Falcon Sir Lauch-A-Lot?

Damon Hill writes:

"Scott Hedrick" wrote in
:

Failing to get to orbit, in and of itself, doesn't make a launch a
failure. In this case, it does, because it was supposed to launch
satellites. However, if this had been a test of the first stage, and
everything else was a bonus, then it would *not* be a failure.

I see it as a partial success: achieving orbit was the final goal but
SpaceX wanted to demonstrate as much of the hardware as possible, and
there was no actual payload to be orbited other than the stage itself.

There was a demo satellite. The goal was orbit and not first and a half
stage testing.

As a _development flight_, it did demonstrate nearly all of the hardware
and apparently uncovered some problems that will be fixed before the
next flight.

It did demonstrate the first stage and a bit of the second. They still
don't know if the second stage would carry through, even without the
obvious failure. And as long as they don't know the cause of the failure
they haven't uncovered any problem.

If the next flight does carry a payload, then it had better make it
to the desired orbit to be called a (full) success, in the eyes of paying
customers. SpaceX knows that.

I wish SpaceX alll the best, but I have to say that they're
demonstrating an attitude which just begs for another failure.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Mar 20, 8:38 pm, richard schumacher wrote:
Did anyone else get creeped out by the sight of the second stage nozzle
glowing orange hot? Yeesh! I hope they remembered that it gets less
cooling in vacuum (that is, in use) than in air (during tests).


If the Krell technology had made it white hot, Dr. Morbius was going
to blame the Id.

;-)

Rusty

Brian Thorn wrote:

Yes, but the point I'm trying to make is that nowhere else in the
industry would the Falcon 1 No.2 flight be considered a success.
Boeing's second Delta III was not a success, even though Stage 1
worked fine. LockMart's Milstar 2 launch was not a success, even
though Stage 1 and 2 of the Titan IV both worked fine.

So what? Every case should be decided on its own merits.

My take is that they accomplished a huge fraction of their mission
objectives on what was clearly a development flight. It wasn't perfect,
but the problems didn't appear until late in the flight and, while
fatal, weren't catastrophic.

The rules change when they switch from development to production. But
they haven't done that yet.

--
Dave Michelson

"Scott Hedrick" wrote in message
...

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
But enough with the spin factory already.

Spinning is what caused the failure.

I think that in this case, as with politics, spinning is the result of
failure rather than its cause :-)

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 03:26:51 -0500, Dave Michelson wrote
(in article fbMMh.52858$DN.27858@pd7urf2no):

My take is that they accomplished a huge fraction of their mission
objectives on what was clearly a development flight. It wasn't perfect,
but the problems didn't appear until late in the flight and, while
fatal, weren't catastrophic.

You don't know they problems weren't catastrophic. So far as I know, the
webcast stopped more or less contemporaneously with the telemetry and SpaceX
hasn't said much more than that. As of yesterday they didn't even know the
ultimate fate of the second stage (despite the fact that Space Command surely
knows).

The point Brian is making (quite well, I might add), is the alt.space crowd
is basically being a bunch of hypocrites on this one. Having lower
expectations is a cop-out.

--
You can run on for a long time,
Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
~Johnny Cash

On 3/22/07 8:59 AM, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:
"Brian Thorn" :
Funny how the Boeing detractors didn't feel that way about Delta
IV-Heavy demo. I guess it's okay to botch a launch as long as it is in
the name of lowering launch costs.

I think there were much higher Delta IV-Heavy demo expectations because of
the high degree of commonality in hardware with other Delta IV models.
Delta IV-Heavy wasn't a brand new vehicle, it was an evolution of an
existing vehicle

Delta-IV heavy was, in fact, a brand new vehicle.

They gave it the "Delta" name to give it some of the prestige of the
Delta line, but it was a new vehicle from engine bell to the tip of
the fairing.

(well, the fairing actually shared heritige with Delta-III, but Delta-
III was *also* a new vehicle).

... Part of the point of Falcon I is its low cost, which it is achieving by
essentially starting from scratch. Yes it failed to make orbit, but it was
the second failure of a new design that's never made orbit. Because of
this, I think you've got to have lower expectations.

This is the first time I've heard it explicitly stated that "you have
to have lower expectations for SpaceX".

On 3/23/07 8:37 AM, "Herb Schaltegger"
wrote:

The point Brian is making (quite well, I might add), is the alt.space crowd
is basically being a bunch of hypocrites on this one. Having lower
expectations is a cop-out.

Yes, you see a lot of that here.

Basically, the flight failed. But they validated a lot of their
technology, and got good data which should allow them to fix the
problems. It is turning them from a company with a lot of ideas and
cool-on-paper designs, into a company with hard-won experience in
space, that knows how and why things fail and has learned what to do
to avoid it in the future. This is good. To turn dreams into reality
you have to bump up against the real world.

--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:58:07 -0500, Geoffrey A. Landis wrote
(in article . com):

The point Brian is making (quite well, I might add), is the alt.space crowd
is basically being a bunch of hypocrites on this one. Having lower
expectations is a cop-out.

Yes, you see a lot of that here.

Basically, the flight failed. But they validated a lot of their
technology, and got good data which should allow them to fix the
problems. It is turning them from a company with a lot of ideas and
cool-on-paper designs, into a company with hard-won experience in
space, that knows how and why things fail and has learned what to do
to avoid it in the future. This is good. To turn dreams into reality
you have to bump up against the real world.

Well yeah. But at the same time, in order to continue to improve and turn
productive failures into productive successes, you have to know your own
limits: what you ACTUALLY did versus what you INTENDED to do has to remain
in your mind, and finding and fixing the root causes of the discrepancies has
to be more important that spin.


--
Geoffrey A. Landis



--
You can run on for a long time,
Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
~Johnny Cash

On Mar 23, 9:37 am, Herb Schaltegger
wrote:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 03:26:51 -0500, Dave Michelson wrote
(in article fbMMh.52858$DN.27858@pd7urf2no):

My take is that they accomplished a huge fraction of their mission
objectives on what was clearly a development flight. It wasn't perfect,
but the problems didn't appear until late in the flight and, while
fatal, weren't catastrophic.

You don't know they problems weren't catastrophic. So far as I know, the
webcast stopped more or less contemporaneously with the telemetry and SpaceX
hasn't said much more than that. As of yesterday they didn't even know the
ultimate fate of the second stage (despite the fact that Space Command surely
knows).

The point Brian is making (quite well, I might add), is the alt.space crowd
is basically being a bunch of hypocrites on this one. Having lower
expectations is a cop-out.

--
You can run on for a long time,
Sooner or later, God'll cut you down.
~Johnny Cash

I agree with Brian and Herb too. Whoever critisized Boeing for
pretending that the Delta IV launch failure was a success and now sees
the Falcon 1 failure a success is a hypocrite. Besides, if Falcone 1
did make it to orbit without a glitch, how would you call that? A
super success?

I can see how Space X failure can be shown in a more positive light
than the Delta IV failure. Space X is trying something new, after all
(a cheaper access to space) and I wish they achieve it. But to me, the
second atempt was a failure now mater how you see it.

"Geoffrey A. Landis" wrote in message
ups.com...
On 3/22/07 8:59 AM, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:
"Brian Thorn" :
Funny how the Boeing detractors didn't feel that way about Delta
IV-Heavy demo. I guess it's okay to botch a launch as long as it is in
the name of lowering launch costs.

I think there were much higher Delta IV-Heavy demo expectations because
of
the high degree of commonality in hardware with other Delta IV models.
Delta IV-Heavy wasn't a brand new vehicle, it was an evolution of an
existing vehicle

Delta-IV heavy was, in fact, a brand new vehicle.

I've seen a lot of information that seems to indicate that there is a lot of
commonality between the Delta IV-Heavy and the Delta IV-Medium.

They gave it the "Delta" name to give it some of the prestige of the
Delta line, but it was a new vehicle from engine bell to the tip of
the fairing.

(well, the fairing actually shared heritige with Delta-III, but Delta-
III was *also* a new vehicle).

I wasn't referring to Delta-III heritage. I was referring to Delta
IV-Medium heritage. From what I've read on Boeing's site, they say the
IV-Heavy uses the same CBC (common core booster) as the IV-Mediums.

Because of the three preceding, successful, Delta IV-Medium launches (the
first carrying a commercial payload and the next two carrying Air Force
payloads), there were high expectations for the first Delta IV-Heavy launch.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

On Mar 23, 11:01 am, "Alejandro Zuzek"
wrote:


I agree with Brian and Herb too. Whoever critisized Boeing for
pretending that the Delta IV launch failure was a success and now sees
the Falcon 1 failure a success is a hypocrite. Besides, if Falcone 1
did make it to orbit without a glitch, how would you call that? A
super success?

Well, those who claimed that the Delta IV was a success have to agree
that the Falcon was successful also :-)

And, if you argue that it takes vast amounts of money to succeed, then
Delta IV should be 10 times more reliable than the Falcon .


John Halpenny