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Elon Musk must have a knack for hiring the right talent.
Yesterday's resupply launch to the ISS was perfectly nominal - that's hardly even news any more - but what happened to the 1st stage is nothing short of remarkable: It made a controlled descent and slow landing into the ocean, surviving splashdown. Big deal? Yes, because it's the first test paving the way to eventually landing the first stages on dry land and reusing them.
Oh, it was also the first flight of a Falcon with Merlin-1D engines - higher boost and so bigger payload. And made in America, unlike the RD-180s on the Atlas V - which are made in Russia, and that might not have been the best idea ever...
Not too shabby, SpaceX. And those who've been saying that the US is falling behind in space are looking kinda silly.
A little perspective here: it's an unmanned capsule that never left Earth's orbit.
I'm happy for SpaceX but this is hardly a game changer.
If you can get your first stage back and reuse, in theory you could lower cost. Sometimes things don't advance by huge leaps and bounds but by small incremental improvements.
As for unmanned capsule that never left earth's orbit, it is the first privately owned capsule. It means that Space X owns it, can develop it further with their own money, can sell it's services out. NASA pretty has no access to funds other than what Congress will give it, is unable to develop anything without dealing with layers of Politics(I once watched the representative from California fight to keep the Shuttle's repair work in California despite the fact that NASA wanted to do it in Florida for lower cost!), and pretty much can't sell service to anyone.
A little perspective here: it's an unmanned capsule that never left Earth's orbit.
I'm happy for SpaceX but this is hardly a game changer.
A reusable first stage will lower the price of getting stuff into orbit considerably. Fuel is cheap, rocket engines aren't.
And the Falcon/Dragon combo has been designed to be man-rated from the word go - this flight counts as part of the qualification process for that. (The capsule is climate-controlled, pressurized etc. - in a pinch, you could mount seats and fly people to the ISS right now.) Sure, there's currently no ramp abort or launch abort capability - but the Shuttle never really had those in the first place.
I get the significance of it. The thing is, we're focusing on how to get stuff into orbit on a reusable capsule for less money rather than thinking big like going back to the moon or a manned mission to Mars, something other regions of the world are currently and aggressively exploring.
It's going to take a whole lot more than a reusable engine to get us to another celestial body and fuel is incredibly expensive and a huge issue when thinking about distances that would be required to go to Mars. New types of propulsion need to be developed (and they are but they're still in the experimental/conceptual stages), new ways of thinking about life support that include sustainable food production and artificial gravity, radiation shielding, among other things. Carrying enough rocket fuel to get to Mars within a reasonable amount of time would be prohibitively expensive as you would be carrying more fuel than ship at that point.
I've watched interviews with Elon Musk and I think he has incredibly good intentions. Rather than lowering costs so he can make more money, I think he's trying to lower them to better realize his dream of making the nearby planets and moons a reality. It's just not happening fast enough as of right now. Things tend to happen at a break-neck pace in the private sector though so that could change for sure though.
I get the significance of it. The thing is, we're focusing on how to get stuff into orbit on a reusable capsule for less money rather than thinking big like going back to the moon or a manned mission to Mars, something other regions of the world are currently and aggressively exploring.
Really no Country has a mission beyond earth orbit for the near future(10 years).
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It's going to take a whole lot more than a reusable engine to get us to another celestial body and fuel is incredibly expensive and a huge issue when thinking about distances that would be required to go to Mars. New types of propulsion need to be developed (and they are but they're still in the experimental/conceptual stages), new ways of thinking about life support that include sustainable food production and artificial gravity, radiation shielding, among other things. Carrying enough rocket fuel to get to Mars within a reasonable amount of time would be prohibitively expensive as you would be carrying more fuel than ship at that point.
Fuel is cheap in terms of cost. Now there are issues with mass but fuel itself is cheap. The value of the propellant in the Shuttle was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars(not much considering the mission cost millions or billions.). While you can't to mars quickly with chemical propulsion, you still need it if you want to do things like land or take off. The cheaper it is to send it to LEO be it an chemical rocket, an thermal nuclear rocket or other things the easier it is to happen. The less money you need the better.
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I've watched interviews with Elon Musk and I think he has incredibly good intentions. Rather than lowering costs so he can make more money, I think he's trying to lower them to better realize his dream of making the nearby planets and moons a reality. It's just not happening fast enough as of right now. Things tend to happen at a break-neck pace in the private sector though so that could change for sure though.
I think it will happen, but it could take a very long time.
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