"Legato" wrote in message
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"Legato" wrote in message
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"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
New shots of the whole assembled rocket at the Cape:
http://www.spacex.com/updates.php
Nice looking rocket; bears some resemblance to a Zenit booster.


Will be interesting to see how soon they can fly it.

It's pretty shocking how big this thing really is. In the second
picture from the top there's a full size truck which gives you some
indication of the size. The payload fairing along must be something
like 6m in length. You can put a BIG satellite in there!

When I look at these images thru my past engineering experience, I see
what we lost when Washington killed Apollo. *Knowhow*. Most of the
theory here is easily accessible to math, physics, and engineering
students. All of the theory is necessary, however, it's of no use
without the knowhow to make it real. It's this knowhow that is the
longterm payoff we get from a company like SpaceX, and it comes the hard
way. As in the sloshing rocket fuel problem, or the too-quick second
stage ignition. (I suspect both of those led to small workforce
decrements at SpaceX shortly after they happened.) But over the long
run SpaceX is quickly becoming what we need to get out to space again.
(I hope!)

Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2009 Dec 03]