The thread for space cadets!

[Cutlass]

I can't wait to start work there next Monday.

How's the apartment hunting gone?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

How's the apartment hunting gone?

Good, I think we're going to sign on a place in Torrance. I'm going out to tour the place on Thursday.

 

[warpus]

Drone ship landings take less fuel to pull of than a return to launch site landing {...}

For Falcon Heavy to carry huge payloads, typically at least 1 core (the center) will have to land on a barge.

Ahhhhh I did not consider that to land on a barge you could bring less fuel with you. This clicked right away as I was reading your comment, probably due to all the time I've spent playing KSP. I always waste so much fuel when landing, and I never end up where I want anyway, but if the target area is what is using fuel to move around instead, then I can just float on down!

Now it completely makes sense to me why they are trying so hard to get rockets to land on barges. For a while I just couldn't get "Why not just land them on land? Seems a lot easier" out of my head, but now it makes perfect sense, thanks!

When multiple cores are landing, I assume there is 1 barge per core? I also assume that the barges and the landing cores have to all work together somehow to ensure that nothing crashes into anything else? That would have been fun to program, but when all said and done that code has probably taken souls (assuming that it is code that keeps things from crashing into each other)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

When multiple cores are landing, I assume there is 1 barge per core? I also assume that the barges and the landing cores have to all work together somehow to ensure that nothing crashes into anything else? That would have been fun to program, but when all said and done that code has probably taken souls (assuming that it is code that keeps things from crashing into each other)

I assume there is 1 barge per core but it is also likely that for many (if not most/all) missions, the side boosters will return to the launch site while only the central core goes on to land on a drone ship. I also believe that the ground landing site will have more than one pad as well that are separated by some distance. The side boosters will have much less velocity to negate when they separate than the current 1st stage of the Falcon 9, which makes land-landings easier for them. Conversely, the central core will have much greater velocity to negate than the current 1st stage of the Falcon 9 when it drops off the second stage, so it is almost always going to land on a drone.

Getting them to not collide I am sure is a bit of a tricky proposition. I am pretty sure they use pneumatic pushers to separate the cores (as opposed to explosives which everyone else uses) to enhance re usability. I don't know if this tends to give more or less separation velocity to the side boosters.

 

[red_elk]

By the way, congratulations on the 55-th anniversary.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yup, Yuri kicked ass that day.

His words on lift off were awesomely ballsy, "Let's go!".

No.fear.

 

[warpus]

Поехали!

 

[trader/warrior]

Man, grasping the size of those rockets when they land isn't very easy.

Those small looking, compared to the rocket, barges are the size of a (euro) football field. Seeing the Falcon Heavy fly and land will be quite the spectacle.

 

[warpus]

Always warms my heart to see Americans using the metric system

 

[Cutlass]

trader/warrior is Norwegian.....

 

[warpus]

Wasn't referring to the poster, but rather to whoever put the image together. Only Americans compare things to the Statue of Liberty! There's also an American flag there. America

 

[trader/warrior]

I'll compare anything I want with the Statue of Liberty thankyouverymuch! It's a very impressive french statue.

But yeah, I assume whoever made the picture was American, got it from reddit.

After Mars Climate Orbiter I would hope anyone in the American space industry make very sure to keep strictly to metric.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'll compare anything I want with the Statue of Liberty thankyouverymuch! It's a very impressive french statue.

But yeah, I assume whoever made the picture was American, got it from reddit.

After Mars Climate Orbiter I would hope anyone in the American space industry make very sure to keep strictly to metric.

Nope. NASA uses metric for scientific work but most (if not all) blue prints for actual hardware are made in english units. The reason: all of our industry is still tooled for english measurements and they won't switch over. It would be a massive undertaking to make the switch-over on an industrial basis.

And while you may think it should be as easy as plugging in conversions - it isn't. There's a story that when the Soviets captured a Super Fortress, they reversed engineered it but they didn't have aluminum sheet stock in the correct thickness. The nearest metric equivalent was only off by a few thousands of an inch, which doesn't sound like much but when applied over an entire airframe, it added up to several hundred/thousand kilos of dead weight.

Imagine that writ-large until every machine in every shop and foundry converted over (at the government's expense, no less).

 

[red_elk]

And while you may think it should be as easy as plugging in conversions - it isn't. There's a story that when the Soviets captured a Super Fortress, they reversed engineered it but they didn't have aluminum sheet stock in the correct thickness. The nearest metric equivalent was only off by a few thousands of an inch, which doesn't sound like much but when applied over an entire airframe, it added up to several hundred/thousand kilos of dead weight.

I wonder how much weight was added due to this difference in thickness. Tu-4 was heavier by about 3 tons, but it also had different engine (a bit more powerful and most likely, heavier) and armament was replaced too.

(I heard a story that the airframe was copied literally, up to can holder in cockpit - there was a danger of nuclear war and USSR didn't have proper means of delivery by that time)

 

[trader/warrior]

Nope. NASA uses metric for scientific work but most (if not all) blue prints for actual hardware are made in english units. The reason: all of our industry is still tooled for english measurements and they won't switch over. It would be a massive undertaking to make the switch-over on an industrial basis.

And while you may think it should be as easy as plugging in conversions - it isn't. There's a story that when the Soviets captured a Super Fortress, they reversed engineered it but they didn't have aluminum sheet stock in the correct thickness. The nearest metric equivalent was only off by a few thousands of an inch, which doesn't sound like much but when applied over an entire airframe, it added up to several hundred/thousand kilos of dead weight.

Imagine that writ-large until every machine in every shop and foundry converted over (at the government's expense, no less).

Interesting, makes sense.

BTW, surely you have officially been promoted from Space Cadet to Space Special Forces now.

SpaceX is like Special Forces… we do the missions that others think are impossible. We have goals that are absurdly ambitious by any reasonable standard, but we’re going to make them happen. We have the potential here at SpaceX to have an incredible effect on the future of humanity and life itself. — Elon Musk

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I wonder how much weight was added due to this difference in thickness. Tu-4 was heavier by about 3 tons, but it also had different engine (a bit more powerful and most likely, heavier) and armament was replaced too.

(I heard a story that the airframe was copied literally, up to can holder in cockpit - there was a danger of nuclear war and USSR didn't have proper means of delivery by that time)

Yeah I should have stated that I don't know if the story is apocryphal or not. I shared it more for illustrative purposes than anything.

Interesting, makes sense.

BTW, surely you have officially been promoted from Space Cadet to Space Special Forces now.

Thanks!

 

[warpus]

Link to video.

 

[red_elk]

Yeah I should have stated that I don't know if the story is apocryphal or not. I shared it more for illustrative purposes than anything.

It's ok, I didn't mean to object
I just mean I heard the same story and it's probably true, giving dire situation USSR was in, after WW2.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah and it was a super-smart move on their part to copy the B-29. Honestly, it would have been really dumb if they hadn't copied it.

 

[r16]

and exactly why ? Yeah , ı know it was an established plane compared to paper-projects from the Germans and the Japanese and it added "some" knowledge into the OKBs and the lot but they might have paid more attention to MiGs instead of creating an offensive force that carried no weight where it might have been employed .