First off, sorry about the mixup with Kevin - must have looked at the wrong post for the name.
“The least amount of cost doesn’t translate in the safest design.
I used to provide beacon readout for the eastern range at KSC and Canaveral. Sitting in on Space-X’s first launch gave me a detailed education on the problems with 9 motors.”
“The least amount of cost” for a commercial venture involves not having failures. Failures mean lower profits and fewer customers going forward. Clearly the first priority at SpaceX is reliability - as it should be, and must be for manned flight.
There is no inherent problem with nine motors - they provide redundancy in the case of one or more motor failures.
“There are certain things government does very well in, such as a standing military.....etc., also space flight.”
The “government” doesn’t “do” space flight - they pay contractors to build the vehicles.
“If cost is the holy grail for you, be prepared for a body count that will prove my point.”
LOL...first of all there won’t be any body count until SpaceX gets through the entire manned vehicle test regimen. That will mean a lot more Falcon + Dragon flights. SpaceX has eleven more cargo flights scheduled for the ISS, that’ll go a long way in working any kinks out. That’s a nice contract at $1.6 billion total.
“I have every hope of success....just not the direction that Space-X has taken it.”
We shall see - that was a picture perfect launch this morning, eh? All nine engines functioned flawlessly from what I saw and heard. Do you have any contradictory information?
BTW, it showed a strength of the Falcon system when they aborted the first launch. The spacecraft is anchored to the ground until it can be determined that all systems are within acceptable parameters after ignition. Unlike solid fuel motors, the liquid fueled Merlin engines can be shut down if needed.
“Once again, Atlas is probably going to prove the best platform.”
LOL! Which manned capsule is in the works for Atlas, again? Also Atlas has only half the payload capacity of Falcon Heavy. Atlas is mired in the defense contractor mentality, we’ll see if it can be made competitive on launch pricing.
At any rate, although I didn’t watch the launch live, it was exciting to see the video this morning and to hear that everything is on track including solar panel deployment. Now we’ll see how the orbital trials go - I’m definitely pulling for SpaceX to hit a home run on this mission!
Are you maintaining that if they loose 1 of 9 motors they will reach LEO?
“The “government” doesn’t “do” space flight - they pay contractors to build the vehicles.”
So then your insinuating that NASA is a free enterprise facilitator?
“Unlike solid fuel motors, the liquid fueled Merlin engines can be shut down if needed.”????????????????????
“Each Atlas V rocket uses a Russian-built RD-180 engine burning kerosene and liquid oxygen to power its first stage and an American-built RL10 engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to power its Centaur upper stage.”
“LOL! Which manned capsule is in the works for Atlas, again?”
6 June 2011, 8 October, 30 November and 19 December;[41] and 7 January 2012, 30 April, and 7 May are attempted launch dates.
Falcon 9 heavy, 27 motors, sequencing hell.
If the nine primary are as hard to sequence with the ability to fire and see a problem, a la the attempt prior to eventual launch, how are they going to know about the other 18 on the two stages will sequence with the benefit of firing? I don't know.