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Opinions On Falcon Loss Aftermath Are All Over The Map

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 30, 2015
Filed under
Opinions On Falcon Loss Aftermath Are All Over The Map

Orbital May Benefit From SpaceX’s Fiery Rocket Fail, Cowen Says, Bloomberg
“SpaceX’s explosive mission failure may benefit Orbital ATK Inc. as the two compete for future contracts to supply the International Space Station, according to Cowen & Co.”
Analyst: Rocket Failure Unlikely To Hurt SpaceX, Forbes
“The launch failure by itself is not much of an issue,” Ostrove told me. “Most people in the industry understand that launching rockets into space is really difficult and occasional failures are just the price of conducting launches. Overall, SpaceX has a pretty strong record of success (about 95%) with the Falcon 9.”
McCain: Pentagon shouldn’t rely on Russian rocket engines despite SpaceX explosion, The Hill
“Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) defended SpaceX on Monday after its Falcon 9 rocket exploded two minutes after a launch over the weekend. “I am confident that the that this minor setback will in no way impede the future success of SpaceX and its ability to support U.S. national security space missions,” he said in a statement, noting the company has previously launched seven successful trips.”
Will SpaceX explosion impact Air Force launch competitions?, Defense Systems
“The explosion Sunday of a Space X Falcon 9 rocket shortly after liftoff directly affected NASA and a resupply mission to the International Space Station, but its aftershocks could affect the military’s plans for future launches of its spy satellites.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

58 responses to “Opinions On Falcon Loss Aftermath Are All Over The Map”

  1. Odyssey2020 says:
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    Here’s a typical lead-in for CNN, NBC News, etc: “SpaceX crashes an unmanned rocket over the Atlantic ocean, 60 million people at risk!”

    • Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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      Fox News: “Obama rocket threatens 100 million East Coast liberals with failed West Coast liberal policy appeasement.”

      • Paul451 says:
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        Bizarrely, the Fox-science article was one of the few reasonably accurate and non-hysterical ones.

  2. Daniel Woodard says:
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    The failure after more than a dozen successful launches suggests a problem in quality control rather than design per se. Quality control depends on inspection and testing, but adequate inspection of composite overwrap pressure vessels (COPVs) is difficult at best. In this case the COPVs are high pressure gaseous helium tanks mounted inside the liquid oxygen tank. This exposes the composite overwrap directly to liquid oxygen. Proper fabrication is critical to prevent LOX from permeating into the composite material, possibly causing delamination and failure, particularly if the tank was subject to previous thermal cycles. This isn’t the only cause of composite pressure vessel failure, but it has happened before. NSF posting notes unconfirmed report that SpaceX recently went from vendor purchase to inhouse fabrication of COPVs. This is a reasonable strategy, but adds the additional challange of ensuring adequate inhouse experience and craftsmanship. Another posting notes that the access hatch at the apex of the LOX tank may serve as a burst diaphram. This would explain the symmetrical venting of the LOX.
    Although it may take more than a month to test a new QC procedure for the COPVs and LOX tanks, possibly including pressure tests while submerged in LOX and/or CT of the COPV, it should be possible and the program should be back on track soon.

    Kudos to the range safety officer for not commanding destruct as long as the vehicle was under control and headed east.

    • Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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      Excellent insight, Daniel.

    • EtOH says:
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      Good analysis, although it’s might still be a design issue if it is related to a variable environmental condition (e.g. humidity)

    • Spacetech says:
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      Yep, QC issues start to pop up when you constantly require your employees to work 60hrs per week or more non stop.

      • Todd Austin says:
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        And in the case of highly-specialized skills, you need a workforce that stays around. You can’t have skilled craftspeople walking out the door on a routine basis.

    • Saturn1300 says:
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      I thought they just used compressed helium gas. This system saves weight or not enough helium. Of course it is in the nitrogen to keep it cool. The temp difference though will still cause evaporation and high pressure. Do they pressure regulate the helium or is the tank suppose to take the pressure? The LOX tank can be seen venting heavy. The helium tank was leaking. Eventually the rapid evaporation of the liquid helium caused the pressure regulator not to be able to handle the much larger volume. I sure wish they could use compressed gas.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        They do use compressed gaseous helium. The helium tanks are placed inside the LOX tank because, although it is still a gas, its volme decreases with temperature. Helium at 70K has only about one forth the volume of helium at room temperature, so the tanks can be much smaller although the actual mass of the helium is unchanged. Nitrogen (mol wt=28) would weigh 14 times as much as helium for the same volume. Of course the helium will be expensive, until SX figures how to recover the stage.

        • Saturn1300 says:
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          Of course I meant to have a compressed helium tank outside of the LOX tank. The helium must be used to keep the kerosene from exploding. Also to keep the pressure steady as altitude increases. The turbo pump is strong, it should not need much pressure. I wonder what the pressure is. Since the outlet is smaller than the surface area of the kerosene it might multiply the pressure the way hydraulics do. Thanks for saying it is densified, rather than liquid. I thought that they pump in liquid helium and the nitrogen keeps it cool enough, so that all of the liquid does not boil off till the end of the burn. Still think the outlets from regulator was small enough, with the extra volume to increase pressure to the burst point.

  3. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    Until an exact (or as exact as circumstances allow) cause for this failure is know, any attempts to learn lessons is premature. Let us wait and see.

    I’ll say this much – SpaceX has simply had too many delays that seem to have been caused by component failures or ‘yellow line’ close-to-tolerance readings during hotfire tests or even pre-launch diagnostics. Based on this, it is my own personal concern that, maybe, the company could afford to tighten up quality control at Hawthorne and maybe, just maybe, be willing to increase costs in order to add a few more percentage points of tolerance margin to their engineering.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      Another critical factor, particularly in composite fabrication, is craftsmanship, i.e. doing every job precisely even if no one is going to recheck it. That craftsmanship, on the part of hundreds of technicians and engineers, was critical in keeping the Shuttle flying.

      • Saturn1300 says:
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        ATk uses machine layup. Not people. Don’t know if SpaceX does.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          Everyone uses machine layup nowadays. Building a rocket that will keep you alive still depends on judgement, experience, and craftsmanship.

    • John Thomas says:
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      That was a concern of mine before, the increased launch rate would strain their QA. We still need to wait for the cause before laying blame. Even the larger rocket companies have failures.

      • Yale S says:
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        Which rocket companies are significantly larger in the US?

        • John Thomas says:
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          Boeing, LM, ULA

          • Yale S says:
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            ULA is the part of LM and Boeing that provides launch vehicle services. It employs somewhere around 3600. SpaceX seems to employ about 4K.
            Boeing and LM are large but not in current LVs. You can count some of them when SLS finally launches. I would have to look up combined workforce for orbital-atk, who is doing LVs.

          • John Thomas says:
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            As has repeatedly been pointed out, Boeing, LM and ULA rockets are more expensive than SpaceX. That higher cost is mostly from them having more people working the program. SpaceX makes most/all of the rocket themselves while the others use subcontractors. I suggest including the subcontractors in your labor estimate since they are part of the workforce.

          • Yale S says:
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            That is a valid, but not complete differentiator in cost. SpaceX is by design vertically integrated (wisely) – the exact opposite model from Orbital sciences which is essentially a systems integrator.
            The question is how far back do you go? Sheet aluminum fabrication? electronics? It gets a bit jello-y (to create a term).

            Other issues are unionization penetration, local COL, local incentives, etc.
            But mostly it is how they do business, ULA has just s-canned 1/3 of its upper management as a key step in reforming itself into a successful company.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            SpaceX does buy some components such as turbine wheels from outside suppliers. Until recently they apparently purchased the helium COPVs from an outside supplier.

          • Yale S says:
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            Valves bought from 3rd parties have been particularly vexing for SpaceX. SpaceX had a problem with a vendor swapping parts within a valve. Same performance specs, but different parts. Turned out that it wasn’t really equivalent.
            SpaceX henceforth required zero substitution. What they order is what they get.

            http://www.universetoday.co

  4. John Adley says:
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    Let’s see: Bloomberg wants a fight, Forbes plays the cheerleader of spacex as always, McCain still goes to Sarah Palin’s bedroom window to watch Russia, and defense is rooting for its old friend by casting doubts on the new guy…. Great opinions!

  5. Michael Mahar says:
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    I think that it is way too premature to even guess what the cause of the crash is. Certainly with only the launch video and Musk’s two line tweet to go on.
    The fix could be anywhere from “Set the torque on a hose coupling to 4 instead of 3” to “The oxygen tank is fundamentally flawed and will have to be redesigned.”
    Launching rockets seems to be a lot like unprotected sex. Just because nothing bad happened the first dozen times you try it doesn’t mean that it won’t the next time.
    There are two ways to improve the safety and reliability of a system.
    1) Be very very careful and inspect and document everything that you do.
    2) Use a design that is inherently more reliable. Jet engines are two orders of magnitude more reliable than large piston engines, for example.
    Aviation and space uses both of approaches.

  6. savuporo says:
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    ULA PR department could not have asked for a better gift. Obviously nobody is going to cheer over a failed launch, but ULAs unbroken string of successes is going to be stressed a lot over the next months.

    Oh, by the way, with every cartwheeling Proton there is at least one mention of amerikkan spies sabotaging it in Russian press. Has anyone blamed North Korea on this yet ?

    • Paul451 says:
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      with every cartwheeling Proton there is at least one mention of amerikkan spies sabotaging it in Russian press. Has anyone blamed North Korea on this yet ?

      I won’t link to it, I refuse to link to it, but honest to god there are conspiracy sites already talking about ULA (or a parent) using military lasers to bring down the CRS-7 flight. (The plumes of vapour before the big eruption are the entry/exit holes of the laser…. etc.)

  7. Spacenut says:
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    It’s interesting reading the various theories as to what went wrong going round but until Space X has analyzed all the telemetry it’s all just conjecture, could it be a Quality control issue, maybe but QC is always a balancing act between ensuring quality and fiscal and schedule reality, their procedure may need tweaking to cover something that hasn’t really been considered but it doesn’t need a knee jerk reaction that increases costs and timescales exponentially to test for something that may be a one in a million fluke. Could it be a design flaw, again a possibility but then at what point does an acceptable safety margin become a design flaw, there have been a number of successful F9 flights, it may be that the same design would go another 500 flights without problem. In the end the only people that can make those decisions are the Space X team with the full facts at hand but even then launching rockets will always be a risky business with a million things that could go wrong.and no amount of testing or design improvements will eliminate the risks completely.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I wonder about that- will rocket launching always be inherently risky with the very high failure rates that we have seen? Over the past few years, both very new (SX) and very old (Proton) rockets have blown up or failed.

      Failure rates that approach the enviable aviation industry seem so far away.

      Is complexity an underlying issue? Is it THE issue? And even if it is, at some point in the future won’t the trial and error stage that we are currently slogging through will come to an end with reliable resolutions hard-born of experience? Or not?

      So the question: at what point will experience lead us to truly reliable rockets? Is it even possible? And if not, why not?

      • Spacenut says:
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        I think launching rockets is always going to have a strong element of risk, experience may help to understand and better anticipate the problems that may occur and therefore design with a higher safety margin, however rockets are simply on another level way above aviation not just in complexity but in terms of what you need to achieve the desired goal, the incredible speeds you need to accelerate the vehicle to orbit require burning tonnes of fuel per second with liquid oxygen making a jet engine look like a house fan by comparison. the turbo pumps required to pump those amounts of fuel and oxidizer are working under incredible stresses and that will always be the case with chemical rockets so I think for the foreseeable future rocket launches will always be prone to spectacular and catastrophic failure all we can really do is try to design to make manned flights that suffer these failures as survivable as possible.

        • Saturn1300 says:
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          Pressure fed engines could eliminate turbo pumps. It has been done. It would take much stronger tanks. May use 2000psi. Solids have a lot less to go wrong and can do the job. Costs I am not sure. Reduction in risk may offset and insurance may be less.

          • Spacenut says:
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            Yeah, both pressure fed systems and Solids are probably a lot less complex than turbo pump but I think all have their own inherent risks and problems, while I am no rocket engineer I can remember some of the issues that needed to be solved to use the shuttle SRB for the Ares 1, trying to vector the exhaust gas flow well enough for control when you didn’t have the shuttle main engines to help was one difficulty and the extreme forces the cargo (including human) could be subject to without the damping effect of the ET. was another, I’m not saying that these problems would have been show stoppers or would have posed any threat once sorted nor am I saying any system would be better than the other (I don’t know nearly enough to make a judgement on that) but that what ever system you chose to launch with it has it’s own inherent problems and risks as well as it’s good points.

          • DTARS says:
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            The solution is the rail gun/hyperloop and a mountain.

            No first stage needed

            Heinlein

          • Spacenut says:
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            Another interesting idea, probably also has it’s own issues,but one of the best points I can see of this system is your “Fuel” stays firmly rooted to the ground at least until you are in free flight, but then just take it a stage further and you are into space elevator territory.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            A likely cause of this incident was the failure of a composite pressure vessel with no moving parts. Although pump-fed fuel systems are complex they can be tested before flight. It is unclear if the second stage was hot-fired before stacking.

          • Spacenut says:
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            while you obviously know a lot more than I do about composite pressure vessels, at the moment I don’t think anything can be called a “likely cause” only a “possible cause” As I have said before without access to the full telemetry and a whole load of other data everything is just pure conjecture.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            I agree, it is a possible cause. But Musk did describe a pressure spike that apparently exceeded the LOX tank burst pressure.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          A modern jet airliner is every bit as complex as (and similar in cost to) a launch vehicle, and high pressure turbine blades in a modern jet are running at temperatures and stresses that are close to the theoretical limit. The entire aircraft requires careful manufacturing, inspection, testing, and redesign if failures occur. High reliability, high performance, and low cost can all be achieved simultaneously, but it requires vision, skill, judgement, and a lot of hard work.

          • Spacenut says:
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            I agree a modern jet airliner is of similar complexity to a launch vehicle and generally agree with everything else you state, however I think there will always be a far greater risk of catastrophic failure with a launch vehicle than an airliner regardless of how careful manufacturing, inspection and testing is, what you are asking a launch vehicle to do in a couple of minutes is the same as you are asking an airliner to do in a couple of years and with an airliner you can inspect and test as you go. I guess it’s kind of similar to comparing a family saloon to a formula 1 racing car.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            a family saloon? Oh, you mean a car, not a bar.

          • Spacenut says:
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            Yep queens English! (Sedan for those who spell colour color!) 🙂

      • Yale S says:
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        I would think that an all solids with an upgraded V2/Scud/Redstone steering vanes thrust vectoring would make a pretty reliable rocket. (not necessarily for people)

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          Exhaust vanes decrease thrust significantly even when no steering input is needed. The Orion LAS uses ducts from the engine to auxiliary steering jets, carrying hot exhaust gas with the flow controlled by gate valves.

          Gimbled nozzles for liquid fuel rockets are relatively simple.

          • Yale S says:
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            Yes vanes cause about a 5% hit. If you’re looking for simple reliability, then its worth the cost.
            It, of course, would need to be compared with other schemes like the ducting you describe for relative reliability. The vanes do have an vast history, plus the mechanism is essentially out of the exhaust stream except for the actual vanes (not that they haven’t sometimes broke).

            http://afspacemuseum.org/di

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            The vanes were, IIRC, the inspiration of Werner von Braun on the V2. I agree they are a simple solution, however only practical in applications where efficiency is not critical. The question of solid vs liquid propellant is a separate one, however, and for liquid propulsion the gimbaled engine mount, although it lacks roll control in single-engine stages, is simpler, has greater efficiency, greater control authority, and no components exposed to the exhaust stream.

            For large solids TVC using a steerable nozzle is possible (Shuttle SRB) but cold liquid injection is much simpler (Titan IV). I feel the primary argument against large solids for human launch is not reliability per se but rather the surprisingly high impact on total cost of ground processing due to the mass and hazardous nature of the motors/segments and specialized facilities required, and the low potential for reuse.

          • Yale S says:
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            I am not sure if von Braun specifically was the designer of the exhaust stream jet vanes, but it was a key feature from at least the V2 and down thru the US and Russian launch systems, and is still in widespread use, including the military missiles like the Scud and Shahab and launchers like the Iranian rockets.

            And recall, the question behind this thread was not cost, efficiency or reusability.
            Michael was asking whether a truly reliable launcher is possible.
            And I posit, with its minimal plumbing, its simple ignite and then hands-off burn, rudimentary 80 year old thrust vectoring which does not compromise the engine integrity, etc., fits the bill.
            Is it what one actually put in production? Maybe not.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            If you didn’t know, one of the most recent builds of the Sidewinder missile, the AIM-9X (entered service in 2003), has exhaust vanes. They reduced the size of the exterior aerodynamic controls so they can fit the missile into internal weapons bays. A bonus of the reduced size of the fins is an increase in the missile’s speed and range (due to reduced external drag), and adding the exhaust vanes also allows for improved maneuverability. It’s faster, more agile, and has a longer range than the AIM-9M, with the same rocket motor.

            http://www.b-domke.de/Aviat

          • Yale S says:
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            Didn’t know that! Cool.

            Here is a North Korean Nodong:

            http://allthingsnuclear.org

            http://www.wired.com/images

            Irania Safir Satellite launcher:
            http://www.armscontrolwonk….

            Iraqi Scud:

            http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6

            Iranian Shahab:
            http://www.b14643.de/Spacer

            US Redstone:
            http://afspacemuseum.org/di

            V2
            http://www.v2rocket.com/sta

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Excellent point, however I’m even more impressed by the Orion LAS doing a 180 heading change and flying backward when it deploys the chutes.

  8. Saturn1300 says:
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    Take a look at the ATK 2 segment motor. Thrust is 1,497,451lbs.-the weight 715,659lbs. So 781,892lbs for 2or3 upperstages and cargo. They have a complete upper stage system available. This is just 2 segment, they go all the way to 5.
    MOTOR DIMENSIONS
    Motor diameter, in. ……………………………………… 146.1
    Motor length, in. …………………………………………. 860.0
    MOTOR PERFORMANCE (70°F NOMINAL, VACUUM)
    Burn time, sec ……………………………………………. 114.1
    Average chamber pressure, psia ………………….. 798.7
    Total impulse, lbf-sec ………………………… 170,800,701
    Burn time average thrust, lbf………………….. 1,497,451
    NOZZLE
    Housing material ……………………………….. D6AC steel
    Exit diameter, in. ………………………………………… 118.7
    Expansion ratio, average ………………………………. 10.4
    WEIGHTS, LBM
    Total loaded …………………………………………… 715,659
    ’12 ATK catalog. No longer available most likely. Keith might consider a space document library where they don’t disappear. I had downloaded SpaceX CC contract, but not Boeing. Could not find it a few weeks ago. These motors are only 12’Dia. ,so they could be shipped already stacked. Horizontal stacking and strong- back ought to work at the many surplus launch pads at KSC. Maybe Wallops.
    Propellant ……………………………………………… 619,003
    Case ………………………………………………………. 52,465
    Nozzle ……………………………………………………. 16,000
    Other ………………………………………………………. 28,191
    Burnout …………………………………………………… 93,075

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      Solids have their applications, but there is no practical way to reuse them.

      • Saturn1300 says:
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        But these segments are very easy to build. They use a cheap material, steel. As above the nozzle is steel. Right, no practical way to reuse. AS NASA found out, cheaper to build new ones. You may be hinting that liquids reuse are more cost effective than building new solids. Could be. But there are cost estimates of the Shuttle SRB. Cygnus might be launched with as little as one new model segment or the 1.5 segment. I did not show those. But take .5 of the 2. T he highest I found Shuttle was 25 million$. 1/4= about 7million. What is O-ATK paying for their new Russian engine. They would be making a lot more money if they used their on USA motor. Use the same 2nd stage.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          The total cost of using the segmented Shuttle SRBs was much higher than was apparent from the purchase price. They had a vast impact on ground processing cost, from the specialized trains required to ship them to the elimination of office space in the VAB, since it became a hazardous facility. The process of assembling fueled segments at the launch site was both costly and hazardous, and errors could lead to disaster. Absent political direction to do so, I do not believe any future launch system will use SRBs that cannot be manufactured, shipped and installed as a single unit.

  9. DTARS says:
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    Buzz weighs in.
    http://time.com/3945033/buz

  10. Yale S says:
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    Apparently SpaceX still does not have it nailed down, yet.

    Musk just said, “The data does seem to be quite difficult to interpret.
    Whatever happened was not straightforward.”

  11. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Chang’s data suggests that almost every launch vehicle design flaw that has a high failure potential will become apparent in the first 6-12 flights. In the case of Shuttle both the problem with leakage from the O-rings and the problem with insulation impacting the TPS were apparent almost immediately. If the Columbia had been a traditional aircraft prototype, the design might well have been changed substantially before going into production. However the final design had been determined before the first flight. The loss of Columbia (after over 100 flights) was the result of a minor change in manufacturing methods that resulted in an unanticipated failure mode, as may have been the case with the Falcon loss.