Long story short, the costs of moving anything to Earth's orbit (especially big things ) are absolutely ridiculous, because of the fact that you lose the rocket each time.
SpaceX, a private company owned by Elon Musk (the genius behind Tesla Motors and other stuff, check his Wikiepedia article: Elon Musk on Wikipedia) is currently trying to bring the main part of rocket back to earth without destroying it.
The first tests were a fiasco, but the progress is just incredible. The latest landing was yesterday and today they released a full video of how it went - the rocket is trying to land back on the special platform on the ocean (safety measures), it was still a fail, but they are getting closer:
If they get to it, it means the costs of moving things to space would drop by 100x.
Anyone else following this? I've been watching all the starts/landings live, this is incredible how much a single guy can move whole world forward.
Another test flight they did previous, but different rocket:
Why they cant and wont use parachutes, kinda interesting as well:
If you use parachutes, you do not get the kind of precision you need to land on a pad from a ballistic trajectory. You end up having to fire the engine longer, since you have to correct more. It also adds mass, which again, cuts into fuel and payload fraction. Parachutes also add several extra points of failure, and need to be re-rated after every use, and if gusts of wind are caught by the chute, it pulls the rocket off course, or might even cause a crash. In the end, the risk and extra fuel overhead you need does not justify using a parachute, which would have to be ginormous to brake the 30ish ton stage.
It only travels at terminal velocity, around 400kph I think, when the engines are re-ignited. It doesn't take a lot for a rocket to slow down from that and fly to the pad.
The flight profile will most probably also have it fall towards the shore, not the pad, so that it crashes into the sea or the beach instead of the landing site if the engine doesn't re-ignite.
Parachutes also put tension on the stage, which aren't built for that. It would take significantly more RnD to add parachutes and make sure the structure is up to the task of being pulled repeatedly. It's cheaper and simpler to just use the engines which are already on board. Fuel is only around 30000$ for a Falcon 9, so let's say 50k for a Falcon Heavy. The rocket itself likely costs around 90 million.
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Santafairy   Korea (South). Apr 16 2015 01:23. Posts 2225
damn, that was unlucky as shit, so i guess there would really have been no point to try it during the stormy conditions in some of the other launches
comes in pretty hot too
It seems to be not very profitable in the long run to play those kind of hands. - Gus Hansen
On April 16 2015 00:23 Santafairy wrote:
damn, that was unlucky as shit, so i guess there would really have been no point to try it during the stormy conditions in some of the other launches
comes in pretty hot too
Afaik the biggest problem so far is that the engined can operate with ~60-100% only, as if it gets below that value fuel pressure would destroy the engine. However, even with those 60% (which is the minimum amount of power available, like mentioned) the rocket still generates too much power for an empty rocket to slowly descend (it would fly up), that's why it has to rapidly slow down right before the landing.
The ground launch and landing were done with a much heavier rocket, tanked to full, that's why it could slowly fall down.
Fascinating stuff. I heard about his initial plans and the attempt failing but I never saw the footage. I really like what he's doing and I hope he succeeds
if poker is dangerous to them i would rank sports betting as a Kodiak grizzly bear who smells blood after you just threw a javelin into his cub - RaiNKhAN
I wonder if all the billionaires, who essentially basically just beat life were to commit to bettering the world in just one aspect per person, how much progress we would make.
I mean, I'm not sure if they already do that, but I'm assuming they don't, since I only really hear about Musk and Gates. Gates is pretty amazing.
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tapatapaz   Brasil. Apr 16 2015 19:11. Posts 1279
On April 16 2015 17:34 Arirang wrote:
I wonder if all the billionaires, who essentially basically just beat life were to commit to bettering the world in just one aspect per person, how much progress we would make.
I mean, I'm not sure if they already do that, but I'm assuming they don't, since I only really hear about Musk and Gates. Gates is pretty amazing.
you can start by thinking how did they become billionaires in the first place
And what does self awareness have to do with anything you retard? srsly stfu. - baal
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traxamillion   United States. Apr 16 2015 20:05. Posts 10468
On April 16 2015 17:34 Arirang wrote:
I wonder if all the billionaires, who essentially basically just beat life were to commit to bettering the world in just one aspect per person, how much progress we would make.
I mean, I'm not sure if they already do that, but I'm assuming they don't, since I only really hear about Musk and Gates. Gates is pretty amazing.
you can start by thinking how did they become billionaires in the first place
Yea exactly. Seems to me the new money billionaires are more philanthropic but what do I know about that exactly.
On April 16 2015 17:34 Arirang wrote:
I wonder if all the billionaires, who essentially basically just beat life were to commit to bettering the world in just one aspect per person, how much progress we would make.
I mean, I'm not sure if they already do that, but I'm assuming they don't, since I only really hear about Musk and Gates. Gates is pretty amazing.
you can start by thinking how did they become billionaires in the first place
Yea exactly. Seems to me the new money billionaires are more philanthropic but what do I know about that exactly.
Why would it be more safe to land it on ocean ? We have a lot of desert zone unused. This ocean safety's thing is another pathetic excuse to hide all the part they don't want us to discover imo.
Still a great step in the right direction considering the amount of shit we throw up in space.
Shin-il : Yeah it was very very very good for me too. Rekrul : YOU MOTHER FUCKING FUCKING SON OF A BITCH
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Santafairy   Korea (South). Apr 21 2015 23:11. Posts 2225
On April 21 2015 21:20 RaiZ wrote:
Why would it be more safe to land it on ocean ? We have a lot of desert zone unused. This ocean safety's thing is another pathetic excuse to hide all the part they don't want us to discover imo.
Still a great step in the right direction considering the amount of shit we throw up in space.
Rockets have been launched over the ocean since people started launching rockets. it's because when you launch a rocket, it always lands anyway in the form of falling from the sky at hundreds of miles per hour and it's safer to do that over the ocean because human beings aren't fish so rockets launched over the ocean don't crash into our civilization
It seems to be not very profitable in the long run to play those kind of hands. - Gus Hansen
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Raidern   Brasil. Dec 22 2015 04:57. Posts 4243
bumpo
im a regular at nl5
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TimDawg   United States. Dec 22 2015 05:55. Posts 10197
Elon Musk will be written about in our childrens' history books
this is amazing
online bob is actually a pretty smart person, not at all like the creepy fucker that sits in the sofa telling me he does nasty shit to me when im asleep - pinball
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traxamillion   United States. Dec 22 2015 06:10. Posts 10468
wow
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ggplz   Sweden. Dec 22 2015 06:48. Posts 16784
Awesome :D
if poker is dangerous to them i would rank sports betting as a Kodiak grizzly bear who smells blood after you just threw a javelin into his cub - RaiNKhAN
Into Infinity   United States. Dec 22 2015 17:28. Posts 1884
i have a friend that works at spacex... mirin
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bigredhoss   Cook Islands. Dec 22 2015 23:12. Posts 8648
Elon Musk's biggest talent by far is in the PR marketing of his personality cult to people who are like 'hurr durr maek space ships', he's definitely no Gates / Brin / Page / Zuckerberg / Jobs (maybe he's ahead of Jobs intellectually, but he's behind everyone else both in terms of intellect and accomplishments). i mean the guy is a beast but his mega fanboy following isn't really warranted.
that said this is pretty cool.
Truck-Crash Life
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Spitfiree   Bulgaria. Dec 23 2015 00:02. Posts 9634
On December 22 2015 22:12 bigredhoss wrote:
Elon Musk's biggest talent by far is in the PR marketing of his personality cult to people who are like 'hurr durr maek space ship.
the people you've listed afterwards are exactly the same :/ they re all great at selling themselves and great at leading large intelligent groups of people, otherwise none of them would've been able to accomplish what they've accomplished