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SpaceX Launches, Landings and News

So who wants to bet that the Mini-ITS will just be the New Glenn but with more focus on second stage recovery? Also Falcon Heavy has been becoming less and less useful over time. Falcon 9 just keep getting better and with the cross feed staging never working out you lost a good bit from Falcon heavy's possible delta v. Once you get to the fancy carbon fiber tanks they are working on you have even less payloads that need the Heavy. The Heavy can't even carry more bulky payloads then the Falcon 9.
 
If the ITS is getting reworked to be smaller, I wonder if the plan is for the ship itself it to be inflatable, thereby giving it the same volume once up in space. You only need a hard shell on one side for reentry and radiation shielding after all. If they take that approach, the ITS booster may focus on being a "station lifter," lobbing large inflatables up to LEO.

As for the FH, I guess we'll see... It's a lot of complexity, but hopefully it'll work. Regardless, I'm planning to go see it with my girlfriend.
 
Recent report on the current administration's skepticism towards commercial space ventures:
Article:
SCIENCE
Trump's space leader says SpaceX is outstanding, but…
"I think this is somewhat dangerous," Scott Pace has said of commercial crew.

ERIC BERGER - 8/8/2017, 9:17 AM

Scott Pace, a well-known academic figure in the aerospace community, was named executive secretary of the National Space Council in July. As such, he was the first key appointee of the Trump administration on space policy in regard to the future of the military, civil, and commercial space enterprises. While it is not entirely clear how influential the new council will be, it is clear that Pace will have a strong voice in whatever direction it goes.

Although generally regarded as highly capable, thoughtful about space policy, and certainly a true believer in the value of robotic and human spaceflight, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University has in recent years made comments that have raised concern among commercial spaceflight advocates.

In particular, during both interviews and comments to Congress, Pace has expressed skepticism about both NASA's commercial crew program under President Obama and the abilities of Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX. "It's kind of amazing to me that the Trump administration would line up against the commercial space industry like this," said one former White House official who helped NASA develop the commercial crew program under President Obama.

Looking at his watch

Late last week, CQ Press published a lengthy review of the developing private space industry alongside NASA's traditional approach to spaceflight. The article contained an interesting comment from Pace: "Elon Musk sat in my office in 2002 and told me he'd have 10 launches a year by 2006," he said. "I'm still looking at my watch."

...

Also, Sunday's launch has been postponed to Monday:
Article:
Station Boosts Orbit, Dragon Launch Slips a Day
Posted on August 9, 2017 at 1:44 pm by Mark Garcia.

...

SpaceX announced a one-day launch slip of its Dragon cargo craft atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Dragon is now targeted to launch Monday at 12:31 p.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center. Fischer and astronaut Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency are training for Dragon's arrival and capture planned for Wednesday at 7 a.m.

...
 
CRS-12 launch in a couple hours time.

NASA has contracted for the CRS-12 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule. According to a NASA Inspector General report of June 2016, CRS-12 is expected to carry 2,349 kg (5,179 lb) of pressurized mass and 961 kg (2,119 lb) of unpressurized.[5] According to 2016 presentations, the external payload manifested for this flight is CREAM.[6][7]
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A first stage landing will be attempted on land at the cape.

Live stream will be here:

 
They did a very good job of getting external video from the the entry burn all the way to the landing. The whole things looks much cooler from the outside then from the down view they use. That is saying something as that view is already cool.
 
It looks like a case of form over function. But then again the Dragon seems to be of the spam in a can design philosophy. The computers do everything in an emergency and humans just are along for a ride. With touch screen controls it is not like they can even do anything when the ship is under acceleration.
 
UberJJK said:
I'm curious; what exactly makes you think the suit isn't 100% functional? I'm not an expert, or knowledgeable at all really, on spacesuit design but Elon says quite clearly that they put in a lot of effort to make it functional and aesthetically pleasing.
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Lets start with the most obvious, pockets. Neither the mock up or this show any pockets at all. Pockets are important if only so when you fancy space ship starts taking on water and sinking you can get out with enough safety crap to keep you alive. Also note how they don't show the suit inflated. Fill that balloon up and take a second to think about just how flexible it would be. I mean look at those gloves and tell me how you would move your wrists when you are a balloon man.
 
Article:
SCIENCE —
For some reason, Ron Paul has taken to Fox News to skewer SpaceX
"Allowing SpaceX to obtain a monopoly over launch services harms taxpayers."

ERIC BERGER - 9/13/2017, 12:50 PM


Enlarge / Former Congressman Ron Paul: Not a fan of SpaceX.

Three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has written an opinion piece for Fox News that comes out swinging against SpaceX, accusing the company of benefiting from potentially having a monopoly on national security launches. The article also attacks US Sen. John McCain as a "lead sponsor" of provisions to give SpaceX a monopoly on launch services.

"Allowing SpaceX to obtain a monopoly over launch services harms taxpayers much more than forbidding the Pentagon from purchasing Russian products harms Vladimir Putin," Paul writes. "If this provision becomes law, SpaceX will be able to charge the government more than they could in even a quasi-competitive market. This monopoly will also stifle innovation in rocket launching technology."

...

It is not clear why Paul has chosen to weigh in on a complicated space policy matter such as the National Defense Authorization Act, but some clues may explain his hostility. Paul has not run for office since 2012, but at the time, two of his top six corporate donors were Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the parent companies of United Launch Alliance.

Paul also has been sympathetic to Russia in recent years, and SpaceX's low-cost approach to launch threatens to take considerable market share away from Russian firms. For example, this year the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity has suggested the investigation into Russian meddling in US elections is a "farce" and said hostile efforts by US policymakers to sanction Russia were "irrational."

Part of me wonders if this is linked to the sudden growth of antipathy towards the tech industry in general among conservatives recently, abetted by certain liberals as well:
Article:
Democrats are condemning Facebook for allowing "fake news" and Russia-linked ads during the election, while conservatives accuse Google of silencing right-leaning viewpoints. President Donald Trump routinely accuses Amazon of dodging taxes, and right-leaning news organizations like Fox News and Breitbart have begun mocking Silicon Valley leaders as power-hungry and out of touch.

...

Tech's new critics include Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has begun sounding the alarm that Google has grown into "the most powerful company in the history of the world."

Carlson recently aired an interview with Matt Stoller, a member of an antitrust team that lost its jobs at the left-leaning think tank New America after praising a $2.7 billion fine that the European Commission levied against Google this summer for stifling competition. The New York Times reported that Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, a New America funder, had complained about the statement posted by Stoller's team — a turn of events that Carlson described as a sign of Google's "terrifying" power.

Stoller, a former aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), later praised Carlson as "one of the few on TV willing to talk about it."

"Everything is confusing!" Stoller tweeted.

...

At times, the new scrutiny of tech is creating strange bedfellows.

Steve Bannon, while serving as Trump's chief strategist, reportedly floated the idea of treating Facebook and Google as public utilities, similar to the heavily regulated telephone industry — a departure from the traditional conservative focus on deregulation. Meanwhile, Breitbart News, the online publication Bannon now heads, often goes after tech companies for heavy-handedness and elitism. "Tech" is listed as a section of that site just after "Big Government," "Big Journalism" and "Big Hollywood." A recent story on Breitbart mocked a Google employee for importing Maine lobsters to the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.

It's not a complete shock that Republicans pulled out the knives as soon as they smelled blood in the water, given that the tech industry is overwhelmingly Democratic:
Article:
Data compiled by Crowdpac, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign donations, shows that employees at technology companies are donating overwhelmingly to Hillary Clinton. Of the $8.1 million given by tech employees or executives, Clinton got 95 percent, or $7.7 million; Donald Trump got 4 percent, or $299,000; Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, each got less than 1 percent.



Similarly, in the Silicon Valley area, nearly 99 percent of the political donations went to Clinton, and 1 percent to Trump, according to Crowdpac.

But the rapid increase in hostility, the involvement of the alt-right (and perhaps even foreign interests), and the complicity of at least some Democrats has me concerned.
 
To be fair allowing anyone, even SpaceX, to achieve a monopoly is almost always a bad thing. Even Elon Musk has said he doesn't want SpaceX to become a monopoly.

What the government should be doing however isn't attacking SpaceX but asking ULA some very pointed question. Specifically about how after all the time and money they'd have poured into them over the years, decades really if you factor in ULA's parent companies, they are so far behind such a relative newcomer to the industry.
 
mistakenot said:
Article:
SCIENCE —
For some reason, Ron Paul has taken to Fox News to skewer SpaceX
"Allowing SpaceX to obtain a monopoly over launch services harms taxpayers."

ERIC BERGER - 9/13/2017, 12:50 PM


Enlarge / Former Congressman Ron Paul: Not a fan of SpaceX.

Three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has written an opinion piece for Fox News that comes out swinging against SpaceX, accusing the company of benefiting from potentially having a monopoly on national security launches. The article also attacks US Sen. John McCain as a "lead sponsor" of provisions to give SpaceX a monopoly on launch services.

"Allowing SpaceX to obtain a monopoly over launch services harms taxpayers much more than forbidding the Pentagon from purchasing Russian products harms Vladimir Putin," Paul writes. "If this provision becomes law, SpaceX will be able to charge the government more than they could in even a quasi-competitive market. This monopoly will also stifle innovation in rocket launching technology."

...

It is not clear why Paul has chosen to weigh in on a complicated space policy matter such as the National Defense Authorization Act, but some clues may explain his hostility. Paul has not run for office since 2012, but at the time, two of his top six corporate donors were Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the parent companies of United Launch Alliance.

Paul also has been sympathetic to Russia in recent years, and SpaceX's low-cost approach to launch threatens to take considerable market share away from Russian firms. For example, this year the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity has suggested the investigation into Russian meddling in US elections is a "farce" and said hostile efforts by US policymakers to sanction Russia were "irrational."
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Literally comical. Where was he when ULA was getting a billion dollar per year "launch capability" payment on top of their exorbitant prices and near-monopoly on USGov launches?

Tasrill said:
It looks like a case of form over function. But then again the Dragon seems to be of the spam in a can design philosophy. The computers do everything in an emergency and humans just are along for a ride. With touch screen controls it is not like they can even do anything when the ship is under acceleration.
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I mean, Garrett Reisman says the suit is great:



... and he wore ACES into space three times so I figure we should give the SpaceX suit the benefit of the doubt until we know more about it.

Also, Dragon 2 does have physical switches/buttons for things which they might actually need to use during acceleration.
 
RRoan said:
Literally comical. Where was he when ULA was getting a billion dollar per year "launch capability" payment on top of their exorbitant prices and near-monopoly on USGov launches?
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Aren't a lot of the facilities that build current rockets located in red districts?

And rockets can be sold as defense/hard STEM spending. i.e. things that Republicans will fork over money for.

Me thinks the GOP just really doesn't want the bottom to fall out of their pork barrels.
 
Tasrill said:
we finally actually get to see those crashes they cut away from.
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They didn't cut away from it they lost signal and/or the camera for the live feed. It's not an easy problem to solve. If the camera is recoverable though they do recover the footage for their own analysis but they don;t post it publicly as a matter of course.
 
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