Posted on 09/28/2014 11:45:03 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
It was a surreal moment, listening to the founder and chief designer of SpaceX talk about flying to Mars from Boca Chica beach, but talk about it he did at the Sept. 22 official groundbreaking for the world’s first commercial orbital rocket launch site.
From the stage, under a tent set up for the occasion near the actual site where the launch pad will be built, Elon Musk fielded questions from reporters, who couldn’t have been blamed for not quite believing what they were hearing at certain junctures.
“I’d like to fly to Mars,” Musk said. “But I think the important thing is to develop a technology that will enable people ultimately to move to Mars if they really wanted to, so that if somebody who works really hard and saves up, that they could move to Mars.”
Establishing a base on the red planet likely would be a “joint government-commercial endeavor,” he added.
The hundreds of orbital space shots a year necessary to build and maintain a base on Mars would require rockets and spacecraft that could be recovered and reused many hundreds or even thousands of times in order to bring the cost of spaceflight down to something manageable, Musk said.
“If you think about how many launches are needed to ultimately establish a base on Mars, it’s a lot of launches, particularly if you want to make it a self-sustaining base, where if the resupply spaceships from Earth stop coming, the Mars city wouldn’t die out. That’s the key threshold that we want to try to reach.
“That’s going to require a lot of launches. And as we look ahead to the future, that’s one of the things that we thought was very important: to establish an additional launch site and one that was optimized primarily for commercial activity.”
Musk compared reusable spaceships to commercial airliners, which make tens of thousands of flights over their useful life. It might seem far-fetched in terms of spaceflight, and even Musk has conceded it might not work, though that’s no reason not to try in his view.
The South Africa native, who earned his U.S. citizenship in 2002, certainly dreams big, though he also has a record of accomplishing what he sets out to do.
In 2008, SpaceX won the NASA contract to provide commercial cargo-transport services — using the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft — that formerly had been provided by the space shuttle until it was retired in 2011.
Also in 2008, the SpaceX Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid rocket to reach orbit. In 2010, on its maiden flight, the Dragon became the first privately built and operated spacecraft to be recovered from orbit.
In 2012, a different version of the Dragon became the first private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station and bring cargo back to Earth.
This summer, at its Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, SpaceX has conducted successful experiments with the Grasshopper, a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing vehicle designed to test the technology necessary to return a rocket back to Earth intact.
This is exciting to me.
When we walked on the moon, I imagined that by the time I was in my late forties we’d be on Mars.
I’m way past that now and nothing. NASA talks about doing it, someday, in the sweet by and by.
So its exciting for a guy like Musk to be making plans to do it on his own.
The next launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (flight #14) is scheduled for 1DEC2014 at KSC. The payload is CRS-5 cargo re-supply mission to the ISS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_CRS-5
SpaceX has stated that “Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success.”
http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/07/22/spacex-soft-lands-falcon-9-rocket-first-stage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_launches
Flight 15 of the Falcon 9 is for Orbcomm to lift a constellation of eleven OG2 satellites into LEO. No date for launch has been scheduled yet.
Interesting but so far most of these “commercial” rocket companies are basically government contractors. The government gets “competition” by funding several companies to develop technology with less micro-managing than NASA has done in the past.
There is still no “killer app” although some like asteroid mining are given as possibilities. Another possibility is sending missions to re-fuel communications satellites that could still function except for running out of fuel to keep them aligned. But that would require sending the space ship up ~22,000 miles vs. a few hundred to the space station. About a factor of 100 higher—that is a tall order (pun intended)
NASA and Mars...
NASA Challenges Public to Design Piece of Mars Spacecraft
http://www.space.com/27240-nasa-mars-spacecraft-challenge.html
NASA To Award $20K For Mars ‘Ejectable Mass’ Idea | Video
http://www.space.com/27230-nasa-to-award-20k-for-mars-ejectable-mass-ideas-video.html
Rocket Coming Together for New NASA Spaceship’s 1st Flight
http://www.space.com/27284-nasa-orion-test-flight-rocket.html
(It’s supposed to send the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle to the Moon, an asteroid, and Mars.)
Every time I think of our space program, I can’t help but think of the tower of Babel. The builders were confounded, their language splintered, and they were unable to continue.
What is NASA, if not confounded and unable to deliver on it’s promise?
We landed on the Moon in July of 1969. It took us about eight years to achieve from concept to completion. It has been 45 years since then. What has NASA achieved since then?
At the present time NASA can’t even put a man in space.
NASA has essentially gone from 1961 to 1969 to 1900.
Yes we have a fantastic space station. We can’t even get a man to it. We paid for this space station about 90% of it, and we decided to call it the International Space Station.
Every time something is referenced as being achieved with our space station, the international community gets the byline.
All articles should read, “The U. S. Space Station...”, but they don’t. We shunned the credit for our work.
Anything that causes the U. S. to look like it is a superior nation has been shunned.
Two major things could have contributed to our national interest to become the leader of the future as it relates to physics and cutting edge technology.
IMO, they were the Super Collider in Texas, and NASA.
One was rolled up after over $10 billion being spent, and the other was tasked with Islamic outreach.
Wow. At least we’ll always have $500 billion per year welfare...
today nasa’s working on jihad in space. thanks to our gay foreign muslim president mom jeans.
“Another possibility is sending missions to re-fuel communications satellites that could still function except for running out of fuel to keep them aligned. But that would require sending the space ship up ~22,000 miles vs. a few hundred to the space station. About a factor of 100 higher—that is a tall order (pun intended)”
If I had the money I’d start a company that would send up a satellite with an ion motor to either re-fuel commercial satellites or take them out of orbit so as to reduce the amount of space junk in our skies.
NASA SLS Countdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzFwxHNKSAo
NASA’s New Space Launch System - Moving Forward | SLS Orion Constellation Program Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhzIWeZedJM
Orion’s First Deep Space Exploration - Mission-1 in 2017 | NASA SLS Science Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvshfwSrYF4
SpaceX Breaks Ground on Texas Rocket Launch Site
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/spacex-breaks-ground-texas-rocket-launch-site-25678313
That's very, very cool. Do you know if the landing surface will be a ship/barge, some island, Florida?
According to this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_reusable_launch_system_development_program
Solid-surface test landings
The fifth and sixth controlled-descent test flights are projected to attempt a landing on a solid surface, merging the lessons from the high-altitude envelope expansion of the first four controlled-descent flights over water with the low-altitude lessons of the F9R Dev testing in Texas.[28] As of July 2014, the flights were planned for Falcon 9 Flight 14 and Falcon 9 Flight 15, respectively. The “solid surface” was later revealed to be a barge,[80] but the barge has not been named, nor clarified as to whether it will be a jack-up barge or a floating barge.
I looked at the reference on that page and found this news at that link.
“As such, the next Falcon 9 to sport landing legs and aim for a controlled return to Earth will be F9S1-013, tasked with aiding the CRS-4/SpX-4 Dragon uphill.
The following two flights will up the stakes, aiming for a propulsive landing on a “solid surface” – a reference to the “floating pad”. It has since been confirmed the return will be aiming at the deck of an unnamed barge.
“We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success,” SpaceX continued. “Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success.”
However, there are rumors SpaceX may go for the barge landing as early as the CRS-4 mission.
Eventually, the huge milestone of a core stage launching and returning to land for reuse will be conducted – an achievement that was previously dismissed by critics as almost impossible, or at the very least with a massive payload penalty, when Mr. Musk first revealed his intentions.”
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/07/spacex-roadmap-rocket-business-revolution/
“NASA has essentially gone from 1961 to 1969 to 1900.”
Well put. They have.
SpaceX Files Appeals to Blue Origin’s Patent to Land Rockets on Barges
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/09/02/spacex-files-appeals-blue-origins-patent-land/
2SEP2014
SpaceX Bringing the Right Stuff to Patent Slog with Blue Origin, Expert Says
http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/42007spacex-bringing-the-right-stuff-to-patent-slog-with-blue-origin-expert-says
Gwynne Shotwell confirms: next landing attempt on barge
http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2bw0o3/gwynne_shotwell_confirms_next_landing_attempt_on/
On the feasibility of landing on a barge
http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/20lzwr/on_the_feasibility_of_landing_on_a_barge/
So SpaceX is planning to land the next Falcon 9 first stage on a barge. I thought I’d see if I could beat them to it (in KSP...)
http://imgur.com/a/2Zi3t
If you don’t know what KSP (Kerbal Space Program) is check out this trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkDOOsGg-9I
Website:
https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/
As I guy who grew up enthralled by all things space program, and along with it NASA, it’s with a great deal of sadness that I look back on what happened to NASA. I’ll have to admit though, it also causes a great deal of anger.
As my teenage daughter, now a sophomore in high school, is becoming aware of how screwed up the world is, is always telling me that she’s moving to Mars.
Can’t say I blame her. Maybe she’ll see it in her lifetime.
Of course, given that there will be humans there already, it will probably be just as screwed up.
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