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SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea!

Posted By: F4UDash4

SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 09:20 PM

https://twitter.com/nasa/status/718545613051158529



Posted By: CyBerkut

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 09:31 PM

Nice! thumbsup
Posted By: JimK

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 09:36 PM

Yeah, sea state was pretty rough to and they did it. thumbsup
Posted By: Arthonon

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 09:36 PM

Very cool, congrats to the Space-X team! But..."Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship? What a name.
Posted By: Murphy

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 09:54 PM

Watched it on Fox News.....great job.
A difficult thing so I hear. wink

When they first started out, I didn't have much hope for them.
But it seems they're going to do well.

Very good, for all of us, IMO.

thumbsup
Posted By: Nixer

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 10:24 PM

Amazing. Watch the barge bobbing around after the landing. Quite a feat.
Posted By: RedToo

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/08/16 10:25 PM

Originally Posted By: Arthonon
Very cool, congrats to the Space-X team! But..."Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship? What a name.


Sounds very like the names the sentient spaceships in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels give themselves.

RedToo.
Posted By: Farcaster

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 04:54 AM

That's correct, both drone ships are named after Banks' AI ships in Player of Games, "Just Read the Instructions" and "Of Course I Love You".

And yeah, that's how you stick the landing.
Posted By: Smokin_Hole

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 09:02 AM

America at her best!
Posted By: Catfish

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 10:11 AM

Originally Posted By: Arthonon
... But..."Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship? What a name.


Better than "Keep off the grass"
Posted By: adlabs6

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 01:58 PM

Ah! They made it!
Posted By: Falstar

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 10:29 PM

Why land on a bouncy barge? To make it a harder target? To represent something? Is that their real target? Just wondering...

Congrats, btw. I'm impressed. But are they going to deliver on ships at sea or what
Posted By: RedToo

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 10:43 PM

Why land on a bouncy barge? It's less distance for the rocket on its return to earth. Less distance equals less fuel needed.

RedToo.
Posted By: Falstar

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 11:12 PM

Originally Posted By: RedToo
Why land on a bouncy barge? It's less distance for the rocket on its return to earth. Less distance equals less fuel needed.

RedToo.


Huh?

I'm defiently ain't no rocket scientist to understand that one.
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 11:26 PM

Originally Posted By: Falstar
Originally Posted By: RedToo
Why land on a bouncy barge? It's less distance for the rocket on its return to earth. Less distance equals less fuel needed.

RedToo.


Huh?

I'm defiently ain't no rocket scientist to understand that one.


The rocket follows a ballistic trajectory heading east ('cos the rest of the stuff in orbit goes around in that direction, because it's easier to launch). To land on... land, you need to reverse the trajectory on your way down to go west, do a split-s if you will... and since rockets can't glide or do acrobatics very well :), all you can do is fire the engine in the appropriate direction.

Also, I believe that's the plan in the future, to land on solid ground, but they don't have the pertinent clearance yet to do so until they probe it works well and it has a low probability of killing people due to miscalculations/failures.
Posted By: Nixer

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/09/16 11:28 PM

Straight(ish) down to the barge after stage separation vs return to launch site. I knew a rocket scientist once upon a time.

The pitching and rolling barge does add another factors or two to the problem though...as in luck. yep


edit: yeah what Roadrunners nemesis said...

Beep Beep
Posted By: Falstar

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 12:11 AM

So, no more of that orbiting and controlled fall out of the sky. Just straight up and sort of straight down. Buck Rogers did have the science right afterall.
Posted By: bud01

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 12:44 AM

what does this mean for space exploration now that it landed successfully, and nasa said it will only cost 10billion to put some thing decent on the moon vs hundreds of billions.



it would be pretty flipping cool to have a nice moon base in place, wired up by cisco so its on the internet, not sure how the moon could keep real time internet connectivity, it could be its only 300ms away by reponce time?


how far away is the moon if it had a lazer line of sight ip connection?
Posted By: adlabs6

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 01:32 AM

Originally Posted By: bud01
it would be pretty flipping cool to have a nice moon base in place, wired up by cisco so its on the internet, not sure how the moon could keep real time internet connectivity, it could be its only 300ms away by reponce time?


how far away is the moon if it had a lazer line of sight ip connection?


Laser takes about 2.5 seconds to leave Earth, bounce from a reflector on the moon's surface, and return to Earth. Kinda high ping, but probably usable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 02:36 AM

Meh, the Internet problem will get solved after the first wave of settles realize they are stuck on a lifeless rock for months without po... erm, "entertainment".
Posted By: bud01

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 03:35 AM


once we set up a base on the moon, we are going to get the taste for freedom of it, the materials (hel 3) and the vantage it gives us as a people.

Its important to get a base on the moon but its a case of when do we do it.

Technology is getting so powerful, robots are getting so capable.

It could be sending up a number of completely automated base generation systems up there first is the right way to do it with minimal human presence.

The Chinese are going to leap ahead and set up a proper base up there, they are hungry for expansion and energy and materials, I saw a show about how they are circling the global looking for stuffs to enable china to grow.
Posted By: CG2015

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 05:27 PM

I just watched a semi documentary movie the other day called Iron Sky.

I think the Nazis already have a base on the moon.
Posted By: bud01

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 05:46 PM

didn't they do a study once and find that for long periods like what will be required to travel in space that a group of women would work best as they are able to handle the pressures of confinement with same persons. So in other words if 6 guys 6 girls take a ship out into space, it will be the guys that will eventually crack and start to get aggressive / fight.

Robots you don't have that issue,


If we are looking to head out into space, it might be an idea to wait just a few more years to commit resources because by say 2030, 2040, AI, robotic systems and I guess Nano technology will be at a decent state.


The worse thing is we make a play to set a base up there and find others are already there, who ever it is, some people say that is the case and the reason we never went back but that has to be BS because we didn't hit the moon will neil.a and then that was it, we shipped back there several times. If we were warned off or had any issue up there why would we keep coming back.

The moon is humanity's resources, its in our solar system, it provides several advantages, its a gatekeeper to our future in space. There should be some way to decrease the money spent on local wars here and funal that money into improving our stance off world, even if just in our local solar system for the next 200 to 500 years.


Space is difficult and unforgiving, its going to take work but the pay off is huge, infinite.
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 07:05 PM

It's a mixed bag. Some studies show women doing better in this scenario, some don't.

There have been more studies on the physical aspect. And again, males are better for some things, and women for others.

Regardless, there's no real reason to send humans, we can send robots that are waaaaay cheaper to send and operate as they are "low maintenance" compared to humans.

If we send humans, it's only "because we can" sort of thing, and at that point you probably want to send both males and females because... humans.

As someone said in a YT comment: There should be one man and five women team. And that man should be me.
Posted By: bud01

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 07:28 PM

no official records of the first couple to test sex in space, seems a number of possible flights could have allowed for it. ideally that factoid should be known, if it did happen, that must have been pretty amazing to be a part of, pretty sure they were aware of the historic nature of the bounding.
Posted By: CG2015

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 08:09 PM

There is no gravity in space. How is the blood going to stay in your junk and maintain an erection? Plus I don't think you'll want male and female bodily fluids floating around getting into the electric panels on the Space Shuttle or on the ISS.
Posted By: Wireman

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 08:15 PM

Originally Posted By: CG2015
There is no gravity in space. How is the blood going to stay in your junk and maintain an erection? Plus I don't think you'll want male and female bodily fluids floating around getting into the electric panels on the Space Shuttle or on the ISS.


Forget the junk blood, what keeps your junk attached in space?!
Posted By: CyBerkut

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 08:22 PM

Originally Posted By: CG2015
There is no gravity in space. How is the blood going to stay in your junk and maintain an erection?


The same way you (presumably) maintain one while lying upon your back...

Gravity has nothing to do with it.
Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 08:37 PM

Originally Posted By: CG2015
Plus I don't think you'll want male and female bodily fluids floating around getting into the electric panels on the Space Shuttle or on the ISS.


"Wireless" Cunnilingus
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 09:13 PM

Originally Posted By: Falstar
Originally Posted By: RedToo
Why land on a bouncy barge? It's less distance for the rocket on its return to earth. Less distance equals less fuel needed.

RedToo.


Huh?

I'm defiently ain't no rocket scientist to understand that one.


Found a nice video about this.



At 1:00.
Posted By: LB4LB

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 09:20 PM

Only on SIMHQ forums can a post about a SpaceX milestone turn into a discussion on the fluid dynamics of space sex. One of the reasons I really like this web page. Brings a whole new meaning to the word Tang. biggrin
Posted By: bud01

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/10/16 10:54 PM

SpaceX's long term goals..



Short term:

Decrease the cost of carrying cargo to low Earth orbit
Develop the ability to launch and recover a fully-reusable launch vehicle and cargo capsule, further decreasing launch costs
DONE: Begin delivering cargo to the International Space Station as one of the companies in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
DONE: Begin conducting launch operations from SLC-4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California, in addition to the Kennedy Space Center and the Kwajalein Pacific range.
Sign enough contracts to launch at least one Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy per month


Medium term:

Certify the Dragon spacecraft for carrying human passengers, including final development and testing of a launch abort system.
Carry humans to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program and become a reliable US-launched option for ISS flights
Increase the pace of launches to 2x per month and continue driving down launch costs
Build and begin launches from a fourth facility in south Texas intended solely for commercial spacecraft launches (vs renting space from the U.S. Air Force/NASA)
Develop a new rocket and manned spacecraft capable of exiting low Earth orbit, travelling to Mars, supporting life both ways, and carrying cargo for surface construction.


Long term:

Launch a series of manned missions to Mars and begin colonizing that planet.


Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 02:18 AM

Originally Posted By: WileECoyote

Regardless, there's no real reason to send humans, we can send robots that are waaaaay cheaper to send and operate as they are "low maintenance" compared to humans.



That's only true if all you want to do is take pictures and scientific readings.

The reason for humans to go to space is to live and work there, IE colonization.
Posted By: Dart

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 05:15 AM

Quote:
didn't they do a study once and find that for long periods like what will be required to travel in space that a group of women would work best as they are able to handle the pressures of confinement with same persons. So in other words if 6 guys 6 girls take a ship out into space, it will be the guys that will eventually crack and start to get aggressive / fight.


Hahahahaha, too funny.

Throw six women into a large room and they'll spend the first twenty minutes sizing each other up and developing a plan for the pecking order, evaluating each other for weaknesses.

Throw six men into a large room and five minutes later a pickup game of basketball starts up.

I did a lot of exit interviews of the folks I helped into the Army after they came back from training to see if I had briefed them correctly before they left, or if things had changed and I needed to adjust.

All the men had different things that they said were the toughest - marksmanship, running, etc.

Every single one of the women said the hardest part about initial training was being with 54 other women all of the time.

[edit]

Back on topic, the reason for manned exploration (regardless of gender) is the level of autonomy that only people can provide. Even if most of the work is done by robots, just think of the all the other stuff we could have learned if a person could have drove out to Opportunity and pulled it out of the rut it was stuck in, or gone out to Spirit and done a hard re-boot of its system?

People are also better at discriminatory tasks than robots. A man on Mars can take a shovel to the surface, scrape a trench, see something unusual, and dig deeper where there's need. Robots are terrible at this. Also, people are great at context, so they can look at a feature and identify the more subtle things that are worth investigation. The folks at NASA are incredible at photo interpretation, but nothing beats being there in person.

Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 11:08 AM

@Dart

I fully agree with all and everything you said!

The part of the men vs women was quite spot on! (and I can attest to it as well)
Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 11:21 AM

Oh and just to complement what was said by Dart and F4UDash4 about the robots vs man in Space Exploration.
I believe that most specially those that defend the robots should replace human for space exploration are forgetting the most obvious and important thing of all:
- Humans (and least many if not the most) want to be present in person on Space and other Planets independently of any risks! There's something that compels Humans to travel beyond the unknown and it always have been like this since the "dawn of mankind"! And the biggest "unknown" is space.

Humans have the desire to go PERSONALLY to other planets.
Just imagine your favourite place on earth that you would wish to visit:
- Would you like to visit it personally or would you prefer to only see that same place on Google Images/Maps/Earth/Whatever (or some other place on the web)?
Basically that's the difference between "human space exploration" and "robot space exploration".
Posted By: No105_Archie

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 01:58 PM

Huge congrats to Space X and Mr. Musk and company. This sort of stuff gives me hope for humanity.
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 02:36 PM

Originally Posted By: ricnunes
- Humans (and least many if not the most) want to be present in person on Space and other Planets independently of any risks! There's something that compels Humans to travel beyond the unknown and it always have been like this since the "dawn of mankind"! And the biggest "unknown" is space.


Humans have the desire to go PERSONALLY to other planets.
Just imagine your favourite place on earth that you would wish to visit:
- Would you like to visit it personally or would you prefer to only see that same place on Google Images/Maps/Earth/Whatever (or some other place on the web)?
Basically that's the difference between "human space exploration" and "robot space exploration".


Oh yes, precisely, but there's a little thin called budget. And for human exploration it goes up exponentially to levels never actually handled by humans before. Not even the moon landings would come close to the cost of a manned mission to mars.

Your science to dollar ratio with robots is way better than with humans. And that's something we can't avoid for now...
Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 06:09 PM

Originally Posted By: WileECoyote

Oh yes, precisely, but there's a little thin called budget. And for human exploration it goes up exponentially to levels never actually handled by humans before. Not even the moon landings would come close to the cost of a manned mission to mars.



Only if NASA is running the program.

I'm convinced Musk can do it for a fraction of what it would cost NASA.
Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/11/16 08:22 PM

Originally Posted By: WileECoyote


Oh yes, precisely, but there's a little thin called budget. And for human exploration it goes up exponentially to levels never actually handled by humans before. Not even the moon landings would come close to the cost of a manned mission to mars.

Your science to dollar ratio with robots is way better than with humans. And that's something we can't avoid for now...



Really?? With the "Gazilions" of Dollars expended on weapons and warfare worldwide, wait no just in the USA alone, I would say that a manned mission to Mars would be "peanuts" compared to it wink
Posted By: Legend

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 02:44 AM

Originally Posted By: F4UDash4
[...]

Only if NASA is running the program.

I'm convinced Musk can do it for a fraction of what it would cost NASA.


Not if politics or the military is looking over Musk's shoulder every step of the way, changing this and that and then changing such and so, then changing it back again or into something else completely again.
Posted By: PanzerMeyer

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 11:18 AM

Originally Posted By: ricnunes


Really?? With the "Gazilions" of Dollars expended on weapons and warfare worldwide, wait no just in the USA alone, I would say that a manned mission to Mars would be "peanuts" compared to it wink


The potential funding is there for a manned mission to Mars. It's all a question about having the will and interest to do it. Right now a manned expedition to Mars is way down the list of priorities for national governments.
Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 01:45 PM

I fully agree PanzerMeyer.
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 03:58 PM

Originally Posted By: PanzerMeyer
Originally Posted By: ricnunes


Really?? With the "Gazilions" of Dollars expended on weapons and warfare worldwide, wait no just in the USA alone, I would say that a manned mission to Mars would be "peanuts" compared to it wink


The potential funding is there for a manned mission to Mars. It's all a question about having the will and interest to do it. Right now a manned expedition to Mars is way down the list of priorities for national governments.


Exactly. You can always fund a war, because, real or not, you can always have an enemy to convince people that the money is well spent.

Mars on the other hand... it's just there, no rush, others can do it in the future, they won't attack us, there's no enemy, hence no hurry.
Posted By: PanzerMeyer

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 04:12 PM

Originally Posted By: WileECoyote

Exactly. You can always fund a war, because, real or not, you can always have an enemy to convince people that the money is well spent.

Mars on the other hand... it's just there, no rush, others can do it in the future, they won't attack us, there's no enemy, hence no hurry.


War/defense spending though is just one of the many other things that is a higher priority to national governments than a manned expedition to Mars. There's also socialized healthcare systems, public pensions, public education, public transportation, welfare benefits, etc., etc., etc.
Posted By: Bib4Tuna

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 04:28 PM


When science catches up with science fiction -

Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 05:48 PM

Originally Posted By: PanzerMeyer

War/defense spending though is just one of the many other things that is a higher priority to national governments than a manned expedition to Mars. There's also socialized healthcare systems, public pensions, public education, public transportation, welfare benefits, etc., etc., etc.


Yes the US spends about 4x more on the latter than we do on defense but no one talks about that.

Anyway Musk won't be going to Mars on the federal dime, he'll do it privately.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/12/16 05:50 PM

They've been winding V2 launch footage backwards and calling it a rocket landing in films since the early 1950s.

When your interplanetary rocket has that checkered paint job on it with no national insignia it's pretty obvious.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 02:18 AM

Some great stills posted by SpaceX

https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex
Posted By: No105_Archie

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 12:38 PM

In a somewhat related topic: It was only 55 years ago yesterday that Yuri Gagarin made the first manned orbit of the earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin

I remember that very well. We have come a long way
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 05:28 PM

I didn't know he died that young, he didn't live to see the moon landing!
Posted By: bud01

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 06:47 PM

wonder what the big deal is about it landing in this fashion any way, I appreciate the math and physics is a huge problem and they have solved it,


but why,

You can just have it come down into low orbit and then pop a parachute,

what's the logistical advantage?

Is it that the rocket can be with In 90minutes after refuelling to be re-launched?
Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 06:56 PM

Pop a parachute and land where? In the ocean? Seawater and rocket engines (that you want to reuse) don't go well together.
Posted By: CyBerkut

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 08:21 PM

Originally Posted By: No105_Archie
In a somewhat related topic: It was only 55 years ago yesterday that Yuri Gagarin made the first manned orbit of the earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin

I remember that very well. We have come a long way


Ayup. And then we have languished in low earth orbit for 40 years. sigh



wink
Posted By: adlabs6

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/13/16 10:48 PM

Originally Posted By: bud01
wonder what the big deal is about it landing in this fashion any way, I appreciate the math and physics is a huge problem and they have solved it,


but why,

You can just have it come down into low orbit and then pop a parachute,

what's the logistical advantage?

Is it that the rocket can be with In 90minutes after refuelling to be re-launched?


I had thought it was because this kind of landing hopes avoids recovery costs, time, and effort required by parachute landing at sea. Plus, I suppose, any potential damages caused by the splashdown, and the issues that might come from seawater soaked/flooded hardware.
Posted By: WileECoyote

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/14/16 12:52 AM

Originally Posted By: bud01

You can just have it come down into low orbit and then pop a parachute,

what's the logistical advantage?



HERE
Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/14/16 07:33 PM

A video history of how SpaceX learned to do this.

Posted By: Legend

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/15/16 02:14 AM

Thanks F4UDash4, that was a nice video to watch.
Posted By: Mad Max

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/15/16 04:20 AM

It's funny, all the early space movies had the rockets landing vertically on their exhaust plume and we nerdish "experts" ridiculed that, pointing to the "real" spaceships like Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyuz etc.

Looks like "Destination Moon" got it right after all.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/15/16 01:07 PM

We still don't have SSO rockets, though. That was tried and abandoned several times, most recently with the X-33.



The Jedi Master
Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/20/16 12:56 PM

Skip to the last couple of minutes to get an idea of how big a Falcon 9 really is.


Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/22/16 10:11 AM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
We still don't have SSO rockets, though. That was tried and abandoned several times, most recently with the X-33.



The Jedi Master



Yes, you're right.
But don't be fooled, SSO rockets/spaceships will eventually be the future and there's no other way around! Only when we (humanity) manage to develop, manufacture and deploy SSO rockets/spaceships will we finally see a true resurgence and expansion in space exploration.

There are some very interesting projects regarding SSO technology currently going on, like this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

Only time will tell if the project above will be successful or not but I have absolutely no doubts that even if the project above isn't successful (as well as others currently going on) that someday in the future we will inevitably have a successful SSO rocket/spaceship project. It's only a matter of time (I hope that it doesn't take "too long").

In the meanwhile what we will get will be 'interim' projects which could eventually work (in the meanwhile) such as SpaceX.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/22/16 02:14 PM

We need fuel with more energy density. Existing fuel has so much volume that an SSO rocket is vast amounts of empty space by the time it reaches orbit, with all the dead weight of the large empty tank itself that entails, and then has to be strong enough to survive reentry and landing, no small feat when the fuel itself provides a lot of the structural integrity on ascent.

We need stronger, lighter materials (which we're slowly but surely developing) and denser fuel to allow smaller tanks for a true SSO. Some day? Yes. Our lifetimes? I really don't know.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: ricnunes

Re: SpaceX Nails Landing at Sea! - 04/22/16 02:44 PM

I'm not disputing that.
All I'm saying is that while I don't have the ability to foresee the future (unfortunately, as everyone else) I'm 100% sure that the future of Earth to Orbit travels will be with SSO and in this I have absolutely no doubts (I wish I could be so certain about most other things in my life!).

If SSO's are possible or not with current technology that's an another matter of discussion.

However, my "2 cents" about the subject is that the problem is not so related to the fuel itself as you point out but rather with the Oxidizing agent or liquid oxygen in the case of liquid rockets (the type of rocket engine used for space rockets).
The liquid oxygen tank is usually quite bigger and heavier than the fuel tank itself in space rockets.
And this is why I have some faith in the Skylon project (link is in my last post) since this project uses a kind of engine that doesn't require liquid oxygen while the spacecraft is flying within the Earth's atmosphere (it scopes oxygen from the air similarly to a conventional jet engine) and will only need liquid oxygen while in space. This means that the Skylon spaceship will only need a small and light liquid oxygen tank which could be the solution for the problems that you mentioned in your post.
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