Still “no one theory consistent with the data.”
[Update a while later]
Here are more details from Stephen Clark.
Category Archives: Space
Why SpaceX Will Be Flying Again Quickly
Some thoughts from Iain Thomson:
SpaceX doesn’t have those issues; it’s a single company that conceived, designed, built, and flies the Falcon rockets. Finding fault is going to be a lot easier under such circumstances because there’s a single data set and everyone knows everyone else.
The company is packed with highly motivated individuals and has a very flat management structure. Mistakes made are owned up to, and when the issue that caused the loss of the Falcon is identified, you can bet it will be dealt with quickly.
The current SpaceX resupply missions are on hold while this process is worked through. But you’re not going to see the kind of dithering that left the Space Shuttles grounded for 32 long months. If I were a betting man I’d guess the next Falcon will fly in 32 weeks, and maybe sooner.
Very likely sooner, I think. In fact, I think they’ll either figure it out quickly, or not at all. If they can’t figure it out at all, they have a huge dilemma, as I told Leonard David yesterday (he’s working on a piece with quotes from me and others).
[Update a while later]
Some thoughts (and links) from Bob Zimmerman on the media negativity about space.
SpaceX
Thoughts from Rick Tumlinson on the venality of Congress.
NASA’s Upper-Stage Problem
The absurdity of this program knows no bounds. I feel terrible for the NASA and industry managers who have to go through the kabuki of pretending any of this makes any sense.
My Initial Project Status
For those not backers, but interested in what’s happening, I did a project update this morning:
I’m starting to spool up on the project (I expect to actually be funded this week — there’s a two-week delay after the close). Leonard David has a report today that the “Affordable Mars Strategy” report has been published and is available for free download [note: I haven’t actually been able to find the download — all I could find at Leonard’s link was Scott Hubbard’s op-ed — but I think I have the report]. I’ve also been in communication with the authors (specifically, John Baker and Nathan Strange at JPL), and received a lot of material from them last week (some of which may be redundant with the report). I’m planning a trip to Denver next week to (among other things) talk to folks at ULA about integrated vehicle fluids and propellant depots.
The JPL work will provide a foundation for my own analysis, and I’ll probably be discussing it with them. While I think they have a good solution for what they perceive to be their problem, I have fundamentally different top-level requirements.
I would characterize their approach as “Apollo to Mars”: A destination, a date, civil-servant boots on the ground, with a giant government-owned-and-operated rocket, except (unlike Apollo) it is budget constrained. I don’t think that will be any more economically and politically sustainable than Apollo was. I also think, bluntly, as a taxpayer and space enthusiast, that it would not be worth the money.
My approach is to get NASA completely out of the earth-to-orbit business, and to take the savings to develop the technology needed to build a scalable in-space reusable, resilient, affordable transportation architecture, that will enable not simply NASA, but anyone else who wants to, to go to the Red Planet.
And not just to Mars.
SpaceX Failure Effects
They have a long list of customers left in the lurch.
Cause still unknown after several thousand engineering-hours of review. Now parsing data with a hex editor to recover final milliseconds.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2015
[Update a few minutes later]
Another story, from Eric Berger, with political implications.
[Afternoon update]
The Falcon 9 was at an altitude of approximately 45 km and traveling in excess of 5,000 km per hour when a problem developed in the second stage. SpaceRef can confirm from sources within SpaceX that the Falcon 9 first stage performed nominally i.e. as expected. Indeed, if you watch launch video, you can see that first stage continues to function steady and stable even while the front end of the rocket was destroying itself. That in and of itself is impressive.
According to SpaceX sources telemetry received from the Dragon spacecraft showed that it too was functioning normally after the mishap occurred and this telemetry continued to be sent back from Dragon for a significant period of time.
Despite an earlier statement from NASA to the contrary, SpaceX sources now confirm that the U.S. Air Force Range Safety Officer did initiate a destruct command but that this command was sent 70 seconds after the mishap occurred, as a formal matter of process. There was nothing left to destroy at that point.
That’s probably what confused Senator Nelson, when he said this morning that the Air Force had destroyed the vehicle.
The Falcon Failure
I overslept. Just got up and saw my Twitter feed.
@elonmusk just had his worst birthday ever, I suspect. But it's a good day for Dick Shelby.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) June 28, 2015
My immediate thought: This makes is a lot harder to sell my thesis that we need to start flying crew ASAP. I haven’t changed my mind, but I’ve never claimed that it would be safe to do so, just that it was important to do so. My second thought: Would the launch abort system have worked for this event? I really am surprised at this.
[Update a few minutes later]
There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2015
Unfortunately, it happened before stage separation, so they didn’t get to even attempt a landing.
[Update a couple minutes later]
That's all we can say with confidence right now. Will have more to say following a thorough fault tree analysis.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2015
[Update a few minutes later]
Second question (per Henry Vanderbilt’s comment): Could capsule have separated absent an LAS? Was the Dragon destroyed by range safety itself?
[Update a while later]
Some video, sent by my book editor.
[Evening update]
Thoughts and history from Stephen Smith:
Humanity reached the Moon in 1969, yet failures and fatalities still happen. They always will.
Today I met a 12-year old from a Colorado middle school who had an experiment aboard SpaceX CRS-7. I told her I was sorry she lost her experiment, but she was undeterred. Grinning from ear to ear, she said, “We’ll build another one and do it again!”
As he notes, so will SpaceX.
[Update a few minutes later]
A good balanced take from the WaPo.
The Commercial Crew Fight
It’s not over yet. An update from the Space Access Society.
Andy Weir On Elon Musk
Ashlee Vance had a conversation with him:
I love that NASA is working on new technologies and new stuff, but it just seems way more expensive than alternatives. You’re talking about spending $20 billion on a booster to put 150,000kg in orbit. Meanwhile, SpaceX intends to put 53,000kg into space for $100 million per booster. You could buy three of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets for $300 million, then spend $1 billion to assemble whatever heavy thing you wanted to put in space, and keep the other $8 billion. It just seems like this huge discrepancy in expenses. Governments don’t always do the economically viable thing, right? There’s a lot of politics involved.
You don’t say.
Lawrence Krauss And Noam Chomsky
…have a completely pointless discussion about human spaceflight.
The whole thing, of course, begs the question (as usual) about whether or not it’s about science and exploration. And Chomsky’s economic insanity shines through, as always.