Useless SLS Trivia From NASA
The #SLS will soar more than 100x faster than the peregrine falcon, the fastest bird on the planet. #NationalBirdDay pic.twitter.com/60caPXkn3v
— NASA_SLS (@NASA_SLS) January 5, 2016
Keith’s note: Duh. So has every rocket that has gone into space for more than half a century. In the meantime NASA has yet to come up with avionics that can come close to matching the efficiently packaged, elegant wetware inside the small brain of a falcon.
Funny how NASA omits mention of the rocket named FALCON – you know – that reusable rocket that can take off and land – and then take off and land again – just like a real falcon – something that SLS will never be able to do.
Now we know that the peregrine falcon is the fastest bird on the planet!
I too vote Peregrine: It manages to fly a lot more often than once every four or five years.
IMO the most critical design parameter is cost per flight. SLS: . . . . . . . . $1,000,000,000.00
SpaceX Falcon: . . $60,000,000.00
Peregrin Falcon: . . . . . . . . . . $0.05
Yep, good one Keith. SLS continues what is becoming a tradition of useless projects bar job creation. And SpaceX continues demonstrate the futility and obsolescence of this project.
Falcon 9 is becoming closer to the Peregrine Falcon as it can now take off and land. Another black mark against SLS.
Cheers
Keith, funny how owners of Falcon forget to ever mention the Delta Clipper – where they got most of their launch and return technology and knowledge.
What launch, return technology and knowledge did SpaceX get from the Delta Clipper? New Shepard appears to operate much more like the delta.
Delta Clipper took off vertically, landed back on pad vertically. Everything else is a derivative copy.
The DC-X used hydrogen fuel, RL-10 engines, and a low L/D aerodynamic shell and was intended to be the predecessor of a larger single stage to orbit vehicle. It was the first large vehicle to land using rocket thrust alone, but shares no major design elements with the Falcon. However some of the DCX engineers transferred their ideas to the New Shepherd.
Right now it is a parlor trick. It is a pretty good one I admit. I will reserve the applause until it becomes a repeatable, safe, and commercially viable endeavor. The Shuttle was reusable too, if you call a top to bottom refurbishment reusable. How many people here want to strap themselves onto a Falcon that has been turned around a few times after the “shake, rattle and roll”?
Please set your specific parameters for being “a repeatable, safe, and commercially viable endeavor.”
I will monitor for those set points and solicit your applause then. Please be specific.
Okay. Lets say a turn around of 2 weeks…we don’t want to be too harsh. What are the payload penalties for this iteration in upmass to LEO, GEO, and BEO missions? What are the estimated # of launches for this booster; and will it be reduced for man rated versions? Since no one has ever seen any numbers on cost from SpaceX we can’t even guess about the real development costs or the maintenance costs as we see this play out. And no one knows what customers think of a refurbished booster for their shiney new payload. BTW do tech companies insure their delivery as a hedge against loss of vehicle. I wonder what the underwriters will think?
“What are the payload penalties for this iteration in upmass to LEO, GEO, and BEO missions? “
None.
When used to LEO, GEO or BEO and the first stage is flown back, the Falcon 9 is capable of delivering the payload capacity it was designed to launch to those orbits.
There is, however a payload bonus available if it is flown in a non-reusable configuration, burning the fly-back propellant reserve. That’s a pretty cool trick. The Space Shuttle needed its wings and landing gear to be reused, but was unable to burn them to provide extra capacity in single-use configuration.
“And no one knows what customers think of a refurbished booster for their shiney new payload.”
Sure we do. Orbcomm’s CEO has already come out and said that once they see the operational stats of a reused core are the same or better “absolutely. I don’t require a new 747 every time I fly. It’s inevitable.”
Underwriters will do the same thing they do now – calculate risk based on available data and offer rates based on that.
You’re right but there are a lot of variables there and we’ll just have to wait and see how all of that shakes out in the real world commercial environment. People have been talking about heavy lift dirigibles for years making cases that they are economically viable. How many articles have you read on this over the years?
While absolutely true, that is a separate issue.
Falcon 9 being able to land its booster and still deliver its required payload to its required orbit is not the same issue as whether or not reusing that booster will actually be economically feasible.
Dirigibles have a very limited market. Like … SLS.
It would be fun to strap Sen. Shelby to one. (Just kidding.) But how about inexpensive water and bulk 3-D printing stock? I’m betting someone could put that to good use in a few years.
100x faster than the peregrine falcon…and probably in the same direction.
100X as fast, and 685,000X as expensive…
Sure, but how does it compare to the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?