[HN Gopher] Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
___________________________________________________________________
Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
Author : mpweiher
Score : 393 points
Date : 2022-11-01 13:38 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.spacex.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.spacex.com)
| boringg wrote:
| I enjoyed seeing it 15k km per hour but i was trying to figure
| how it accurately measures velocity or is it not that precise?
| chipsa wrote:
| Range control uses radars to determine the location and speed
| of it. Also, pretty sure it's got non-COCOM limited GPS
| receivers to be able to do the landing, which also would give
| you velocity.
| hydrogen7800 wrote:
| I'm always a bit bothered by the cheering during a SpaceX launch.
| Maybe I'm just historically attached to the scenes of stoic
| engineers at JSC mission control, but space fight is always hard
| and risky, and cheering at every event shows a lack of humility,
| IMO. Cheer when the mission is successful. As an extreme case,
| imagine cheering as Challenger cleared the launch tower.
| soared wrote:
| Imagine being mad at other people's happiness.
| binaryblitz wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, the cheering is outside of the main
| control room (which is where the broadcasters are).
|
| Also: there are no people on board. If it blows up, it's "only"
| money that's lost.
| hydrogen7800 wrote:
| Yes, big distinction between manned vs unmanned. I don't
| remember if the situation was the same for the first crew
| dragon launch. It's just something that stuck with me since
| watching one of the first broadcasts of high profile falcon
| launch.
| xcskier56 wrote:
| The view from below of the boosters after entry burn where you
| can clearly see they're not just falling straight down but
| actually achieving some horizontal velocity across the ground was
| really cool. I've always known that they had some cross-range
| capability, but this was a really excellent visualization of it!
| supergeek wrote:
| Scott Manley did a good break down of their landing profile.
| They maintain a ballistic trajectory set to miss the landing
| pad / barge and it's only on successful re-ignition of the
| engine that they align with the landing pad.
| dools wrote:
| coffeeblack wrote:
| You mean ULA and Boing? Costs usually 5 times as much and takes
| three times as long to develop it, if it works at all in the
| end.
|
| Why the jealousy about people getting good money for good work?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| People seem to forget that NASA isn't much of a rocket
| _manufacturer_. Those "NASA rockets" of the past were
| manufactured by corporations contracted by NASA. Space
| Shuttle orbiter? Built by Rockwell. Mercury-Atlas launch
| vehicle? Convair. Saturn V? Various contractors, particularly
| Boeing for the first stage and Rocketdyne for the F-1
| engines.
|
| This ruffles the feathers of a certain sort of "space
| commie", who have traditionally hoped that exploration of
| space would be impossible for capitalism, leaving space as
| the great utopia for the future of state-run communism. This
| was always a dumb point of view, but SpaceX has them
| particularly upset now because NASA is less involved in the
| design process than ever before, and it's becoming apparent
| that capitalism has no trouble getting to space.
| Nicksil wrote:
| >Imagine how much better the program could be if it were
| directly funded by the government instead of being indirectly
| funded by the government and enriching the world's biggest
| arsehole in the process
|
| There are plenty of other threads on HN where you can talk
| about how much you hate Elon Musk and the like. This is not one
| of those threads. Just let people enjoy things.
| Vermeulen wrote:
| You don't need to imagine - just look up the SLS program and
| it's budget + timeframe
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| Let's not forget Shuttle.... which at some level is a fair
| amount of SLS as well.
| fallingknife wrote:
| The Shuttle was at least an innovative vehicle and a first
| attempt at reusability. It was a failure, but most first
| attempts at anything will be.
|
| This doesn't compare at all with the SLS, which is just
| recycling old tech, and even going backwards from the
| Shuttle in that it gives up on reusability entirely instead
| of trying to learn and improve from the Shuttle's mistakes.
| thallium205 wrote:
| And the fact it will cost about 10x as much compared to
| SpaceX rockets to deliver something to orbit. SLS is a total
| failure.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| It's amazing how many people hold this opinion (OP) when it
| could be resolved with < 1 minute of research.
| comeonbro wrote:
| Ideological commitments that could be resolved with < 1
| minute of research, will not be resolved with < 1 minute
| of research.
| pkage wrote:
| You can blame Boeing for that, it's not like NASA is
| directly creating the rocket in-house. SpaceX is just
| disrupting the current MIC contracts.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You can absolutely blame NASA for that. They are calling
| the shots and making the design decisions.
|
| Its not like NASA puts out a check and simply waits for
| the rocket to arrive. With the NASA process, they own the
| design, they are in meetings on specifications, they
| requests tests, ect. They micromanage and direct work
| down to the nuts and bolts, literally and figuratively.
|
| By analogy, they are the head Chef in the kitchen. With
| SpaceX, they are the customer at the restaurant.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| A lot of it is above even NASA's level. SLS had a bunch
| of requirements imposed on it _by Congress_ who see NASA
| primarily as a jobs program /pork barrel and want to make
| sure the money goes to the right places.
| malfist wrote:
| Depends on what you consider it's mission objective. If you
| consider it a jobs program that we happen to get a rocket
| out of, it's an astounding success. If you consider it a
| rocket program it's an abject failure.
|
| To give you an example of why it's a jobs program and not a
| rocket program. Congress forced NASA to build a
| multimillion dollar testing facility they never intended to
| use for the SLS nor for any other rocket NASA has.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Even judged that way, SLS is substandard. As a pointless
| jobs program, the TSA definitely has SLS beat.
| nwah1 wrote:
| The point you are trying to make is that that government is
| unlikely to succeed in terms of timeframe or budget, and that
| is probably true. Yet, your argument doesn't support that
| point. SLS is also a project that is built by private
| corporations. SLS vs Falcon Heavy is simply a battle between
| two different government contractors. One is not more
| government-based than the other.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > SLS vs Falcon Heavy is simply a battle between two
| different government contractors. One is not more
| government-based than the other.
|
| This is completely false. SLS was established by Congress
| with various mandates on the technology and process to
| design and build it.
|
| Falcon Heavy was not.
|
| Many of the issues with SLS can be traced to Congress's
| requirements that they put on the project, like forcing it
| to reuse 50-year-old STS technology.
| nwah1 wrote:
| If congress asked Intel to build a computer meeting
| specifications from 50 years ago, regardless of how
| stupid that request is, and they somehow failed to do
| that in a resonable amount of time or budget... it would
| be an astounding display of incompetence. And failing to
| even try to create a new showcase technology of something
| better is just additional incompetence.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| That may be true, but it's orthogonal to the truth of the
| original statement that the SLS program was not more
| government-based than Falcon Heavy.
|
| SpaceX over the last two decades has been a superb
| illustration of the value of private enterprise.
| nrb wrote:
| Research how and where SLS must be designed, manufactured,
| integrated, and tested. Then research who designated that
| process and how.
|
| Calling Falcon Heavy and SLS equivalently government-led is
| laughable. The amount of by-design government red tape and
| congressional district handouts is astounding.
| nwah1 wrote:
| SLS is a joint project between many large bureaucratic
| private organizations, and thus design-by-committee is
| more of a function of the way that those institutions
| operate, and their need to coordinate with one another.
|
| Congress cared that it met payload requirements and
| mission requirements. That these institutions were unable
| to deliver within reasonable time and budget limits is a
| result of their own dysfunction.
|
| Since rocket production is extremely capital-intensive,
| the market is very thin. The number of players capable of
| even giving it a go is low. And thus, it has all the
| hallmarks of a typical market failure.
|
| Private companies the entire time could've realized the
| potential profits and competently worked to achieve them,
| even outside of begging for government contracts. That
| they didn't do this for many decades is their own fault.
| nrb wrote:
| > Congress cared that it met payload requirements and
| mission requirements.
|
| This is just not correct if you mean that they _only_
| cared about payload and mission requirements. Congress
| mandated that _certain technologies_ were to be used from
| non-competitive, single-source suppliers in order to prop
| up industry in particular congressional districts. Cost
| overruns are practically by-design because as long as it
| doesn't raise too many eyebrows it's just more money to
| their local industry and constituents.
| nwah1 wrote:
| It isn't as if there was this long line of sad rocket
| companies waiting out in the cold, shut out of their
| dreams of outer space by the mean old government. There
| simply weren't any others except for the go-to
| contractors that NASA always relied on.
|
| Now that there is a critical mass of billionaire nerds
| and venture capitalists who want to build rocket
| companies, there is now competition in this sector. It is
| a case of monopoly vs competition. That is the real
| answer.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| You're confidently incorrect to be claiming that one is not
| more government-based than the other.
|
| SLS follows the old model of NASA contracting where NASA
| sets all the design requirements and the contractor follows
| them (ie the choice of solid boosters, the use of Shuttle
| technology etc was all set by NASA and the final vehicle is
| owned and operated by NASA). The contractor is effectively
| given a blueprint and asked to build it, with all
| construction costs covered.
|
| This is in strong contrast to F9 and FH which follow the
| new model where the government only sets the rough
| requirements (payload capacity, target orbits, vibration
| tolerances etc) but doesn't care about the specific details
| (beyond making sure that they make technical sense).
| Payments are made for reaching specific milestones, how
| that relates to internal costs is entirely on the
| contractor and the final vehicle is still owned and
| operated by the contractor, with NASA acting as just
| another client. It's a much more hands off approach
| compared to SLS.
| mordae wrote:
| I am there with you.
|
| If only we could somehow make the public sector hire it's own
| personnel, pay it well and let it build the rockets instead of
| feeding either Boeing shareholders or the narcissistic idiot.
|
| Most people convinced of public sector inferiority only
| perceive the hollowed out and thoroughly corrupted husk left by
| the neoliberal policies. Mostly because it's been
| systematically destroyed their whole life and they never
| noticed.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| As others have noted, NASA's rockets have largely been
| designed, built, and operated by private contractors for its
| entire history. The difference was that those projects were
| managed by NASA via cost-plus contracts, often at mind-
| boggling cost.
|
| The crowning achievement of this system was the Apollo
| program. Which was followed up by the Space Shuttle, a system
| so expensive and full of compromises that it wasn't really
| good at much of anything except freezing the state of US
| space travel at the technological level of 1976 for thirty
| years.
|
| NASA doesn't design and build its own one-off plane when it
| needs to send some people to a conference in NYC; they buy
| them commercial airline tickets. Likewise, purchasing launch
| services from a commercial provider is far cheaper and more
| effective than engaging contractors to build a rocket to
| spec.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| NASA Rockets projects were never largely designed by the
| corporations. NASA has always been deeply involved in the
| design and micromanaged decisions down to the nuts and
| bolts.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| You mean the Russian space program? They are still flying
| their one good ship developed 70 years ago. And the money
| goes to a handful of corrupt people who are good friends with
| "the leader".
|
| Or take ESA. They are currently struggling to finish
| development of Ariane 6. A rocket with tech already obsolete
| years before it is even ready to fly for the first time.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Boeing, as well as many other contractors, got America to the
| Moon. The thing you are pining for is utterly Soviet, not the
| way America's space program has ever worked.
| notright5 wrote:
| go away troll
| nrb wrote:
| Judging by the shuttle era and our lack of ability to even
| launch Americans into space for the last decade thanks to
| failed programs that have come since, I think it's a matter of
| how much worse this program would be.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It would cost 10x as much and would be 5 years behind schedule,
| intended to be the main vehicle for several decades (rather
| than soon to be replaced by an even more capable vehicle),
| entirely expendable, still stuck to its original parameters due
| to risk averseness and not at all commercially competitive.
| See: SLS, Space Shuttle (and to a lesser extent, Ariane 5 & 6)
|
| Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of explosions in
| landing attempts, good luck getting NASA or ESA to risk that
| given how dumb the average taxpayer can be about iterative
| development like that.
| pavon wrote:
| And to add to this, SpaceX isn't enriching Musk, quite the
| opposite. Half of his PayPal wealth was invested into SpaceX
| to develop Falcon 1 (the other half was invested in Tesla).
| Then SpaceX was awarded a NASA contract to develop Falcon 9
| and Dragon. All the profit they made from commercial use of
| Falcon 9 was reinvested into developing Falcon Heavy, and all
| the profit SpaceX has made since has been reinvested into
| Starlink and Starship. Musk hasn't gotten any return on his
| investment into SpaceX, and rather continues to invest more
| money (earned from Tesla) into SpaceX to speed Starship
| development.
|
| I'm not saying this to play up Musk as some philanthropist,
| but to clarify that it is the government that has benefited
| from the investment that Musk and other investors have put
| into SpaceX, rather than the government enriching these
| investors. Every other rocket made prior to SpaceX, the full
| development and operation was funded by the government, and
| the contractors profited immensely, so it is weird to call
| out SpaceX/Musk for this when they are one of the few
| exceptions to that rule (along with RocketLab).
|
| But also to point out that SpaceX is a passion project and
| would likely never have accomplished the things it did if it
| was run primarily as a profit-making endeavor, or as a
| utilitarian government project.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of explosions
| in landing attempts, good luck getting NASA or ESA to risk
| that given how dumb the average taxpayer can be about
| iterative development like that.
|
| It's even worse than just risk averseness. There was a very
| telling comment by the CEO of ArianeGroup a few years ago[1]
| about why they weren't investing in reusable rockets--they
| were afraid that it would be _too efficient_ , so they would
| end up laying off workers because they wouldn't have enough
| demand for new rockets. In the twisted world of government
| programs efficiency is often seen as a _bad thing_. Space
| programs are jobs programs. The SLS program was hamstrung by
| Congress requiring that it reuse 50-year-old Space shuttle
| tech because it 's a jobs program. Getting to space
| _efficiently_ isn 't even a priority.
|
| More recently ESA has reversed course[2] because SpaceX is
| eating their lunch, but they're still probably a good decade
| out from having a reusable rocket, and it's unlikely they
| would be heading that direction at all if not for the
| pressure from SpaceX.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-
| seems-f...
|
| [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/european-leaders-
| say...
| AustinDev wrote:
| This is exactly the reason I don't do R&D work for the DoD
| anymore. Cost plus contracts incentivize the performer to
| have more staff than required to make more profit and to
| never deliver anything early or over perform in any way. I
| just couldn't live with myself if I min-max'd the
| situation.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| To be fair, their concern about having so few payloads that
| they wouldn't be building enough boosters isn't completely
| wrong for Europe. There is some merit to the idea that they
| needed to maintain a large workforce trained in rocketry to
| hold onto their capabilities and that government funded
| programs are good for that until private industry firmly
| takes hold.
|
| The issue of course was that they were giving into
| stagnation and assuming that demand wouldn't grow to meet
| supply, while SpaceX took it the other way and came up with
| the demand to utilize the supply they had created (also
| helps that Russia torpedoed its own commercial launch
| industry and all other providers are stuck in a delayed
| generational transition, highlighting the unpredictability
| of demand in the industry).
|
| Now that European launch companies are starting to make
| progress, perhaps this need for government 'protection'
| will also go away. It desperately needs to go away in the
| US since we already have several private companies who've
| made it to orbit (plus a nearly 20 year tech lead on the
| rest of the world courtesy SpaceX) and hopefully SLS's
| obsolete-ness will quickly become too hard to ignore when
| the Artemis 3 crew is shown transferring from the cramped
| Orion capsule to the spacious HLS.
| anon291 wrote:
| It's pretty amazing and makes me feel proud that in our
| country, America, there are several private individuals and
| companies who are capable of launching rockets into space (it's
| not just Mr Musk), despite the fact that in other countries,
| this is something that requires massive government support.
| America's private-sector is heads and shoulders more advanced
| than many foreign governments. That's amazing to see.
| [deleted]
| cheschire wrote:
| Information on that mission based on the code at the bottom of
| the video:
|
| https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/1151
| post_break wrote:
| Seeing those boosters land will never get old. I drive by one on
| my way to work every day and it's just amazing how large they
| are.
| samizdis wrote:
| When I was a kid, I used to watch Thunderbirds [1], which I
| loved dearly - except that I always thought it fanciful to show
| Thunderbirds 1 and 3 landing upright back at the Tracy Island
| base. Many, many years later, of course, my scepticism was
| erased by watching exactly that happen in real life, courtesy
| of SpaceX's Falcon 9. Inspirational and astonishing.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series)
| wiz21c wrote:
| There's also Tintin in 1952
|
| the landing
|
| https://youtu.be/819TMe9-Oyc?t=2183
|
| the comics
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_on_the_Moon
| arrel wrote:
| Here's the vertical landing scene:
| https://youtu.be/JuhahPrF7gk
| cryptoz wrote:
| SpaceX Crew-1 and Thunderbirds mashup
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loPxTnJc9Zk
|
| I cannot wait for the Starship version...
| WithinReason wrote:
| And for some reason seeing 2 land at the same time is a 100
| times cooler. Seems like coolness is non-linear.
| wzyoi wrote:
| I think, to some degree, this is because we got used to
| seeing one landing.
| somenameforme wrote:
| It's hard to measure objectively but I feel I was
| dramatically more impressed seeing first Falcon Heavy come
| down than I was seeing the first successful (non-heavy)
| landing. I've shown a lot of people (who aren't otherwise
| into space) the original Falcon Heavy landing video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c
|
| The most common response, by far, is: "Is that real?"
|
| It really is just that amazing. Even look at the YouTube
| comments. It's enough to make even the internet become a
| place of shared awe, wonder, and inspiration. Makes one
| wonder what the world would be like if we had media that
| focused more on things like this and less on things that
| divide and agitate people.
| digerata wrote:
| I think two rockets landing at the same time, in unison,
| more accurately displays the fact both are under computer
| control.
|
| One landing could just be some person steering it. But
| two?
| agumonkey wrote:
| Hollywood must be very unhappy.
| brookst wrote:
| Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence
| of intent as opposed to randomness. Lots of examples in art,
| and of course both the WTC twin towers and the 9/11 attacks.
| There's more power seeing two of something.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as
| evidence of intent as opposed to randomness.
|
| This seems like a massive over-generalization.
| brookst wrote:
| Perhaps? Can you think of a counter-example, where seeing
| an event happen once is more attention-getting and
| memorable than seeing the event happen twice in a row in
| quick succession?
|
| Imagine you see a herd of deer trotting along, and one
| goes down. A hole, or ditch, or maybe a predator? Now
| imagine two deer go down at nearly the same time.
| Different implications, or at least different
| probabilities to the possible implications.
|
| I'll stand by my over-generalization for now, but I'm
| open to counter-examples.
| nickserv wrote:
| Symmetry is part of beauty across time and culture. For
| example people with more facial symmetry are considered
| better looking.
| treis wrote:
| Yes, but it's not evidence of intent. It's lack of
| deformity and disease.
| falcor84 wrote:
| The word for "lack of deformity" is "form" which we
| generally use to refer to something which was generated
| based on a rule, as opposed to complete randomness.
| dilap wrote:
| Which is evidence of intent! -- the intent of the genome
| being successfully carried out. :-)
| kortilla wrote:
| I see one frog, it's random. I see two frogs..???
|
| The WTC twin towers were replaced by a single big tower. If
| someone blew that up we sure as fuck would get the clear
| message on that one.
|
| What a silly statement.
| hllooo wrote:
| I mean people didn't know it wasn't an accident until
| another plane hit the second tower...
| stavros wrote:
| I don't think you can extrapolate whether it's linear from
| two datapoints.
| itcrowd wrote:
| Three datapoints (no launch is a datapoint too)
| ge96 wrote:
| margin-left: '2 miles';
| foobarian wrote:
| Brings a tear to my eye every time I see them land ever so
| smoothly.
| geocrasher wrote:
| You're not alone. I watched it live before work this
| morning, and I simultaneously got the chills and started
| tearing up. It hits all of my aerospace nerd, rocket geek,
| engineering-minded nerves at the same time, and it's quite
| an experience.
| twh270 wrote:
| I haven't seen one up-close (yet!) but I agree. This was pure
| science fiction when I grew up, watching a booster landing is a
| thrill every time.
| Ptchd wrote:
| Too bad they didn't recover the third one.
| H8crilA wrote:
| AFAIK it was intentional because the payload (from the US
| Space Force) was going to a geosynchronous orbit.
| dtparr wrote:
| Correct, this was the first direct-to-GEO launch, so they
| needed the extra dV to get there. Left nothing in the tank
| for a landing, so to speak.
| lxe wrote:
| It almost looks like CGI, probably because we've seen this
| happen countless times in various Sci Fi shows and movies.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Well, Apollo missions used miniatures on a sound stage
| instead of CGI. /s
| usrusr wrote:
| Now that Falcon 9 landings have become so routine, it feels
| surprisingly wasteful to see that mission profile with the center
| booster burning up without even trying.
|
| I wanted to write something about that lack of center booster
| reuse on falcon heavy feeling irrationally worse than a single F9
| launch in the non-reusable profile (for a slightly higher payload
| iirc), but then I discovered that the non-reusable F9 profile
| hasn't happened in quite a while. Nice! When they started with
| the reuse, I was expecting the full payload profile to be a far
| more regular occurrence. (even if in hindsight I see that none of
| my reasons for that expectation make any sense)
| bell-cot wrote:
| When you are watching SpaceX launch videos, pay attention to
| the velocities at which the various engine burns begin and end.
| Reaching higher velocities (for comparable payloads, etc.)
| requires burning more fuel - so there is less fuel left in the
| tank to perform boost-back burns, entry burns, and landing
| burns. Not enough fuel for a boost-back burn (the typical
| situation) means "barge landing". Not enough fuel for an entry
| (& landing) burn means "expended first stage" - which also
| means "remove the weight of the useless landing legs before
| launch".
|
| And if the customer is paying SpaceX to take a heavy payload to
| a high velocity / orbit...well, they are paying for it. Today's
| launch was actually the third-most-performant (and -expensive)
| Falcon Heavy launch mode. #2 has both side boosters landing on
| barges (so the boosters don't need fuel for boost-back burns).
| #1 expends everything - just like all of SpaceX's competition
| does.
| pfdietz wrote:
| If you watched the liftoff, after the vehicle was above the
| fog, the plume from the core looked much weaker than from the
| boosters. I think they throttle that stage down so it's using
| less fuel, leaving fuel to be burned after the boosters are
| done. This will also reduce the velocity at which the
| boosters are staged so they have an easier time getting back.
|
| After the boosters stage the core will be throttled back up
| (if it hadn't been already).
| bell-cot wrote:
| Correct, and that throttle-fiddling is required to get a
| good performance boost from using side boosters.
| pfdietz wrote:
| An earlier design has propellant transfer from the
| boosters to the core stage while they were still
| attached, but I guess that was decided to not be worth it
| (if the engine thrust growth was high enough simple
| throttling would be enough.)
| bell-cot wrote:
| Propellant (and oxidizer) cross-feed systems would have
| added a notable amount of weight, a _lot_ of design
| complexity and cost, and a metric sh*t ton of critical
| failure scenarios.
| pleo__ wrote:
| Additionally, the center core is throttled to make sure
| the vehicle safely gets through the dangerous "max-Q"
| part of the launch where stress from the atmospheric drag
| is highest.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Makes sense. They throttle even on the F9 for that
| reason, and the FH is essentially three F9s with an upper
| stage that is not the mass of 3 F9 upper stages.
| ape4 wrote:
| And this customer asked for no filming later in the launch.
| So they are rich and secretive - I wonder who that could be?
| ErneX wrote:
| It was a launch for the US Space Force.
| bombcar wrote:
| > Not enough fuel for an entry (& landing) burn means
| "expended first stage" - which also means "remove the weight
| of the useless landing legs before launch".
|
| Landing gear? Where we're going we won't _need_ landing gear!
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I think that due to how much F9 has managed to eat into FH's
| market, FH flights we see are more likely to only happen when
| the payload is heavy enough to need the center core to be
| expended.
|
| For example, for a GTO insertion, an expended F9 can do 8.3t
| while a completely reusable FH can do 8t, but the expended F9
| is going to be cheaper overall. Thus FH is only worth using
| when the payload is heavy enough to require at least the center
| core to be spent. This might be different for Lunar payloads
| though.
| usrusr wrote:
| When I skipped through the video to the point where they
| explain that this was a mission without center reuse I was
| surprised to hear that they actually do seem to offer a three
| booster reuse profile. Perhaps my surprise was from confusing
| "no second stage reuse" with "no center booster reuse"?
|
| But if it's a wash (as you say) between non-reusable F9 and
| 3x reusable FH I'd probably go for a single EOL core anyways,
| for the lower total count of failure modes alone. Even more
| so if launches in that weight class are sufficiently rare to
| be served from "organic" churn of reusable F9 launches (they
| clearly are).
|
| In any case, my mention of surprise in the top level comment
| was not meant as "how wasteful, losers, boooh!", but as an
| statement of amazement, "have we/they really come that far
| that a part of me is unimpressed by two of three?", and on a
| meta level surprise about how a non-reuseable F9 _feels_ less
| disappointing to me: a non-reuse F9 is a valid compromise to
| eke out the last bit of payload, whereas the FH raises an
| expectation of being better in every way that 's then
| disappointed by "a third of a step back" in terms of reuse
| compared to what we now consider a regular F9 launch. We
| consider the reusable F9 regular, crazy!
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Yeah, I understood that, I just enjoy talking about the
| contrast between F9 and FH and how F9 improved so much that
| it mostly took over FH's market :P
|
| Eric Berger also put out a pretty good piece talking about
| all of this yesterday:
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/the-worlds-most-
| powe...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Do you have any source for this? I would expect that a FH
| launch that reuses all 3 first stage cores would be cheaper
| than an expended F9. A few hundred thousand extra in fuel
| costs for the side boosters is cheaper than the few million
| dollars that the 9 expended engines would cost.
|
| But I still believe you -- the infrequency of an FH launch
| probably increases the ancillary costs. I'd just like to see
| your source.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| My payload numbers are from the FH Wikipedia page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy#Capabilities
|
| As for the price, the official numbers are $67m for a new
| F9 and $97m for a reusable FH (from their respective
| Wikipedia pages).
|
| Additionally, my reasoning is (as you mention) related to
| cadence. FH flies very infrequently and requires more
| ground expenses to prepare, recover and then refurbish 3
| boosters. Additionally there's the opportunity cost of
| keeping a center core on standby (as it's purpose built for
| FH [1]) and the opportunity cost of keeping the side
| boosters either on standby or converting them to F9s.
|
| Elon has previously mentioned that with Falcon rockets the
| main costs per flight are the second stage (~$10m,
| expended), fairings (~$3-4m, reusable), refurbishment
| (~$1m) and fixed ground costs, which can be reduced by
| increasing cadence [2]. In the case of FH the second stage
| and fairing costs are the same, the refurb costs are
| tripled and due to much lower cadence the ground costs are
| higher. Meanwhile, F9 flies frequently, so it has lower
| ground costs per launch and the booster's cost can be more
| easily amortized via several flights before the expendable
| launch.
|
| Additionally, [2] mentions that the marginal cost of
| building an F9 booster is ~$15m, so all the extra costs of
| FH only need to be greater than $15m to make it worth just
| using an expendable F9.
|
| [1] https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/27/spacex-gives-
| converted...
|
| [2] https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-elon-musk-
| falcon-9...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The $67M price is for a reusable F9, though. The price of
| an expendable F9 used to be $90M, but public SpaceX
| prices have since gone up ~10%.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Hmm yeah, digging around it seems that Wikipedia is
| probably incorrect with the expendable pricing. Seems
| like there aren't really any recent numbers available for
| expendable F9s as the last intentionally expended F9 was
| 3 years ago.
| willis936 wrote:
| It's not impossible, but it's certainly trickier. You'd have to
| save plenty of fuel to kick back into the atmosphere and land,
| re-entry is much more strenuous, and you'd have to complete a
| full orbit to land back where you launched. Nothing is a
| showstopper, but it would take development.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Edit: Units... I'd be the one going in mph through the surface
| of mars.
|
| ~The booster was going 12km/sec at MECO, which is more than
| escape velocity. What they're doing with the second boost,
| they're not telling anyone.~
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Isn't orbit tracking trivial? Also, orbital velocity depends
| on altitude, so perhaps they are just going to a higher
| orbit.
| wumpus wrote:
| > What they're doing with the second boost, they're not
| telling anyone.
|
| This is a direct-to-GEO launch, and some of the payloads are
| public.
| xcskier56 wrote:
| The booster was doing 14,000km/h at MECO which is about
| 3.8km/s. Orbital velocity is 7-7.5km/s depending on altitude
| and escape velocity is even higher, so no, it was not at
| escape velocity or anywhere near it.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| No, it was going 14,240km/hr according to the video, which is
| about 4km/sec. Not near escape velocity.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"wasteful to see that mission profile with the center booster
| burning up without even trying."
|
| My understanding was that the intended orbit / mission profile
| means that they must fly the center core in expendable mode.
| Otherwise, the satellite wouldn't be able to reach the intended
| orbit with the intended amount of fuel for the mission's
| duration.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Hopefully once Starship launches, we'll never see a
| disposable core again.
| oconnor663 wrote:
| Even a reusable rocket reaches the end of its service life
| eventually, and at that point it can make sense for the
| last flight to be expendable.
| chroma wrote:
| It's probably more cost-effective to keep the craft and
| scrap it. The structure itself is a significant amount of
| steel, and the engines contain expensive superalloys.
| oorza wrote:
| If a spacefaring vessel lasts long enough that it needs
| to be decomissioned due to wear and tear, that mf'er
| belongs ONLY in a museum. I hope to live to the day where
| that isn't universally true, but it is not today.
| chroma wrote:
| I'm sure the first couple will be preserved, but they'll
| quickly become as common as derelict airplanes or ships.
| Has SpaceX kept any of their Falcon 9 boosters besides
| the first one that landed? I think the old ones are
| disassembled for analysis, then scrapped.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I 'm sure the first couple will be preserved, but
| they'll quickly become as common as derelict airplanes_
|
| I've always been a fan of putting such things on
| pedestals outside of public buildings, VFWs, etc. A bit
| less feasible with full rockets, but the engines at least
| would be fairly easy to put in parks so kids can climb on
| them.
| bombcar wrote:
| You'd love Gasworks Park in Seattle:
| https://www.seattle.gov/parks/find/parks/gas-works-park
| boogies wrote:
| > TLS error [ignore]
|
| > About
|
| > Gas Works Park has a play area with a large play barn,
| and big hill popular for flying kites. Special park
| features include a sundial, and a beautiful view of
| Seattle. Access to Lake Union is restricted at Gas Works
| Park, as the lake sediment contains hazardous substances.
|
| Appear that that description omits the lede! But the park
| does seem singularly interesting per the Wiki article:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Works_Park
| TOMDM wrote:
| Makes sense for NASA to donate, but say SpaceX could
| recover $10m in materials from an expended Starship,
| that's a steep ask.
|
| When the time comes, I hope they choose to donate it to a
| museum, or if not, the funds are raised to buy it off
| them.
| bombcar wrote:
| I mean it's a $10m ask/potential write-off, so there is
| that. The "first one" will be even more rare/valuable and
| NASA might make a deal for it.
| jpadkins wrote:
| SpaceX would get considerably more than $10M in marketing
| / brand goodwill by donating to a museum. So for the
| first 1 or 2 decommissioned rockets, I think donation
| beats scrap ROI.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i've been to boca chica, starhopper and the older
| starships are quite literally parked on the side of the
| road. I bet if you showed up with the gear to move them
| they'd probably just give them to you ;)
| verdverm wrote:
| They are different classes of launch vehicles. This payload
| is not really a good one for starship, and conversely,
| starlinks will never fly on heavy
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the goal with Starship is that the
| economics are so much better that it's used even for
| awkward launches. I do not believe they are targeting
| Falcon Heavy launches in the long-term, assuming the
| best-case Starship scenarios.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes, it's really odd to see a GEO launch rather than a
| GTO at launch. GTO is a geosynchronous transfer orbit
| with apogee at GEO and perigee at LEO that uses the
| satellite's thrusters to circularize to full GEO.
| Starship can't do a GEO directly, it would need refueling
| or a kick stage to do GEO.
|
| Since we really don't know why the Space Force wanted
| direct GEO we can't know for sure if refueling or a kick
| stage would have met requirements or not. Would it be
| good enough as long as the satellite to stay hidden
| inside the fairing during refueling?
| ErikCorry wrote:
| They wanted to use it before Xmas to keep an eye on
| Ukraine, and they didn't want to have to wait?
| elfchief wrote:
| At one point (I don't know if it's still the case) for
| certain launches the US government laid claim to "100% of the
| thrust available from a booster" or somesuch, basically not
| leaving anything left over for landings. I'm not sure it was
| ever documented why they had this requirement.
|
| What surprised -me- was that all three boosters were brand
| new, rather than, say, expending a booster that's already
| flown half a dozen times or such.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > What surprised -me- was that all three boosters were
| brand new, rather than, say, expending a booster that's
| already flown half a dozen times or such.
|
| Using new boosters was probably a contract requirement, but
| even if it wasn't, the Falcon Heavy center core isn't
| interchangeable with regular Falcon 9 cores, as it has to
| be strengthened to handle the additional load the side
| boosters put on it.
| xeromal wrote:
| Just guessing but maybe 100% of thrust available =
| statistically safer or something like that?
| bombcar wrote:
| Or gives them more lee-way for maneuvering or - makes it
| a tiny bit harder for spies to figure out what orbit
| they're going to place the satellite before the launch.
|
| Or because someone asked "how high" and got back "as high
| as you can go".
| snovv_crash wrote:
| It could be something with a large fuel tank that can be
| adjusted in capacity so that it will be 100% of whatever
| Falcon can offer for the target orbit.
| nuccy wrote:
| Likely yes. Though there may be few ways to land the core
| booster:
|
| 1. Expend side-boosters to save enough fuel in the core for
| the entry+landing burn.
|
| 2. Land side-boosters on drone ships instead of flying back
| to land.
|
| First option is likely the least favorable one, since two
| side-boosters combined price may be higher than the single
| core. Even though the core itself is likely more expensive
| than a single side-booster, since it caries the load of the
| payload plus side-loads from both side-boosters. Second
| option may be complicated logistically due to a lack of
| drone-ships. Landing three (or even two) rockets in the ocean
| was never done before.
| [deleted]
| mercurywells wrote:
| It doesn't have enough spare fuel for the descent/landing burns
| when lifting such a large payload.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Have to consider overall risk mitigation waste impact. E.g. if
| the additional complexity of adding a center booster increases
| risk of full mission failure, then, integrated over time, it
| can be a more wasteful decision if the goal isn't to test that.
| Especially considering the satellite that would get destroyed
| and all the impact of having to rebuild that across the global
| supply chain.
| chasd00 wrote:
| The couple seconds of tracking camera footage of the boosters
| coming back down looked amazing. I wish it wasn't so foggy at the
| pad!
|
| When the second stage separates there's a few cables that are
| flying around. Does anyone know what those are used for?
| Electrical connections between the stages maybe?
| [deleted]
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I'm guessing you're referring to the stiffener that helps the
| second stage engine's nozzle hold its shape?
| chasd00 wrote:
| no not the stiffener but in the shot were you can see the
| stiffener at stage separation you can see the cables flying
| around too.
| euroderf wrote:
| WAG: data connectors.
| sjg1729 wrote:
| WAG?
| el_isma wrote:
| Wild Ass Guess :)
|
| And there's also the SWAG: Scientific Wild Ass Guess, for
| when some thought went into it :)
| biomcgary wrote:
| wild *ss guess
| edm0nd wrote:
| Walruses Are Growling
| somedude895 wrote:
| The first time the boosters landed side by side it was perfect
| weather and they touched down perfectly synchronously:
| https://youtu.be/l5I8jaMsHYk
| derekp7 wrote:
| I recall that the synchronous landing was unintentional, they
| are supposed to be staged a few seconds apart for tracking
| purposes. Also the live feed for the first launched
| accidentally used the same camera feed from one booster on
| two windows, instead of the second booster on the second
| window. This was corrected in the archived video (what you
| see currently on YouTube for the first launch isn't exactly
| what was shown live). So that made it look like (from the on
| board camera perspective) that both landed at exactly the
| same time.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| that was one of the coolest things i think i may ever get to
| see in my life.
| derekp7 wrote:
| Was watching it at work, and a crowd was gathered around
| the desk thinking it was a trailer for a new Star Trek film
| or something. Told them, no, this is real, and the look on
| my non-geek office mates faces was absolutely priceless.
| sidcool wrote:
| Did they discard the centre booster?
| 51Cards wrote:
| Yes, mission profile required it to use all of its fuel to
| reach the target.
| sidcool wrote:
| Got it. Thanks.
| Klathmon wrote:
| One really cool thing I heard in this video, is the double sonic
| booms from each booster.
|
| There are reasons behind it that I don't really understand, but
| each booster makes 2 distinct sonic booms as it comes in to land.
| With Falcon Heavy launches, it makes a total of 4 of them!
| numpad0 wrote:
| I don't understand either, but read that supersonic objects
| generate shockwaves at nose, root of wings(if any), and tail.
| Shockwaves also may reflect off terrains.
|
| Possibly it should always be "BAbababang-baaaang...", and the
| first three might be either indistinguishable or ones after the
| first are too weak, except it becomes noticeably apart on
| extremely long objects like F9?
|
| 1:
| https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/multimedia/imagegalle...
| skykooler wrote:
| In this case the two booms come from the "nose" (the engines,
| since at this point the booster is flying backwards) and from
| the grid fins at the far end. Given that the Falcon 9
| boosters are about 70m tall, that would mean about a fifth of
| a second delay between the two booms when the booster is
| traveling at Mach 1.
| MontagFTB wrote:
| SmarterEveryDay has a great video explaining this audio
| phenomenon from a previous Falcon Heavy launch:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The booms are probably from the bottom and then the grid fins.
| [deleted]
| nosequel wrote:
| As a kid I used to watch the Space Shuttle come in for landing,
| and it always had a distinct triple-boom on entry. Someone said
| it was the body and wing tips each making their own boom, but I
| never really confirmed it.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| IIRC it was shocks at nose, wing tips and tail.
| plegresl wrote:
| https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space-explo...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| 3,700 kg to geosynchronous orbit... man that is a hefty
| satellite. Would love to know what they packed in there.
| billfruit wrote:
| Is that a high number? An upcoming Viasat- 3 communication
| satellite is expected to weigh 6400 kg and one of them is
| planned to launch on an Atlas-V.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The difference is that this is a full ride to GEO, so the
| satellite stays attached to the second stage and the second
| stage does the circularization burn at GEO. Thus it has a
| much higher mass penalty than most commercial launches, which
| are to GTO, where the rocket only puts the satellite on the
| path to GEO (a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit) and the
| satellite does the circularization burn at the destination.
|
| Even Falcon 9 can put a 6.4t satellite onto GTO in expendable
| mode and Falcon Heavy can while recovering all 3 boosters,
| but direct insertion into GEO of 6.4t would probably be
| stretching the limits of Falcon Heavy if even doable at all.
| foobarian wrote:
| I would doubly love to know given they thanked the USSF at the
| end. Maybe a giant laser cannon? :-)
| chasd00 wrote:
| the little ad played in the middle of the launch footage made
| me think it was a military communications payload.
| euroderf wrote:
| aaroninsf wrote:
| notright5 wrote:
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Always inspiring to see the work spacex is doing!
| MasterYoda wrote:
| I read that last time falcon heavy flied was in june 2019, 3
| years since. Why has it not flied to space since then? No mission
| or problems needed to be resolved?
| chasd00 wrote:
| falcon heavy was always this awkward middle child relative to
| F9 and Starship. Like iirc it was announced pretty close to F9
| blk5 going to production, but very late, and then the starship
| concept took off and consumed resources and attention. The
| moment starship is operational then FH is cancelled I bet. I
| bet F9 hangs around even after Starship is operational however.
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| There were no missions... there are now 4 or 5 more on the
| manifest for the next 12 months.
| eterevsky wrote:
| It's mostly due to the competition from the "normal" Falcon 9,
| which is quite capable and could be used for most of the
| existing payloads.
|
| Besides that, currently the payload is limited by the size of
| the fairing. SpaceX is working on the bigger fairing, but it is
| not available yet.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Did I miss something or did this rocket have no stack - it was a
| single stage (with boosters, but aside those still one undivided
| rocket)? Can anyone comment on that please.
| chipsa wrote:
| It's side boosters, center booster, and second stage. But the
| second stage is the same diameter as the boosters, so you can't
| easily see the difference if you don't know what to look for.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| I see. Seems rocket engine efficiency must have seriously
| improved while I was not looking, thanks.
| jakswa wrote:
| during the stream, multiple times they said: they hid the last
| rocket stage at the request of customer (US gov)
| davidw wrote:
| Seems like an altogether more productive use of time and
| resources than futzing about with content moderation.
| comeonbro wrote:
| Something like this is only possible at the end of an
| unimaginably long chain of absurd and impossible feats of
| organization.
|
| The things he is concerned about when he's "futzing about with
| content moderation" are deep enough in that chain that it's
| easy to lose connection, but are absolutely part of it.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| The launch blowing the fog off the pad was exceptionally cool!
| Loved it. 5 stars. Would launch again.
| booboofixer wrote:
| When does/do the research/space programs enabled by these more
| frequent launches start to benefit us all? It must have already
| contributed to something somehow. Agriculture? Defense? Oil
| exploration? Seems like the sort of information that's hard to
| find.
| quest88 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies
|
| This doesn't perfectly answer your question.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Ukraine has access to world class command and control with it
| and is leveraging to obliterate the Russian military.
|
| People living in areas that telco and cable refuse to serve are
| finally able to join civilization.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Millions of people are benefiting from Starlink, which is
| SpaceX's biggest launch customer.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not sure what kind of impact you are looking for. Nobody is
| going to show up at your doorstep with a check. That said, you
| can look around you for a lot impacts. If you really want to be
| specific to the frequency of launches, increased availability
| of starlink for indidvidual and military needs.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Starlink already provides decent internet to places it didn't
| reach before.
| darknavi wrote:
| Another benefit is the thousands of high paying, high skill
| jobs this market creates.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| What exactly are you referring to? If you mean the satellites,
| Earth observation satellites run by governments play a big role
| in things like agriculture by aiding weather predictions.
| Defense should also be relatively obvious from that (even
| private Earth observation services are proving helpful to
| Ukraine for instance).
|
| If you mean the rockets, there's the perk of making it easier
| for smallsats to get rides, enabling all sorts of smaller
| research/Earth observation and making it easier to train the
| next generation of talent in the field.
|
| If you mean things like Starlink, one thing coming in the next
| few years that should play a decent role in the world is the
| idea of cellular connectivity anywhere by direct satellite
| uplink. It would be extremely low bandwidth, basically text-
| only, but likely to still be a fairly big deal for monitoring
| remote environments and for search and rescue purposes.
| fsiefken wrote:
| Falcon9 launched Starlink, without which the course of the
| Ukraine war might have been significantly different.
|
| There's also the plan to pull CO2 from the atmosphere to create
| rocket fuel.
| https://labusinessjournal.com/manufacturing/aerospace/big-pl...
|
| There's the Dragon 2, the only US human space vehicle in
| operation, as the Space Shuttle has been retired in 2011 due to
| expenses and safety issues.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2
| rep_movsd wrote:
| krisoft wrote:
| I will bite. Why won't the laws of physics and chemistry
| allow it?
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| To be more precise: the laws of physics and chemistry
| will never allow _to pull CO2 from the atmosphere in an
| energy efficient way_
|
| The consequence is that, unless all your electricity
| generation and raw resource extraction needed for the
| process has basically zero emissions, it's probably
| better to just use regular fuel. Burning fossil fuels to
| create fuel that you then burn has more CO2 emissions
| than just burning fossil fuels once (since you need way
| less fossil fuel in the first place). And the US grid is,
| right now, not in path of not burning fossil fuels. So
| the idea of pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and be carbon
| neutral doesn't seem plausible.
|
| That's my take, anyway.
| rippercushions wrote:
| It's quite feasible on Mars, where the concentration of CO2
| is much higher (albeit the air is also much thinner), and a
| cornerstone of SpaceX's plan to produce methane fuel in
| situ.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Oh please, it's perfectly feasible. The catch is you need
| to put more energy in than you get out, and it won't save
| you any money. But it's not "against the laws of physics
| and chemistry"
|
| (The reason it might be done despite costing more money is
| mostly PR.)
| laverya wrote:
| > (The reason it might be done despite costing more money
| is mostly PR.)
|
| And practice for doing so in locations that have access
| to water + CO2 but not petroleum refining capabilities,
| such as Mars.
| uptown wrote:
| Something I've wondered about Starlink. What data does that
| company glean from the communication that traverses its
| network? What are the privacy implications?
| marcyb5st wrote:
| Starlink? Not sure it would be economically viable without
| reusing a good deal of equipment
| eagerpace wrote:
| There is a lag between the service being available and missions
| being planned to use it. The US government is finally starting
| to see the light and is presently benefiting from lower costs
| and better performance compared to legacy providers. Starlink
| wouldn't have been possible without this, both competitive
| constellations are considering using SpaceX for launch services
| too. This area alone is providing incredible value to humanity
| already but also doesn't require human capabilities.
| [deleted]
| polytely wrote:
| it's more just lowering the price of getting things to orbit,
| so there are certain thresholds that will probably make new
| businesses viable.
| reneherse wrote:
| One benefit is the connectivity provided by Starlink to
| Ukraine's front line defending forces. Which, amongst other
| things, increases the quality of reconnaissance, tempo of
| battle, and should translate to fewer defender and civilian
| casualties.
|
| The long term effects of a more rapid Ukrainian victory (and a
| dramatic Russian defeat) are difficult to estimate.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| The military propaganda at 9:30 was interesting. Showing Chinese
| people while saying "our adversaries".
|
| Has it ever been done so overtly before ?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Space exploration is, I hate to use the word "traditionally"
| here, but it has a history of being extremely nationalistic. We
| give astronauts from different countries their own different
| names. We put big flags on things. We fund space missions
| because it keeps us ahead of other countries. It's funded like
| a war because it's very nearly a wartime activity, except
| mostly it's used for good, almost by accident.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| It's actually at 11:50. You managed to get me to watch the
| entire propaganda section that started at 9:30. Are you sure
| you're not part of it? ;)
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| you are right, mea culpa :)
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Just a minor nitpick but I think the part you're referring to
| (actually at 11:50 in the video) is showing Chinese soldiers
| specifically, not just random Chinese civilians. I'd bet that
| there are few people in either the US or Chinese military who
| would disagree that the other side is an adversary right now,
| even if they're not at war.
| sneak wrote:
| I don't think the people who defend the territory where ~90%
| of every Mac, iPhone, iPad, and many other products are
| created is an "adversary", any more than the police in
| Cupertino are.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Disagreeing with that and overtly saying it in a widely
| publicised video I think are very different things.
|
| One is pragmatic, the other aims to sow specific narratives
| in the mind of the viewers. The video is aimed at us, not at
| the Chinese
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Why be on teams if there's nobody else to play against?
| fallingknife wrote:
| Good. Call China what it is.
| tyho wrote:
| A country with a impressive history of not declaring war on
| another state and who has drawn the ire of USA simply because
| they see it as credible economic competition?
| engineer_22 wrote:
| To be fair, the Chinese society has seen it's share of war.
| Let's not also forget the Chinese are rapidly expanding
| their military. In the calculus of a command economy, what
| is the point of military spending, if not to use it?
| origin_path wrote:
| They've effectively declared war on Taiwan by now. Maybe
| not diplomatically but their president for life has been
| saying they'll take it through force, which amounts to the
| same thing.
| slimginz wrote:
| Wow that almost plays out like a parody of itself. I was half
| expecting it to be revealed as one of those fake Saturday Night
| Live ads.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Given that the Chinese military will spend weeks pouring over
| the footage it would be rude not to say hello.
| davide_v wrote:
| The boosters landing will always give me goosebumps.
| cuSetanta wrote:
| I was lucky enough to be on-base for this launch and landing. The
| sound was something else.
| darknavi wrote:
| Quadruple booms right?
| cuSetanta wrote:
| Yeah, 2 in rapid succession for each of the boosters. Really
| took us by surprise just how loud they are from the SpaceX
| hangar.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Did the center booster land? What timecode was that at?
| chasd00 wrote:
| i believe the orbit and mass requirement meant there was no
| fuel left for landing the center stage. I think the
| configuration where they can't re-use the booster is called
| "full thrust".
| LightG wrote:
| Or ... "max waste" ... no harm being honest about it and
| keeing peoples eyes on the prize!
| invalidusernam3 wrote:
| "Max waste" would be all three boosters not surviving. One
| booster being expended is more like "min waste" (besides
| losing none, obviously)
| krisoft wrote:
| "max waste" would be all 3 boosters exploding on the pad
| with the engineering team swarming around them. Nedelin
| style.
| BluSyn wrote:
| Center booster was expended in this launch
| rippercushions wrote:
| I'm kind of surprised a random SpaceX launch is #1 on HN, when on
| the same day, China just completed their modular space station:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33422779
| dang wrote:
| That post had a couple software penalties on it. I've removed
| them, and the post is on the front page now.
| dmix wrote:
| > a random SpaceX launch
|
| This isn't a random launch.
| [deleted]
| thebiglebrewski wrote:
| This is the first Falcon Heavy flight in over 3 years:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy#Launches_and_payl...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| It is basically a rivalry now so not surprised. Same thing
| happened with China's mars rover.
|
| In some ways, I am down with this type of rivalry than wars. I
| want an intense space race between China and US.
| boringg wrote:
| I mean its not a rivalry at this point. China is just playing
| catch up.
| m3at wrote:
| This is a launch of falcon heavy, there's only been a handful
| (unlike single falcon 9, which are more common and might be the
| "random SpaceX launch" you had in mind). It's also a live
| stream instead of a news article. But other space news events
| are interesting too of course
| TOMDM wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2bXGR
| dougmwne wrote:
| It's entertaining and completely in line with what you would
| expect out of media and propaganda. There were a bunch of
| interesting Soviet missions that are basically unknown and
| obscure in the West. And this Chinese station seems quite
| notable, but again I basically never hear about it. But then
| that's expected, NASA has a massive PR arm that makes sure the
| tax payers are well informed of its accomplishments. The CCP
| knows that even if it put massive resources into western media
| outreach, western news sources would be talking about human
| rights abuses in the next breath. And it's extremely rare for a
| paper to do actual investigative journalism, so even if a
| western journalist found this station particularly newsworthy,
| they would have to do all the heavy lifting to get the story
| published. And probably be getting some explicit or implicit
| political pressure not to focus so much on a non-ally's
| success.
| eagerpace wrote:
| Space Stations have been done before. Most of what SpaceX is
| doing has not.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Well the video does say that this is the 150th and 151st
| landing of a re-usable rocket. :-)
| smeeth wrote:
| Modular space stations are significantly easier to achieve than
| landing two rocket boosters at the same time. Humanity has been
| doing modular space stations since the 80s (Mir).
| ryanisnan wrote:
| I would agree with you if this was a normal falcon launch.
| OJFord wrote:
| Possibly the most expensive thing in the world with a publicly
| listed price ($97M) and sales contact (sales@spacex.com)?
| https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf Just find
| that amusingly 'accessible'.
| chasd00 wrote:
| CSB: I was trying to solve a problem for a client and thought
| Starlink may be able to help but i had no contact at Starlink
| nor SpaceX. So, on a whim, i emailed sales@spacex.com and told
| them what i was up to and the help i needed. I got a response
| back the next day from a Starlink lead in the state where my
| project was at ( client was a state government) asking how she
| can help. I was pretty surprised and impressed.
| yellowapple wrote:
| It's indeed kinda refreshing to see a company actually put such
| a high pricetag out there... and all the more frustrating that
| so many companies demand contact info for a "quote" when I
| don't need to do that to _launch something into outer fucking
| space_.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Honestly, I think this would absolutely justify the Contact
| For Quote.
|
| What's your payload? What size is it? Will it be a dedicated
| flight, or can we ride share with other customers?
|
| So many questions just to do something silly like "launch
| something into outer fucking space". Also, nitpick, but is
| geosync orbit actually outer space?
| vikingerik wrote:
| There's no definitional difference between "outer space"
| and just space. They're synonymous, and most commonly
| defined to begin at 100 km altitude. If there's any
| difference, it's that outer space refers to the physical
| region, as opposed to "space" that might refer to the
| mathematical and relativistic concept.
|
| "Deep space" is another definition, which commonly means
| beyond lunar altitude.
|
| Other regions of space typically use a specific descriptor
| - interplanetary, trans-Jovian, trans-Neptune,
| interstellar, extra-galactic.
| philsnow wrote:
| > defined to begin at 100 km altitude
|
| I guess this is probably on Earth, which makes me wonder
| how far up from Earth's moon do you have to go to be "in
| space"?
| vikingerik wrote:
| It's also defined for Mars (80 km) and Venus (250 km),
| with the same definition of where winged flight is
| possible based on atmospheric density and local gravity.
|
| For an airless body, there's no real meaning to the
| definition, the surface is pretty much equivalent to
| space.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Winged flight is not possible in LEO but yet Starlink
| satellites are definitely affected by the earth's atmo
| djkorchi wrote:
| Geosynchronous orbit is at 37,000km (well above ISS which
| iirc is at 400km), so by most definitions that is in space.
| Often that threshold is put as low as ~100km, when the
| atmosphere becomes too thin to support winged flight.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Honestly, I think this would absolutely justify the
| Contact For Quote.
|
| Absolutely, which is exactly why it's so ridiculous that so
| many sales teams demand implied consent to receive their
| spam solely to get some kind of number for something far,
| far less.
| pencilguin wrote:
| Of course nobody actually pays that.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Gotta ask for the AAA discount.
| ovao wrote:
| Enter coupon code "CHIEFTWIT2022" during checkout.
| [deleted]
| mr_sturd wrote:
| Makes you wonder if this customer actually did though. If
| they were forced to dispose of the central booster due to
| the needs of the payload, that central booster must be
| costed in.
| gpm wrote:
| They paid more, something like $150M
|
| I think "no one pays that" has more to do with "every
| mission is actually a negotiated contract" than "the
| price is inflated".
|
| https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/10/falcon-heavy-
| ussf-44...
| mr_sturd wrote:
| Fair enough, I'd naively thought of it as a ceiling.
| asah wrote:
| In my experience, most commercial offerings over
| USD$100,000 are negotiated, simply because there's enough
| money to do pay someone to negotiate.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >Of course nobody actually pays that
|
| That's not the point.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| For Falcon Heavy you are probably right (since there aren't
| many clients and they all have specific requests) but it is
| my understanding that the publically listed reusable F9
| price is the one being paid by most customers.
| wongarsu wrote:
| That goes for anything sold B2B for more than a couple
| hundred dollars.
|
| But still, I can immediately budget it at that price, and
| if the price comes down 20% in negotiations that pays for
| everything else that's behind schedule and over budget
| spfzero wrote:
| Well you don't need the quote to get an idea of how feasible
| it would be for you to afford it. But I think you'd need a
| quote once you started fine-tuning your ask.
| H8crilA wrote:
| Stock markets and bond markets have public sale offers for high
| double/triple digit billions /s
| elihu wrote:
| Maybe some of ASML's EUV lithography machines would be
| contenders?
| Tade0 wrote:
| The mention of "competitive prices" is icing on the cake.
|
| "Check out our deals on launching stuff into friggin' space."
|
| I never thought I would live to see such a service marketed
| this way.
| ec109685 wrote:
| AWS has some expensive single clicks:
| https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1243319088853553152?s=2...
| la64710 wrote:
| Yes but I think it's due to competition even ISRO has their
| price list on the net
| rexreed wrote:
| There's plenty of listed real estate that goes into the tens to
| hundreds of millions (and billions) with a contact and pricing.
| here's one right now:
| https://www.commercialcafe.com/commercial-property/us/ny/new...
|
| Listed price, and even a phone number to call. Go ahead, make
| an offer ;)
| p1esk wrote:
| It shows $99,000,000. Where do you see billions?
| obiefernandez wrote:
| Only a sucker would buy this property. It'll be underwater
| within a decade or two...
| frankharv wrote:
| Yea sure it will....
|
| https://www.climatedepot.com/2022/11/01/new-york-times-
| clima...
|
| You climate change terrorists crack me up.
| marban wrote:
| Kinda nice to pay with your Amex and get flight miles in
| return.
| skellera wrote:
| You have found the reason for business credit cards (other
| than the credit part).
| boogies wrote:
| No sales contact, but
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_buildin...
| does enumerate nominal costs 3 orders of magnitude higher.
| elil17 wrote:
| Boeing lists aircraft prices for commercial planes:
| https://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/#/prices
|
| (Although they note that the actual price may vary by
| configuration, so I guess it's not as "pure" of a list price
| compared to SpaceX).
|
| The highest there is $442.2 million. I wonder if there are any
| list prices out there higher than that?
| BasilPH wrote:
| Thank you for that rabbit hole! The most expensive one is the
| 777-9. It's apparently the longest and widest plane ever[^1].
|
| [^1]: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boeing-777x-9-first-
| fligh...
| adverbly wrote:
| Do they take visa? PayPal? Bitcoin?
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Probably Doge
| capableweb wrote:
| I was gonna reply with some random island for sale, as those
| usually are very expensive. But they don't come near the
| 442.2 million USD figure, most expensive I can find is
| 133,467,632 EUR (https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/ko-
| kaeo-thailand/pr...).
|
| Interesting that a whole island costs the same amount or less
| than just one airplane.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Real estate is usually all about location, land itself is
| plentiful and cheap around the world, it's all the stuff
| required to make it livable and proximity to where people
| want to be that's expensive.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Because you have to manufacture a plane, and island was
| manufactured by someone else who wasn't paid.
| earth_walker wrote:
| Oh, they are paid. According to the contract they take
| various types of payment ranging from: Sunday mornings
| drinking bad wine, tithes all the way to lifelong
| celibacy and blood sacrifice.
| elil17 wrote:
| The planes are so expensive because they're specialized
| planes meant to be in the air nearly 24 hours a day - this
| justifies spending a huge amount of money on improving
| their fuel efficiency. A friend who works in large
| commercial aircraft once told me that the break-even point
| for money spent redesigning planes to be lighter was
| $1,000,000 in R&D spending per pound of weight saved. Older
| models which are typically used for intermittent cargo
| service can cost just $20m for a 747.
| implements wrote:
| > Older models which are typically used for intermittent
| cargo service can cost just $20m for a 747.
|
| With the bulk of that being the value of the four engines
| - an old airframe is pretty much just scrap metal.
| TOMDM wrote:
| $1,000,000 per lb for R&D is steep, but at this stage in
| the game makes sense.
|
| I wonder what the unit price for a break-even 1lb saving
| would be. Is it worth spending $20,000 to shave off a
| pound with expensive materials?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. So if I buy a top spec model and
| make it 400lbs lighter I can double the price?
| TOMDM wrote:
| If you could take a top spec model, cut the weight by
| 400lbs without effecting the crafts capability, you could
| certainly sell it at a premium yeah, it would be some
| difference between the current price and the fuel cost
| savings shedding 400lbs casuses over the lifetime of the
| aircraft. Cerium estimated $2,600 per lb over the
| lifetime of the craft so yeah, that's a ~$1,040,000 in
| value there.
| Cerium wrote:
| About $2600 per pound.
|
| Based on this forum thread [1] the marginal cost per
| pound to fuel efficienciy is about "0.0155 gallons per
| pound per 1,000 statute miles". Over a 737's life it may
| fly about 50 million miles [2]. Combining facts one and
| two results in a fuel consumption per marginal pound of
| 775 gallons. Current jet fuel prices are about $3.40 per
| gal [3].
|
| [1]
| https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/712294-anyone-
| kno...
|
| [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2
| 012/11/...
|
| [3] https://www.iata.org/en/publications/economics/fuel-
| monitor/
| TOMDM wrote:
| Wow, thanks for the effort put into answering a passing
| curiosity!
|
| Of course any change to the aircraft has many other
| downstream implications (ability to source parts for
| repairs, lifetime of the part, maintenance requirements),
| but it's cool to think that for an "all else the same"
| replacement that the bar is still so high.
|
| With the falling costs of advanced materials I do wonder
| if next gen aircraft will be substantially different.
| somedude895 wrote:
| Should have Add to Cart and Checkout using Apple Pay buttons.
| SamBam wrote:
| PayPal, so I can try and return to sender for a refund.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| How come you dont see or hear a sonic boom when the go faster as
| sound or did i miss that?
| dom96 wrote:
| The way the boosters land feels so alien and CGI-like. I'm
| curious how close you can get to viewing the landings in real
| life, would really love to take a trip to do that at some point.
| cuSetanta wrote:
| As I said in another comment, I was on the base for this launch
| and landing. We were standing at the SpaceX Hangar AO which is
| about 4km from the landing site. There may have been closer
| personnel, but the majority of us on-base were around there.
|
| The tourists viewing the launch were scattered around the Cape,
| with the most popular spot being here:
| https://goo.gl/maps/ohaudmEggCLmr7gu8 Which is about 13 km from
| the landing site.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I had the same thought when watching it, it looked like they
| had overlaid a CGI demonstration of what the landing was
| supposed to look like. Really cool stuff.
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