Catching a Booster!

Starship launched from Boca Chica for the fifth time today.  Seven minutes after leaving the pad, the booster returned.  It lined itself up and hovered in front of Mechazilla (as the tower is affectionately known) and caught.  As Elon Musk has said, the best part is no part.  By this method, the starship booster does not need landing gear, saving an immense amount of weight.

While the booster landed back at the launch pad, starship demonstrated that the heat shield still needs some tweaking, but it was able to make a pinpoint landing in the Indian Ocean nonetheless.

Here are some links to checkout:

1. Scott Manley
2. Everyday Astronaut
3. The Angry Astronaut

Scott Manley provides a summary of the day while the others were live broadcasting the launch.  Great stuff from all of them.

Excitement Guaranteed!

SpaceX finally launched the Starship from their Boca Chica launch facility on April 20th.  Super Heavy booter #7 lifted Starship #24 to an altitude of nearly 40 kilometers before it started tumbling back to earth.  During the liftoff, several of the rocket engines failed, dramatically reducing the lift of the Super Heavy.  Also, the multiple failed engines impacted the booter's ability to steer correctly.  At approximately 4 minutes into the flight, the flight termination system was activated and both booter and starship were blown to bits that fell into the Gulf of Mexico some miles off the coast.  Success?  Absolutely!

By flying the rocket, the engineers can determine what doesn't work as expected by looking at the results.  This test flight provides a huge number of issues that can now be tackled.  I suspect the number one problem is the near destruction of the launch pad.  The amount of debris that flew in all directions - doubtless including into several of the failed engines - inflicted considerable damage to the launch site.  This is not ideal for rapid reuse.  A flame trench looks like a necessity.  Such will require massive redesign of the site.  A second test in 'a few months' appears unlikely to me.  This is a longstanding problem; it seems that every launch has been followed by a new layer of concrete.

The Starship will have to liftoff from the moon or Mars without the benefit of a flame trench, which is why SpaceX has pursued the current path.  Of course, Starship doesn't have anywhere near the thrust of a Super Heavy, so perhaps that can work with only 3 engines.  Not so for 33 engines.

How are the oil platforms that SpaceX purchased coming along?  The ocean should make for a fine flame trench.

Starship Grounded

The FAA had initially planned to finish its Environmental Assessment on December 31st.  Nevermind.  It is now scheduled to finish on February 28.  Of course, government bureaucracies are always slow, but one wonders how the Boca Chica site was approved 7 years ago for rocket launches but now needs more studies to approve rocket launches.  Huh?  Or is this payback?  Has Senator Warren contacted the FAA and put some pressure on this freeloader who mocker her on Twitter?  Or, now that his latest lawsuit against SpaceX was dismissed, has Jeff Bezos lobbied for a new delay so he can make up some ground with his New Glenn rocket?  Whatever the case, it is sad to see that progress and innovation are being slowed by government.  I can guarantee that China is not putting roadblocks in front of its space program.  Heck, the Chinese have boosters falling on remote villages almost every launch.

We are in a space race to see who will dominate: the China or the West?  China understands the stakes.  Apparently, the US government does not.

Captain Kirk Boldly Goes to Space

William Shatner took a flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket this morning, ending Wally Funk's brief tenure as the oldest person to go to space; Funk is 82 and Shatner is 90.  Combined with last month's civilian crew of the Inspiration 4 on a SpaceX Dragon and the current Russian film crew on the International Space Station, it is clear that access to space is expanding rapidly.  As with many innovations, the wealthy are the first to enjoy the new technology.  Soon, prices will drop and allow more access to space.  Whereas I tell my kids that there were no iPads when I was a kid, they will tell their kids that there were no space hotels when they were kids.

Then It Exploded!

SpaceX launched their latest rocket today in Boca Chica, Texas.  Starship SN10's launch window started at 9 AM this morning but didn't get off the ground until just after 5 PM.  Like SN8 and SN9, it climbed into the sky with all three engines firing.  After a couple of minutes, an engine cut out.  This is normal.  A minute or so later, another engine cut out.  When the rocket reached 10 kilometers in altitude, the final engine cut off, the ship reoriented itself to horizontal, and plummeted earthward.  At 6 minutes, all three engines fired and brought the ship vertical for a landing.  Throttling back to one engine, the ship landed on the pad in exactly the way that neither SN8 nor SN9 had.  Success!  Amazing!

Several minutes later, the starship detonated!  That blast appeared to center around the engines and launched the ship back into the air before it crashed horizontally onto the pad amid the flames of the explosion.  Well, it just wouldn't be a starship landing if there wasn't a massive explosion at the end.  Maybe SN11 will not only land vertically but also not explode.  That is the next milestone.  Not exploding is an important feature for rockets.

The Leaning Rocket of Boca Chica

SpaceX has successfully flown the SN5 Starship.  As the engine was not in the center of the cylinder, the ship leaned as it took flight and hovered in the air before landing a short distance from last year's flying wonder, the Star Hopper.  Impressive stuff.  Here is a clip of the brief but historic flight.  Can the Starship be ready in its final form by the next Mars launch window?  It will be exciting to find out.

Splashdown

The Endeavor has landed in the Gulf of Mexico, completing the Demo-2 mission.  The US has a new spacecraft in the rotation.  Like the shuttle, there are a lot of reusable parts to reduce costs.  The shuttle had a 30 year run (1981 to 2011) with 135 launches, which averages a flight every 81 days.  Impressive when you consider the 2 year hiatus after each disaster.  The average cost per astronaut on the shuttle was $170 million while the Dragon comes in at a comparatively cheap $55 million per astronaut. Triple the astronauts and $5 million in savings for the same funding. Better still, now that we don't need to hitch a ride on the Russian Soyuz for $80 million per astronaut, we deny Putin another source of income.

The Crew-1 mission with 4 astronauts will launch in September and the Crew-2 mission in February. The American space program has returned to manned missions! It's about time.

Back to Space

After a 9 year hiatus, the US is back in business.  Thanks to the launch of the SpaceX Dragon capsule, named Endeavor, the US can stop hitching a ride on Russian rockets to reach the International Space Station.  Since the shuttle was retired, US astronauts have been using Russia's space program as a taxi service for an increasingly expensive fee.  What was a $20 million seat in 2007 had inflated to $81 million by 2016.  That's what monopoly gets you.  The price for SpaceX is going to be $55 million per astronaut, a bargain.

Next up, the SpaceX Starship!  Or maybe something from Blue Origin.  Or maybe Virgin Galactic.  It is the dawning of a golden age in manned spaceflight.

Vintage Space

Recently I discovered Vintage Space hosted by Amy Shira Teitel and I'm surprised how long it took for me to encounter it.  Some years ago, a friend told me that he believed the moon landings were a hoax.  I immediately set to the task of demonstrating that we had landed on the moon.  Many times!  In the process, I became a fan of the US Space Program from the 1960s and early 70s.  I spent a lot of time on the NASA website and created spreadsheets of Space Race that broke down the satellite launches and manned spacecraft from both the US and Russia.  Amazingly, Vintage Space covers exactly that window.  It is all about the Apollo Program, covering the developments that fed into Apollo and all the current advances that are Apollo's progeny.  Amy is an extreme Apollo-phile, which is both good and bad.

 

To the good, between her blog and her YouTube channel, she has a vast encyclopedia of information about the space program and related science topics.  Fascinated with space history, she somehow turned that into a paying gig.  Way to go!

 

To the bad, she is something of a downer when proposed missions don't meet her Apollo achievement bar.  Thus, she is less than excited by the proposed SpaceX repeat of Apollo 8, the 1968 trip around the moon.  Been there, done that.  True, but we haven't been there and done that in 45 years.  A refresher with a new capsule might not be a bad idea.  Yes, she grants that is so but this isn't part of a larger program.  It's just a one off funded by a couple super rich tourists.  This is not advancing space exploration or space science.  She makes an excellent point but humans haven't left Earth orbit in decades and this will get the ball rolling.  She's also less than keen on landing people on Mars as that will suck all the funding from cheaper missions that will better expand human knowledge of space.  Yeah, kind of a downer but that is on her soapbox channel.

 

After watching just a couple of her videos, it became clear that I had only scratched the surface when I did my deep dive into the US Space Program.  Thumbs way up for Vintage Space.

To the Moon!

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris, the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight.  It took him 33 and a half hours to fly the 3,600 miles.  Fifty years later, the Concorde was making the flight same flight in 3.5 hours.

In 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to leave low earth orbit and orbit the moon.  Interestingly, Lindbergh was present at the launch to wish them well.  The mission was an epic achievement that was eclipsed only a few months later when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in July 1969.  The last time a manned spacecraft circled the moon was in 1972.

SpaceX proposes to send two civilians around the moon next year, repeating the historic Apollo 8 mission nearly 50 years after it was first accomplished.  Will the Dragon space capsule be as far advanced from the Apollo 8 command module as the Concorde was to the Spirit of St. Louis?  Will Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, or Bill Anders - all still living and well into their 80s - be present for a repeat of their mission?  I hope so.

To the Edge of Space and Back

Just watched part of today's launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Spaceport in California.  The rocket launched, dumped the 2nd stage and the package into low earth orbit, then turned around and landed on a ship in the ocean with amazing accuracy.  Watching the first stage descend and land was impressive.  With reusable rockets, the cost of getting into space is dropping.  With Russia and China both proposing ambitious space projects, a new space age is beginning.

Check out the video on YouTube.  The rocket launches just before the 20 minute mark and stage 1 sticks the landing around the 26 minute mark.

Monkeys to Mars

The Russians are training an elite team of rhesus monkeys to travel to the red planet and land sometime in 2017.  And so began the Planet of the Monkeys!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3291456/Monkeys-heading-MARS-Russian-scientists-training-macaques-solve-puzzles-travel-space-2017.html

I think it is laughable that it is 'unclear' if the monkeys will return.  Duh!  Of course the monkeys won't be returning.  The Russians weren't too concerned about Laika, the first dog in space.  Heck, the Russians lost several cosmonauts during the Space Race thanks to their comparatively lax safety standards.  Best case scenario is that one or two of the monkeys remain on an orbiter while the others land on Mars.  The ones who land are there to stay.  Those on the orbiter might make a return trip to determine the requirements of such a trip.  The logistics of keeping the monkeys alive and well for a trip to and from Mars seem daunting.  Will they be trained not to throw poop on the control panel?

 

We've landed probes and rovers on Mars and have had orbiters map Mars.  The next logical step is getting living creatures there.  The Russians have no experience beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), so this is more necessary for them than for the US.  Still, the Russians are planning a big space program while NASA can't even get its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) without hitching a ride on a Russian Soyuz.

 

I went to the Houston Space Center several years ago and saw amazing things and heard about impressive plans.  That was five years ago.  Five years after Kennedy called for America to put a man on the moon, we had completed Project Mercury and were wrapping up Gemini.  Today, we don't even have a vessel for our astronauts to fly.  The closest thing is the SpaceX Dragon which is currently delivering supplies to the ISS.  Yes, we can't get monkeys in space but the Russians are going to send some to Mars.  Who won the Space Race?  Who won the Cold War?

 

Obama Success

Yes, Obama has had a success and I had thought it was a massive blunder at the time.  I vented my irritation at the President in a blog post.  However, events have come to pass that show great promise at lower cost.  No, not Obamacare but space exploration.

When NASA's Constellation Project was slashed so the president could expand the food stamp program and his doomed Stimulus, I was aghast.  The US had space superiority and now we were hitching rides on Russian Soyuz capsules.  The US space program looked to be a casualty of Obama's spending priorities.  As it happens, the private space companies are making leaps and bounds.  SpaceX is the standout with its Falcon rocket and Dragon space capsule; SpaceX is running resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and will soon be able to shuttle astronauts for a fraction of the price of the space shuttles.  Orbital Science Corporation (OSC) is a big player in satellites but is aiming to also resupply the ISS with its Cygnus spacecraft.

What is truly funny about this is it fits what I have long said about most issues: get the government out and the prices will drop and more will get accomplished.  How did I end up on the wrong side of this argument?  Mostly, it is because space is still a government domain.  Even all this private activity is funded through government contracts.  Getting into space and bringing back something of value is still a ways off.  This is why space tourism is likely to be the first moneymaker for private companies (e.g. Virgin Galactic).  Eventually, we'll see mining operations on the moon and then elsewhere but that is still beyond the market.  But not for long.

The Mars One project has a hundred thousand volunteers to migrate to the red planet in 2023.  It would be a one way trip and yet there are plenty of applicants.  Even the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, plans to die on Mars.

Here is the interesting point: Obama's success is a case where he defunded a government agency and let the private market take over.  This is precisely the opposite of what he has done with health care, the car companies, banks, mortgages, student loans, etc.  While all of these are seeing rising costs, NASA is seeing a drop in the price of resupply missions.  Perhaps the president could learn from this.

Neil Armstrong, RIP

The first man to set foot on the moon has died.  Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in July of 1969 when I was 2 years old and Nixon was 6 months into his first term.  The last moon landing took place in December of 1972 when I was 5 and Nixon was finishing his first term.  No one has gone beyond low earth orbit since then.

President George W. Bush proposed to go to Mars and the Constellation program was born.  The plan was to return to capsules - like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo - when the shuttle was retired.  We would return to the moon as a way station to Mars.  In the wake of the financial panic of 2008 and the funding issues of government, Obama canceled Constellation in 2010.  Rather than the moon, we could perhaps try for an asteroid.  Much as I admire cutting government budgets, it is hard to swallow when the President found nearly a trillion dollars for his failed stimulus and has run trillion dollar deficits every year he has been President.  NASA's budget is around $20 billion a year, a pittance.

I have often said that government does not invest but, in the case of NASA, I may be wrong.  The technological achievements of the space program brought a great many new products to the consumer, Tang being the least of them.  Certainly, NASA has more long term benefits than food stamps ($71 billion) or Ethanol subsidies ($6 billion).

Neil Armstrong and many other astronauts from the Golden Age of the US Space Program spoke out in opposition to Obama's plan to dump Constellation.  Armstrong, who became something of a recluse after he left NASA, was a rarity on the national stage so his comments on this had added weight.  Nonetheless, Constellation was ended.

 

The US had unquestioned dominance in space and it has been abandoned.  SpaceX and its Dragon may provide another means to get to the International Space Station but the moon and Mars are unlikely in the near future.  Whereas Columbus was followed by the likes of Drake, Magellan, and Cook, Armstrong and the Apollo astronauts have seen 40 years of nothing.  The giants of the US Space Program are dying and there is no one to replace them.

Catch a Dragon by the Tail

The US is back in space.  SpaceX, a private space agency, launched the Dragon capsule this week on a Falcon rocket.  Today, the capsule intercepted the International Space Station (ISS) and docked.  Less than a year after the Shuttle was retired, NASA has an alternative route to space.  Dragon is not expected to transport crew until 2016, so it is just an unmanned resupply vessel for the time being. Thus, US Astronauts must still use the Soyuz at $63 million a flight thanks to the Russian monopoly on manned spaceflight.

Pleased as I am, this is low earth orbit (LEO) stuff but it doesn't touch what we were doing 40 years ago.  SpaceX can be a great competitor for the Russian Soyuz but it's not Apollo.  The Constellation program was supposed to get us back to the moon and beyond but that has been scrapped.  Yes, money is tight but retiring the shuttle (very expensive each launch) and using a private contractor for ISS resupply (much cheaper) should allow for the restart of Constellation.

The entire space program from 1959 to 1973 cost $109 billion (adjusted for inflation for 2010 dollars), roughly an eighth of the 2009 Stimulus.  NASA's current budget is $18 billion a year (0.5% of the federal budget), which is less than the Department of Energy.  DOE has done a great job, tossing taxpayer dollars into wonderful 'investments' like Solyndra (bankrupt), NRG Energy (Bankrupt), and Abound Solar (laying off workers).  Or how about the Department of Homeland Security, which has a $55 billion budget.  I would be fine with abolishing that department altogether - especially TSA.  Use half the cash for deficit reduction and the rest for NASA, provided NASA returns to space exploration and drops the Muslim outreach.

SpaceX to the International Space Station

SpaceX, the private space transport company, is going to the space station. Having won a contract from NASA to resupply the space station, SpaceX is sending an unmanned Dragon spacecraft on its first mission to do so. In December of 2010, the Dragon was successfully launched into orbit and returned to earth. This time, if all goes well, it will dock with the space station and deliver food and equipment. In the near future, it could become a competitor to the Russian Soyuz capsule that now has a monopoly on ferrying astronauts to and from the space station. America might get back in space, thanks to a private firm. The SpaceX website is great fun for the space enthusiast.

http://www.spacex.com/

The Dragon is an impressive craft, designed to transport up to 7 astronauts. It also has integrated rockets that can bring it to a safe landing in case of emergency, an improvement over the Launch Escape System of Apollo. It is strange to see a return to capsules after decades of shuttle launches. However, the capsule is both cheaper and safer, which might provide for a more robust space program at much lower cost. Let us hope.