8 ms·

Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon.

MrFlynn 10y ago
> Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon. I don’t think anyone is claiming that. They’re both impressive feats in their own right.
cyberferret 10y ago
Some might argue that having an unlimited budget, and nearly a million people working on a project, and utilising 'throwaway technology' would be arbitrarily easier than trying to do it with private funding. Moon travel is not a common everyday thing now, because the original effort wasn't geared for that - it was primarily to put a man on the moon as fast as possible, before the Russians did it. If the aircraft industry worked the same way and airlines had to throw away a 747 after each flight, it wouldn't be an every day thing like it is now. SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. It is a longer path, and IMO no less difficult than what NASA was doing back in the 50's and 60's.
- babyrainbow 10y ago
  >SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. Please note that landing the rocket does not count. Because I don't think it involved something new, some new technique that was unknown before.
  - rohit89 10y ago
    Landing the rocket is the first step in figuring out reuse. Its irrelevant that it probably did not involve some scientific breakthrough - in fact it makes it all the more sadder that no-one bothered to do it before. Same situation with Tesla. No breakthroughs there either. Now imagine all the things we can do right now but aren't because no-one is interested in funding it.
  - qaq 10y ago
    If you arbitrarily dismiss things because you "don't think it involved something new" that's a fairly random criteria.
  - simonh 10y ago
    >What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. The breakthrough is actually doing it. A lot of space engineers were saying before Falcon 9 that what SoaceX were trying to do was impossible. Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to see now what steps were required to pull this off and that clearly those steps were possible. But if it's so clear, why wasn't it done before? The ottoman line is only Must and SoaceX were prepared to get the job done. Nobody else was even trying.
    - babyrainbow 10y ago
      >The breakthrough is actually doing it... That is not a breakthrough.
      - snovv_crash 10y ago
        Not all breakthroughs are just theory. If you can show me someone actually managing to land a launch-capable rocket, and not just some testbed demo capable of throttling to less than hover, I'm all ears. The only other player in this space is Blue Origin, and they are still working on their commercially-viable engines. Everybody else throws away their rocket after the launch.
        babyrainbow 10y ago
        > If you can show me someone actually managing to land a launch-capable rocket, and not just some testbed demo capable of throttling to less than hover, I'm all ears. Are you saying only SpaceX is capable of doing this? Seriously?
        avmich 10y ago
        Are you saying that only USA were able to put a man on the Moon in 1960-s? Seriously?
        babyrainbow 10y ago
  - TrevorJ 10y ago
    Actually there was a lot of new stuff learned especially in the transonic regime.
  - caconym_ 10y ago
    > Please note that landing the rocket does not count. Because I don't think it involved something new, some new technique that was unknown before. "Answer my question despite my imposition of arbitrary criteria that intentionally make it unanswerable"
  - kirrent 10y ago
    Well, despite what you think landing the rocket was a breakthrough. Sure it involved the application of standard techniques in the industry but a combination so executed becomes more than the sum of its parts. If you want something where SpaceX has blazed trail in science as well as engineering then there's thir work on CFL and more importantly supersonic retro propulsion. It turns out that the bow shock created by the engines is enough to serve as an ersatz heat shield and it protects the rocket when it would otherwise be destroyed during reentry. NASA's studying the data they've recorded for the purposes of applying it to Mars EDL. It's given them a chance to investigate an entirely new EDL technique which is important seeing as the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator seems to be going nowhere.
    - babyrainbow 10y ago
      >bow shock created by the engines is enough to serve as an ersatz heat shield Source pls. Google search yeilds no results.
      - kirrent 10y ago
        It's an over-reach of me to say that they discovered it. This talk gives a good outline of SRP. https://youtu.be/GQueObsIRfI?t=983 https://youtu.be/GQueObsIRfI?t=983
  - andygates 10y ago
    Their unique breakthrough is relighting rocket engines in a hypersonic airflow. Everything else is shoulders-of-giants and design iterations and good project management, but relighting rocket engines like that was an unknown. Landing is a critical prerequisite to reuse: we can't reuse what we discard. But the important reusability breakthrough comes in a few months when they do the first reflight of an orbital booster.
_ph_ 10y ago
Both of them are big deals. Landing on the Moon was a historic event, the first (and unfortuately one of the few) time a human being stepped onto something that is not the earth. That is a one-time historic landmark to be listed in history books from now on. Landing rocket boosters is a very big deal in practical terms as this should reduce the cost of going to space to a point where it becomes more accessible. The shuttle was an attempt to achieve the same, but while being a technological marvel, it failed to reduce costs (quite the contrary) and was abandoned. Everyone else so far at best managed to keep the cost of one-time use rockets low, but SpaceX should have a break-through there, and that is why this matters so much.

> Ya sure, landing booster rockets is a way bigger deal than sending men to the Moon. I don’t think anyone is claiming that. They’re both impressive feats in their own right.

cyberferret 10y ago

Some might argue that having an unlimited budget, and nearly a million people working on a project, and utilising 'throwaway technology' would be arbitrarily easier than trying to do it with private funding. Moon travel is not a common everyday thing now, because the original effort wasn't geared for that - it was primarily to put a man on the moon as fast as possible, before the Russians did it. If the aircraft industry worked the same way and airlines had to throw away a 747 after each flight, it wouldn't be an every day thing like it is now. SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. It is a longer path, and IMO no less difficult than what NASA was doing back in the 50's and 60's.

babyrainbow 10y ago
>SpaceX are essentially setting up the future building blocks for far more affordable and common space flight now. What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. Please note that landing the rocket does not count. Because I don't think it involved something new, some new technique that was unknown before.
- rohit89 10y ago
  Landing the rocket is the first step in figuring out reuse. Its irrelevant that it probably did not involve some scientific breakthrough - in fact it makes it all the more sadder that no-one bothered to do it before. Same situation with Tesla. No breakthroughs there either. Now imagine all the things we can do right now but aren't because no-one is interested in funding it.
- qaq 10y ago
  If you arbitrarily dismiss things because you "don't think it involved something new" that's a fairly random criteria.
- simonh 10y ago
  >What exactly is the breakthroughs/discoveries that Spacex have made that will justify the claim. The breakthrough is actually doing it. A lot of space engineers were saying before Falcon 9 that what SoaceX were trying to do was impossible. Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to see now what steps were required to pull this off and that clearly those steps were possible. But if it's so clear, why wasn't it done before? The ottoman line is only Must and SoaceX were prepared to get the job done. Nobody else was even trying.
  - babyrainbow 10y ago
    >The breakthrough is actually doing it... That is not a breakthrough.
    - snovv_crash 10y ago
      Not all breakthroughs are just theory. If you can show me someone actually managing to land a launch-capable rocket, and not just some testbed demo capable of throttling to less than hover, I'm all ears. The only other player in this space is Blue Origin, and they are still working on their commercially-viable engines. Everybody else throws away their rocket after the launch.
      - babyrainbow 10y ago
        > If you can show me someone actually managing to land a launch-capable rocket, and not just some testbed demo capable of throttling to less than hover, I'm all ears. Are you saying only SpaceX is capable of doing this? Seriously?
        avmich 10y ago
        Are you saying that only USA were able to put a man on the Moon in 1960-s? Seriously?
        babyrainbow 10y ago
- TrevorJ 10y ago
  Actually there was a lot of new stuff learned especially in the transonic regime.
- caconym_ 10y ago
  > Please note that landing the rocket does not count. Because I don't think it involved something new, some new technique that was unknown before. "Answer my question despite my imposition of arbitrary criteria that intentionally make it unanswerable"
- kirrent 10y ago
  Well, despite what you think landing the rocket was a breakthrough. Sure it involved the application of standard techniques in the industry but a combination so executed becomes more than the sum of its parts. If you want something where SpaceX has blazed trail in science as well as engineering then there's thir work on CFL and more importantly supersonic retro propulsion. It turns out that the bow shock created by the engines is enough to serve as an ersatz heat shield and it protects the rocket when it would otherwise be destroyed during reentry. NASA's studying the data they've recorded for the purposes of applying it to Mars EDL. It's given them a chance to investigate an entirely new EDL technique which is important seeing as the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator seems to be going nowhere.
  - babyrainbow 10y ago
    >bow shock created by the engines is enough to serve as an ersatz heat shield Source pls. Google search yeilds no results.
    - kirrent 10y ago
      It's an over-reach of me to say that they discovered it. This talk gives a good outline of SRP. https://youtu.be/GQueObsIRfI?t=983 https://youtu.be/GQueObsIRfI?t=983
- andygates 10y ago
  Their unique breakthrough is relighting rocket engines in a hypersonic airflow. Everything else is shoulders-of-giants and design iterations and good project management, but relighting rocket engines like that was an unknown. Landing is a critical prerequisite to reuse: we can't reuse what we discard. But the important reusability breakthrough comes in a few months when they do the first reflight of an orbital booster.

_ph_ 10y ago

Both of them are big deals. Landing on the Moon was a historic event, the first (and unfortuately one of the few) time a human being stepped onto something that is not the earth. That is a one-time historic landmark to be listed in history books from now on. Landing rocket boosters is a very big deal in practical terms as this should reduce the cost of going to space to a point where it becomes more accessible. The shuttle was an attempt to achieve the same, but while being a technological marvel, it failed to reduce costs (quite the contrary) and was abandoned. Everyone else so far at best managed to keep the cost of one-time use rockets low, but SpaceX should have a break-through there, and that is why this matters so much.