Spacex's Falcon Heavy - Launch successful! -

[TXHokie]

Wonder what the difference in cost was to have the boosters land like they did (which is pretty freakin cool) versus the parachute into the sea and then retrieve method used by the space shuttle...

If I remember reading about the shuttle booster that splashed into the sea, the sea salt water pretty much mess it up beyond simple refurb. It's not just merely retrieving the hardware. They wanted to get a quick turnaround and reuse. That's why they also want to recover the fairing via steering parachute and catch the fairings from a boat with a big net before it splashes.

 

[Thebobo]

If I remember reading about the shuttle booster that splashed into the sea, the sea salt water pretty much mess it up beyond simple refurb. It's not just merely retrieving the hardware. They wanted to get a quick turnaround and reuse. That's why they also want to recover the fairing via steering parachute and catch the fairings from a boat with a big net before it splashes.

Yep and the shuttle boosters were dumb solid fuel rockets. The falcon 9 boosters are filled with lots of equipment.

 

[Darwin333]

The BFR system is intended to be fully re-usable so we cannot be conclude that the FH will be cheaper than the BFR on a per flight basis.

I highly doubt that Musk would have spent half a billion dollars developing the Falcon Heavy if he thought he was going to make it obsolete a few years after its maiden flight.

 

[Darwin333]

If I remember reading about the shuttle booster that splashed into the sea, the sea salt water pretty much mess it up beyond simple refurb. It's not just merely retrieving the hardware. They wanted to get a quick turnaround and reuse. That's why they also want to recover the fairing via steering parachute and catch the fairings from a boat with a big net before it splashes.

I'd also wager that SpaceX's liquid-fueled first stages are a lot more complicated with a lot more components that would be damaged by the salt water than the shuttles solid rocket boosters. If it was as easy as parachuting the first stage into the ocean I'd think we would have seen 1st stage reuse by other companies/governments by now.

 

[Ken g6]

I highly doubt that Musk would have spent half a billion dollars developing the Falcon Heavy if he thought he was going to make it obsolete a few years after its maiden flight.

He considers it a test platform for technologies that the BFR will also need. Mainly dealing with double-digit numbers of engines, I think.

 

[Darwin333]

He considers it a test platform for technologies that the BFR will also need. Mainly dealing with double-digit numbers of engines, I think.

I still don't see the benefit of building an entirely different rocket to test dealing with double-digit engines versus just building the BFR and testing them with it.

Edit: If that is what he really intended the Falcon Heavy to be, I'm not trying to question him. After all of the crazy shit that he has pulled off with SpaceX I'll give him all the benefit of the doubt he wants for some time.

 

[tynopik]

I highly doubt that Musk would have spent half a billion dollars developing the Falcon Heavy if he thought he was going to make it obsolete a few years after its maiden flight.

that wasn't the original plan

FH was supposed to be quicker to develop and the original ITS (or whatever it was called) was going to be further out

instead FH development kept dragging out longer and longer and then they 'rightsized' ITS to bring BFR in sooner (among other reasons)

there was probably a bunch of sunk-cost consideration going into it, they had already invested so much and it only needed 'a little bit' more to finish, and then 'a little bit' more and finally 'a little bit' more

Musk said that he almost cancelled it three different times, so I think it's clear if they knew then what they know now, they never would have gone the FH route.

what kept him from cancelling it?
- sunk cost: or, if you prefer to look at the other way, the (comparatively) small cost to bring it to completion
- morale: they had invested tons of work into making this work, to just cancel it would have devastating impacts. Nothing's worse than devoting years of your life to something and then just having it thrown away
- deadlines: he needed something to compete with delta iv heavy and he needed it yesterday so he doesn't just hand ULA a ton of lucrative national security contracts
- backup: BFR is a big project with much more complex engines. If it goes south and turns out to be more than they handle, at least now they can always return to the FH and develop it further

while those reasons were enough (barely) for him to keep it alive, they are nowhere near enough to justify the project as a whole. If he could go back in time, I suspect all the FH dev work would have been gone directly to the BFR

He considers it a test platform for technologies that the BFR will also need. Mainly dealing with double-digit numbers of engines, I think.

the main challenge of FH was how to tie the three boosters together and ensure their vibration doesn't interfere with each other and how to make sure they cleanly separate. Challenges that are largely irrelevant to BFR.

He likened the problem of FH to getting 3 missiles to fly in close formation to one another, because the struts can't actually do that much to hold them together

he also commented on how flexible the boosters are

so trying to get these big jiggly rockets to stay close, but not too close, is a nightmare

 

[Paratus]

While I am as excited as anyone for the success of Falcon Heavy, SpaceX now needs to be concentrated on manned Dragon.

The fastest way to derail their plans is to kill someone on the maiden flight. So I’d take anyone stating they’ll be flying BFR in the next 3 years with a mountain of salt.

 

[bigi]

Wonder what the difference in cost was to have the boosters land like they did (which is pretty freakin cool) versus the parachute into the sea and then retrieve method used by the space shuttle...

The goal is the rapid re-usability. Those need to land, refuel and be reused quickly.

Parachutes and hard water landing don't go well with the above idea.

 

[spacejamz]

The goal is the rapid re-usability. Those need to land, refuel and be reused quickly.

Parachutes and hard water landing don't go well with the above idea.

I understand that...I was just wondering what the difference in cost was to be able to get them to land like that...guess the cost would need to account for the change in dollar value between then and now...

 

[Thebobo]

SpaceX recovery boat spotted with huge claw-like “fairing grabber”

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-fairing-grabber-claw-recovery-boat/

 

[Thebobo]

I'm having withdrawal symptoms

 

[BUTCH1]

I understand that...I was just wondering what the difference in cost was to be able to get them to land like that...guess the cost would need to account for the change in dollar value between then and now...

Thing is if you got those engines soaked in salt water the refurbishment process would probably be very difficult, with the shuttle's boosters they were solid so that's not an issue.

 

[Brovane]

I highly doubt that Musk would have spent half a billion dollars developing the Falcon Heavy if he thought he was going to make it obsolete a few years after its maiden flight.

It will not be just a few years. I suspect we will not see the first full flight of the entire BFR system before 2024. Even after first flight, certification by the US govt for both NASA and USAF payloads can take several years.

I now listed below by tynopik was a lot of good reasons why FH wasn't canceled.

IMHO opinion, a key reason why FH development was finished, is because of National Security payloads. In the future if you want to bid on national security payload contracts you will need to have a launch system capable of meeting all the USAF payload and orbital insertion requirements, which the F9 cannot do. So without the FH, SpaceX faced a future 4-6 years down the road that they couldn't bid on USAF launch contracts.

I bet there was some heated meetings at SpaceX about the FH and if they should cancel it and just focus on BFR. By finishing development of the FH SpaceX makes sure they don't run into the issues if development of the BFR runs longer than planned, and we all know it will.

 

[Darwin333]

It will not be just a few years. I suspect we will not see the first full flight of the entire BFR system before 2024. Even after first flight, certification by the US govt for both NASA and USAF payloads can take several years.

I now listed below by tynopik was a lot of good reasons why FH wasn't canceled.

IMHO opinion, a key reason why FH development was finished, is because of National Security payloads. In the future if you want to bid on national security payload contracts you will need to have a launch system capable of meeting all the USAF payload and orbital insertion requirements, which the F9 cannot do. So without the FH, SpaceX faced a future 4-6 years down the road that they couldn't bid on USAF launch contracts.

I bet there was some heated meetings at SpaceX about the FH and if they should cancel it and just focus on BFR. By finishing development of the FH SpaceX makes sure they don't run into the issues if development of the BFR runs longer than planned, and we all know it will.

I think you are a little long on the timeline given what I've seen them do so far, they have gotten this far in 15 years starting from basically scratch. Granted I am not as optimistic as the poster I was replying to and thinking we will see a launch in 2 years either but I am hoping for 4-5 years and think it's entirely doable. I think their biggest hurdle, development wise, is going to be the 2nd stage. As far as the USAF payloads, are the revenue generated by them really that important to spend half a billion dollars to ensure you don't have a few year gap in your ability to bid on their contracts?

And I still wager that we will see BFR launch before SLS block 2.

 

[tynopik]

And I still wager that we will see BFR launch before SLS block 2.

considering the first SLS B2 flight isn't scheduled till 2029, I should hope so

 

[Darwin333]

considering the first SLS B2 flight isn't scheduled till 2029, I should hope so

Wow, I didn't realize that, what a freaking shame. In 2012 they estimated the SLS would cost $18B to develop which includes the Orion capsule and a NASA official is quoted as saying that he HOPES to get launch prices, which include the cost of the vehicle, down to "just" $1.5-2 billion per launch. How much it ends up costing, including all of the future upgrades, is anyone's guess but suffice to say it's going to be a lot more than $18B. In contrast the Falcon Heavy is projected to cost about $90M a launch. With all of that money it is likely going to take them longer to launch the block 2 than it will have taken SpaceX to design, build and launch 3 vehicles including one that is more powerful than the SLS, pretty much completely reusable with a propulsively landing spaceship/second stage that can on paper take 100 people to the moon or mars in one go. All of that for a metric shitload less money. The big boys like Boeing bribe donate so much to lawmakers but it seems like NASA would be better off just letting SpaceX design and build their rockets from now on.

 

[Thebobo]

Wow, I didn't realize that, what a freaking shame. In 2012 they estimated the SLS would cost $18B to develop which includes the Orion capsule and a NASA official is quoted as saying that he HOPES to get launch prices, which include the cost of the vehicle, down to "just" $1.5-2 billion per launch. How much it ends up costing, including all of the future upgrades, is anyone's guess but suffice to say it's going to be a lot more than $18B. In contrast the Falcon Heavy is projected to cost about $90M a launch. With all of that money it is likely going to take them longer to launch the block 2 than it will have taken SpaceX to design, build and launch 3 vehicles including one that is more powerful than the SLS, pretty much completely reusable with a propulsively landing spaceship/second stage that can on paper take 100 people to the moon or mars in one go. All of that for a metric shitload less money. The big boys like Boeing bribe donate so much to lawmakers but it seems like NASA would be better off just letting SpaceX design and build their rockets from now on.

Boeing isn't the most benevolent company, I remember when they were illegally taking small business grants for all their subsidiaries. There was supposed to be a story about it on CNN but they ended up showing it like at 6 am sunday morning lol. You wonder why they advertise heavily on news sites.

As much as I would love to see NASA flying rockets again I wouldn't be surprised if the next president canceled the SLS. Its a rocket to nowhere. The cost is absurd.

 

[Brovane]

I think you are a little long on the timeline given what I've seen them do so far, they have gotten this far in 15 years starting from basically scratch. Granted I am not as optimistic as the poster I was replying to and thinking we will see a launch in 2 years either but I am hoping for 4-5 years and think it's entirely doable. I think their biggest hurdle, development wise, is going to be the 2nd stage. As far as the USAF payloads, are the revenue generated by them really that important to spend half a billion dollars to ensure you don't have a few year gap in your ability to bid on their contracts?

And I still wager that we will see BFR launch before SLS block 2.

Keep in mind SpaceX is trying to develop a full re-usable SHLV. I am being very realistic in the timeline.

We are talking a rocket that is going to have about 50% greater thrust than the Saturn-V. The logistics of the Ground Support Equipment alone are going to be challenging.

You have a lot of sunk costs already spent on development even b3efore you have to make the decision around USAF payloads.

Not even taken into account possible NASA launch contracts and Commercial launch contracts. Musk expects about 3-4 FH launches a year.

Also any payloads greater than 5500kg to GTO require a expendable F9. By using a FH for the launch, SpaceX could recover all 3 boosters and still launch the largest commercial satellites to GTO.

 

[tynopik]

we keep talking about FH and SLS, but the real winner might be New Glenn as it's more 'right-sized' for the current satellite market and should be cheaper than FH

 

[Thebobo]

Nice to hear the ladies appreciate its awesomeness.

FH used booster being moved at the cape. Video was taken from a ladies office, nice place to work 🙂

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1593242334097161

 

[Rifter]

just got all my posters in yesterday, ordered a few falcon heavy launch posters and one of the twin boosters landing side by side.

 

[Thebobo]

just got all my posters in yesterday, ordered a few falcon heavy launch posters and one of the twin boosters landing side by side.

Oh what did you get if you don't mind asking and where?

 

[Rifter]

Oh what did you get if you don't mind asking and where?

I got them from redbubble. 3 posters and a wall canvas

https://www.redbubble.com/people/bobbooo/works/30269455-spacex-falcon-heavy-boosters-landing-8k-resolution?cat_context=u-prints&grid_pos=4&p=poster&rbs=8f41ea59-6dea-4c7d-9671-437b7b81597d&ref=shop_grid

https://www.redbubble.com/people/bo...acc-b688-4af6-8d2a-9f647057f7f6&ref=shop_grid

https://www.redbubble.com/people/bo...acc-b688-4af6-8d2a-9f647057f7f6&ref=shop_grid

https://www.redbubble.com/people/bo...cfd-0a17-42e2-9dd6-0e803830e88b&ref=shop_grid

 

[Thebobo]

Oh those are nice and reasonably priced, I like them how is the quality up close? The tapestry looks nice as well, be perfect for a project I am doing.