This Week in Space 20 - June 6, 2010

MattBlak1 Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - Hello Dr Hughes-Fulford! Good to hear from you. STS-40 was a great mission and Columbia, a wonderful ship.

MattBlak1 Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - The Merlin engine is a pretty good engine. But I hope Mr Musk gets the go-ahead to develop an RD-180 class engine someday - clustering 50 Merlin 1Cs together for an HLV might get a bit psychedelic!!

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - @MattBlak1"clustering 50 Merlin 1Cs together for an HLV might get a bit psychedelic!! "LOL, no shit :D I don't think they have much of a chance for such a go-ahead, but we'll see.

cm1701a Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - Go Space X! Go small, efficient private sector launches!And again, another nice interview Miles.I'm hoping you can get some of the feedback/technical issues worked out for the next live launch/event. During the session many of us were typing "turn your speakers off!" but you didn't see our pleas.Have you thought of approaching HULU for some ad sponsored help?

tjohn6041 Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - Uhm, Hey Musk, The Ares I will cost 924 Million for two flights, a lot less the 1.5 that you say, and the Ares I will require 3 Billion to be flight ready, not 50 Billion. It would be nice if before Musk threw mud at Constellation, he would remember that Constellation is the only reason his company exists. Congress is universally opposed to Obama on this, and Musk keeps making himself look worse in front of the people who will decide the fate of SpaceX. Remember, Soyuz is cheaper...

tu8ca Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - - you are mistaken. Completion of the Ares 1 was predicted to be in the $40 billion range and five years behind schedule. See the Orlando Sentinel article from 2009-05-06 (these comments won't allow links or I'd give you some)

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - NASA internal estimates for the total development cost of Ares I are 35 billion and the 50 billion estimate is from the GAO (United States Government Accountability Office). That's what he's referring to, not the cost per launch."Constellation is the only reason his company exists."No, his company exists because he started it with his own money. If you mean that Griffin was the one that granted SpaceX a COTS contract, then I can agree.

moosecolony Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - My point is the Shuttle program with its 7 seats created a whole lot of veteran astronauts, who if they still dream of another launch will have to be the best of the best of the best to be the 1 or 2 that make it on a soyuz launch for a 6 month expedition. American excitement for space since Apollo is pretty much over, and we cant trust our failing government to keep it up. We need some hero to step up or our world will continue to stagnate.

evan13579b Says:

Jun 9, 2010 - Well, a 1 year delay with them implying new dates just a week or so away every few weeks really sucks ass. And maybe it doesn't meet the level of government fail that government reaches but it just really takes away from what he did and if he learns that such delays are ok he might just keep delaying and end up being not much better than any other company or government.

dennizenx Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - P.S. I think spaceX should get right away from investing in human cargo capabilities and leave that for virgin, what we really need is multi engine heavy-lift-vehicle, the more you guys focus on that the happier we will all be :P

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - @dennizenxYou're kidding right? "Stunt Ship 2" is just a glorified carnival ride. Sorry to be so blunt, but Virgin's vehicles are not and will not be a part of any BEO (or even LEO for that matter) spaceflight effort for the foreseeable future. They barely qualify to be called spaceships. Their good marketing tools for space, but that's about it.

dennizenx Says:

Jun 10, 2010 -  no, not kidding, we're all entitled to our views, but I'd rather go with scaled composites for my human spacecraft needs anyday, I dont have to sit on a million gallons of explosives... I like that ;)

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - @dennizenxAnd you'll never get to orbit either, which is why Virgin won't be getting a NASA contract any time soon. I'll be 'really' interested to see Rutan try to build an orbital space plane. The only way Virgin's spaceship 3 (if it ever comes) will reach orbit, is if it does get launched by a million gallons of explosives.

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - Also, you'd need to reinforce the structure to withstand reentry form orbital velocities, build it out of something else other than carbon composites, since they tend to catch fire at hypersonic speeds and if you're going to do all that, why even bother with a space plane? It's much easier, cheaper and safer to just use a rocket. Unless of course suborbital hops are enough to address your human spaceflight needs.

utubesnamepolsux Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - You took the wrong audio on the launch insert during the interview, in the first segment. Otherwise nice.Oh: "This is all the time we have"? it's a *webcast*... :-)

runningray Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - Well Elon is a busy guy and they probably only had so much time with him. Plus these web casts have to fit within a time frame for broadcast.

utubesnamepolsux Says:

Jun 10, 2010 - That's a possibility, but even if they were just trying to get out of the interview, that doesn't explain why they went so abruptly to the closing credits. No, it looks like there was really some hard time limit in someone's mind... which, given the 15:*38* length, makes me go hmmm...

Membrane556 Says:

Jun 12, 2010 - When I think about Ares 1 a quote from a Robert A. Heinlein book comes to mind."An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications."

Membrane556 Says:

Jun 12, 2010 - @terytery1 OSC's COTS LV is called Taurus II it's payload is 5,400kg with the Castor 30 solid upper stage or 7,200Kg with the lox methane upper stage.F9 has a payload of 10,450kg or 23,000lbsThe shuttle's max payload is around 25,000kg or 55,000lbs.Both F9 and Taurus II should be immensely cheaper then government vehicles.

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 13, 2010 - @terytery1I'm happy for SpaceX and all, but I get the feeling people are getting ahead of themselves. If the administration wants a "super heavy lift" or BFR, that doesn't guarantee SpaceX will be building it. I get the impression that people think SpaceX and NASA are the only two organizations out there that can deliver a HLV.

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 13, 2010 - Also wikipedia is not a reliable source. The heavy lift classifications there were not defined by people from the industry and HLV is a nebulous term, not an industry standard. It can be anything from ~25,000kg to LEO to 100,000kg to LEO depending on who you ask. What follows is a post from the nasaspaceflight's forums:

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 13, 2010 - Re: Falcon Super Heavy by StuffOfInterest Actually, I helped come up with some of the weight defintions on Wikipedia (at least for the heavy-lift class) a couple of years ago. Don't use them as an industry standard. It was an attempt by the editors to come up logical separation points to compare vehicles of similiar lift capability.At the time, I believe the defintions were setup as follows:0-2T -> light2-20T -> medium20T+ -> heavyThere was no super-heavy then.

JustAnAdjunct Says:

Jun 13, 2010 - @terytery1 I don't know about cheaper, but yeah, they can.

davisgreen2020 Says:

Aug 2, 2010 - WOW ! Congratualatons SpaceX !! I look forward to the company launching humans into space !! NASA still needs HLV !! Ares V was it !! Why go back to the drawing board !?!

XoMsAbnormalXo Says:

Mar 27, 2011 - My bday