
SpaceX headed to the ISS tomorrow - mkr-hn
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/cargo/spacex_update_staticfiring.html
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cryptoz
I can't wait! SpaceX is the most amazing company right now. They're work is
the exact opposite of the trivial-to-start social networking apps, the tedium
of online advertising.

 _They want to send people to Mars_. And they're launching to the ISS
tomorrow, the most expensive object ever built by humanity. They have the
world's trust. They have the world's best engineers. And they have some
intense ambition and lots of money. So awesome.

I had a phone interview for a software position there just a few days ago
(didn't get it) and it was the most thrilling experience I'd had, like, ever.
I have to work hard and study more so I can try again in a couple months.

Best of luck SpaceX.

~~~
slug
I would love to work there but they only recruit U.S. citizens and although I
was contacted by them last year, it ended up going nowhere when I mentioned
this "small" detail.

Can you elaborate on your phone interview?

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bishnu
This potentially has to do with regulations in the US over access to rocket
technology. I knew a Canadian who worked at Lockheed ~10 years ago who had to
be shuffled off a certain project due to objections from the US State
Department.

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InclinedPlane
I'll add my voice to the chorus of folks gushing about how awesome this is,
but here's a list of reason on just WHY this is so awesome.

Straight off the top, this is only the third launch of the Falcon 9. This
rocket alone represents a dramatic disruption of the entire orbital launch
industry, offering to make launch of both humans and cargo cheaper than it's
ever been by an incredibly wide margin. If this rocket proves to be a reliable
workhorse and proves that the existing cost structure is workable then it will
both dramatically lower the cost of access to space and drive billions of
dollars of revenue to SpaceX.

Second, this represents a significant advance in being able to deliver
supplies to ISS, largely replacing a vehicle that is vastly more expensive
than the Dragon Cargo. And finally putting American spaceflight back in the
game of ISS resupply post-Shuttle.

Third, the Dragon Cargo shares an enormous amount of heritage with the manned
Dragon capsule in development. As they prove out elements of the vehicle
design in unmanned ISS resupply missions they are effectively proving out the
manned version as well. The manned Dragon capsule will represent a huge leap
for the US space program, catapulting us back into having the capability to
send crew into orbit and to the ISS.

Fourth, given the costs of Falcon/Dragon flights they should be enormously
disruptive to manned spaceflight, representing a vastly cheaper way to put
humans in orbit even than the Russian Soyuz. That will likely translate into
far more people beingable to go into orbit and the development of a sustained
orbital tourism industry on an impressive scale which will fuel further
innovation and drive down cost of access to space even more.

Finally, all of this is being done by a private company working toward its own
ends rather than a company on a strict government contract. This represents a
new paradigm for launch vehicles and for manned spaceflight, potentially
transforming the nature of the entire endeavor into something that is self-
sustaining regardless of government enthusiasm for spaceflight.

In short, this represents nothing less than fundamentally rebooting the entire
space program going all the way back to Sputnik, and it could quite readily
represent the opening up of spaceflight for commercial applications, space
science and exploration, and for manned exploration and colonization to a
degree that will make the scifi dreamers of our past look like forecasters.

~~~
joshuahedlund
Can you give some numbers for some of the "vast" cost difference we're talking
about (even if they're ballpark figures)?

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InclinedPlane
First, let's take the Shuttle off the table, which is no longer in service and
was by far the most expensive launch vehicle in extensive service in history.

Right now, the price of a Falcon 9 launch is around $50mil, this translates to
$4.8/g to LEO or $16.7/g to GTO (which is where most satellites go). This
compares very favorably to the price of other western launchers (Atlas V:
$18/g, Ariane 5: $21/g, Delta IV: $19.5/g to GTO and around $11-$14/g to LEO)
and is very competitive compared to Russian launchers (Soyuz 2: $16.7/g,
Proton M: $18.2/g to GTO or $6.4/g and $4.8/g to LEO respectively).

However, keep in mind that these are _prices_ , which include a healthy profit
margin for SpaceX, and it's no coincidence that they have priced themselves
right at the level of the otherwise cheapest launch vehicles in the world
(since that maximizes their profit margin). Also keep in mind that as SpaceX's
operations and manufacturing become more streamlined, as they amortize the
fixed development costs for the Falcon 9 (which won't take long since the
costs are a small multiple of the per flight revenue), as flight rate
increases, and as competitive pressure to lower their profit margin increases
they will be able to offer launches for considerably less than they are today,
at lower prices than the Soyuz or Proton, for example.

However, this is just the beginning, as SpaceX has several development efforts
in progress. The Falcon Heavy, for example, represents an incremental
evolution of the Falcon 9 design, using 3 1st stage cores (instead of just
one) and using a new cross-feed system to improve performance. The thing about
the Falcon Heavy is that it uses slightly less than 3x as much hardware at
about 2x the cost of a Falcon 9 launch but it will be able to deliver 5x the
payload. This will translate into prices around $6.6/g to GTO and $2.4/g to
LEO, at the high end ($4.2/g and $1.5/g at the low end). Nobody else in the
world can come close to those numbers.

Also, they are working on a fully reusable version of the Falcon 9 which will
reduce costs by at least a factor of 5 conservatively and perhaps as much as a
factor of 100.

The maiden flight for the Falcon Heavy is slated to be next year. And they
have already begun development on the core systems for the reusable Falcon
(here's the 1st stage landing gear they've built for one of the test vehicles:
<http://s3.amazonaws.com/imgly_production/4311966/large.jpg>).

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ebiester
Are we sure about this healthy profit? Is it possible they're just using this
to try and beta their vehicle at lower cost?

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grinich
There's no freemium model when you're building rocket ships.

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ebiester
Think dumping, not freemium.

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rbanffy
Dumping requires lots of money. Dumping on the backyard of large defense
contractors is suicidal.

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vessenes
In short, they will be launching 1200 pounds of supplies, remotely doing a
bunch of maneuvers designed to prove to NASA that they can get around safely
in space, and if those go OK, docking with the ISS.

This is so much cooler than a facebook IPO, I must say -- commercial US robot
rocket ISS reloading. Come on!!

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baq
of course it's cooler than FB IPO. on one side, we have a bunch of guys
selling ads. on the other, the stars.

~~~
jerf
Man, I've missed that attitude. My childhood was in the 80s, when the dream
was still only in its early phases of being strangled by the monstrosity that
the whole NASA system has become. We could use a bit of optimism about the
future.

May history show this as the beginning of the second space age.

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StevenRayOrr
I get caught up in the romantics of this.

We could be explorers again like Magellan or Shackleton, this time charting
the vast, infinitude of the stars. We could see planets and moons that are but
specks in a telescope. It has been so easy, over the last few years, to become
jaded with politics and our society and the minutia of technology. SpaceX gets
me excited about "the future (of our species)" which hasn't happened in a long
time.

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kmm
Doesn't it bother you that you won't be the one doing the exploring? I'm
insanely envious of these people and sometimes I wish manned spaceflight would
end. Standing on the Moon sounds like the most amazing experience I can
imagine and it pains me that I won't ever get there and even if I would, I
would just be the umpteenth tourist, littering up the place.

~~~
StevenRayOrr
I would absolutely love to stand on the surface of Mars or see Alpha Centauri
with my own eyes, but I also know that such things are outside of my grasp.
Poets and philosophers make for lousy explorers. It is enough for me that we,
as a species, are reaching upward. It is enough for me that we, as a people,
are overcoming chains that were not even imagined by our ancestors -- tasks so
difficult, so alien that they would only describe it as touching the face of
god. This is about more than the whimsical realized dream of an individual; it
is the progression of the entire species.

This is how human beings are made great.

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ericxb
The SpaceX website has a pdf with mission details. Here is the table of
contents:

3 Mission Highlights 4 Mission Overview 6 Dragon Recovery Operations 7 Mission
Objectives 9 Mission Timeline 11 Dragon Cargo Manifest 13 NASA Slides –
Mission Profile, Rendezvous, Maneuvers, Re-Entry and Recovery 15 Overview of
the International Space Station 17 Overview of NASA’s COTS Program 19 SpaceX
Company Overview 21 SpaceX Leadership – Musk & Shotwell Bios 23 SpaceX Launch
Manifest - A list of upcoming missions 25 SpaceX Facilities 27 Dragon Overview
29 Falcon 9 Overview 31 45th Space Wing Fact Sheet

<http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf>

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Nogwater
Keep in mind, this is still just a test. If they get off the pad without
exploding that's awesome, getting to orbit is super awesome, and actually
reaching the ISS is simply amazing.

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NickPollard
Just to make it clear, it's just the launch tomorrow - they won't be
attempting to dock until Tuesday (mission day 4), after (hopefully) they've
passed all the manoeuvring tests.

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mikeash
I'm impressed that NASA is allowing this. Can you imagine what it would be
like to be the guy who has to sign off on that decision? Even if you have
every confidence, imagining what would happen if things went wrong?

~~~
ceejayoz
By the time it's anywhere near the station, it'll be moving at a pretty small
speed relative to the ISS. The station's going to manually grab and pull in
the spacecraft to avoid any automated docking "oopsies". Beyond those, the
risk is pretty squarely in SpaceX's court.

~~~
mikeash
I'm imagining something like a thruster getting stuck on at a distance where
it's far enough to build up some speed but close enough to have a decent
chance of hitting. I know the relative speeds aren't high, but the ISS isn't
exactly heavily armored either. I doubt it would take much of a speed
difference in a collision to do some real damage.

I'm sure the odds of anything like that going wrong are extremely low, but not
zero, and so I admire the fortitude it would take to give a "yes" decision to
this even so.

~~~
jerf
While that window is non-zero, it is also very, very small.

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mikeash
I'm sure. It's just that the urge to CYA for a unique $100 billion object has
got to be huge.

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eupharis
Overseeing the dawn of a new era of human spaceflight? Cutting through the
mountain of technical hurdles and bureaucratic processes to get this actually
done?

Fuck CYA. There is no CYA here. There is success, and there is failure. As it
should be.

~~~
mikeash
I fully approve of what they're doing, I'm just somewhat surprised that old,
stodgy, NASA was able to get past their ingrained CYA instincts.

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anuraj
SpaceX is definitely cheaper to NASA. But it is not really cheap considering
space programs like that of India (ISRO). For example PSLV used for
Chandrayaan-1 costs $17m per flight. A little outsourcing won't hurt NASA
here.

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mkr-hn
There's a live discussion on the launch here:
<http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/edu_flash.html>

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timjahn
Watching this live discussion is fascinating. There's a teacher who teaches 7
and 8 year olds asking how their love for Legos and video games could
translate into a career in space exploration.

A career in space exploration. That's real today.

Just imagine how much more real it will be when those 7 and 8 year olds are
all grown up.

Amazing!

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IJD
I run the computer lab at an elementary school, and I make sure to tell all my
classes that if they are willing to work hard for it, they could move to Mars
at some point during their lives.

At the rate SpaceX is going, the students I have now are going to witness an
incredible amount of major advancements in space travel and related
technologies. I try to make sure they all know this, and some are already
coming into the computer lab during break to talk about space exploration,
careers in space, etc. These are just 5th graders! It makes me almost as
excited to see their interest as I am to about missions like this.

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simondlr
Shaping up to be a momentous weekend for tech!

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TeMPOraL
I hope it will be featured live on NASA TV.

~~~
dasmoth
There will also be live streaming on the SpaceX website. They've invested in
better video streaming infrastructure since the COTS1 launch, so hopefully
this will stand up to demand. Everything worked well during the static-fire
test a couple of weeks ago -- which is obviously less popular than the actual
launch, but still drew in a fair few viewers.

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rbanffy
My only complain about this is that it will not have the Pan-Am logo on its
side when it docks with the ISS.

It would be sooooo cool.

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MikeCapone
I know I'm not adding real value to the conversation by saying this, but I've
still got to say it for the record:

This is amazing! Really impressive how much progress this startup is making in
just a few short years.

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may
What is an instantaneous launch window?

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marvin
It means the launch has to happen at that exact moment, otherwise the path of
the spacecraft in orbit will be too far away from the space station for a
rendezvous to be possible.

From what I heard, they have multiple such launch windows, each about an hour
and a half apart (each corresponding to an orbit of the earth by the ISS)

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horsehead
This is so exciting! I hope it succeeds. How cool would it be to put a man on
mars in a few decades?

Captain's log, star date 1312.4

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StevenRayOrr
Or woman.

Hmm. Actually, and woman. Gender neutrality powers, activate!

