight down like a rock, with the “wings” spread out and back like a skydiver (in other words, they’re not wings at all, but a dynamic drag device).
Finally, right near the ground, it’ll pitch back up via thrusters, all the way to vertical, and then land on its tail like Falcon 9.
Of course, all that could change, possibly as soon as a few hours from now when Elon gives his presentation 😉
Yes, but no V fin. No yaw stability. Enough side area from body. Differential from the wings will cause yaw or rudder if needed. So if a little higher or lower on one side will have more or less drag causing yaw if needed. I suppose it is never going forward in the air, so is not needed.
The Shuttle Orbiter needed the rudder because the USAF expected it to glide over a 1,000 miles when launching from VAFB. It never flew from VAFB and so it never used that capability. But it was those same big wings the destroyed the Columbia as they made a perfect target for ice falling off the External Tank.
Elon Musk doesn’t have to satisfy NASA or USAF requirements with the Starship, only the laws of physics, which is why it was designed and built so fast. The fins are not for flying, they are not wings, but are only there to keep it oriented during re-entry and then pitch it up for the vertical landing, both on Earth and on Mars.
the rudder had nothing to do with the cross range. the double delta wing did
you talking about technical requirements for vehicles is like Trump talking about the Ukraine.
True, it needed the rudder because it was a glider after re-entry. I should have made that clearer. But without offering the USAF course range it would have never been built.
But you now put the finger on NASA’s key mistake, which was insisting that it needed to be a space plane. It was the direct cause of the Columbia accident and the indirect cause of Challenger because it made an abort system impossible. That is the genuis of Elon Musk, recognizing there is a better way, that the 1950’s science fiction writers, and designers of the DC-X, were right. That is the real breakthrough of Starship, getting folks to recognize spacecraft are not aircraft that go into space but a completely different beast.
True, it needed the rudder because it was a glider after re-entry. I
“should have made that clearer. But without offering the USAF course
range it would have never been built.
…
oh please stop talking about things you have no clue of…next thing you will offer up is “brakevons”
the shuttle needed a vertical stabilizer because the wings generated lift and the vehicle wanted to turn under aerodynamic control…AND the software for tailless flights with ailvons was not there.
the rudder hadnothing to do with the cross range.
the cross range was a requirement when the vehicle adapted the USAF as a customer because the USAF has this rather strange mission requirement of a takeoff at Vandy and a “once around” where it would deploy its satellite and then land on the next orbit…it was a totally unrealistic mission profile (in so many ways) but it was what drove almost all of the shuttle aerodynamics andmass
“But you now put the finger on NASA’s key mistake, which was insisting
that it needed to be a space plane. It was the direct cause of the
Columbia accident and the indirect cause of Challenger because it made
an abort system impossible
this montage of words is non comprehensible to me because the thoughts are not only wrong but border on incoherent.
“needed a space plane”. and “abort system” and the two accidents
first off Elon’s “new toy” doesnt have an abort system any better then the shuttles…ie to abort the entire stack or the parts of it that have people on them have to abort…so?
the cause of both accidents was simple “flying with a known malfunction that could by random chance destroy the vehicle” and then having such an event happen and ignoring it.
Musk does that and has lost some vehicles because of it…he explains those away as “testing” but really he does exactly what NASA did.
so I dont see what your issue is
the space plane had nothing to do with it.
and for all the world this is looking like Shuttle 2…except in the terminal landing phase it does really nothing different.
” That is the genuis of Elon Musk, recognizing there is a better way,
that the 1950’s science fiction writers, and designers of the DC-X, were
right.”
this is just comical.
the vehicle has not even flown and you have it repealling all spaceflight history 🙂
The causes of the two F9 failures and the D2 blow-up were nothing like the causes of the Challenger and Columbia losses. You’re just doing your usual thing of telling fibs and hoping no one will notice.
who knows what the D2 blowup was about…as for the f9…the same problem twice is a problem
The rudder did not come into play until they were 9.5 miles in altitude … it controlled the yaw
” the commander uses the RCS engines to control roll, pitch and yaw motions. The OMS engines (space engines) are then fired, taking the orbiter out of orbit and thrusting it into the earth’s upper atmosphere. The RCS engines are used one last time to turn the orbiter around so that it is moving nose forward and pitched up slightly. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere the vehicle’s motions of yaw, pitch and roll are controlled by the RCS engines. As the atmosphere thickens, the airplane control surfaces become usable.”
” At 9.5 miles in altitude and at a speed of Mach 1, the orbiter can be steered using its rudder.”
It had a slit rudder which was also used for braking once it was on the runway.
https://www.nasa.gov/audien…
Yes , but Starship will never go forward in the air. In Space it does. It mushes. It rotates and lands backwards.
Not ice cracked the leading edge. A 2lb. piece of foam. Briefcase size. They fired foam with a cannon at leading edge and it cracked. KInd of like the way they fire chicken to check for bird strikes. 500mph + 2lb foam. A lot of energy. Doesn’t matter that it is foam. Just that it is 2lb. The foam popped off and stopped dead, because of the weight to area. The Shuttle ran into it. No ice. They did not use ice in the cannon. The foam was closed cell, so no water, no ice. Just foam.
The fate, and schedule, of Dragon2 is in the hands of NASA. They have to review and approve the work on it like they have been doing since day 1. NASA is the one who set safety standards and test requirements far beyond that of any NASA spacecraft, and far above the Soyuz they are using now. Why do you think there are still “issues” with the parachutes? SpaceX has successfully flown over 18 missions with the Dragon and DM1 with never a problem. Yet there seems to some problem with the Dragon2, CST-100 and Orion parachutes now.
So really it’s up to NASA to move faster if they want Commercial Crew as everyone knows how fast SpaceX is able to do things.
Meanwhile Elon Musk got tired of waiting, tired of NASA “help” and tired of NASA ways and is going forward without NASA. Building two Starships prototypes and the Starhopper shows just how fast he is able to move forward without NASA’s help.
And yes, it is showing everyone that NASA has become irrelevant to the future of HSF, which is probably what some folks at NASA are starting to realize, hence the sour tweet. Folks are now realizing the Emperor is buck naked.
Expect more Bronx Cheers from NASA as Starship and Super Heavy move towards orbital flight while SLS is still doing “green tests”. Expect Cheering when one of prototypes crash, and cries of “I told you so!” and “Only NASA knows how to do space”. And expect Elon Musk to ignore both as he gives humanity a Solar System to conquer and develop thanks to Starship and Super Heavy.
You have consistently attempted to put the blame on NASA for the fact the Dragon 2 has not flown people. Regardless of funding in the early days or parachute issues, Dragon 2 is not progressing toward certification because SpaceX blew it up during a ground test. Whether anyone had a clue about the vulnerabilities of titanium valves is irrelevant. Maybe nobody knew. I am not accusing SpaceX of negligence. What is unassailable is that they built the spacecraft and it blew up during their test and they are responsible. NASA has every right not to just take their word that the problem is fixed. They’ve got a lot of testing to do and a vehicle to finish before they can do their in-flight abort.
As for Starship, I applaud Musk for going out on a limb and building his own ship with his own money. It’s exciting to see it take shape and I shall be truly impressed if it works. Musk is a genius but is also a little ADD. He is always looking to his next project with the result that the current projects do not get his full attention and stakeholders have to wait. I guess that’s just what you get when you deal with him.
Its a NASA program which NASA is managing under the contract they have with SpaceX, so, as Presidnt Truman used to say, “The Buck Stops Here”.
I thought you were fairly educated but when you can’t counter my argument, you retreat to fanbois talking points. Whether or not this public-private partnership is working, the “private” side blew up their own spaceship and delayed the program. That’s their fault, not NASA’s.
Just as you noted below NASA could have put performance clauses in the contract, or structure it to give them incentive to be first. So your own post shows the Buck stopped at NASA. SpaceX was just being a government contractor, working at the pace of NASA.
Look, Commercial Crew was already at least two years late when D2 blew up back in April. That delayed SpaceX about six extra months. Even so, SpaceX may well fly people to ISS before the other half of the CC program, Boeing’s Starliner, does likewise. The program, as a whole, will wind up having taken at least twice as long as COTS. The difference is almost entirely attributable to the switch to FAR contracts and NASA oversight practices. Trying to lay the blame for CC’s manifold delays on SpaceX when Boeing has been even slower operating under the same NASA contract and oversight regime is just an effort at scapegoating the new guy for all the mess caused by the supposedly “older and wiser heads.”
I’m not blaming just SpaceX. Both companies faced engineering challenges and had to deal with NASA’s bureaucracy. NASA moved the goal posts some, Congress underfunded the program and the companies oversold their engineering prowess and made rosy projections about their timetables. This was a three-legged table and all three legs were weak at one time or another. The problem here in this topic is that nobody wants to acknowledge that all the parties contributed to the delay. If I seem to be scapegoating SpaceX it is being misinterpreted. I am reacting to the quite common attitude that “Capitalism good, government bad” and all problems stem from government incompetence.
There’s an old saying that the race goes not always to the swift nor the contest to the strong but that’s the way the smart money bets. In the case of projects, government-run projects have a long and inglorious history of taking far longer and costing far more than originally proposed. And that has been true even where no consequential pushing of the technological envelope was really involved. Not that the private sector isn’t capable of flagrantly screwing the pooch on occasion too, but it seems to happen less, especially to companies not so old that they have become somewhat like governments themselves.
So in the case of CC, it’s pretty much a case of just looking at the one key variable between it and COTS – FAR-based contracts and “customary” levels of NASA “oversight” and “review.”
From the time SpaceX was awarded a COTS contract in Aug. 2006 until it flew an all-up Dragon to orbit and back in Dec. 2010 was 52 months. NASA then fiddled around for almost another year and half before allowing a Dragon to actually visit ISS so I don’t count that as part of the development timeline.
The comparable interval for Dragon 2 was Apr. 2011 to Mar. 2019 – 95 months. But Boeing still hasn’t flown an unmanned test and SpaceX blew up the D2 that made its unmanned test flight so development is still on-going. Assuming both SpaceX and Boeing are ready to try their initial manned test missions by, say, Mar. 2020, the total development interval will be 107 months – a bit over twice what SpaceX took to do COTS.
The D2 explosion, though unfortunate, doesn’t much affect the conclusion that it was NASA, not SpaceX, or even Boeing, that was responsible for most of the delays in the CC program, though Congress gets credit for a modest assist during the first three years of the program. SpaceX is on the hook for, at most, about 20% of the total difference between the COTS timeline and the CC timeline.
So when it comes to the source of CC program delays, the ratio of government to private sector is, at best 4:1.
Actually, the difference between government and private is mainly in the way failed concepts end, or don’t. Beal Aerospace, Rotary Rocket, Kistler, and many more are gone and no longer matter except as historical examples. SLS, Orion, F35, Farm Subsidies, and many other millstones just keep Porking On, as long as there is political payoff.
You could point to Virgin Galactic as a counter example. Even that will either profit or go away at some point.
Its a NASA program which NASA is managing under the contract they have
with SpaceX, so, as Presidnt Truman used to say, “The Buck Stops Here”.
those are all fan boy talking points to dodge around that SpaceX without any help from NASA blew their capsule that was supposdly ready to carry people up
that is their fault not NASA’s…
and makes one suspect as to the corners Musk will cut when he only has his own money
Like all the corners he cut with, say Falcon Heavy?
The current world champion corner-cutter in the aerospace business is Boeing. The whole 737 MAX disaster is a direct consequence of cheese-paring bean counters having their way.
This is a moronic statement. Dude, Elon’s Twitter is not 7000 employees. Of course the details of parachute quals, recovery from the LES anomaly and COPV final quals aren’t going to make headlines like next gen test vehicle. None of that means there aren’t a ton of resources to close out the D2 items. What do you think Hans spends most of his day on?
https://twitter.com/nextspa…
ha ha
Welcome to social media, where opinions become fact and everybody chooses sides and anyone who disagrees with you is a moron. It’s quite disappointing. I would have expected more since this site draws a more educated audience.
“NASA has to be prudent “
You mean like it was with the Columbia and Challenger Space Shuttles?
I believe that was the “past” he was referring to. Are you going to argue that, just to be fair, NASA has to employ the same mindset that resulted in the Columbia and Challenger tragedies so that they don’t unduly hamper private enterprise? NASA, as the only viable customer, has every right to demand whatever safety measures they deem appropriate unless you are arguing that in the “spirit of public-private partnership” they just have to take whatever the airplane manufacturer and the upstart spaceship company that has never flown a human anywhere have to offer?
And yet they fly on the Soyuz…
Who else can do the job at this point?
NASA is free to “insist” on whatever it wants. But if it keeps inventing new things to “insist” on, it doesn’t have a right to call SpaceX out for being slow.
I think, though, that Bridenstine’s tweet was tactical politics and not a reflection of actual policy. It was said when Bridenstine was nominated that, being a politician himself, he’d be more able to handle Congress. This is him handling Congress by telling them BS they want to hear.
I don’t disagree with you but NASA is constantly accused of moving the goal posts and I’m sure that some of that contributed to the delay. To say (and you didn’t in your post) that money wasn’t available because Congress underfunded the program doesn’t really fly. Private money was available but frankly, both SpaceX and Boeing knew that there was no incentive to go faster. No commercial market existed then nor does one now. Perhaps if the program had been set up so that the first manufacturer with an acceptable spacecraft would get all the early flights and remaining flights would be divided equally once both spacecraft were operational there would have been incentive to borrow private money. Alas, a lesson for next time but I doubt that they’ll learn it. Liquidated damages clauses for failure to deliver a finished product by a set date might also have provided some incentive. Nothing like knowing that if NASA has to buy extra Soyuz flights it’s coming out of your profits.
CC, at least in theory, required some money be put in by the contractors as well as by NASA, though I think the required percentage was lower than with COTS. Boeing pretty much refused to do so and NASA let them stay in the program anyway.
The delays seen with CC are less attributable, at this point, to early Congressional underfunding than they are to a transition from Space Act Agreements for COTS to FAR-based contracts and oversight for CC. Even with the D2 blow-up in April, SpaceX is still roughly tied with Boeing anent schedule.
But the entire CC program has taken at least twice as long as COTS did and the difference is all the FAR and picky oversight stuff that came in with it. At least CC is still being done on the basis of fixed-price milestones and not cost-plus or it would be even further behind schedule.
This whole discussion has gotten kind of ridiculous at this point. I definitely agree with what you said above and fixed-price contracts are certainly better than cost plus. I honestly think that CC was a good idea whose time had not yet come. There is no commercial market yet for manned spaceflight and maybe Boeing was smart enough to know that and not put their own money into their vehicle. SpaceX was going there anyway propelled by the aspirations of a billionaire genius so they were happy to take the government’s money because even if Dragon 2 wasn’t going to be a big moneymaker, it could still serve as R&D for bigger things. The discussion reached ridiculous once Thomas refused to even concede that blowing up Dragon 2 was SpaceX’s fault and has delayed the program. Even that doesn’t explain Boeing’s lack of significant progress. I think that from the standpoint of getting a vehicle sooner, NASA should have just contracted for it. It would cost more but I think we would be flying by now. SLS/Orion is not that vehicle. That is a Congressionally-mandated nightmare and is likely to be the last of its kind.
It depends on exactly how NASA contracted for the ship. CC is contracts, just with enough potholes to cause problems. A pay only on delivery, fixed price contract could be your point and I would agree. Even a substantially higher bid, payable on completion only, would have been better.Flight would have been reached years ago.
But that was never going to happen. COTS got away with Space Act Agreements because, frankly, none of the NASA lifers or the Old Bulls in Congress thought it stood a chance of working. RpK washing out early and being replaced by OldSpace Orbital simply reinforced the notion that it was only likely to be a short time before SpaceX also went toes up and put the whole project back in familiar hands.
Then SpaceX surprised everyone by delivering. The mossback establishment wasn’t about to be snookered like that again so it scotched the whole idea of also using SAA’s for CC. The embattled band of CC partisans at NASA was lucky to salvage fixed price milestones as part of the CC process.
Based on COTS experience – which was still ongoing at the time, Elon, in 2011, seems to have expected to be able to have D2 flying in 2014. That doesn’t seem to have been NASA’s expectation, but then NASA had done a lot of FAR-based projects by that time and Elon hadn’t.
In any event, Elon did not anticipate private demand for human space flight to materialize in advance of a capability to supply same at a reasonable price. Because of NASA institutional program maximum speed governors, that has yet to occur, though we’re finally getting close.
In the meantime, as you say, the D2 effort has been worthwhile for other reasons important to SpaceX. The automated rendezvous and docking tech SpaceX had to develop for D2 will be directly transferable to the on-orbit refueling of Starships, for example.
SpaceX certainly owns the D2 failure and it had an unarguably negative impact on the D2 schedule. “Fault,” though, is a bit fraught as a piece of applicable terminology. It applies only in “the buck stops here” sense, whereas the usual suspects in the SpaceX Bronx cheer gallery want it to apply in the sense of dereliction or deliberately ignoring a known hazard sense. That take is not supportable on the basis of facts.
So far, so good. But you lose it in the clubhouse turn with your notion that all this sturm und drang could have been avoided had NASA “just contracted for it.” That’s exactly what NASA did – contracted for it. Two contracts, in fact, with the two most reasonably qualified providers. What alternative contract with what alternative provider do you seriously think would have resulted in a usable vehicle appreciably sooner?
You’re right. “Fault” is a loose term and tends to imply some measure of negligence. I don’t think it was SpaceX’s “fault” that they didn’t know that titanium valves had inherent flaws. Apparently nobody knew. “Responsibility” is a better term.
As for who NASA would have contracted with, I’m afraid that answer is “old space.” I don’t think that any of the three CC contenders would have had NASA’s trust to create a capsule to NASA’s specifications that could ride on top of an Atlas V or Delta 4. If NASA wanted a capsule and service module quickly they would have gone with the legacy contractors. Maybe the amount that the government saved by going the CC route makes up for the delays but from the standpoint of getting what you want quickly, it is usually easier to keep control and work with a single contractor. NASA doesn’t have enough control of SLS. Congress is building that monster and I think NASA is by and large playing the role of Jewish scientist in the Soviet Union.
I’m glad we did CC from the standpoint of having new companies making spacecraft but the vehicles they both produce I’m afraid will end up as white elephants. Once the ISS goes, we’ll be looking to private space for LEO destinations and I remain pessimistic that the business case will exist.
Interestingly, it seems NASA had once figured out the potential for a hypergolic-titanium reaction back in the late 50’s or early 60’s, but seems to have institutionally forgotten about it as NASA personnel raised no red flags during any review of D2’s design.
In a sense, one could say that NASA has also already run your suggested experiment and it didn’t come out as you suppose. One of the two CC contractors is Boeing, a charter member of the NASA legacy contractors club by virtue of having acquired at least two of the actual original members, McDonnell and North American. Boeing’s vehicle, even in the wake of the D2 explosion, probably still lags D2 in terms of readiness for prime time. Would either Lockheed-Martin or Northrop Grumman, in their then-current states, have done any better? I see no reason to suppose so.
Was NASA less trusting of newer players like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin? Of course. NASA had decayed into comfortable late middle age by the time it was faced with the problem of what to do about the Shuttle retirement – a problem it could have, and should have, foreseen long before it took actual official notice. However much NASA would have preferred to keep things “in the family” by limiting COTS and CC to its old – if not especially reliable – cronies, it couldn’t really do that. The new guys NASA hadn’t been able to “Beal” since Columbia had to at least be let in the front door. In the end, one of them had come out the back door too. In the case of both COTS and CC that one was SpaceX.
After that, all NASA could do was try to trip up the new guy to whatever extent it could to keep the OldSpace competitor from looking too bad. This, NASA has done. Even so, it took an unanticipated capsule explosion to get Boeing back within tail light spotting distance of SpaceX.
In short, the reason CC is late is not SpaceX, it’s NASA and OldSpace (Boeing).
Given Elon Musk’s Sept. 28 declaration that he thinks Starship may be ready to carry people before the end of next year, I’m inclined to agree that D2 and Starliner look to be white elephants walking. That will be true, I think, even if Elon is a year, or even two, off on that Starship-carrying-people thing.
Anent private sector presence in LEO, I’m coming around to the idea that the lack of such may owe as much to timidity as any other reason. Bigelow, Axiom and a number of recent others have floated plans for what might reasonably be called ISS-minus space stations – smaller and with roughly equal or smaller crew complements. And no artificial gravity.
Maybe, though, what it will actually take to make private sector LEO a go is a major jump in the scale of the plan. The Gateway Foundation’s proposed Von Braun Space Station would have four to five times the crew/occupant complement of the original Von Braun-Ley-Bonestell proposal from the early 1950’s and would also retain that proposal’s artificial-gravity-via-radial-spin design. It would be a pathfinder station for a later, and 10 times larger, project, also to be in Earth orbit. The advent of SpaceX’s SHS may make projects of this scale practical and affordable quite soon.
We shall see. I remain optimistic.
they are insisting the vehicle does not blow up
Quite reasonable. And something that should be demonstrable in fairly short order by putting a modified D2 through the same paint shaker ride that killed the Demo-1 vehicle. QED
exactly and I suspect that they have learned from both those…
if the Dragon 2 going bang were like both Columbia and Challenger…ie flying with a known malfuction…and ignroing a problem…we have a bigger one
And if your aunt had any balls she’d be your uncle.
The D2 was like neither Challenger nor Columbia. Nobody at either NASA or SpaceX saw the D2 failure mode coming. Now that it’s been found, it’s being fixed. In contrast, O-ring erosion was a known problem prior to Challenger but was only addressed afterward. Ice and foam falling on the orbiter was a problem known from the start of the Shuttle program and was never successfully addressed.
Those seem like good lessons for them in why they need to be prudent, no?
It appears that you can take the politician out of Congress, but, you can’t take Congress out of the politician. Boy, IMO, you have just made the wrong call, Jimbo.
First the axing of Gerstenmaier & Hill and now this statement, guess Jimbo is really having to earn his “thirty pieces of Silver”. 🙁
Except that Elon Musk recognized that Dragon2 as NASA wanted it was a dead end, especially as NASA made it impractical to use the propulsive landing system needed for use on the Moon or Mars. NASA wanted a 1960’s era capsule to replace the 1960’s era Soyuz so that is want Elon Musk is giving them. But like most inventors he is not going to waste his time on replicating museum artifacts, but instead spend it on building the future.
which had nothing to do with the Dragon 2 going bang
No. But neither did dereliction or deliberate risk-taking on SpaceX’s part which is what you’ve been implying since April 20. There are such things as unknown unknowns. SpaceX got bitten by one in the case of AMOS-6 and by another in the case of D2. Both have been fixed.
Elon Musk tried to do more, build the Dragon2 to be a lander as well as a capsule, to give NASA a reusable crew system, but his only reward was to be slapped down by NASA. So is it any surprise he decided to act just the other government contractors do?
“But recently Elon has been too focused on Starship compared to Dragon 2”
Now you want to move the goal posts to budgets? How much has Boeing spent to unscrew the 737 Max? That has about as much relevance to the conversation as your question, which is not much.
the difference is Boeing has the money and is making it
SpaceX, relative to its current requirements and risks, probably has more money than Boeing these days. SpaceX isn’t facing any extinction-level lawsuits for one thing.
If you look at the history of radical innovations, the aircraft carrier, the submarine, military aircraft, you see the only way to break the paradigm is to smash the old guard over the head with it repeatedly. And yes, it takes a bold effort to do so.
and you dont understand military doctrine either.
it took decades to make the CV capable of suplanting the BB on the battleline
It took about 90 days – the elapsed time between Pearl Harbor and the expeditionary strike at Lae/Salamaua. The polish got put on a month later at Coral Sea and the transformation was essentially complete by June 1942 at Midway. The Japanese were the only ones to try leading with battleships again, but only late in the war and as a desperation play in every case. None of these efforts succeeded.
no it took from Lexington to Hornet…thats decades.
dont be goofy
I’m not the one who’s being goofy. Lexington and her sister Saratoga – both of which had originally been laid down as heavy cruisers and were converted to aircraft carriers while on the ways – entered service in 1927. Hornet was the last ship in the Yorktown class. Yorktown entered service in 1937. So that’s one decade.
But USN doctrine for use of aircraft carriers didn’t change significantly between the commissioning of the Langley and Pearl Harbor. Then, as the US Pacific Fleet no longer had any serviceable battleships, tactical and strategic doctrine had to change by necessity. Fortunately, USN had a few admirals who were up to the task of rolling with the Pearly Harbor punch and landing on their feet.
Its funny. For decades and decades space advocates wanted a way that would enables thousands of individuals to fly into space, to enable the colonization of the Solar System.
But now that Elon Musk is building a rocket that will accomplish that all you see are folks bashing him. Maybe they prefer humanity to be stuck on Earth forever, which is just what will happen if we let NASA stay in charge of human space flight.
Space hooligans!!! What we’re witnessing is the process that politicians exploit to pitch us against each other so the masses can be held in check. It’s just part of our tribal nature.
Oy!
Nope, being bold doesn’t guarantee success, but not taking a gamble guarantees there will be no progress. At least SpaceX is taking the risks needed to move humanity forward. I guess that is why folks feel the need to bash on him.
Thanks for the example of someone who actually is polarized, referring to someone who disagrees with your “fair and balance” viewpoint as a “blind fan”. ?
I recognize there are challenges he must overcome, probably more so than you do as I have following space commerce since seeing the first FAA licensed launch in 1989. I have seen the DC-X come and go as NASA killed it with the X-33 Program, another example of a “fair and balance approach, supposely a “fair” RFP selection by NASA. The Starship is the first vehicle since then has the same potential to break the decades long logjam.
And no, its not a football game as you seem to think, its the real world where a “win” by SpaceX is a win for humanity, while a lost sets humanity’s hopes for conquering space behind again, just as the constant failures of NASA have. Which is why I prefer instead to give Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt and cheer him on.
Again, thanks for proving my point about how polarized you are well pretending to be “netural”. News flash, I have zero interest in owning a Telsa even though buying one would “help” him. I dislike electric cars, especially ones that are self-driving. And I have posted on this forum more than once that I wish he would resign from Tesla, leaving it to others, as its a distraction from his space ventures.
And if you read the posts I have made here you would also know I think he made a bad choice picking Boca Chica. Its a bad place to do rocket flights. But I guess you are too busy pretending you are “netural” to do your research.
So you just don’t like the healthy debate?
Why should it be any different?
this is the nature of true believers
Fair enough. We will see if Elon Musk knows more about rockets and rocket economics than you think he does.
You seem to have a very unrealistic view of the online world. Or else are from another country and don’t understand how Americans love to argue.
He’s already said he’s from another country. Based on his name, I’m supposing it’s Italy. I worked there for a couple years in the late 70’s. Delightful people. But their culture is not one that values those who dare greatly. That’s true of pretty much the entirety of Europe at this point in history. Over the last century and a half, Europe’s formerly more than adequate supply of alpha males has either been killed off in internecine wars or lost to emigration – mainly to the U.S. To the normative European, Elon Musk is barely less alien than would be the Crab People from Alpha Ophiuchi.
Beal Aerospace and many others going all the way back to the 70’s were not simply failures to thrive, they were actively opposed by NASA which wanted a launch monopoly for Shuttle. Active NASA opposition to private sector launch companies didn’t end – at least officially – until after the Columbia disaster. There are still plenty of NASA lifers who haven’t really accommodated themselves to the new reality and still think NASA ought to have a permanent monopoly on U.S. space activity.
yes
Alternatively, Elon can elect to emulate Conan the Barbarian and crush his enemies – see them driven before him, and hear the lamentation of their women. Or, if that imagery is a bit much for modern times, he can at least try to embody the motto of the British Special Air Service – “Who Dares, Wins.”
I think there’s more than a bit of both behind the flank speed development schedule for SHS that has applied for the past year and which is still accelerating.
In response to a question during his Sept. 28 Starship presentation, Elon said Starship accounts for about 5% of SpaceX’s current work. Call it 350 of roughly 7,000 total employees.
I think your $35 million number is probably, as we Americans say, in the ballpark. The total expenditure toward Starship this past year probably doesn’t much exceed $40 million. There’s no elaborate new factory infrastructure and the material cost for both the Mk1 and Mk2 Starships is about $1 million – that’s 2 x 200 tonnes of 301 stainless @ $2,500/tonne.
He probably does. And Dr. Matula knows pretty well. That said, Musk has managed to surprise both of us on occasion – usually in pleasant ways. Trying to think ahead of Elon Musk is a formidable task to set oneself.
Confidence != hubris. Arrogance = hubris. Confidence != arrogance.
I understand the European tendency to regard these three terms as pretty much interchangeable, but one of these is really not like the other two.
Yes. The American Left is busily trying to turn the entire country into Europeans or worse. They have partially succeeded. Europeans are easier to make feel guilty and boss around. And there are many places that make even Europe look macho. Hence the Left’s other project of replacing the resistant portion of the U.S. population with people from places where tugging the forelock to some caudillo or other is considered part of normal life by unlocking the borders.
What was missed in that, is that Bridenstine voted AGAINST proper funding of new space and commercial space development.
Yes, he introduced several bills, that actively helped old space, but as a house rep, he helped to gut the funding for CCXdev.