Apparently, in addition to the recontact after stage separation and tumbling second “stage,” the parachutes on the Corndog failed and damaged the cases of the first stage. But hey, what do you want for half a billion dollars? I mean, besides a whole new launch company and launch vehicle, as SpaceX managed to do for that amount.
[Update a few minutes later]
The obvious question, of course, is if the recontact damaged the chute system.
Alan Boyle has a report on the current status of the NGLLC. I’d like to go back up to Mojave this morning, but I’ve got too much to do here today, with a deadline looming tomorrow. It’s going to be colder, too (it looks like it was close to freezing last night in the Antelope Valley), but the wind should be settling down, which will be better for Masten than yesterday, if they’ve sorted out their comm problems.
Anyway, good luck to all.
Clark Lindsey has some useful thoughts. As he notes, it would have been pretty amazing if this test had failed, considering what a trivial thing they were doing, and how much they spent on it. If it had failed, it would (or at least should) have been the end of NASA, or at least Marshall, as a credible developer of rockets (not that they should have such a reputation now, given the history of the past three decades). Another SpaceX could have been founded and another Falcon 9 developed for the cost of that test. Which tells you all you need to know about the cost effectiveness of the NASA jobs program.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Manber says that it was the wrong test, at the wrong time.
[Thursday morning update]
Chair Force Engineer has some thoughts on the Potemkin Rocket:
While Ares I-X was a low-fidelity test of a bad rocket design, the test’s fundamental flaws should not detract in any way from the Ares I-X program personnel who devoted the last three years of their life to making this test a success. While I strongly believe that Ares I-X should have waited until the 5-segment SRB was available, Ares I-X still taught NASA personnel much about ground handling operations and ocean recovery for the Ares rockets.
It would be churlish to imply that people who work on a bad project are bad people, and I’ve never intended to do that. I know from personal experience in the industry that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and the real tragedy is that so much talent, and not just taxpayers’ money, has been wasted on this program. It was a huge opportunity cost, in time, dollars and people. The people who work on it both happily, and otherwise, deserve plaudits for doing as good a job as they could under the circumstances. Let’s just hope that their talents can soon be turned to more useful ends.
The Washington Post has an extensive follow up.
I should note that when I earlier said that I’d known him for thirty years, I didn’t say that I’d been his friend for thirty years. I mention this because I got an email a few days ago from an editor of a Jewish publication in DC, based on that post, who wanted more info from me on the assumption that I was. I didn’t really know him that well — we met in Tucson when I was volunteering for L-5, and he had come back to the U of A to visit from MIT. I ran into him at conferences over the years, but that was pretty much it.
And yes, I haven’t left for Mojave yet. I’m hanging for another few minutes to see if the giant bottle rocket goes off in Florida. It’s currently scheduled for 6AM Pacific. I’ll still have time to beat the traffic over Sepulveda Pass if it’s on time.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, just as I was typing that, they slipped to 9:15 EDT, with low confidence of a launch before 10:30. I can’t wait that long, so I guess I’ll miss it.
…from Jay Barbree:
Heard on MSNBC at 9:48 am EDT: Jay Barbree says that Orion will carry a crew of “as many as 6 astronauts” and that the Ares 1 is the “best designed” and “safest rocket ever designed” .
Heard on MSNBC at 9:57 am EDT: Jay Barbree says “We have new people who do not have experience in this office who are trying to go through a commercial launch [for crew] and if they do it will be a delay for at least a decade before we have [something for] astronauts from this country to fly upon.”
This is (or should be) a continuing embarrassment for NBC. As I’ve noted before, they need to get an actual reporter, like Bobby Block, and not just a NASA cheerleader and faithful stenographer for PAO.
…it’s just the latest one:
On 8 October an asteroid detonated high in the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia, releasing about as much energy as 50,000 tons of TNT, according to a NASA estimate released on Friday. That’s about three times more powerful than the atomic bomb that levelled Hiroshima, making it one of the largest asteroid explosions ever observed.
However, the blast caused no damage on the ground because of the high altitude, 15 to 20 kilometres above Earth’s surface, says astronomer Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada.
Brown and Elizabeth Silber, also of UWO, estimated the explosion energy from infrasound waves that rippled halfway around the world and were recorded by an international network of instruments that listens for nuclear explosions.
Emphasis mine. We get hit a lot more often than people realize. And we’ve been very lucky so far that none of them have hit populated areas.
Looks like it’s the end of Rockets’n’Such. I wonder if we’ll ever find out who it was? I never really understood the need for the allegories. They often seemed to get in the way of communication, even for those familiar with the program.
The Fourth of July display at the cape has been scrubbed for the day due to weather.
If they don’t do it tomorrow morning, they’ll be delayed for weeks. Of course, tomorrow morning will also see a much more promising, if less spectacular event, with Masten’s attempt to win Level II of the Lunar Lander Challenge in Mojave. Unfortunately, the weather may not cooperate for that, either. A high is settling in over the Great Basin, and combined with the low over the eastern Pacific off shore, that means Santa Anas (though cold ones this time). There are gusts of 60 mph forecast for the desert this afternoon, and it’s not expected to die down much until later tomorrow. I don’t know what kind of wind conditions Masten has designed for, but if they can handle winds, I’m sure that the steadier the better. There’s got to be a certain point at which they will decide not to fly, not just risking a bad flight, but the vehicle itself. I’ll keep checking in throughout the day, and decide if I’m going to go up in the morning or not.
[Update mid morning]
There is a certain irony that a prize planned with the intent of developing lunar landing technologies would be affected by wind. Of course, a big side benefit for both NASA and those developing the vehicles (though it’s not clear that the former recognizes it) is that it also contributes to technology that could eventually lead to reduced launch costs and increased operability from earth to space.
[Update a couple minutes later]
From Dave Masten’s Facebook notes:
I think we are ready for #ngllc level 2. All tests are done. Last was a nice stable hover of 195sec in 30+ knot winds.
Sounds like it may be worth the trip. Though I wonder how steady the winds were. As I said, I would think that, short of a hurricane, the wind variation is more of an issue than the magnitude per se.
Some thoughts from John Hare.
Let’s hope it’s metaphorical as well as literal.