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Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?



 
 
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  #41  
Old October 29th 17, 04:30 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

In article . com,
says...

On 2017-10-28 15:38, Jeff Findley wrote:

So what? They're doing better at turning around recovered first stages
to be re-flown faster than any of the competition


The only "re-use" competition is the Shuttle and it wasn't a commercial
endeavour.


The space shuttle isn't competition, because every single orbiter is in
a museum! SpaceX currently has zero (operational) competition when it
comes to reusing flown first stages from orbital launches.

Landing a just launched stage doesn't save any money. It costs money.


Relative to the cost of manufacturing a new first stage, there is very
little cost associated with recovering flown first stages. You're just
being daft at this point.

Launching a payload with a re-used stage 1 is what saves you money.


Yes, and customers are switching to flown first stages in order to
launch their payloads sooner. I've told you this several times now.
But here is a cite since you seem unwilling to Google this yourself:

Iridium swaps two new Falcon 9 rockets for ?flight-proven? boosters
October 20, 2017 Stephen Clark
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/2...-new-falcon-9-
rockets-for-flight-proven-boosters/


The Block 5 has improvements to the design to help with reuse.


One could infer that those improvements are a sign that the current
Falcon 9 is harder to re-use as the cheer leaders say it is.


Bull****. Again, the first reuse cost them half the cost of building a
new first stage. It's a proven fact that they're saving money with
every used stage that is reflown. Yes, they're making improvements to
make reuse easier and more economical, but the fact is that it's
economical right now, even with the Block 3's that are only going to be
reflown once each.

SpaceX
will only get better at this while the competition (aside from Blue
Origin, who's still working on the BE-4 engine for New Glenn) are not
even trying to reuse anything.


The argument isn't whether SpaceX is ahead or other or not. The mere
fact that they have demonstrated they can land a stage, and have re-used
at least 1 stage means they are way ahead of anyone else.

But that doesn't mean that they have proven that they can already
quickly turn around every landed Falcon 9.


So what? They're saving money on recovered stage that is reflown.
That's what counts here. You're damning them because they're not yet to
the "gas and go" stage even though they're the only company reflying
stages and saving money doing it.

That makes zero sense. Who the hell ****ed in your Cheerios?

They've demonstrated the concept, they've demonstrated they can land
stages, they have demonstrated they can refly at least 1 stage. But
havent yet demonstrated they can have short turn around between landing
pad and launch pad such that it allows high launch rate OF RE-USED STAGES.

Just because it is very likely that they will be able to turn these
around quickly doesn't translate to them having demonstrated it.

Just because there are improvements coming that will make future refurb
even easier doesn't mean that they have demonstrated it already.


What they have now is still better than anyone else in the industry.

The crush core is more likely to be used up on high energy launches.


On a commecial aircraft, after a hard landing, the aircraft is put "off
line" for inspections. So I would assume that if a crush core gets used
up fully, the stage may require more time to be certified for reflight.

I am not questioning the huge game changing advantage SpaceX has in
having developped re-usable stages. Am not questioning that they have
proven they can land stages and re-use at least 1.

What they haven't proven yet is the ability to ramp up refurbishement to
do quick turn around from landing pad to launch pad. It's too early for
them to have demonstrated it.


This is the eventual goal. Every refurbish and reflight they make gives
them more data on how to do things better. Even if they never quite
make it there with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, there is always BFR.

At least they're trying. Blue Origin is the only other company trying,
and they're still working on developing their BE-4 engine which they
need for their orbital New Glenn launch vehicle. No other launch
company (or government) on the planet is even attempting to do what
SpaceX is doing today.

I just don't get why you're ****ing on their unprecedented
accomplishments. What's your point?

Jeff
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These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
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  #42  
Old October 29th 17, 04:43 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

In article om,
says...

On 2017-10-28 21:47, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Musk seems to think he has enough data to declare it 'production use'
starting at the beginning of this year. I believe him before I belief
**** you pull out of your ass.



Am not debating that they can do it. And yes, they are selling launches
on refurb stages. But as I recall, they've only have 1 launch so far on
a refurb stage. All those sales are for future launches. When those
happen, then SpaceX will have demonstrated it can deliver on turning
around landed stages quickly enough to meet customer demand.


This is NOT correct. They've done it THREE times already. Here are the
three booster numbers that have each flown twice:

Falcon 9 booster B1021 (first reflight)
Falcon 9 booster B1029 (second reflight)
Falcon 9 booster B1031 (third reflight)

Cite (again, since you seem unwilling to look for the facts):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...stage_boosters

Furthermore, if you look closely at the above page, you'll see not one
but two more flown boosters scheduled for their second flight in
December of this year.

Until then, it is cheer leading to state that they have proven it.


They HAVE proven it THREE times! It's not our fault you're ignorant of
the facts.

And do note (again, according to the page I've cited) that B1035 (which
launched Dragon CRS-11 to ISS) is scheduled to launch Dragon CRS-13 to
ISS. So NASA believes that SpaceX has "proven it", otherwise why would
they risk an ISS Dragon cargo mission on something "unproven"?

Please JF, drop this foolishness. The facts have proven your assertion
wrong.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #43  
Old October 29th 17, 04:45 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-10-28 21:58, Fred J. McCall wrote:

SpaceX declared landing the first stage 'operational' as of this year
and has started commercially offering reflown boosters as an option
(first commercial launch in March of this year). Again, that's the
FACTS, you ignorant assclown.


So you are stating that reflying 1 stage proves that they can quickly
turn around stages and offer high frequency launch of reflown stages?


I think they can turn them around in less than a year for less than
building a new stage, which is all that's required. Pull your head
out of your ass and think about it. If it takes less than a year to
turn a stage (and it apparently takes less than 6-8 months; how much
less is anyone's guess) and SpaceX has 14 'used' stages on hand (which
I think is about right), they can meet their entire launch schedule
next year by building a literal handful of new stages and using mostly
'used' stages.

How many do they have to 'reuse' before you're satisfied. It's
currently at 3 (not 1), all successful. Their last launch was on a
'used' stage that was first flown back in February. They've got at
least two more ready to fly (the side boosters on the Falcon Heavy
test flight). I consider the capability proven. Musk considers the
capability 'production'. Only you seem to disagree.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
  #44  
Old October 29th 17, 04:58 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-10-29 02:37, Niklas Holsti wrote:

According to Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Notable_flights, heading
"Relaunch of previously-flown first stages") there have so far been
*three* reflights of Falcon 9 boosters, not one. All successful, and all
relanded the booster, again.


Thank for clarification.

Stll not the 15 or so flight another poster claimed.


Nobody claimed 15 launches with reflown boosters. I know what you're
thinking of and the problem is your deficient language skills. You
gibbered about 'launch rate' (without qualifiers) being
'undemonstrated. Several people pointed out the current Falcon 9
launch rate. To make things clear for you (or as clear as they can be
given the fogged condition of your brain), SpaceX so far this year has
launched 14 Falcon 9 rockets; 3 were high energy GEO launches that
didn't recover the stage by design, 3 were 'used' stages, and 8 were
new stages that were recovered. For the first year of 'production'
use of reflown stages, 21% of launches being on 'used' stages is
pretty damned significant.


They note that the the first reflight resulted in the booster, despite
landing fine, was retired. I would assume SpaceX wants to figure out how
many times boosters can be re-used, and retiring after only 2 launches
isn't that great.


They retired it because it's a museum piece, you moron. It's an
historical artifact; the FIRST reflown booster.


But this is another example of being too early to draw conclusions on
just how reusable they will be.


This is another example of Mayfly seeing how far up his own ass he can
jam his head.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
  #45  
Old October 30th 17, 01:20 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

In article ,
says...

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...
Actually they haven't. Superchilled RP1 drives up costs in order to
improve performance. Going for reusability drives up manufacturing
costs and design costs because you have to make things that can be
used dozens of times without attention (so you need better materials
and tighter designs without pushing for extra performance, figure out
some way to avoid 'coking' on an RP1/LOX engine, etc). It's the
normal engineering evolution of launch vehicles that was stalled while
most payloads were government.


As far as engines go, this isn't really true. All liquid fueled engines
are designed to be fired multiple times, at least on the test stand.
That's how they're qualified. Henry Spencer used to say (paraphrasing
here), there is absolutely nothing fundamental about a liquid fueled
rocket engine that makes it expendable.


Well, actually it is. You go into engine design knowing how many
'refires' the engine needs to stand. If it needs to stand 3 with some
safety margin, the robustness required is a lot less than if it needs
to stand up to 36 of them with the same safety margin. That is going
to drive up manufacturing costs (which you hopefully get back through
the savings by reusing hardware).


A more reusable engine also helps to make qualification testing cheaper.
An engine that can be fired multiple times without tear downs is far
cheaper to certify than one designed to be "expendable" and therefore
needs to be torn down more frequently because the margins are thinner.


Along the same line of thinking...

Here's a quote from Sam Gunderson, Blue Origin business development
manager, in a recent Aviation Week & Space Technology article about the
BE-4 engine:

"The things that are positive about methane and LNG [liquefied natural
gas] are that LNG, being a cryogenic, allows us to really do things
differently. It is closer to the temperature of the liquid oxygen, which
makes it easier to launch the vehicle, and it is about one-third of the
cost of RP-1 [rocket propellant]. Where that really comes in is not too
much in operations, but in the test program," Gunderson says. "There are
a lot of seconds worth of testing that have to go into the program."

Cite:

Blue Origin Fires Up BE-4 Methane-Fuel Rocket Engine
Blue Origin marks successful first hotfire of BE-4 rocket engine
Oct 27, 2017 Irene Klotz | Aviation Week & Space Technology
http://aviationweek.com/space/blue-o...-methane-fuel-
rocket-engine

Blue Origin is incorporating quite a bit of tech in that engine to make
it easily reusable. I believe it's got fluid bearings for the
turbopumps which pretty much eliminates bearing wear, if startup and
shutdown transients aren't an issue.

Again, designing an engine more economic to reuse also means it's more
economic to test fire during its development program. The general
consensus is that it costs about $1 billion to develop a new liquid fuel
rocket engine. Anything you can do to lower that development cost is a
good thing.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #46  
Old October 30th 17, 02:24 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
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Posts: 752
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

"JF Mezei" wrote in message
web.com...

On 2017-10-29 11:30, Jeff Findley wrote:

That's what counts here. You're damning them because they're not yet to
the "gas and go" stage even though they're the only company reflying
stages and saving money doing it.


NO. I am criticising those cheerleaders who claim they have achieved the
"gas and go" and reflying at high rates already.


Oh, I see, you're arguing against a strawman. Sorry. I misunderstood. I
thought you were actually debating actual claims, not ones you're claiming
some mythical person has made up.


They aren't there YET. And they aren't re-using stages more than twice YET.


Yet, considering 25% of their flights this year were reflown, that's a damn
good start. Give them another year and let's see what happens.

No matter how confident people are that it WILL happen, it hasn't
happened YET.


Selling flights on reflown boosters is good. But that doesn't show how
quickly these flighst happen, and what the expected turn around between
stage landing and taking off again is. This is still very early in the
"reflying stages" business.

It doesn't show what percentage of landed stages are re-usable, and it
doesn't show how many times each stage can be re-used.

So there are still many variables remaining to be defined even if the
equation already looks fantastic.


Yes, you could claim "mission accomplished" for the hundred million
satellite launch business since SpacedX, even without re-usable stages
wins hands down on costs. The question remains on whether Musk will
succeed in lowering lauch cost to a point where totally new markets
emerge of people who couldn't afford launches before but now can.

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/

  #47  
Old October 30th 17, 06:51 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-10-29 11:15, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

But, Musk's goal is to do a reflight within 24 hours. I suspect he'll do it
within the next year or two, if only as a demonstration.


My point exactly. SpaceX hasn't yet acheived that promise of very quick
turn around and high reflight rate.


There will always be a 'next goal' and desire for improvement so, as
I've pointed out, by your 'logic' it will never be achieved. If they
get it down to a day, well, it's not an hour. If they get it down to
an hour, well, it's not 10 minutes. If they get it down to 10
minutes, well, it's not a minute...


No matter high high the confidence level they will do it, you can't
claim "Mission Accomplished" yet.


Of course you can. Over 20% of boosters flown this year were 'used'
and they're turning them 'fast enough' for current use.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
  #48  
Old October 30th 17, 07:00 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-10-29 11:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:

But that would certainly be the way to bet. This will never be
'proven' to your satisfaction, because there will always be more
stages to turn around.


This issue is that the cheer leaders are claiming they have done it.
They haven't YET done it.


Which part of "over 20% of boosters launched this year were 'used'" is
it that you don't understand?


And the range of uncertainty is in how fast they can turn stages around
and with how much work needed. Consider the differences between having
to ship stage from KSC landing pad to Los Angeles for refurb, then texas
for engine tests and then back to KSC for relaunch vs, trucking stage
from KSC landing pad to KSC assembly building for mating with second
stage and then to the pad.


At current launch rates the difference is zero. However, we now see
what your problem is. You don't think they've "done it" until turn
around is ZERO TIME, which is a preposterous notion.


While all of that range still makes SpaceX hugely more cost efficient
than others, it does affect whether many promises if VERY cheap
spaceflight will or won't happen, whether one can launch hundreds of
satellites to give cheap internet access to everyone etc etc.


You seem to have confused a 'vision statement' with goals for the
Falcon 9 program. Falcon 9 was never intended to do any of the things
you claim above.


The ability to use rockets like commercial aircraft is a great promise,
and SpaceX's plans look promising. But they aren't there YET.


Everyone else is talking about Falcon 9. You, on the other hand, are
talking like a Falcon idiot.


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine
  #49  
Old October 30th 17, 07:14 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-10-29 11:30, Jeff Findley wrote:

That's what counts here. You're damning them because they're not yet to
the "gas and go" stage even though they're the only company reflying
stages and saving money doing it.


NO. I am criticising those cheerleaders who claim they have achieved the
"gas and go" and reflying at high rates already.


Those are two different things. NO ONE has claimed the former because
Falcon 9 isn't intended to go there. As for the latter, over 20% used
boosters in the first year of offering them commercially IS a 'high
rate' for anyone who is sane. Once again your problem seems to come
down to your own deficient language and logic skills.


They aren't there YET. And they aren't re-using stages more than twice YET.


Yes, and we don't have a Mars city YET. We don't have Moonbase Alpha
YET. So what?


No matter how confident people are that it WILL happen, it hasn't
happened YET.


And we're not on Mars YET...


Selling flights on reflown boosters is good. But that doesn't show how
quickly these flighst happen, and what the expected turn around between
stage landing and taking off again is. This is still very early in the
"reflying stages" business.


The answer is that it happens 'quickly enough' to meet current launch
schedules and rates.


It doesn't show what percentage of landed stages are re-usable, and it
doesn't show how many times each stage can be re-used.

So there are still many variables remaining to be defined even if the
equation already looks fantastic.


They don't need to 'show' YOU anything because you will never be
satisfied.


Yes, you could claim "mission accomplished" for the hundred million
satellite launch business since SpacedX, even without re-usable stages
wins hands down on costs. The question remains on whether Musk will
succeed in lowering lauch cost to a point where totally new markets
emerge of people who couldn't afford launches before but now can.


The first (and thus most expensive, since it got a lot more
inspection) refurbishment cost "substantially less than half the cost
of a new booster" and was accomplished in less than five months. You
don't seem to think that's significant. The rest of the planet pretty
much does.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
  #50  
Old October 30th 17, 11:01 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Were liquid boosters on Shuttle ever realistic?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-10-30 14:14, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Those are two different things. NO ONE has claimed the former because
Falcon 9 isn't intended to go there. As for the latter, over 20% used
boosters in the first year of offering them commercially IS a 'high
rate' for anyone who is sane.


I argued that they had not YET achieved higgh reflown rate. The response
was that they had done 15 this year and this constituted high rate of
launches.


No, that's not what happened, Mayfly. If I didn't know how defective
your communication skills and long term memory are, I would assume you
were deliberately lying. What happened was that you complained that
SpaceX has not demonstrated an (unqualified) launch rate yet. People
told you what the LAUNCH RATE was so far this year. If you had meant
launch rate of 'used' boosters you should have said that. You didn't.


The mentality in this group is that the reflying is a mission
accomplished when it is still at a prototype/evaluation stage.


No. I've been using the word 'production', assuming you knew what it
meant. Perhaps I need to explain and go over the timeline once again
for you. PAY ATTENTION, YOU ****ING YAMMERHEAD!

In 2014-2015, SpaceX did DEVELOPMENTAL TESTING of reflying boosters,
including both 'water landings' and some 'solid surface' landings. In
2016 SpaceX did OPERATIONAL TESTING of reflying boosters. At the
beginning of 2017 SpaceX declared reflying boosters to be COMMERCIAL
PRODUCTION and has not had a failure so far this year. Now, what
'production' means in this context is that they are done testing and
are engaging in routine commercial sale. So reflying *IS* "a mission
accomplished" and it most decidedly is ***NOT***
"prototype/evaluation". "Prototype/evaluation" ended in 2015.


My comment had nothing to do about whether SpaceX had accomplishjed good
so far, or whether they will do better. It was about people claiming
they had already achieved high flight rates for re-used boosters.


Over 20% of all boosters flown this year were 're-used boosters'.
That's a pretty high flight rate for the first year of the capability
being production.


Yeah, if you compare it against Boeing, even doing 1 reflight is a high
rate. But compared about their plans for commodity reflight and very low
turn around times, they aren't there yet. So you can't claim "mission
accomplished".


They're selling it commercially now. That is, by definition,
"commodity reflight". Turn around time is SUFFICIENTLY LOW. That's
"mission accomplished".


We still don't know what the realistic turn around time will end up
being. We still don't know how many times boosters will be reflown in
practice. Somewhere betwene 6 months and 24 hours is a huge variance in
how re-usability may end up working. Somewhere between 1 re-use and say
10 re-uses is a huge variance.


'We' don't need to know anything. Block 3 hardware will almost
certainly only refly once. Block 4 hardware is a transitional design
and will also probably refly only once. Block 5 hardware is the final
design and will refly 10 times with only inspections and up to 100
times with refurbishment. Note that flying the earlier hardware only
once isn't necessarily (or even likely) a limitation of the hardware,
but rather a result of need. Reflying the old hardware once is enough
to get SpaceX into Block 5 hardware.


Yes even at the worse case scenario (1 reflight after 6 month turn
around) it still represents a big step against the "big guys". But that
still leaves a huge gap to the goal stated by Musk of approaching the
re-usability similar to commercial aircraft.


He never said that about Falcon 9, you Falcon idiot. You're now
talking about BFR. Yeah, BFR isn't done. No one has said it is.



The first (and thus most expensive, since it got a lot more
inspection) refurbishment cost "substantially less than half the cost
of a new booster" and was accomplished in less than five months. You
don't seem to think that's significant. The rest of the planet pretty
much does.


I did not say that. Just because they have moved ahead on a path doesn't
allow the cheerleaders to claim it has reached the destination at end of
path.


Have you never heard of 'continuous improvement'? You NEVER 'reach
the destination'. You've never actually met any real cheerleaders,
have you?


In fact, the mere fact that this argument continues shows you are
unwilling to admit there still remains uncertainty on how re-usability
will turn out in terms of turn around costs/time and how many times a
booster gets re-used before it is discarded.


The mere fact that this 'argument' continues shows your head is so
firmly lodged up your ass that it can't be removed with dynamite. We
know that Block 3 hardware can be turned in less than 6 months and
costs significantly less than half of what a new booster costs. I
already told you how many times a Block 3 booster will get reused and
why. So what don't we know again? Not what don't YOU know, which I'm
sure is quite a long list, but what don't the rest of us know?


And that is exactly my point: cheerleaders refuse to see that there is
still a lot of uncertainty in how this will turn out and claims it is a
done deal, already proven.


Your only 'point' is the one on top of your head where your skull
tapers in where the rest of us have a brain.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
 




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