The Science Thread

[Tisme]

I posted this video in the Elon thread, But I thought it should be here to.

Succesful test of the falcon Heavy rocket with 3 of the first stage rockets returning to earth and landing successfully to be used again.

Between the 25.00 and 27.30 minute mark you see the landing of the first stage rockets returning to earth and landing perfectly.

Incredible! Thankyou VC

 

[bellenuit]

Great long distance amateur footage of the booster landings.

 

[SirRumpole]

Brian Cox on the mysteries of the universe.

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/brian-cox/9406668

 

[Value Collector]

Under Sea cables transport 99% of the global intercontinental Internet Data.






Cutting one open.



Animated map of the global cable network.



Telstra Corporation is one of the big global owners of under sea cables, Owning or partially owning cables all over the world.

 

[SirRumpole]

Telstra Corporation is one of the big global owners of under sea cables, Owning or partially owning cables all over the world.

Great, lets run a few to China and use them for internet hacking.

 

[basilio]

Under Sea cables transport 99% of the global intercontinental Internet Data.

That is so cool. Thx !

 

[basilio]

Did anyone else check out the high speed camera video ? Again fascinating.

 

[SirRumpole]

Did anyone else check out the high speed camera video ? Again fascinating.

Yep, that's pretty cool alright !

I don't know who that bloke is but he makes some excellent videos.

 

[Value Collector]

Did anyone else check out the high speed camera video ? Again fascinating.

Speaking of slow motion cameras,

This guy use’s a slow motion camera to show exactly how tv’s work,

Quite interesting,

 

[luutzu]

It's like something from an old thunder birds episode, Hahaha.

Not to rain on the parade, but do we know the condition of those returned boosters?

I've seen a doco on the Space Shuttle where some rocket scientist was saying that the sales pitch that won the Shuttle its funding was the cheap, economical, reusable pair of boosters and shuttle.

That you'd just dust them off and they're ready to go again etc.

Reality was that the cost to inspect, fix, repair, tests etc. to get them back on platform ready to take astronauts and hundreds of millions worth of payloads... it's not just dusting it off and ready to go. Might have been cheaper to just design and manufacturer enmass, use once and thrown out for scraps.

So I don't know, there are hundreds of thousands of moving parts in these things. Each one must be tested and reviewed to make certain they're safe for relaunch. Not an easy task considering that one reason Columbia [?] blew up was due to just a seal in the booster being too cold and stiffened because the launch day was colder than expected. That alone caused the fuel leak and the disaster.

 

[bellenuit]

Happy Birthday Darwin.

 

[Value Collector]

Not to rain on the parade, but do we know the condition of those returned boosters?

I've seen a doco on the Space Shuttle where some rocket scientist was saying that the sales pitch that won the Shuttle its funding was the cheap, economical, reusable pair of boosters and shuttle.

That you'd just dust them off and they're ready to go again etc.

Reality was that the cost to inspect, fix, repair, tests etc. to get them back on platform ready to take astronauts and hundreds of millions worth of payloads... it's not just dusting it off and ready to go. Might have been cheaper to just design and manufacturer enmass, use once and thrown out for scraps.

So I don't know, there are hundreds of thousands of moving parts in these things. Each one must be tested and reviewed to make certain they're safe for relaunch. Not an easy task considering that one reason Columbia [?] blew up was due to just a seal in the booster being too cold and stiffened because the launch day was colder than expected. That alone caused the fuel leak and the disaster.

That rocket was actually using reused parts that had previously been used in another launch.

Space ex is already manufacturing these rockets cheaper than anyone else, and is designing them to be reusable, I am not sure what the limit is, but I guess they will continuously make improvements.

As they say, we wouldn’t have a commercial airline industry if we burned the 747 at the end of each flight.

 

[bellenuit]

That rocket was actually using reused parts that had previously been used in another launch.

Space ex is already manufacturing these rockets cheaper than anyone else, and is designing them to be reusable, I am not sure what the limit is, but I guess they will continuously make improvements.

As they say, we wouldn’t have a commercial airline industry if we burned the 747 at the end of each flight.

Do you know how the booster rockets made their way back to Cape Kennedy (?). I presume they had to reverse direction (as the Falcon Heavy veered off over the ocean shortly after launch) and make their way back under some independent control and using left over fuel.

 

[Value Collector]

Do you know how the booster rockets made their way back to Cape Kennedy (?). I presume they had to reverse direction (as the Falcon Heavy veered off over the ocean shortly after launch) and make their way back under some independent control and using left over fuel.

This animation shows it all.

However the stage three that lands on the ocean barge in the animation actually tipped over on the actual launch, and had to be pulled from the sea.

 

[bellenuit]

Great, thanks. Answered all my questions. Fantastic achievement.

 

[SirRumpole]

This animation shows it all.

However the stage three that lands on the ocean barge in the animation actually tipped over on the actual launch, and had to be pulled from the sea.

I wonder how long it will be untill they offer joy rides on those boosters.

 

[luutzu]

That rocket was actually using reused parts that had previously been used in another launch.

Space ex is already manufacturing these rockets cheaper than anyone else, and is designing them to be reusable, I am not sure what the limit is, but I guess they will continuously make improvements.

As they say, we wouldn’t have a commercial airline industry if we burned the 747 at the end of each flight.

It looks great and yea, chances are the new tech and all that mean a lot less repair and costly inspection/re-test to relaunch.

Rockets travel at higher speed, to higher altitude so would need to stand a lot more stress etc. than the typical Boeing. And no, we'd still have commercial airline if we need to replace it after a few trip: re-sell to Third World countries at mate's rate.

 

[Value Collector]

It looks great and yea, chances are the new tech and all that mean a lot less repair and costly inspection/re-test to relaunch.

Rockets travel at higher speed, to higher altitude so would need to stand a lot more stress etc. than the typical Boeing. And no, we'd still have commercial airline if we need to replace it after a few trip: re-sell to Third World countries at mate's rate.

I mean if the aircraft was single use, we wouldn’t have an airline industry.

Space ex built their rockets from scratch, I am pretty sure what ever drawbacks you can think of they have already thought of and have either solved or are in the process of solving.

One thing that they did say in the book, is that some conventional nasa launches cost up to $1billion, because so much time and effort goes into making them 99.9999% reliable, however Elon pointed out you could do the same launch for $50 Million and get maybe 95% reliability, and when you do lose that 1 out of 20, the savings more than cover the cost of a relaunch and new cargo.

 

[Value Collector]

Elon watching the take off, and then answering some questions.

 

[luutzu]

I mean if the aircraft was single use, we wouldn’t have an airline industry.

Space ex built their rockets from scratch, I am pretty sure what ever drawbacks you can think of they have already thought of and have either solved or are in the process of solving.

One thing that they did say in the book, is that some conventional nasa launches cost up to $1billion, because so much time and effort goes into making them 99.9999% reliable, however Elon pointed out you could do the same launch for $50 Million and get maybe 95% reliability, and when you do lose that 1 out of 20, the savings more than cover the cost of a relaunch and new cargo.

Don't know about that 95% reliability though. If it's cargo, yea, maybe. Just don't put that on the brochure if that cargo is more than electronics; and maybe contain astronauts.

I'm not sure how you could get a 95% reliability to be honest. How would the engineer work that out?

I mean, are all the parts around 95% or some parts must be 100% while others are 90%, others less important 70% etc.

I know there are tolerances and no need to get it 100% but then how do you fudge the 5% tolerance? Might as well try to get close to 100%.

Kudos to Musk and his team of geniuses... But i'd go with the folks at NASA. Try to get it 100% and the result might reach maybe 95%.