The thread for space cadets!

[trader/warrior]

It went up! Was as awesome as I expected. Still not sure if they managed to land the center core though. I imagine losing that one would be extra bad with all the special structural engineering compared to the two reused side-boosters.

Hope we get some even better shots of the launch, separation, boostbacks and landings afterwards.

Live view of starman:

Wonder how long they can keep that stream up.

One thing I also wonder is I heard a lot of people say it is only going to a solar orbit between the Earth and Mars, and not an actual Mars fly-by, but the launch window to Mars is only a couple of months away and the capacity of the Falcon Heavy would possibly be enough to brute force a Mars fly-by. With only press stuff to go by it's hard to discern what will actually happen. Will the Tesla go to viewing distance of Mars, relatively close to Mars, or just an off-timed Earth-to-Mars orbit?

After watching the SpaceX livestream I was a bit surprised to see the Norwegian national broadcasting channel had an hour long special broadcast live, even with the delays, of the launch. Says a bit about the enthusiasm SpaceX have generated about space in the public I think.

 

[warpus]

I watched it live and went giddy and cheered like a little boy when the various parts of the launch worked out. I also got nervous during the parts of the mission that would usually pose problems for me in KSP

From what I understand the car is in orbit around the sun and it is not going to come close enough to Mars during the first closest approach to make getting in orbit possible, but I think I remember seeing in an animation that it is going to get pretty close on approach 2 or 3. If they have enough fuel left to do a couple burns maybe they'll do another "PR stunt" and do the "car flyby of Mars" thing in a couple years or whatever.

What I want to know is what happened to that central core. Signs seem to be pointing to "they lost it", but I'm curious what actually happened, and nothing seems to have been announced yet. The mission seems to have been a success either way, as they probably expected some problems and things to learn from for future launches. Given that the payload is where it should be and 2 of the cores have landed, I think they'll be very happy with the results. I still want to know about that central core though

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The roadster was placed on a long coast for 6 hours. This was to demonstrate the S2's ability to coast out to geostationary orbit where it could drop off a satellite - as opposed to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) where the satellite is pushed out to GEO altitude but then has to boost itself into the final orbit. This capability is crucial for military satellites for the DoD which often require this extra service. After the 6 hour cruise (should be up any minute - and the live stream is still going) the second stage will restart and send it off on it's trans-Mars trajectory.

The car will never go into orbit of Mars but will regularly cross paths with that planet's orbit. Whether or not the planet is in the same vicinity at the same time as the car is up to orbital mechanics but the stage and car will be dead long before then.

Really the point of this test launch was to demonstrate that the staging method works and that the rocket can deliver payloads directly to GEO for the military - which will be its primary customer.

In the past couple of days Elon announced that they will not be certifying the Falcon Heavy for manned launches to focus on standing up the BFR/ITS rocket and ship. This means the 'Grey Dragon' mission is off the books for now.

And yeah, SpaceX has done a huge amount of good for the space industry by getting everyone excited about spaceflight.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The trans-mars injection was successful. Apparently if you listen to the webcast closely you can hear one of the engineers announce the center core was lost. But hey 2/3 ain't bad - especially when all of the other mission objectives were met.

Edit:
It's confirmed the center core failed. Only one of 3 engines relit and it hit the water at 300 mph about 100 m from the done ship. This took out 2 of the four droneship thrusters and peppered the deck with shrapnel.

 

[warpus]

trans-mars injection doesn't mean you get a "mars intercept" necessarily, but that you continously approach first earth orbit, then mars orbit, etc. but not necessarily the planets?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It just means you are on a trajectory that roughly intercepts Martian orbit. Usually it also means Mars will will be there when you get there but it's not a necessary condition, neither is a cycling back and forth between Mars and Earth (if it got close enough to either it would throw off the cycle without lots of planning and correction).

Basically this trajectory was 100% symbolic and completely useless outside of sulymbolism and demonstration. It is their first deep space launch if you discount DISCOVER ( went to a lagrang point) and simulated a direct GEO insertion and the ability to throw something at Mars.

Side note: it turns out the Roadster is so light that a normal Falcon could have done the mission and still returned to launch site (RLTS).

Edit: And apparently they decided to burn to depletion and pushed it to the astroid belt.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

The perfectly simultaneous landing of both boosters one next to the other is one of the most impressive things i have ever seen. Bravo!

Question from an old KSP player: wouldn't it be better to extend the landing gear earlier in the descent to use them like airbrakes to help lowering vertical speed?

 

[Takhisis]

Transplanted from Mouthwash's nukular tech thread:

Rocket engines are now being 3D printed. Both the Rapter and BE-4 (the two most powerful rocket engines in testing) are largely 3D printed, as is the Super Draco.

3D printing has drawbacks but it is no longer relegated to cheap plastic. It is a truly game changing technology. Though I don't see any particular application for nuclear weapons production where it provides huge advantages.

Edit:
But probably to you bigger point, 3D printing (like lasers before it) is seen as the end-all be-all technology that can do anything which is certainly not true.

Do they print out the parts for the engine and then assemble it, or has the technology advanced enough that they can simply print the entire thing in one piece?

 

[Cutlass]

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The perfectly simultaneous landing of both boosters one next to the other is one of the most impressive things i have ever seen. Bravo!

Question from an old KSP player: wouldn't it be better to extend the landing gear earlier in the descent to use them like airbrakes to help lowering vertical speed?

I expect that they would have to reinforce the legs and their deployment mechanisms to deal with the load. The rocket would likely burn a lot more fuel carrying the heavier legs up and then down than they would by just burning the engines a little more to slow down.

Also, these boosters slow down fast, particularly for drone ship landings. They often execute what is called a 'hoverslam' maneuver where they fall at close to full speed with no engines until they fire the engines at the last possible moment at full throttle to slow down to zero exactly as altitude reaches zero. The extra drag of landing legs won't help much with this manuever as the drag would be nowhere close to the thrust of a full-throttle engine (or three).

Transplanted from Mouthwash's nukular tech thread:

Do they print out the parts for the engine and then assemble it, or has the technology advanced enough that they can simply print the entire thing in one piece?

They print parts and then assemble them with traditional machined parts and other non-machined parts (electronics, etc). Not every component is suitable for 3D printing for various reasons.

 

[Takhisis]

So what can they print? Circuits? Motherboards?

assuming this sin't classified information, in which case you should just email the answer to takhisovitch@mindef.kremlin.ru and we'll give you a fake passport and 12-step escape plan.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So what can they print? Circuits? Motherboards?

assuming this sin't classified information, in which case you should just email the answer to takhisovitch@mindef.kremlin.ru and we'll give you a fake passport and 12-step escape plan.

Circuit boards are already 'printed' (they are called PCB's - printed circuit boards) but in a process that is very different from 3D metal or plastic printing.

Just about any metal shape can be printed these days. The factors that prevent 3D printing from being used for every metal fabrication usually have to do with scalability, time, cost and material properties. 3D printing is not super-scalable. It takes a dedicated, extremely expensive machine a very long time to print a metal part, which must be post-processed (cleaned up) after it's done. In that same time, you could machine maybe dozens of parts on a traditional 6-axis mill (which is likely far cheaper) and the parts won't require nearly as much post-processing when they're done.

Also, the material properties of 3D printed parts are not always ideal for a lot of reasons. Often the grade of metal the printers use are not as good as the grades of metal you can machine. The printing process itself also does things to the material properties of the metal that are not always ideal relative to what happens to metal when it's machined.

A simplified way to look at this is with a wood analogy. Metal has grains, just like wood. And just like how you want to align the grain of a wood in a certain way for certain uses, you want to adjust the grain of the metal as well. 3D printing often gives you a grain size/structure that is not ideal, whereas a machined part can come from metal stock that has exactly the grain structure you want and is minimally affected (or even improved) by the machining itself. 3D printers are getting better by leaps and bounds on this aspect - and in some cases can give you even better grains than from machining.

Really right now, every part that is going to be a candidate for 3D printed has to be analyzed from multiple angles to see if it is suitable for 3D printing. It's not a universal replacement technology that replaces everything else. So to recap, the things that have to considered:

• Is the resultant part going to take longer to print than to machine?
• Is the resultant part going to cost more to print than machine?
• Will the resultant part going to require an exorbitant amount of post processing?
• Is the resultant part going to have suitable material properties?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I think the SLS will get one or two launches and then be cancelled. It's taken over $12B to develop (so far) and we're still ~2 years out from its first flight. Moreover, the version that will fly in 2019/2020 will only be marginally more capable than Falcon Heavy. To add a new second stage to make it comparable to the Saturn V will take billions more and probably another decade. And the hope to replace the solid boosters with something more capable is just a pipe dream.

The Falcon Heavy did take a long time to develop but only cost ~$500 million. Each launch will cost between $90-200 million compared to SLS's $2+ billion.

The SLS has been a great jobs program but its reason for existing just went out the window. And there are two other super-heavy lift rockets on the horizon (Blue Origin's New Glenn and ULA's Vulcan) that will just add redundancy in the super-heavy lift market. SLS is doomed but it kind of always was.

 

[warpus]

It just means you are on a trajectory that roughly intercepts Martian orbit. Usually it also means Mars will will be there when you get there but it's not a necessary condition, neither is a cycling back and forth between Mars and Earth (if it got close enough to either it would throw off the cycle without lots of planning and correction).

Basically this trajectory was 100% symbolic and completely useless outside of sulymbolism and demonstration.

Got it, so it was basically a proof of concept. If they really wanted to they could have used the exact same trajectory, but launched at a slightly different time, and done a Mars flyby, using the exact same amount of fuel. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Side note: it turns out the Roadster is so light that a normal Falcon could have done the mission and still returned to launch site (RLTS).

Neat! What exactly is pushing the roadster? I mean, what's attached to it that's got engines on it?

Do you also know how much exactly the Falcon Heavy could push to Mars? Would it be able to in 1 launch get something in Mars orbit, that could also land on the surface, get back in orbit, re-dock, and get back home all in one go? Or is the FH not powerful enough to do get that much weight in orbit?

Edit: And apparently they decided to burn to depletion and pushed it to the astroid belt.

I wonder if they did this for those cool shots of the car among asteroids. Mind you it would have been even cooler to see the car pass close to Mars, I wish they'd have done that. But I suppose if they did that they would have had to launch at a different time?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The Roaster is staying attached to the second stage, that's what pushes it on its final journey.

You are correct, they could have done an actual Mars flyby if they want.

I don't ememeremthe throw weight to Mars off the top of my head but I believe it was like 10 metric tons or so. Falcon Heavy (or any Falcon or any current launch vehicle) could not take something all the way to Mars orbit and hang around for a rendevouz. Unlike KSP, real propellants freeze or boil off. The stage would be empty by the time it got there and the batteries would be long dead. They would have to either significantly re-engineering S2 to do this or else the payload itself would have to provide a prop system to get into orbit and do other things.

There are ''space storable' propellants but typically a special cruise stage with these propellants is used for final delivery (or the sat has it's own prop system) because lugging a mostly empty upper stage all the way out to the planets is inefficient. It's better to instead carry more payload mass and expend the upper stage in the injection burn rather than to launch a smaller payload so you can re-use the upper stage months later.

This car will never come close to ansteroid most likely. They are spaced very far apart. And the batteries died overnight, they were only good for 12 hours.

 

[warpus]

Falcon Heavy (or any Falcon or any current launch vehicle) could not take something all the way to Mars orbit and hang around for a rendevouz. Unlike KSP, real propellants freeze or boil off. The stage would be empty by the time it got there and the batteries would be long dead. They would have to either significantly re-engineering S2 to do this or else the payload itself would have to provide a prop system to get into orbit and do other things.

So basically Falcon Heavy would be good enough to deliver cargo, supplies, landers, etc. to Mars orbit. Is that what the long term plan is? I know that spaceX wants to end up in a place where 1-2 launches a year send stuff Mars-bound (but correct me if I'm wrong). Would that be accomplished with the Falcon Heavy though or the BFR? Or a combination of the two? From what I was reading yesterday, you guys are already designing a factory that will be able to create fuel on Mars. Would the BFR need to make use of this too?

Looking back on all this I think it's brilliant they put that car in space. If they didn't most people would just go "Eh just another launch, who cares". But this is new and unique and it's got people talking. Sure, some people think it's silly, but it's creating so much awareness it's awesome. The dual landing of the cores was also amazing

I remember Musk at one point saying eventually people could pay $200k to get to Mars. I'm not sure if that included getting back home. If that's ever a reality I would sell my house and go and then.. go on welfare I guess haha.. It's all probably just a silly dream but Musk dreams and his dreams come true, so screw it, let's dream

 

[Michkov]

Was there an attempt to capture the fairings? If so how did it go?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So basically Falcon Heavy would be good enough to deliver cargo, supplies, landers, etc. to Mars orbit. Is that what the long term plan is? I know that spaceX wants to end up in a place where 1-2 launches a year send stuff Mars-bound (but correct me if I'm wrong). Would that be accomplished with the Falcon Heavy though or the BFR? Or a combination of the two? From what I was reading yesterday, you guys are already designing a factory that will be able to create fuel on Mars. Would the BFR need to make use of this too?

Looking back on all this I think it's brilliant they put that car in space. If they didn't most people would just go "Eh just another launch, who cares". But this is new and unique and it's got people talking. Sure, some people think it's silly, but it's creating so much awareness it's awesome. The dual landing of the cores was also amazing

I remember Musk at one point saying eventually people could pay $200k to get to Mars. I'm not sure if that included getting back home. If that's ever a reality I would sell my house and go and then.. go on welfare I guess haha.. It's all probably just a silly dream but Musk dreams and his dreams come true, so screw it, let's dream

Falcon Heavy can deliver a limited cargo to Mars solar orbit, not Martian orbit. Think about it as a rocket that can get your an intercept with Duna versus a rocket that can get all the way to Duna orbit. To get a payload to be captured into Mars orbit, there would have to be some sort of intermediate stage (which can be part of the payload) that can do it. Falcon Heavy would have dead batteries and no propellant by the time it got there.

Now if you are particularly risk-happy, Falcon Heavy could launch a payload to go straight into a Mars intercept such that the payload never goes into orbit. I looked up the stats and Falcon Heavy is listed to be capable of 16.8 metric tons of payload for trans-Mars injection.

I don't think Falcon Heavy will factor in heavily in the Mars colonization scheme. 16.8 metric tons is certainly a lot to send to Mars but compared to the needs of manned colonial flights, it's peanuts. And even though it is the cheapest per pound ride into space right now, it's probably an order of magnitude more expensive than the BFR plans to be. In fact the intention is to retire all of the Falcon line as soon as the BFR begins flying regularly.

BFR will absolutely need to be refueled on Mars. The first few flights (likely unmanned) will be about setting up the in-situ fuel processing plants to refuel them. The ship will arrive with only enough fuel to land; to come back it will have to be topped off.

The last I heard (but it's been a while), the tickets to Mars will be ~$500,000 each. These will be round-trip tickets because a lot less people will go if they think they can never go back. Plus the ships have to come back anyways so the tickets will be priced to cover the cost of a few returnees and profit on all those that stay.

I plan on making the trip but I've been wanting to go live on Mars longer than SpaceX has existed so that's a no-brainer. I'm incredibly lucky that things are picking up steam now.

How weird would it be if we first met in person on Mars? That would be epic.

Was there an attempt to capture the fairings? If so how did it go?

I haven't heard anything about fairing re-use in a while. They are still working on it but it's proven to be a tricky problem to solve. They are working on what the call Fairing 2.0 which will be optimized for re-use but the details of it are not publicly disclosed.

 

[warpus]

Falcon Heavy can deliver a limited cargo to Mars solar orbit, not Martian orbit. Think about it as a rocket that can get your an intercept with Duna versus a rocket that can get all the way to Duna orbit. To get a payload to be captured into Mars orbit, there would have to be some sort of intermediate stage (which can be part of the payload) that can do it. Falcon Heavy would have dead batteries and no propellant by the time it got there.

I'm so happy that I took the time to learn KSP all those years ago now. Thanks again for teaching me all those basics back then, it not only helped me to actually play the game and get so much enjoyment out of it, but it also by extension helps me understand all this real space stuff too.

So I guess in real life you usually have an orbit insertion stage too? As opposed to KSP where most people just have 1 interplanetary stage that does both the burns to get intercepts with planets, but also the orbit insertion part. And I guess the BFR just does everything becuse it's so F B?

Now if you are particularly risk-happy, Falcon Heavy could launch a payload to go straight into a Mars intercept such that the payload never goes into orbit. I looked up the stats and Falcon Heavy is listed to be capable of 16.8 metric tons of payload for trans-Mars injection.

Would that not be done because the entry speed/vector would be too crazy? In KSP I always get in orbit around planets I'm landing on first, and I get everything to the lowest possible orbit before I land. That seems to be the best way to land on things. If I come in straight into Duna's or Kerbin's atmosphere I'm usually going way too fast and things blow up

In fact the intention is to retire all of the Falcon line as soon as the BFR begins flying regularly.

Wow, really? What about putting small satellites into orbit and stuff? Wouldn't you want a smaller rocket around for smaller jobs?

The last I heard (but it's been a while), the tickets to Mars will be ~$500,000 each. These will be round-trip tickets because a lot less people will go if they think they can never go back. Plus the ships have to come back anyways so the tickets will be priced to cover the cost of a few returnees and profit on all those that stay.

That's currently out of my price range, even if I sell my place. I'm going to have to start figuring out how to make more money. Is there an age limit on this? Will they test you to see if your body can handle it? Will you have to be in shape?

Any estimates on when such flights might begin? Does there have to be a place to go, i.e. a colony already set up with a habitat and support structures, etc. before it happens?

I plan on making the trip but I've been wanting to go live on Mars longer than SpaceX has existed so that's a no-brainer. I'm incredibly lucky that things are picking up steam now.

How weird would it be if we first met in person on Mars? That would be epic.

Hopefully there's some cute single girls going, so that we can double date, since I'm assuming your wife would join you. I really just want to drop by for a couple weeks or months and that's it, though. I guess unless it all starts up when I'm 65 and it's time to retire and die soon anyway. If Musk is dying on Mars maybe I can get a grave nearby somewhere.

How long would that flight be, a couple months? What would the layout of the interior be like? From what I remember it's supposed to hold a whole bunch of people - but I presume we don't get our own rooms.. or do we? That would probably get awkward after a while. What would we talk about? I'm an introvert so I'd want lots of alone time, but it seems that there would just be people all around me all the time. I also suppose they would probably do psychological tests to make sure all people going can handle it.

Aren't they also planning on using the BFR for earth2earth transportation? I swear I remember Musk saying that this will cost similar to what a flight costs.. so let's say $1,000-$2,000 to fly in the BFR from new york - into space - and then down to Hong Kong or wherever. But isn't getting into orbit the hard part? Why is the flight to Mars 300-500 times more?

 

[Goodfella]

I think the SLS will get one or two launches and then be cancelled. It's taken over $12B to develop (so far) and we're still ~2 years out from its first flight. Moreover, the version that will fly in 2019/2020 will only be marginally more capable than Falcon Heavy. To add a new second stage to make it comparable to the Saturn V will take billions more and probably another decade. And the hope to replace the solid boosters with something more capable is just a pipe dream.

The Falcon Heavy did take a long time to develop but only cost ~$500 million. Each launch will cost between $90-200 million compared to SLS's $2+ billion.

The SLS has been a great jobs program but its reason for existing just went out the window. And there are two other super-heavy lift rockets on the horizon (Blue Origin's New Glenn and ULA's Vulcan) that will just add redundancy in the super-heavy lift market. SLS is doomed but it kind of always was.

I think this will be particularly true when Blue Origin picks up production in Huntsville and the GOP space senators can hold on to their space jobs.

For the same political reasons, I hope that SpaceX does go forward with significant BFR production in Texas and maybe even find an excuse to make something in Alabama.