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I'm just an amateur following along, but this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history. This sets the stage for deep-spa

I'm just an amateur following along, but this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history. This sets the stage for deep-space missions with reusable launch materials, which can greatly reduce the cost of future space exploration. Absolutely incredible achievement by the SpaceX team.

alangibson 9y ago
This definitely feels incredibly significant. The Soviet Union tried and failed 4 or 5 times to launch a rocket with this many engines, but now we're able to nail it on the first try aaaand land the boosters.
- icc97 9y ago
  I was just assuming it was going to blow up.
- janoc 9y ago
  Well, but to be fair to the Soviets, they had to do it with really "stone age" electronics and technology and not knowing the many things we know today. I am pretty sure that SpaceX was able to achieve what they did today also because they studied the Soviet N1 rocket and learned from what the engineers at that time had to figure out from scratch. The other thing is that the N1 Moon rocket was a very different design - a single booster with many small engines, so incredibly difficult system to control, especially given the state of technology 50 years ago. Falcon Heavy is more similar to the successful Energia booster - core + strap on boosters - that was originally designed for the Russian shuttle. Or the Angara series.
  - adventured 9y ago
    I don't see how that's much of a credit boost to the Soviet failures the parent is referencing. The Apollo program had the same constraints of lacking modern electronics and not knowing many of the things we know today.
    - NamTaf 9y ago
      The comparison was that N1 had a some 30 engines (Falcon Heavy has 27, given it's 3x Falcon 9's) and that was its downfall. In comparison, the Saturn V used only 5, they were just that much bigger. It's widely regarded that the 5 vs 30 was the difference as to why Saturn V was successful and N1 was not, as the Soviets simply had to roll too many dice in a situation where a failure resulted in complete mission loss. It's a lesson in system engineering, particularly around failure durability and parallel vs serial critical subsystems.
      - avmich 9y ago
        It's interesting that in Soviet rocket engine school engines count by pumps, so, e.g. RD-180 is one engine, one pump, two chambers. In American rocket engine school engines used to count by chambers. In this sense R-7 is remarkable because it has a good overall success record (most launched rocket) and 32 chambers working at liftoff. Some of those chambers are rather small - about 3 metric tons of thrust, about as much as main chambers on British launcher Black Arrow - but still.
        NamTaf 9y ago
        My feel/understanding is that chamber design is something that gets more difficult as it increases in size (obviously), but also by combining multiple smaller chambers you only suffer minimal downsides from a reliability perspective. After all, it's not like multiple smaller chambers result in heaps of extra moving parts, so a lot of the risk of duplicating components is gone. You're right, though, the R-7 is a fantastic achievement not only for the chambers, but also considering how many engines and pumps it has. All those spinning, moving parts are another point of failure and they're all necessary for success.
    - janoc 9y ago
      Apollo program certainly did not work under the same type of constraints the Soviets had. Yes, the electronics was primitive compared to what we have today but Apollo didn't need to work around international embargoes for every screw and piece of wire. If Soviets wanted something modern, they had to reinvent it from scratch - or steal it. They were fairly good at both. Whether it was a computer, transistors or entire designs. The results were usually very simple designs where little could go wrong and that didn't need complicated technology - which wasn't available. E.g. the Soyuz capsule vs. both the Apollo and Space Shuttle craft. I lived in a former Soviet bloc country and I can tell you that getting even silly components like LEDs required superhuman efforts. The few that were made domestically ended up in industrial uses (or exported to USSR) and importing anything from abroad was almost impossible. We had a black & white TV full of tubes until late 80s at home - color solid state TVs didn't become available until 1988 or so (and sucked big time).
  - mobilefriendly 9y ago
    You make it sound easy, but NASA's current heavy lift rocket has spent billions more than SpaceX and the project is still years away from test launch.
    - a_cactus 9y ago
      Delta IV heavy looks pretty similar to the Falcon Heavy approach. I would imagine there was some knowdgle transfer there. That being said, SpaceX is taking a much more pragmatic and efficient approach to building rockets with far less bureaucracy. This is the epitome of private sector efficieny over government projects.
      - ben_w 9y ago
        I recall reading SpaceX had to reinvent quite a few wheels because the existing private sector was far too expensive — everything from cryogenic pumps to sea recovery of lower stages. The problem is lack of meaningful competition, rather than government vs. industry; governments can be very good when competing with other governments.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history SpaceX's Falcon project is the first major progress we've made in the field of human spaceflight since the Apollo program.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  The ISS should count as major progress as well.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    Should have, but didn't. At least not for manned spaceflight. We learned how to keep humans alive in space way back with the Gemini project. A long-duration orbital sojourn could have been had for the cost of the ISS. At the end of the day, I struggle to think of a single big thing we can do post-ISS that we couldn't without.
    - bryananderson 9y ago
      It may not make headlines, but the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price. For all its problems, that alone makes ISS worth it.
      - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        I was not aware of this, do you have a link to any of that info?
        bryananderson 9y ago
        Here’s an article summarizing the findings of the most headline-grabbing medical study of the ISS program, the Twins Study in which Scott Kelly spent a year in space while his brother Mark remained on Earth; both were subjected to exhaustive testing, and the article briefly covers each investigation. One that I found particularly interesting: Scott’s telomeres grew significantly longer while he was in space! https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-investigators-to-release-integrated-paper-in-2018 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-investigators-... Most astronauts spend six months on the station, and obviously most of them don’t have a twin, but they all add data to our knowledge of how space affects humans. We have learned a lot about how to counter muscle atrophy, and we have a better understanding of how the eyes and bones are degraded by prolonged weightlessness. NASA loves to talk about ways that space research has improved life on earth (just google it, they’ll shout it at you), but even if you could find a way to do all that other research without a crewed space station, you can’t accumulate six astronaut-years of human medical data in space every single year for decades on end unless you’ve got a place in space to put a bunch of humans for a really long time, over and over again. To me, that is what makes ISS a human treasure. Someday we will build a more cost-effective replacement on the basis of the lessons we’ve learned, but for now it’s the best we’ve got, and it’s quite good.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
InclinedPlane 9y ago
It's definitely another inflection point. The Falcon 9 is 75% reusable by cost of components, the Falcon Heavy is 90% reusable. And it's capable of much, much more. That might open up the heavy lift launch market to a whole new gaggle of players and begin really expanding out what is done there. It'll certainly put a lot more missions on the table that weren't there before, like low cost outer planets space science probes. Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).
- avmich 9y ago
  > Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period). I'm pretty sure one can launch space station modules on regular Falcon-9 as well. Russians launch some on Soyuz rocket. Surely FH is more convenient for big stations.

alangibson 9y ago

This definitely feels incredibly significant. The Soviet Union tried and failed 4 or 5 times to launch a rocket with this many engines, but now we're able to nail it on the first try aaaand land the boosters.

icc97 9y ago
I was just assuming it was going to blow up.
janoc 9y ago
Well, but to be fair to the Soviets, they had to do it with really "stone age" electronics and technology and not knowing the many things we know today. I am pretty sure that SpaceX was able to achieve what they did today also because they studied the Soviet N1 rocket and learned from what the engineers at that time had to figure out from scratch. The other thing is that the N1 Moon rocket was a very different design - a single booster with many small engines, so incredibly difficult system to control, especially given the state of technology 50 years ago. Falcon Heavy is more similar to the successful Energia booster - core + strap on boosters - that was originally designed for the Russian shuttle. Or the Angara series.
- adventured 9y ago
  I don't see how that's much of a credit boost to the Soviet failures the parent is referencing. The Apollo program had the same constraints of lacking modern electronics and not knowing many of the things we know today.
  - NamTaf 9y ago
    The comparison was that N1 had a some 30 engines (Falcon Heavy has 27, given it's 3x Falcon 9's) and that was its downfall. In comparison, the Saturn V used only 5, they were just that much bigger. It's widely regarded that the 5 vs 30 was the difference as to why Saturn V was successful and N1 was not, as the Soviets simply had to roll too many dice in a situation where a failure resulted in complete mission loss. It's a lesson in system engineering, particularly around failure durability and parallel vs serial critical subsystems.
    - avmich 9y ago
      It's interesting that in Soviet rocket engine school engines count by pumps, so, e.g. RD-180 is one engine, one pump, two chambers. In American rocket engine school engines used to count by chambers. In this sense R-7 is remarkable because it has a good overall success record (most launched rocket) and 32 chambers working at liftoff. Some of those chambers are rather small - about 3 metric tons of thrust, about as much as main chambers on British launcher Black Arrow - but still.
      - NamTaf 9y ago
        My feel/understanding is that chamber design is something that gets more difficult as it increases in size (obviously), but also by combining multiple smaller chambers you only suffer minimal downsides from a reliability perspective. After all, it's not like multiple smaller chambers result in heaps of extra moving parts, so a lot of the risk of duplicating components is gone. You're right, though, the R-7 is a fantastic achievement not only for the chambers, but also considering how many engines and pumps it has. All those spinning, moving parts are another point of failure and they're all necessary for success.
  - janoc 9y ago
    Apollo program certainly did not work under the same type of constraints the Soviets had. Yes, the electronics was primitive compared to what we have today but Apollo didn't need to work around international embargoes for every screw and piece of wire. If Soviets wanted something modern, they had to reinvent it from scratch - or steal it. They were fairly good at both. Whether it was a computer, transistors or entire designs. The results were usually very simple designs where little could go wrong and that didn't need complicated technology - which wasn't available. E.g. the Soyuz capsule vs. both the Apollo and Space Shuttle craft. I lived in a former Soviet bloc country and I can tell you that getting even silly components like LEDs required superhuman efforts. The few that were made domestically ended up in industrial uses (or exported to USSR) and importing anything from abroad was almost impossible. We had a black & white TV full of tubes until late 80s at home - color solid state TVs didn't become available until 1988 or so (and sucked big time).
- mobilefriendly 9y ago
  You make it sound easy, but NASA's current heavy lift rocket has spent billions more than SpaceX and the project is still years away from test launch.
  - a_cactus 9y ago
    Delta IV heavy looks pretty similar to the Falcon Heavy approach. I would imagine there was some knowdgle transfer there. That being said, SpaceX is taking a much more pragmatic and efficient approach to building rockets with far less bureaucracy. This is the epitome of private sector efficieny over government projects.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      I recall reading SpaceX had to reinvent quite a few wheels because the existing private sector was far too expensive — everything from cryogenic pumps to sea recovery of lower stages. The problem is lack of meaningful competition, rather than government vs. industry; governments can be very good when competing with other governments.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history SpaceX's Falcon project is the first major progress we've made in the field of human spaceflight since the Apollo program.

jacquesm 9y ago
The ISS should count as major progress as well.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  Should have, but didn't. At least not for manned spaceflight. We learned how to keep humans alive in space way back with the Gemini project. A long-duration orbital sojourn could have been had for the cost of the ISS. At the end of the day, I struggle to think of a single big thing we can do post-ISS that we couldn't without.
  - bryananderson 9y ago
    It may not make headlines, but the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price. For all its problems, that alone makes ISS worth it.
    - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      I was not aware of this, do you have a link to any of that info?
      - bryananderson 9y ago
        Here’s an article summarizing the findings of the most headline-grabbing medical study of the ISS program, the Twins Study in which Scott Kelly spent a year in space while his brother Mark remained on Earth; both were subjected to exhaustive testing, and the article briefly covers each investigation. One that I found particularly interesting: Scott’s telomeres grew significantly longer while he was in space! https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-investigators-to-release-integrated-paper-in-2018 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-investigators-... Most astronauts spend six months on the station, and obviously most of them don’t have a twin, but they all add data to our knowledge of how space affects humans. We have learned a lot about how to counter muscle atrophy, and we have a better understanding of how the eyes and bones are degraded by prolonged weightlessness. NASA loves to talk about ways that space research has improved life on earth (just google it, they’ll shout it at you), but even if you could find a way to do all that other research without a crewed space station, you can’t accumulate six astronaut-years of human medical data in space every single year for decades on end unless you’ve got a place in space to put a bunch of humans for a really long time, over and over again. To me, that is what makes ISS a human treasure. Someday we will build a more cost-effective replacement on the basis of the lessons we’ve learned, but for now it’s the best we’ve got, and it’s quite good.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

InclinedPlane 9y ago

It's definitely another inflection point. The Falcon 9 is 75% reusable by cost of components, the Falcon Heavy is 90% reusable. And it's capable of much, much more. That might open up the heavy lift launch market to a whole new gaggle of players and begin really expanding out what is done there. It'll certainly put a lot more missions on the table that weren't there before, like low cost outer planets space science probes. Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).

avmich 9y ago
> Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period). I'm pretty sure one can launch space station modules on regular Falcon-9 as well. Russians launch some on Soyuz rocket. Surely FH is more convenient for big stations.