Space X Falcon Heavy OT??

adama · Feb 5, 2018

Ok so tomorrow sees the launch of the largest rocket this millennia so far and if successful the recovery - landing and potential reuse of a really large part of that. This is kinda unquestionably the biggest step in space exploration for a while, hence i figured i would start a thread on it.

Here's hoping it works, because it's this kinda technology thats truly going to make interesting jobs for us lot in the future. If space can become truly affordable, theres going to be a very, very large industry to be built up to make it happen and keep it happening at a large commercial scale, not at the scale its been at for the last few decades of just a niche speciality. Who knows maybe machinists will gain a little more respect when your clients sitting on top of a really large fiery death that is relying on you getting it just right!

Monarchist · Feb 5, 2018

adama said:
Who knows maybe machinists will gain a little more respect when your clients sitting on top of a really large fiery death that is relying on you getting it just right!

They DID ask one of the early astronauts how it felt sitting atop Saturn Five... (waay bigger, heavier, and more powerful than Falcon Heavy, BTW.

'bout double, actually.)

Falcon Heavy vs. the classic Saturn V

His response? Words to the effect:

"How would you feel sitting atop XX billion dollars of equipment, knowing that every last nut and bolt of it had gone to the lowest bidder?"

Best technical craft skills on-planet are still at the mercy of Contracting Officers and Budget Allocators.

But note the close of that article. Extract:

Besides, the Saturn V is no competition to the Falcon Heavy, if for no other reason that no more Saturns could be built. True, the complete microfilm plans for the giant rocket and its support systems are carefully stored by NASA, but the men and women who built Saturn are all dead or retired, the machine tools used to build it are all broken up, and most of the components are no longer manufactured.

Falcon is a private venture. Meant to earn a crust. That tends to work rather well.

Not at risk of offshoring all that much, either. Long March family are the established competition to be beaten, after all.

Milland · Feb 5, 2018

I hope the launch goes well, having been in the space business for much of my working life I like to see progress. It'll be interesting to see what happens with easier/cheaper launch capacity, as there are concerns about too much hardware in orbit, and no clear plans yet as to how to "safe" the large number of failed or shut-down satellites that could become debris generators over time.

My other concern regarding machining is that much of what gets built may be based on composites and printed materials. A lot will still be machined, but it's not going to be the 60's and 70's again.

adama · Feb 5, 2018

Yeah its true the production methods are changing, but then there’s still the machinery needed to make thoes composites, we still seam to be a ways of 3d printers commercially good enough and cheap enough to be making bits for the next 3d printer.

That said, the super draco thrusters that are fully printed and such that they could not be machined shows what 3d print technology should have to offer in the long term.

Can you share at least what kinda bits you got to make miland? As to debris left in orbit, if they land the 3 first stages and then they normally burn up the second stage, hence space X really does not seam to leave much floating around up there. Equally im kinda under the impression ever more second stage orbits are designed to be eliptical enough to guarantee they get enough atmospheric drag to burn up - fall down with in a few months even if there’s issues. There was rumours they were trying to recover the fairing, but not much seams to have been made public on that except some seriously large washed up fairing piece pictures a few years back.

Bobw · Feb 5, 2018

All the launches are cool, and fun to watch.. But the really neat thing about the Space X thing is
watching the first stage come back and land.. That is So F'N Cool!!! Little kid in a candy store kind
of cool.

On one hand I want to see this thing blow up tomorrow, because seeing big stuff blow up is always fun...
But I really want to see how the 2 outer rockets come back, how close are they going to be together,
how far apart are they landing, etc....

adama · Feb 5, 2018

Im curious as to the middle first stage return, i believe its landing on one of the barges, but presumably that stage is going to be going a lot faster than the typical returning stage with only a roadster and 2nd stage sitting on top of it combined with the boost of the other 2 outer first stages, i know they tend to use titanium grid fins do to the heat on re-entry on higher velocity launches before especially around dusk you some times even see the fins glow on re-entry which is kinda mind blowing.

I really hope it does not explode, yeah it will make great viewing, but that much lox + RP1 is sure going to obliterate the launch pad. Previous launch errors have put the pad out of use for months, presumably 3x the fire ball is sure going to be super nasty?????

One stage they were saying they were not even planning to recover the stages from this launch, but not sure now if they are or are not?

Milland · Feb 5, 2018

adama said:
That said, the super draco thrusters that are fully printed and such that they could not be machined shows what 3d print technology should have to offer in the long term.

I saw one of the early-ish turbine parts when I toured SpaceX in 2011. I was part of a student group (as the obligatory old fart), and was very impressed by what I saw, including some of the spin-welding process machines they use for making the skins.

Can you share at least what kinda bits you got to make miland? As to debris left in orbit, if they land the 3 first stages and then they normally burn up the second stage, hence space X really does not seam to leave much floating around up there. Equally im kinda under the impression ever more second stage orbits are designed to be eliptical enough to guarantee they get enough atmospheric drag to burn up - fall down with in a few months even if there’s issues. There was rumours they were trying to recover the fairing, but not much seams to have been made public on that except some seriously large washed up fairing piece pictures a few years back.

Not sure they'd really want to reuse fairings, I think they're composite, and unless they're going to include recovery chutes for them there's risk of interlaminar damage when impacting the ocean.

I made (among other things) the two Faraday cups on the WIND satellite: WIND (spacecraft) - Wikipedia and the buss and some of the instruments for HETE2: High Energy Transient Explorer - Wikipedia Just the machined parts, of course, there were electronics techs for that stuff. Also made some of the ground support equipment (GSE), and helped with pre-launch testing at Goddard, Draper, and Lincoln Labs.

Fun period of my life, wish I was still doing it...

adama · Feb 5, 2018

^ Thats cool, i have made parts for a very serious model rocket attempt, but to the best of my knowledge it never made it any were near space, but did do 4x the speed of sound so was fast, most famous thing i ever did was fix a cracked injector steam line late one friday night on the Flying Scotsman Steam loco, was the only person to answer the phone and have a large enough heat source to get it hot enough to braze!

Would be awesome to get a chance to make something that left the earth’s atmosphere even if it was one of the most insignificant parts going.

As to the fairings, i believe there was talk of chutes for them, after all there presumably pretty robust so would not need all that soft a landing. Kinda wish they published more about this kinda stuff, the whole composite damage and its detections going to become a ever bigger issue in the future, i know the aerospace industry were looking into ultrasonic testing, but if musks Big rockets going to realy make it to mars and back and get frequent reuse, presumably there’s going to have to be some pretty sophisticated composite damage detection stuff developed.

DDoug · Feb 5, 2018

Launching a useless payload is just senseless.

How much pollution is going to be released when this thing light's off ?

adama · Feb 5, 2018

^depends largely on how high it gets and if it explodes! Since when did we worry about pollution when it comes to discovery. As to pointless payload, seeing as more or less every launchers first launch was with a dumb lump of mass surely selling a advertising ride makes great sense?

Yets face it were has ford or GM ever sent a Car for advertising purposes before that comes even close to this?

Monarchist · Feb 5, 2018

adama said:
Yets face it were has ford or GM ever sent a Car for advertising purposes before that comes even close to this?

Shoulders of highways, middle of busy intersections, and perched atop roll-backs do it for yah? Sure got Tesla beat on the head-count.

RC99 · Feb 5, 2018

A bit off topic, but who are they giving specs in lbs instead of tons.

You do not for example tell people to travel 1 356 653 inches then take a left turn then travel another 4 565 765 inches.

Quite bizarre that with weight lbs go into the millions.

adama · Feb 5, 2018

^ Shhh its imperial, can't do any of that sensible unit shit, makes life too easy. Still can't believe the idiots used imperial fixings on the ISS, even our future space farer’s are going to need both fucking metric and imperial allen keys!

boslab · Feb 5, 2018

Oh oh I have an idea, the Governent will love it, metric Allen screws with imperial hex, and imperial screws with a metric hole for us over here, problem multiplied by 4, just like the Governent like, plus imagine the fun with spanner sizes for standard bolts with metric heads, it'll work I tell you.
As far as space things go I'm confused to be honest, how in gods name can people ever get through the van Allen radiation belts without getting thier blood turned to water?, apparently the radiation is as intense as the reactor building of Chernobyl, that can't be healthy, I'm suprised the rather flimsy construction of the Apollo space capsule offered any protection, in fact the bremstralung (I can't remember how to spell it) or breaking radiation behind an Ali sheet is worse I've read.
Truthfully I often wondered, if a space suit protects an astronaut from radiation can't they be used in the clean up at Fukushima and Chernobyl?
Gets me thinking
Mark

Monarchist · Feb 5, 2018

boslab said:
Gets me thinking
Mark

Jury is now out on whether that is a good thing, but I can now better understand why a NASA Goddard Procurement Officer was so cranky when I hauled him back onto duty one Sunday afternoon in 1969.

John Garner · Feb 5, 2018

Sending useless mass into space? Old hat. One of the first Saturn (don't remember which launch, or for that matter, which series of Saturn) launches carried its full throw-weight of Florida beach sand.

And in 1980 (or thereabouts), some fifteen or so years after the sand-filled Saturn launch, Ford photographed their then-new Escort in their Aerospace Division's satellite assembly high bay.

sfriedberg · Feb 5, 2018

boslab said:
how in gods name can people ever get through the van Allen radiation belts without getting thier blood turned to water?, apparently the radiation is as intense as the reactor building of Chernobyl, that can't be healthy,

Short version: The Apollo astronauts passed through the Van Allen belts very quickly, so did not collect more than about 13 Rad in one hour. Lethal dose is more like 300 Rad in one hour. From Popular Science and from NASA.

if a space suit protects an astronaut from radiation can't they be used in the clean up at Fukushima and Chernobyl?

Short version: A space suit does not protect against hard radiation, just visible/IR sunlight.

Added in edit: The Van Allen belts contain a lot of charged particles, for which plastics make a useful shield. It's possible that space suit layers might provide some protection, without brehmsstrahlung issues, for these particles. This is a different type of radiation hazard than the Chernobyl ruins offer.

Peter S · Feb 5, 2018

boslab said:
Oh oh I have an idea, the Governent will love it, metric Allen screws with imperial hex, and imperial screws with a metric hole for us over here, problem multiplied by 4, just like the Governent like, plus imagine the fun with spanner sizes for standard bolts with metric heads, it'll work I tell you. Mark

Mark,
Its already happened, though not destined for space - metric taperlock system grubscrews (setscrews) have retained BSW threads but have metric hex! It makes sense to me. Not much need for imperial allen keys now (one large exception

). I presume the inch series taper locks have stayed with inch allen key sizes.

boslab · Feb 6, 2018

So the trick that NASA had in the 60s/70s was in fact not lost or destroyed as the guy from NASA said, it was basically drive like you stole it with lead pants on, suppose it makes sense , don't suppose it would be much fun if the sun got a bit angry and did one of those mass ejections in your direction, you'd find out what the microwave Bing sounds like from inside instead of outside, are we done yet?
Mark

Monarchist · Feb 6, 2018

boslab said:
So the trick that NASA had in the 60s/70s was in fact not lost or destroyed as the guy from NASA said, it was basically drive like you stole it with lead pants on, suppose it makes sense , don't suppose it would be much fun if the sun got a bit angry and did one of those mass ejections in your direction, you'd find out what the microwave Bing sounds like from inside instead of outside, are we done yet?
Mark

It wasn't so much a "trick" as a beneficial side-effect. You just can't DO a lunar transfer orbit injection at 1931 Caterpiggle tractor speeds.

Space X Falcon Heavy OT??

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Titanium

Diamond

Titanium

Diamond

Diamond

Titanium

Diamond

Similar threads