A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » History
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Cygnus delivers



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Old October 2nd 13, 05:54 PM posted to sci.space.history
Hop
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 29
Default Cygnus delivers

On Wednesday, October 2, 2013 5:14:33 AM UTC-7, Jeff Findley wrote:
Musk isn't trying to make Dragon and Falcon 9 "just as good" as other

existing, and upcoming, launch vehicles and spacecraft. Musk is trying

to leapfrog them both in terms of cost and in terms of capabilities.


Yes, he's going to do stuff far beyond what's been done before. Make economic, reusable rockets. Establish a dot com billionaire retirement community on Mars.

And to demonstrate he's well on his way, what do his fan boys cite?

He delivered a satellite to orbit. He delivered supplies to the I.S.S. and brought them back.

Newflash: that's been done before.
  #12  
Old October 2nd 13, 07:02 PM posted to sci.space.history
Jeff Findley[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,388
Default Cygnus delivers

In article ,
says...

On Wednesday, October 2, 2013 5:14:33 AM UTC-7, Jeff Findley wrote:
Musk isn't trying to make Dragon and Falcon 9 "just as good" as other

existing, and upcoming, launch vehicles and spacecraft. Musk is trying

to leapfrog them both in terms of cost and in terms of capabilities.


Yes, he's going to do stuff far beyond what's been done before.
Make economic, reusable rockets.


This is a relatively short term goal being pursued while flying
otherwise expendable Falcon 9 launch vehicles. In relative terms, it's
not costing him much to try and his engineers are learning every time
they try.

Establish a dot com billionaire retirement community on Mars.


This is a long term goal which will never happen unless the goal of
creating an affordable, reusable, launch vehicle is achieved. Sure this
goal is "way out there", but Musk is only in his early 40's, so he still
has several decades to pursue this goal if he wants to see it achieved
during his lifetime.

And to demonstrate he's well on his way, what do his fan boys cite?

He delivered a satellite to orbit.


Not a small feat for a start-up. Over the years, many start-ups have
failed miserably when they attempted the same. Even the ones that
eventually succeeded (e.g. Orbital with Pegasus) had their share of
failures along the way. When you consider how (relatively) little money
Musk has spent in pursuit of this goal, it's doubly impressive.

He delivered supplies to the I.S.S. and brought them back.


Excepting the, hideously expensive, space shuttle, returning cargo from
ISS to earth is a feat that no other US vehicle has done to date.
Excepting the pitifully small payloads returned by Russian vehicles,
none of the "international partners" have any earth return capability
either.

Newflash: that's been done before.


But not at the relatively small funding level SpaceX had available to
them. In the past, much of what has "been done before" has been done by
large governments handing out huge "cost-plus" contracts.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer
  #13  
Old October 4th 13, 08:06 PM posted to sci.space.history
Hop
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 29
Default Cygnus delivers

On Wednesday, October 2, 2013 10:55:38 PM UTC-7, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Newflash: that's been done before.






Now look at what he's spent to do it and the timeframe he went from

zero to a working rocket in,


Look at the time and money it took Jobs and Wozniak to go from zero to a working computer. Earlier computers took many orders of magnitude more time and effort to make. Was the Apple orders of magnitude smarter than their predecessors? No. They benefited from the decades of research and development that went before.

And, just like Jobs, Musk is standing on the shoulders of giants.

People look at the spectacular success of personal computers and hope for the same in aerospace. There's a difference though.

Transistors are amenable to miniaturization. Humans and their life support are not. And, due to Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation, neither are the Lox and kerosene it takes to deliver them to orbit. So no Moore's Law for human spaceflight.

The rocket equation plus delta V to LEO means the Falcon upper stage will be more than 90% propellant and less than 10% dry mass. It's about as sturdy as a Coke Can (6% aluminum and 94% pop). Re-entering the atmosphere at 8 km/s subjects this fragile structure to extreme conditions.

A quickly reusable and economic 2nd stage would be a huge leap in engineering and aerospace technology. Far more difficult than repeating what's already been done 100's of times.

Musk's affordable tickets to Mars are hype.


you pathetic little troll.


You are one of the reasons this forum is nearly dead.
  #14  
Old October 4th 13, 08:41 PM posted to sci.space.history
Jeff Findley[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,388
Default Cygnus delivers

In article ,
says...

On Wednesday, October 2, 2013 10:55:38 PM UTC-7, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Now look at what he's spent to do it and the timeframe he went from
zero to a working rocket in,


Look at the time and money it took Jobs and Wozniak to go from zero
to a working computer. Earlier computers took many orders of
magnitude more time and effort to make. Was the Apple orders of
magnitude smarter than their predecessors? No. They benefited from
the decades of research and development that went before.

And, just like Jobs, Musk is standing on the shoulders of giants.

People look at the spectacular success of personal computers and
hope for the same in aerospace. There's a difference though.

Transistors are amenable to miniaturization. Humans and their life
support are not. And, due to Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation,
neither are the Lox and kerosene it takes to deliver them to
orbit.


Then it's a good thing that LOX and kerosene are so damn cheap! From
Wikipedia:

At a National Press Club luncheon on Thursday, September 29,
2011, Elon Musk stated that fuel and oxygen for the Falcon 9
v1.0 rocket total about $200,000 for the Falcon 9 rocket.

With a launch cost reportedly in the $50 million plus range for the V1.0
version of Falcon 9, that's only 0.4% of the total launch cost. So no,
fuel costs are quite obviously *not* the problem here.

So no Moore's Law for human spaceflight.


Not needed. The first significant step to reducing costs will be
developing and flying a *sane* reusable launch vehicle. SpaceX is
making some progress in this area by focusing on making the Falcon 9
first stage reusable.

The rocket equation plus delta V to LEO means the Falcon upper
stage will be more than 90% propellant and less than 10% dry
mass. It's about as sturdy as a Coke Can (6% aluminum and 94%
pop). Re-entering the atmosphere at 8 km/s subjects this
fragile structure to extreme conditions.

A quickly reusable and economic 2nd stage would be a huge leap
in engineering and aerospace technology. Far more difficult
than repeating what's already been done 100's of times.


Then it's a good thing they're starting with the *first* stage, which is
reportedly 75% of the cost of the launch vehicle. Also, for many other
reasons, making the first stage reusable will be much easier to do and
should impact the payload to orbit a lot less than a reusable second
stage would.

Musk's affordable tickets to Mars are hype.


At least the man has long term goals and isn't running his companies
quarter to quarter.

you pathetic little troll.


You are one of the reasons this forum is nearly dead.


No, he's not. Fred is one of the few sane posters here.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer
  #15  
Old October 5th 13, 02:25 AM posted to sci.space.history
Hop
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 29
Default Cygnus delivers

On Friday, October 4, 2013 12:41:17 PM UTC-7, Jeff Findley wrote:

Then it's a good thing that LOX and kerosene are so damn cheap!


Ummm.... Cost of propellant wasn't my argument.

I was arguing ships aren't amenable to miniaturization.

I will try to put it more simply:

Big life support, lots propellant: big rocket.

Big rockets not cheap.


(snip rest of the blazingly stupid straw man argument)

The rocket equation plus delta V to LEO means the Falcon upper


stage will be more than 90% propellant and less than 10% dry


mass. It's about as sturdy as a Coke Can (6% aluminum and 94%


pop). Re-entering the atmosphere at 8 km/s subjects this


fragile structure to extreme conditions.




A quickly reusable and economic 2nd stage would be a huge leap


in engineering and aerospace technology. Far more difficult


than repeating what's already been done 100's of times.




Then it's a good thing they're starting with the *first* stage,



For Musk's half million tickets to Mars he will need a reusable first and second stage. Not only reusable but quickly and economically reusable.

Once again, Musk is a master of hype.

you pathetic little troll.


You are one of the reasons this forum is nearly dead.


No, he's not. Fred is one of the few sane posters here.


You're defending ad hominem. And you've thrown out a ridiculous straw man about the cost of fuel.

SSH hasn't changed much. Short on math and physics. Short on space discussion. Long on straw men and colorful insults. Long on complaining about Duane Day, Rand Simberg and a large crowd of other folks that have made an exodus from this place.

You, Fred, Om and Guth deserve each other.

Bye
  #16  
Old October 6th 13, 08:20 PM posted to sci.space.history
Jeff Findley[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,388
Default Cygnus delivers

In article ,
says...

On Friday, October 4, 2013 12:41:17 PM UTC-7, Jeff Findley wrote:

Then it's a good thing that LOX and kerosene are so damn cheap!


Ummm.... Cost of propellant wasn't my argument.

I was arguing ships aren't amenable to miniaturization.

I will try to put it more simply:

Big life support, lots propellant: big rocket.

Big rockets not cheap.


(snip rest of the blazingly stupid straw man argument)


What is your definition of "big"? And why does "big" matter one iota?
Cost matters! Large passenger carrying aircraft are both "big" and yet
flying on one to destinations all over the planet is still quite
"affordable".

The rocket equation plus delta V to LEO means the Falcon upper


stage will be more than 90% propellant and less than 10% dry


mass. It's about as sturdy as a Coke Can (6% aluminum and 94%


pop). Re-entering the atmosphere at 8 km/s subjects this


fragile structure to extreme conditions.




A quickly reusable and economic 2nd stage would be a huge leap


in engineering and aerospace technology. Far more difficult


than repeating what's already been done 100's of times.




Then it's a good thing they're starting with the *first* stage,



For Musk's half million tickets to Mars he will need a reusable
first and second stage. Not only reusable but quickly and
economically reusable.

Once again, Musk is a master of hype.


The only answer to this sort of attack is to "just do it". So far,
SpaceX has done *far* more than the nay-sayers said was ever possible.
The response of the nay-sayers to this is to move the goal posts every
time SpaceX accomplishes a "commercial" first for less money than the
traditional government contractors have ever done.

Furthermore, other companies, like Orbital Sciences, are attempting to
do much the same and are showing significant progress as well. There is
no fundamental law of physics which keeps launch costs high. The main
reason launch costs are high is the fact that most launch vehicle parts
are only flown *once*. Expendable aerospace hardware is a positively
expensive approach to spaceflight.

you pathetic little troll.


You are one of the reasons this forum is nearly dead.


No, he's not. Fred is one of the few sane posters here.


You're defending ad hominem. And you've thrown out a ridiculous straw man about the cost of fuel.


*You* brought up the rocket equation and how much fuel was required. I
brought *facts* into the discussion which show the cost of fuel is quite
insignificant compared to the overall launch costs. Are you claiming
that launch costs aren't important?

SSH hasn't changed much. Short on math and physics. Short on space
discussion. Long on straw men and colorful insults. Long on
complaining about Duane Day, Rand Simberg and a large crowd of
other folks that have made an exodus from this place.

You, Fred, Om and Guth deserve each other.

Bye


I fail to see what you're adding to the current discussion, so don't let
the screen door hit your ass on the way out.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer
  #17  
Old October 6th 13, 11:45 PM posted to sci.space.history
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 790
Default Cygnus delivers

"Hop" wrote in message
...

On Friday, October 4, 2013 12:41:17 PM UTC-7, Jeff Findley wrote:

Then it's a good thing that LOX and kerosene are so damn cheap!


Ummm.... Cost of propellant wasn't my argument.

I was arguing ships aren't amenable to miniaturization.

I will try to put it more simply:

Big life support, lots propellant: big rocket.

Big rockets not cheap.


Ok, so what do YOU think drives cost?

If anything, size is a plus here. Larger rockets tend to be cheaper/pound
for payload costs.



You're defending ad hominem. And you've thrown out a ridiculous straw man
about the cost of fuel.

SSH hasn't changed much. Short on math and physics. Short on space
discussion. Long on straw men and colorful insults. Long on complaining
about Duane Day, Rand Simberg and a large crowd of other folks that have
made an exodus from this place.


Says the man who posted no math in this argument.



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Sarah Palin delivers ... again jughead Misc 0 September 25th 09 05:23 AM
Panasonic TV delivers impressive picture - CNN [email protected] Amateur Astronomy 1 August 24th 08 04:42 AM
patient below residence delivers essentially A. Y. Mohammed Amateur Astronomy 0 August 16th 07 11:19 AM
Sea Launch Delivers Inmarsat-4 Satellite to Orbit Jacques van Oene News 0 November 12th 05 03:43 PM
Mars Express Delivers [email protected] Science 0 December 13th 04 11:37 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:45 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.