JMR
1623
Here’s the replay on their YT channel.
I wish I was smart enough to be able to work for them in some sort of capacity other than janitor or cafeteria attendant. I totally envy those bros and gals that can do that stuff for a living.
MikeJ
1624
Wow, you can really see in the video how much the drone ship is moving in the waves. Quite a feat for the control systems.
oh noes :(
‘The search for exoplanets goes cold as Kepler enters emergency mode’:
Tman
1627
Not to mention how small that drone ship was. Astonishing accomplishment.
MikeJ
1628
Well, I wouldn’t say the drone is small (300x170 ft), but there’s certainly not much room for error, given the size of the rocket.
If you think about how far and fast the rocket goes, the targeting is very tight. Then the platform tilting underneath, cross winds and everything.
I’ve always thought the method for getting the rocket back was very complex (and off course i’m sure they have had the best guys to come up with their method), but from a laymans point of view why not the typical sea splash down thing, using parachutes to slow the landing etc. All this jiggery pockery with self landing booster jets seems way too ‘jetsons’ for reality? And it has obviously been really hard to get it working. So why not a low tech solution here?
From super reliable source Reddit:
Why doesn’t SpaceX save fuel during booster reuse by adding a parachute?
SpaceX experimented with using parachutes in the past (mainly for their Falcon 1 vehicles), but parachutes are poorly suited to this application, as extreme speeds and loads cause them to shred. Parachutes large enough to recover the stage are also quite heavy, a weight which could be used for fuel for a propulsive landing and for primary mission assurance. Parachutes also cannot be steered.
Essentially, this becomes a problem of people overestimating the amount of fuel required to bring the stage back, underestimating the weight of the parachute system (which would be in the hundreds of kilograms at least), and underestimating the fragility and controllability of a parachute system.
That makes a lot of sense, actually.
Expanding space living modules.
Around 1999, Bigelow read a magazine article about the TransHab, a soft-sided spacecraft that had been defunded by Congress, apparently for a combination of budgetary and political reasons. Bigelow had been looking for a way into the space business. He tracked down the people at NASA who had worked on TransHab and started to figure out how he could license the technology. “I thought, my God, this is an incredible idea,” he recalls. “All we have now are metal cans that are no larger than the rockets they were launched in. That is so antiquated by comparison.”
At the moment he saw the technology, he also saw the business: an extension of the one he was already in. Here were spacecraft inexpensive enough but also robust enough to open a whole new vista: room for lease, in space. “What I understand,” he says, “is the marketing of volume and time.”
Bigelow is convinced that soft-sided spacecraft will play as important a role in commercializing space as rockets themselves. In the history of space travel, only a dozen nonprofessional astronauts have been to space, most rich businesspeople looking for a one-of-a-kind experience. Bigelow Aerospace’s modules could finally make living and working in space so affordable that countries and companies would start sending up ordinary staff with a few weeks of training. The company is even planning to provide its own professional support-staff astronauts.
Aleck
1633
What astounded me (in addition to seeing how the ship was pitching back and forth) was the realization that there’s not extra there to stabilize the rocket – no gantry or wires or anything – so it needs to land and be stable on the (pitching) deck of the ship. I’m guessing the rocket must be really bottom heavy, but regardless, and amazing accomplishment for SpaceX.
Its very bottom heavy. The engines are allot of the weight, and when the rocket is coming back down most of the fuel is gone so its basically a big empty tube of metal. Still an impressive engineering/flight accomplishment.
It does indeed, thank you Ginger for setting this layman right.
Hmm what about giant inflatable rubber balloons (that would be small and light un-inflated) that draw air from the atmosphere as the rocket descends. They should totally hire me on their engineering team ;)
What is a balloon but a closed parachute?
Less facetiously, I’m not sure what they’d achieve. I mean, they’re not going to actually lift the thing if they’re drawing air from the atmosphere, so you’re just left with the drag. At which point, why not use parachutes, which are expressly designed for that purpose?
SpaceX’s landing gets even more impressive when you realize they stuck it in a 50mph wind. (Which also gives you some idea about just how bottom-heavy an empty Falcon booster is.)
Apparently, they leave the Falcon standing up on the barge for the trip back to Florida; they just weld shoes over the landing legs to lock it in place.
They would help with drag, thus reducing descent speed and i had sort of thought maybe they would act as some padding for the sea landing? But i’m sure the real space engineers have a good reason for the high-tech solution they are trying to perfect. I’m just a low-tech guy on principle.
‘Breakthrough Starshot announces plans to send spacecraft to Alpha Centauri’:
Awesome!
What’s doubly interesting is the thought towards the end of the article in using the same technology to rapidly accelerate investigation of bodies in our own solar system. Send a probe to Pluto in 3 days!
Wow. That’s pretty incredible. I sorta keep up on this kind of thing and I had no idea we were so close to actually making it happen.
