[Keith_McClary]

Here's something I wonder -- why is this even getting so much coverage, that's unusual, there have been rocket failures before. I think it's because the pics are so spectacular, and "classified encryption" something somewhere in the water or on the beach ...

Strange that there would be "classified" stuff going to the International Space Station. It is supposed to be purely scientific, non-military. I can't find any comment on that.

[Sixstrings]

Since we're talking about rocket engines, here's some more info on SpaceX engines.

* SpaceX just manufactured their 100th engine.

* The merlin engine has the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any engine in the world -- it's arguably the best rocket engine, in the whole world.

* 80 merlin engines have now been successfully launched, almost twice as many as were flown on the Delta rockets and Atlas rockets (so many merlins have flown because the SpaceX system uses engine clusters, which is good, if one or two engines failed like this orbital thing did then the whole rocket doesn't fail)

* They manufacture four engines per week, and every square inch of spacex stuff is made themselves in the USA, they don't outsource anything

Source:

SPACEX COMPLETES 100TH MERLIN 1D ENGINE



http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/10/16/spacex-completes-100th-merlin-1d-engine

(notice that cluster design, one or two of those engines can blow but it could still get to orbit, that's smart design whereas Orbital was using ONE engine so when a nozzle blew on that then there was no backup. On a spacex rocket, the engine would shut off automatically and the others take over.)

Lastly, SpaceX rockets just look cooler and better. Orbital's rocket looked like a cheap piece of junk, that thing looked like India or Malaysia would be launching it.




The Falcon Heavy will basically be 3 Falcon 9's stuck together, making the biggest rocket since the Apollo Saturn V. It could get payloads to Mars, geo orbits, the largest satellites cargos, anything anyone wants to do.

All at the lowest launch prices in the world. Even Russia is now going to have to lower their prices but they'll still be more expensive. SpaceX is a winner, we went from total reliance on Russia to this startup expanding so fast and beating the whole world on launch cost. This is going to save we the taxpayers a lot of money, too. We don't need to give Boeing-Lockheed $4 billion or whatever for them to make a Mars rocket -- Spacex already has one, and will charge the government a fraction of what ULA charges, and even orbital science with their fail rockets has double the prices.



So -- why keep throwing money at Orbital? They're already getting paid twice as much as SpaceX, for a bad business model with Russian engines and not even made in the USA, this is costing you and me the taxpayer, and their rocket blew up all over the launchpad.

[Tanada]

Actually the Antares rocket uses two engines in its first stage, not one. Russia sold them 36 engines a couple years ago giving them a total capacity of 18 launch stages. Russia only had 150 of these engines in storage and other than the ones they sold to Orbital they sold a dozen to a Japanese company that has also used them for several launches to date. Russian engineers came up with their own stage to use these engines and Putin ordered the remaining 100 engines be reserved for Russia to use on their new launcher. The engines he put the export restriction on over Ukraine sanctions are the one used for the Atlas launcher, not the Orbital/Antares launcher.

Of the 18 first stages Orbital has used up one or two in testing last year, my sources conflict, and they have now used up three doing NASA supply launches. That leaves them with 13 or 14 more to use, 7 of which are already committed to NASA. IOW in a year or two all of their stock of '40 year old' Russian engines will have been used up. BTW Russia got 1.1 Million dollars for each of the 50 engines they exported to the USA/Japan so other than Six the people with money consider them a good deal.

[Sixstrings]

Actually the Antares rocket uses two engines in its first stage, not one. Russia sold them 36 engines a couple years ago giving them a total capacity of 18 launch stages.

Ok, but, if that main engine shuts down then they don't have the capacity to still get to orbit though right?

I've seen interviews with Musk and I think he said up to two engines could fail and it still gets to orbit, and probably even if one exploded. The guy is an obsessive perfectionist engineer and a physicist, he obsesses over every last detail, that's the perfect type to be leading a rocket company. He's another Werner Von Braun and we're lucky he came to America to be an American and do here what he couldn't have done anywhere else in the world.

Musk is just amazing. He didn't even know anything about rockets and rocket engines when he started this. He just had that dream of seeing a man on Mars, he had the money, he risked all his money and then some and almost failed but wound up with a wild success. It was a lot of hard work, and personal pride and determination and risking his own money -- you don't get that from a public company with some bean counter accountant as the CEO.

Russia only had 150 of these engines in storage and other than the ones they sold to Orbital they sold a dozen to a Japanese company that has also used them for several launches to date. Russian engineers came up with their own stage to use these engines and Putin ordered the remaining 100 engines be reserved for Russia to use on their new launcher.

Well.. it's just unwise and foolish and embarassing though Tanada -- the USA -- home of the Saturn V and space shuttle and Apollo missions and Werner Von Braun -- should not be using Russian engines to start with. We should be making our own, and sell engines to the rest of the world, not outsourcing this like it's a plastic iphone and you can just outsource it all to slave labor overseas.

I like SpaceX. They make all their stuff right there in their plant -- employing Americans -- and it's the best quality and they actually save money doing that too, it's how they are able to have such good quality yet the lowest prices. They cut out all the middle men, they do it all themselves, that's honestly the best not just to save costs for them (and we the taxpayer) but also it's the best for quality control.

EDIT: I'll tell ya what, I'm all for "more the merrier" but if we keep throwing money at Orbital Science aren't we just creating another oldschool gravy train contractor?

As if we need another Boeing-Lockheed? Don't they milk we the taxpayer enough as it is? It's their high prices that caused the government to give up and use Russian stuff instead, to start with, and we stopped making engines here in the USA.

Musk is the one doing things differently, *he's proud of having the lowest prices in the world while the rest of the industry charges whatever they think they can get out of someone*. I love a businessman like that. He's not just out to milk the gov on gubmint contracts. He's got his eye on the private market, and being the walmart of space, and beating the whole world on launch costs.

NASA could cut its cost in half using SpaceX rockets, and the air force will save a hell of a lot of money too.

They've just been waiting for enough successful rockets to determine spacex is as good as the old school contractors that charge an arm and a leg. Finally, now, spacex is about to get certified for air force launches.

If one company really is the best, then why not go ahead and pick a winner? Maybe force Boeing-Lockheed to compete and cut their costs in half too while still making a quality product -- and THEN let them come back to the taxpayer for contracts. If you look at the history of space, we've actually done well when we pick one man to lead it all, the best man. We had Werner von Braun. And the Russian space program had someone like that too, I forget his name.

[Withnail]

Actually the Antares rocket uses two engines in its first stage, not one. Russia sold them 36 engines a couple years ago giving them a total capacity of 18 launch stages.

Ok, but, if that main engine shuts down then they don't have the capacity to still get to orbit though right?

Well if you want to waste lots of money having loads of engines on one rocket, go right ahead.

[Sixstrings]

Well if you want to waste lots of money having loads of engines on one rocket, go right ahead.

Oh goodness, you actually don't know what yer talkin' about on this one. But why do you post to me, is it just to disagree with me no matter what the topic is?

Play kerbal space program and you'll learn the different ways of getting something to space.

You can have one big engine. Or, you can make a cluster of smaller engines. It doesn't matter. The game doesn't model part failure, so considering that reality in real life, *a cluster of smaller engines makes a lot of sense*.

It means if one goes, you can design so that hopefully the other equally powerful engines can continue on.

If anything, a production line of good smaller engines is cheaper than trying to make another Saturn V type engine. If you cluster them, it's the same thrust, it's not more expensive -- the smaller engines are cheaper.

That's designing in a safety margin of redundancy, planning for possible failure, and that's very necessary when you're talking about space stuff.

Anyhow withnail, you're apparently not aware that spacex rockets are doing launches for the lowest launch cost in the whole world, so they are not more expensive with their "bunch of engines." They get their cost savings by cutting out all the middlemen, by making everything themselves.

By the way, someone on a KSP forum made a joke pic about the rocket blowing up:



That's the screen in the game you get if you've designed a rocket and it blows up on the pad due to your poor design, lol. Then you can revert back to the assembly building and try again. Funny thing is that real life has worked like that -- the Soviets did iterative design, build it and it blows up and learn from it and go back at it and launch it again and see what happens.

[Sixstrings]

By the way, in the midst of all my flag waving, I do want to point out that Russians have a lot to be proud of but we just should not be buying half century old experimental engines (for the times they were made) out of warehouses.

That's forty year old engines. Forty year old nozzles and parts, and it was probably a nozzle that blew on this antares. It's not worth the risk. Make new engines instead. And we can't even rely on a constant supply of Russian engines anyway, given all that's going on. And we need our own know-how, we need Americans making those rocket engines we use for our space program.

This whole Russian engine and using the soyuz thing was foolish from the start, that was all assuming peace with Russia and Putin threw it all away and trashed it anyway and here we are stuck with ONE COMPANY that had the vision to make its own engines -- and those are the only American engines being made now. It will cost billions of dollars and five years minimum to get Boeing-Lockheed to design a new engine.

Or, we can just use spacex engines, and reward that company for having the foresight our Congress and executive branch did not.

But anyhow -- Russians can be proud, and also Europeans have done a lot lately. Their cassini probe to Saturn's moons was *amazing*. That added so much science, pictures, studying weather on those moons, and landed on Titan.

So more the merrier, I'd love to see the Russians get into space again. I love to see Chinese people so excited about it and wanting to beat us in space -- that's a good kind of nationalism, it's progress, it benefits everyone. And if we won't go back to the moon or to Mars, then I'd rather see the Chinese do it versus it never get done.

I don't give a sh*t, plant the communist red flag up on Mars and I'll watch it on tv and cheer them on -- someone needs to do it, and move mankind forward.

Or, maybe it'll be a spacex flag one day next to the stars and stripes. That's fine too. It was Musk's money, his dream, his hard work. He's got a very American company there, his facilities are here, he's employing people here, they are making all their own stuff, they are not outsourcing or buying Russian parts. Musk is even a bit of a russophobe. He trash talks everyone, the Europeans, the Russians, he wants to outcompete them all. He's pretty cool, we haven't seen a pro-American nationalist industrialist like this in a very long time.

[Subjectivist]

Back in the 1960's NASA decided fewer bigger engines was the better option when developing the Saturn 1 into the Saturn 1B. The first stage of the S1 and S1B both used a cluster of eight engines, but the second stage changed from six engines on the S1 to a single engine on the S1B. It is a trade off situation, more engines is more cushion if something goes wrong gently, like an engine just shuts off. However the more engines you have the more complexity you have and if one of the engines blows up instead of shutting down gently it is liable to damage the engines on either side of it. I looked all this up a long time ago because early on in the Space Shuttle program I watched every launch. As the shuttle went up the ground controller would call out different way points in the flight, including one engine out to still orbit and two engines out for trans Atlantic abort. I even remember one launch where they shut down after main engine ignition because one of the three failed to burn properly.

SpaceX has decided multiple engines is better. I hope they are right, but NASA went the other direction 50 years ago and never looked back.

By the way one of the N-1 launch failures back in the 1960's was because of crossed wires between the controlls and the engines. One of the engines shut down and the computer sent orders for the opposite engine to shut off. Unfortunately the wires were crossed so the wrong engine shut down and the computer sent orders to shut down the engine opposite that one, rinse cycle repeat, until all of the engines were shut down by mistake within a few seconds.

NASA had a similer event happen on a Saturn launch vehical, but in that case only one set of wires was crossed so the wrong engine shut down, but the vehical still made it to orbit. They fixed the issue by making the wires shorter so they could only be connected to the correct engine.

http://astronautix.com

[Subjectivist]

They have not changed the flight schedual yet, if things are figured out in the next two months and the pad is not too badly damaged the next launch will be April 1, 2015.

http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

[Tanada]

SixStrings, found a very informative video you should watch about the Russian engines on the Antares. You might rethink your opinion of Russian technology after you see it.

http://youtu.be/TMbl_ofF3AM

[Sixstrings]

SixStrings, found a very informative video you should watch about the Russian engines on the Antares. You might rethink your opinion of Russian technology after you see it.

http://youtu.be/TMbl_ofF3AM

Thanks for the link, I'll watch it!

But I think I already know about these engines. I don't understand all the engineering but I already saw another documentary on it just because I'm a dork and am fascinated by the old N1 Soviet rocket.

I'll watch your link, but yes from what I recall, those engines were revolutionary for the time. They were actually ahead of their time and that was the problem. I forget the engineering on it, they're first "dual fuel" something or other or something.

The fact remains though -- they are 40 year old engines. That's forty years in a warehouse, having been moved a few times, we don't really know what, that's 40 year old nozzles and all of that. Maybe they're as good as the day the Soviet Union made them, maybe not.

And maybe they were ahead of their time and if we like the technology so much it would be better to recreate it ourselves and do it from scratch.

Anyhow I know there's a cool space story behind those engines, BUT, *fact remains*, the USA shouldn't be using any Russian rocket engines. Tanada, we've got a new cold war on, ok? Putin is going to cut off the supply of engines anyway. And, how pathetic is this, anyway, that we Americans are not making our own darn rocket engines anymore?

It was FOOLISH -- for national security, relying on all these Russian engines. I don't care if they were French or British engines we still should be making our own.

Let's outsource iphones, but not our national security.

Let the Russians make cool Russian engines and let us make cool American engines to compete with them.

Spacex is better, they have some company pride going on there, pride in craftsmanship not just slapping Russian engines onto Ukrainian stages and now their CEO is saying "well, if it's a problem with the Russian engines, we may look at transitioning to other engines earlier than we planned." Well, duh.

Look at all this mess it caused, contractors should be doing their job and saving us money, now we've got to screw around with the NTSB and FAA and NASA doing accident investigations.

Spacex is better, they make their own engines, and looks like they may be the best engines in the world right now anyway.

[Sixstrings]

I'll watch this thing Tanada.

Thing is, though.. that N1 rocket was ahead of its time and they never did launch it and they never got to the moon, we did.

And I know the Soviets had a lot of cool space stuff, but you know, the Soviets had a lot of horrible catastrophes and fireballs in Kazakstan too. And now we've had a fireball in Virginia using the same Soviet engines.

These engines are interesting, but it's experimental, if we want to learn about the engines then it should be a test program that the military is funding. Don't just stick an old Soviet engine on there and say it's some interesting technology we never knew about -- use the engines for R&D and then make your own version of it, IF it still makes sense to use that tech.

SpaceX has a better system. A cluster of smaller engines. If two fail the others continue on. That's better than one cool Soviet engine that may or may not blow up on the pad, or if it fails in flight there are no backups. And there's nobody in the Orbital Sci mission control that knows wtf happened, because they did not make the engine. At a spacex launch you've got the people that made the engine, right there.

And those are soviet engines! Russia doesn't even have the tech to use them, Russia is not even making them now. You can't get more of them anyway. So why use them to start with. Orbital Science is supposed to be launching reliable payloads, not doing research on old Soviet techs using paying customers' money to do it and then they lose the whole payload and somebody could have got killed.

[Sixstrings]

And what about quality control.

How can you trust a 40 year old Soviet engine?

Everyone that made it is DEAD or old, now, and in Russia anyway.

We have no idea about the quality control of the communist plants making all the parts, etc. etc. etc., it was all 40 years ago, it's just insane to use these engines.

Edit: watching your video link, they say the different fuel tech is "a potentially explosive process but can boost thrust by 25%," well yeah we found out it's "explosive" didn't we.

Look, even the shuttle turned out to be too dangerous, actually. Let's not go back in time and try to make the Soviet lunar program work. Wtf. They were only making these engines back then because they couldn't make the big engines we could. They were knowingly taking risks with those engines, while we didn't need to take that risk back then and we sure as hell don't in 2014.

Our tech was superior, back then, so why are we using their fail tech from back then? Makes no sense. We got to the moon, they did not, why adopt the soviet program now.

And again -- if you just want R&D then let DARPA or the air force fund it and make our own rocket like that from scratch and launch a bunch of them in *tests* of them and make sure the damn thing works before you get everyone standing there on Virginia beach to see a rocket launch and all the kids' science programs blow up all over the beach, and NASA lost something classified in the launch too, and someone could have gotten killed in that fireball.

The whole thing is outrageous. Orbital had TEST FAILURES with these Soviet rockets a few months ago did they not? Using old Soviet stuff is not the future, using new Russian stuff isn't the future either because Putin will cut us off anyway -- spacex making a new engine that's new tech, that's the future.

EDIT: the 1960 "revolutionary" soviet tech is called "closed cycle technology," something having to do with the fuel. Well guess what. It's more dangerous. We don't need it, no thank you.

[Subjectivist]

Six dude, you need to take a breath and chill. Dumping all our eggs in the basket you are a fanboy of is not the solution.

We need a robust set of competing companies like we had in the 1960's, not one favored monopoly that will get all the money and make all the choices. That path leads to costly accidents like the Challenger in 1986. Because we only had one possible launch system to use we were grounded for years, twice! Lets not repeat the mistakes of the recent past, okay?

[Sixstrings]

Six dude, you need to take a breath and chill. Dumping all our eggs in the basket you are a fanboy of is not the solution.

We need a robust set of competing companies like we had in the 1960's, not one favored monopoly that will get all the money and make all the choices. That path leads to costly accidents like the Challenger in 1986. Because we only had one possible launch system to use we were grounded for years, twice! Lets not repeat the mistakes of the recent past, okay?

Fair enough, but agree with me about the Russian rocket engines anyhow? That our contractors should be using American-made engines?

And in the case of these startups, what you need is government-private partnerships with NASA giving them the freedom to see what they can come up with that's new and different BUT also give them NASA's knowhow and support.

When it comes to launching PEOPLE into space though, that's a safety issue, and Virgin Galactic was talking about taking passengers as early as 2015 now I guess they have a fault with their engine design.

NASA's already picked just TWO for launching humans into space, ULA and spacex.

If people wanted to fly on Virgin Galactic that's their choice but it's also a safety issue here, it has to be safe, this is like an airplane or anything else if you're transporting the public.

My point is -- when it comes down to launching PEOPLE into space, you do have to pick some winners there, you can't have a bunch of startups launching people on rockets.

[Keith_McClary]

And what about quality control.

How can you trust a 40 year old Soviet engine?

Careful, some folks here drive vehicles that old.

[Withnail]

I just hope Space X doesn't crash next or Six $ will have a nervous breakdown.

Newsflash - Americans are launching these things that are crashing.

You don't get to blame Russia.

[Sixstrings]

Careful, some folks here drive vehicles that old.

But I'm guessing you're not driving a 40 year old Russian car.

[Tanada]

Six seems how you asked here is my preference. If it were up to me the Atlas and the Antares builders would have licensed the Russian engine designs and built our own copies of them from brand new American materials, but that was not how things worked out. In the old days we used to buy production license agreements from foreign countries/companies when they came up with a machine that was better than anything we had. We used to do that with aircraft and ships, even in the 1980's we bought the right to produce a European minesweeper design for the US Navy because it was a good efficient design. Then we built the ships to the design here. It worked the other way too, we sold South Korea and Japan designs to build their own F-16 fighter aircraft for example instead of just demanding they buy planes we built here.

Somewhere along the way we stopped being willing to do that preferring to buy things built off shore. I think that is a big mistake, but I don't know how to fix it. The age of the engines is irrelevant, Aerojet/Rocketdyne tested them and proved they were better than any existing American design. They should have bought a license and built brand new ones, but the ones in storage were a lot cheaper than tooling up an American factory so that is the route they took.

[Withnail]

Careful, some folks here drive vehicles that old.

But I'm guessing you're not driving a 40 year old Russian car.

This Soviet T-34 was pulled out of a bog after 64 years and is now running again.