SpaceX

FALCON DemoFlight 1* Q1 2006 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
FALCON DemoFlight 2 Q1 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
OSD/NRL Q3 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
-1
ATSB (Malaysia) Q4 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+1
US Government Q2 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
MDA Corp (Canada) Q2 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
+1
NASA ? Demo 1 Q3 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
SpaceDev Q1 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
NASA ? Demo 2 Q2 2009 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
MDA Corp (Canada) Q3 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
NASA ? Demo 3 Q3 2009 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
Swedish Space Corp Q4 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
Bigelow Aerospace Q3 2010 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
+1 = ????????

Mostly negative, with a plan to end up positive.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

In article nk.net,
Craig Fink wrote:

FALCON DemoFlight 1* Q1 2006 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
FALCON DemoFlight 2 Q1 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
OSD/NRL Q3 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
-1
ATSB (Malaysia) Q4 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+1
US Government Q2 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
MDA Corp (Canada) Q2 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
+1
NASA ? Demo 1 Q3 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
SpaceDev Q1 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
NASA ? Demo 2 Q2 2009 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
MDA Corp (Canada) Q3 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
NASA ? Demo 3 Q3 2009 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
Swedish Space Corp Q4 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
Bigelow Aerospace Q3 2010 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
+1 = ????????

Mostly negative, with a plan to end up positive.

OK, I give. I see this is the SpaceX launch manifest, but what do the
numbers represent?

An attempt at a simple algorithm to quantify where SpaceX is going, and how
successful they might be.

SpaceX...
http://www.spacex.com/company.php
....Established in 2002 by Elon Musk , the founder of PayPal and the Zip2
Corporation...

Mr. Musk made his money in the real world, PayPal, Zip2 Corp and is
continuing his adventure through life with a journey to Near Space. Which
brings him into contact with a totally different world, that of NASA, DOD,
government contracting, a made up fantasy world where real world concepts
may not apply. The successful businesses in the fantasy world created by
the government are Boeing and Lock..., who pretty figured out how to keep
the revenue streams flowing their way.

Mr. Musk was extremely successful in his real world adventure, has plenty of
capital has made a good start, but has chosen an industry where his real
world skills may not apply. An example of this might be profit models,
capitalist profit models that made PayPal so successful may be of no help
when contracting in the fantasy world of regulated profits (6%) in a
capital intensive industry (and using his own capital) where the standard
is to invest nothing and get payed for everything you do, plus 6%.

Is he truely going to revolutionize the industry and have another PayPal,
SpaceX public offering, and ride a Wave Bigger than the Internet Craze? Or,
fall by the wayside like Orbital Sciences, sucked into the Tar Baby that
lives in the fantasy world of Government Contracting?

Right now, my poor attempt at a simple model to see where he's going doesn't
look too promising, but it does head in the right direction with the last
manifested flight. The model simply adds one for every manifested flight in
the real world, and minus one for manifested flight in the fantasy world of
Government Contracting. With each and every contract in this fantasy world
there is risk of doing business their way instead of the PayPal way.

To buy, or not to buy. That is the ?Question?, when SpaceX goes public.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @
--

Joe Strout wrote:

In article nk.net,
Craig Fink wrote:

FALCON DemoFlight 1* Q1 2006 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
FALCON DemoFlight 2 Q1 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
OSD/NRL Q3 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
-1
ATSB (Malaysia) Q4 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+1
US Government Q2 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
MDA Corp (Canada) Q2 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
+1
NASA ? Demo 1 Q3 2008 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
SpaceDev Q1 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
NASA ? Demo 2 Q2 2009 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
MDA Corp (Canada) Q3 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
NASA ? Demo 3 Q3 2009 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
-1
Swedish Space Corp Q4 2009 Falcon 1 Vandenberg
+1
Bigelow Aerospace Q3 2010 Falcon 9 Cape/Kwajalein
+1 = ????????

Mostly negative, with a plan to end up positive.

OK, I give. I see this is the SpaceX launch manifest, but what do the
numbers represent?

In article k.net,
Craig Fink wrote:
capitalist profit models that made PayPal so successful may be of no help
when contracting in the fantasy world of regulated profits (6%) in a
capital intensive industry (and using his own capital) where the standard
is to invest nothing and get payed for everything you do, plus 6%.

Remember that it *is* possible to sell services even to the US government
on a firm-fixed-price basis. It is difficult, yes, but it has been done.
(Whether SpaceX is doing it, I'm not sure.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

"Craig Fink" wrote in message
thlink.net...
FALCON DemoFlight 1* Q1 2006 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
FALCON DemoFlight 2 Q1 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0

To be fair, this second flight was a lot more successful then the first. On
the first flight, the second stage didn't even get a chance to fire, so it
really wasn't tested in flight. Because of this, it's not surprising that a
second stage problem might show up in this flight. See the news he

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

They've fixed the problems found in the first launch attempt, so they got a
lot further in the flight profile, which uncovered 2nd stage problems. From
above:

Falcon flew far beyond the "edge" of space, typically thought
of as around 60 miles. Our altitude was approximately 200 miles,
which is just 50 miles below the International Space Station.
The second stage didn't achieve full orbital velocity, due to a
roll excitation late in the burn, but that should be a comparatively
easy fix once we examine the flight data. Since it is impossible
to ground test the second stage under the same conditions it would
see in spaceflight, this anomaly was also something that would have
been very hard to determine without a test launch.

So, they've likely gathered good data on what went wrong with the 2nd stage
and will work to address these problems for the 3rd launch. I see nothing
out of the ordinary here. Look at this "anomaly report" for STS-1:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/anomaly/STS1.pdf

A lot of the problems uncovered by STS-1 were damn serious! Look at the
problems caused by the SRB overpressure and the problems related to the TPS.
Also note the foam shedding problem on this very fist flight...

So perhaps Falcon I hasn't been as lucky as STS, but they're working through
the "anomalies" in much the same way.

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 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 09:28:44 -0400, in a place far, far away, "Jeff
Findley" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


A lot of the problems uncovered by STS-1 were damn serious! Look at the
problems caused by the SRB overpressure and the problems related to the TPS.
Also note the foam shedding problem on this very fist flight...

So perhaps Falcon I hasn't been as lucky as STS, but they're working through
the "anomalies" in much the same way.

And much less expensively.

But as others have pointed out, it doesn't bode well for the K-1. RpK
can't afford to have these kinds of failures on their vehicle, which
doesn't seem to be capable of incremental testing. Same problem as
Shuttle.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
But as others have pointed out, it doesn't bode well for the K-1. RpK
can't afford to have these kinds of failures on their vehicle, which
doesn't seem to be capable of incremental testing. Same problem as
Shuttle.

A reusable vehicle that you can't incrementally test isn't a good thing. It
certainly looks like the K-1 couldn't survive early shut downs of its
engines due to the type of recovery system used.

With the K-1, since you've got two stages, any failure in the first stage
could potentially mean you're going to lose the second stage as well. That
is, unless you've designed the 2nd stage to survive an abort caused by 1st
stage failure. I think it's possible that in some situations the 2nd stage
could abort by firing its engine, burning its fuel, and attempting to land.
The devil is in the details.

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 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:39:25 -0400, in a place far, far away, "Jeff
Findley" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
But as others have pointed out, it doesn't bode well for the K-1. RpK
can't afford to have these kinds of failures on their vehicle, which
doesn't seem to be capable of incremental testing. Same problem as
Shuttle.

A reusable vehicle that you can't incrementally test isn't a good thing. It
certainly looks like the K-1 couldn't survive early shut downs of its
engines due to the type of recovery system used.

With the K-1, since you've got two stages, any failure in the first stage
could potentially mean you're going to lose the second stage as well. That
is, unless you've designed the 2nd stage to survive an abort caused by 1st
stage failure. I think it's possible that in some situations the 2nd stage
could abort by firing its engine, burning its fuel, and attempting to land.
The devil is in the details.

I would hope that they could at least test the first stage (and
recover it) initially with an inert second stage to avoid that
problem.

Jeff Findley wrote:


"Craig Fink" wrote in message
thlink.net...
FALCON DemoFlight 1* Q1 2006 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0
FALCON DemoFlight 2 Q1 2007 Falcon 1 Kwajalein
+0

To be fair, this second flight was a lot more successful then the first.
On the first flight, the second stage didn't even get a chance to fire, so
it
really wasn't tested in flight. Because of this, it's not surprising that
a
second stage problem might show up in this flight. See the news he

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

They've fixed the problems found in the first launch attempt, so they got
a
lot further in the flight profile, which uncovered 2nd stage problems.
From above:

Falcon flew far beyond the "edge" of space, typically thought
of as around 60 miles. Our altitude was approximately 200 miles,
which is just 50 miles below the International Space Station.
The second stage didn't achieve full orbital velocity, due to a
roll excitation late in the burn, but that should be a comparatively
easy fix once we examine the flight data. Since it is impossible
to ground test the second stage under the same conditions it would
see in spaceflight, this anomaly was also something that would have
been very hard to determine without a test launch.

So, they've likely gathered good data on what went wrong with the 2nd
stage
and will work to address these problems for the 3rd launch. I see nothing
out of the ordinary here. Look at this "anomaly report" for STS-1:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/anomaly/STS1.pdf

A lot of the problems uncovered by STS-1 were damn serious! Look at the
problems caused by the SRB overpressure and the problems related to the
TPS. Also note the foam shedding problem on this very fist flight...

So perhaps Falcon I hasn't been as lucky as STS, but they're working
through the "anomalies" in much the same way.

Yeah, I agree, pretty darn successful first two flights and the third will
probably make it.

http://www.spacex.com/falcon1.php
....Helium pressurization is again provided by composite over wrapped inconel
tanks from Arde. However, in this case the helium is also used in cold gas
thrusters for attitude control and propellant settling when a restart is
needed...

Roll problems, wonder if it's similar to a Delta launch problem, liquids
don't roll with the vehicle. Wrong roll moment of inertia leads to over
controlling, leads to greater propellent usage, leads to...

Helium roll control, tank pressurization, and settling burn. Roll out of
control, might still get there. Lack of tank pressurization, lack of engine
performance, how much??? No settling burn, no ignition.

Nice job SpaceX and good luck with the next one.

On Mar 21, 9:59 am, Craig Fink wrote:
Yeah, I agree, pretty darn successful first two flights and the third will
probably make it.

Yes, just as long as you define "successful" to mean "failure."

I have to agree with the major sentiment expressed earlier: the group
here is pretty inconsistent. They *want* to see success so much
they're willing to give Musk an easy time of it here, where if any
other group had failures like this and claimed that they were
successes, the sarcasm would be so heavy that you could cut it with a
knife.

I can understand that Musk has to cheer up the troops. They had a
major public failure; they put their everything into a second flight,
and despite everything, they failed again. The team must be pretty
depressed, and I can see his saying kind words of encouragement--
"you're almost there! You did great! Don't give up now!"

But, good God, man, don't call it a success until it's successful.

-
Franklin Jefferson
***My blog: Jefferson's Democracy***
http://franklinjefferson.blogspot.com