Space-X launch failure!

[Krupski]

Holy crap!!!!!!!

Just watched a Falcon-9 launch for space station re-supply. The vehicle got past Mach 1 and Max-Q, then about a minute later it just "popped" like a balloon. No flames or anything else, just a pop, a white cloud of propellant (probably the LOX) and then nothing but teeny-tiny pieces.


Thank God it wasn't manned...

[chiak47]

Holy crap!!!!!!!

Just watched a Falcon-9 launch for space station re-supply. The vehicle got past Mach 1 and Max-Q, then about a minute later it just "popped" like a balloon. No flames or anything else, just a pop, a white cloud of propellant (probably the LOX) and then nothing but teeny-tiny pieces.


Thank God it wasn't manned...

I'm sure they factored in a few of these, I am impressed at what space-x has accomplished and it's exciting to see them grow with a future of prosperity.

I was offered a job down there after completing their weld testing, I probably would have went but humidity sucks.

[Gunreference1]

Hello Jake at State Farm. I need to file a claim.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/27/wa...ag-cake-video/

Steve

[El Jefe]

Hello Jake at State Farm. I need to file a claim.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/27/wa...ag-cake-video/

Steve

That rocket sounds hideous.

[Krupski]

That rocket sounds hideous.

[Krupski]

I'm sure they factored in a few of these, I am impressed at what space-x has accomplished and it's exciting to see them grow with a future of prosperity.

I was offered a job down there after completing their weld testing, I probably would have went but humidity sucks.

While I'm glad to see private industry getting into the "space business", it also bothers me that NASA isn't doing much anymore.

We still need to explore. Almost all of our cool high tech stuff is a spinoff of NASA research. Sure, they're still sending a bus up to the ISS to resupply it, but what new and exciting RESEARCH is being done? Almost nothing.

America will end up losing it's last great asset (technological superiority) by not funding NASA and their research and just sitting back, watching the Chinese go back to the moon and beyond, doing what WE should be doing.

[El Jefe]

While I'm glad to see private industry getting into the "space business", it also bothers me that NASA isn't doing much anymore.

We still need to explore. Almost all of our cool high tech stuff is a spinoff of NASA research. Sure, they're still sending a bus up to the ISS to resupply it, but what new and exciting RESEARCH is being done? Almost nothing.

America will end up losing it's last great asset (technological superiority) by not funding NASA and their research and just sitting back, watching the Chinese go back to the moon and beyond, doing what WE should be doing.

Agreed. We should have been to Mars by now.

[imanaknut]

I remember the early days of the NASA space program with all the losses they had. I am sure on Youtube there are tons of video of rockets blowing up at launch or shortly thereafter.

We try as hard as possible to be perfect, especially where human life is concerned, but unfortunately being human things cannot be perfect. North American Rockwell predicted the Space Shuttle being 96% reliable. We had 135 flights. Fortunately we beat those numbers but 98.5% still left 14 great human beings dead.

I was hoping that in my lifetime I would see Americans walking on Mars. What a shame that we lost that drive that took us to the moon.

[Goodman]

It looks like the first manned Mars expedition will be an international collaboration.
It would be great to see the USA do it solo but the expense is so .....um..... astronomical..... there may be no other practical way.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year.../#.VZCV2ob3bv4

[Schuetzenman]

It looks like the first manned Mars expedition will be an international collaboration.
It would be great to see the USA do it solo but the expense is so .....um..... astronomical..... there may be no other practical way.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year.../#.VZCV2ob3bv4

Stop pumping money into Solindra like projects and get people jobs to cut back on food stamps and we can do it ourselves.

[Krupski]

Agreed. We should have been to Mars by now.

I remember the early days of the NASA space program with all the losses they had. I am sure on Youtube there are tons of video of rockets blowing up at launch or shortly thereafter.

We try as hard as possible to be perfect, especially where human life is concerned, but unfortunately being human things cannot be perfect. North American Rockwell predicted the Space Shuttle being 96% reliable. We had 135 flights. Fortunately we beat those numbers but 98.5% still left 14 great human beings dead.

I was hoping that in my lifetime I would see Americans walking on Mars. What a shame that we lost that drive that took us to the moon.

Unfortunately, a manned trip to Mars where the astronauts go there and come back is not and will not be possible with the current chemical propulsion systems we have.

The moon is "easy" to get to because it stays with the earth, it's not very far away and it's surface gravity is only 1/6 of earths.

But Mars is in it's own independent orbit, so a mission to Mars would need to wait for the proper time when Earth and Mars are close to each other (which is still far away). The CLOSEST approach is around 34 million miles or about 142 times the distance to the moon. The furthest is around 250 million miles or over 1000 times as far away as the moon!

Getting there is a tradeoff. If you go as fast as possible (say by doing an earth or venus slingshot), then you arrive at a high velocity and need a lot of propellant to burn off that speed and go into orbit.

Then, the Mars "lander" would have to do a de-orbit burn and finally make a powered landing. But Mars has double the gravity of the Moon, so the lander would need to be around 10 times larger than an Apollo style LM to hold all the extra propellant for landing (and taking back off to return).

After the Mars lander returned to orbit and docked with it's command spacecraft, it would then need to do another engine burn to leave Mars orbit and come home. The burn would need to be enough so that it escaped Mars gravity field and crossed the point where the earth's gravity became dominant. So, after leaving Mars, the spacecraft would go slower and slower, almost to a crawl, before crossing the point where earth took over and started pulling it in.

Flying so slowly (literally 1000 to 3000 mph) for such a long time would make the return trip unbearably long.

And we haven't even mentioned that every drop of water, every drop of fuel, every piece of food, all the support equipment (CO2 scrubbers, GH2 and GOX for fuel cells, etc..) would need to be carried on board. Plus the astronauts would need to be able to stand being cooped up in a smelly, dirty spacecraft, stuck with their colleagues, no peace or privacy, literally for several YEARS.

That is, if EVERYTHING worked flawlessly and kept working flawlessly for probably 3 years or more.

With chemical propulsion, the spacecraft would need to be THOUSANDS of times larger than an Apollo moon rocket, and be 100% man rated reliable for years. Never gonna happen.

And if some new means of travel is eventually invented, Mars will be so close as to not being worth the bother to visit......... (other than to grab one of the old rovers and bring it back for the Smithsonian).

[alismith]

Unfortunately, a manned trip to Mars where the astronauts go there and come back is not and will not be possible with the current chemical propulsion systems we have.

The moon is "easy" to get to because it stays with the earth, it's not very far away and it's surface gravity is only 1/6 of earths.

But Mars is in it's own independent orbit, so a mission to Mars would need to wait for the proper time when Earth and Mars are close to each other (which is still far away). The CLOSEST approach is around 34 million miles or about 142 times the distance to the moon. The furthest is around 250 million miles or over 1000 times as far away as the moon!

Getting there is a tradeoff. If you go as fast as possible (say by doing an earth or venus slingshot), then you arrive at a high velocity and need a lot of propellant to burn off that speed and go into orbit.

Then, the Mars "lander" would have to do a de-orbit burn and finally make a powered landing. But Mars has double the gravity of the Moon, so the lander would need to be around 10 times larger than an Apollo style LM to hold all the extra propellant for landing (and taking back off to return).

After the Mars lander returned to orbit and docked with it's command spacecraft, it would then need to do another engine burn to leave Mars orbit and come home. The burn would need to be enough so that it escaped Mars gravity field and crossed the point where the earth's gravity became dominant. So, after leaving Mars, the spacecraft would go slower and slower, almost to a crawl, before crossing the point where earth took over and started pulling it in.

Flying so slowly (literally 1000 to 3000 mph) for such a long time would make the return trip unbearably long.

And we haven't even mentioned that every drop of water, every drop of fuel, every piece of food, all the support equipment (CO2 scrubbers, GH2 and GOX for fuel cells, etc..) would need to be carried on board. Plus the astronauts would need to be able to stand being cooped up in a smelly, dirty spacecraft, stuck with their colleagues, no peace or privacy, literally for several YEARS.

That is, if EVERYTHING worked flawlessly and kept working flawlessly for probably 3 years or more.

With chemical propulsion, the spacecraft would need to be THOUSANDS of times larger than an Apollo moon rocket, and be 100% man rated reliable for years. Never gonna happen.

And if some new means of travel is eventually invented, Mars will be so close as to not being worth the bother to visit......... (other than to grab one of the old rovers and bring it back for the Smithsonian).

What's wrong with sending unmanned, refueling rockets up so they can be intercepted by the returning manned spaceship, and refueled on the way back to Earth? That way, they would get the fuel needed for the return trip. Send as many up as needed for the return.

[Krupski]

What's wrong with sending unmanned, refueling rockets up so they can be intercepted by the returning manned spaceship, and refueled on the way back to Earth? That way, they would get the fuel needed for the return trip. Send as many up as needed for the return.

If the astronauts are coming back (i.e. towards earth) and the fuel supply ship is going towards them (i.e. towards Mars) how do they transfer the fuel when the vehicles pass each other at 10,000 MPH or more?

Even more basic... who could stand to be cooped up in a little spacecraft for 3+ years? I'll tell you, I wouldn't want to do it......

[alismith]

If the astronauts are coming back (i.e. towards earth) and the fuel supply ship is going towards them (i.e. towards Mars) how do they transfer the fuel when the vehicles pass each other at 10,000 MPH or more?

Even more basic... who could stand to be cooped up in a little spacecraft for 3+ years? I'll tell you, I wouldn't want to do it......

Why couldn't both vehicles decelerate, link up, refuel, and the manned craft speed back up to continue the journey home? It might take a while, but it should be doable.

I can't imagine being cooped up for 3+ years in a tin can either. Sounds like a way for a few people serving life sentences in prison to get a chance at a pardon....after all, they're used to being confined in small places...

[Schuetzenman]

We have geosynchronous satellites. The fuel ships should be able to be synchronized along projected flight paths to act as refuel tankers I would think.

Also to the point about the size of the vehicle, that I assume, assumes that it will be launched from earth surface. My idea would be to build the ship in space using prefabricated modules. Fly them up, bolt them together near the International space station. Doesn't take as much fuel to launch from weightless orbit as you don't have to reach escape velocity from the surface.

On who can stand to be cooped up that long ... find some PC or video console gamers. They'd be down with sitting there for a year or two no problem.

[1 Patriot-of-many]

Unfortunately, a manned trip to Mars where the astronauts go there and come back is not and will not be possible with the current chemical propulsion systems we have.

The moon is "easy" to get to because it stays with the earth, it's not very far away and it's surface gravity is only 1/6 of earths.

But Mars is in it's own independent orbit, so a mission to Mars would need to wait for the proper time when Earth and Mars are close to each other (which is still far away). The CLOSEST approach is around 34 million miles or about 142 times the distance to the moon. The furthest is around 250 million miles or over 1000 times as far away as the moon!

Getting there is a tradeoff. If you go as fast as possible (say by doing an earth or venus slingshot), then you arrive at a high velocity and need a lot of propellant to burn off that speed and go into orbit.

Then, the Mars "lander" would have to do a de-orbit burn and finally make a powered landing. But Mars has double the gravity of the Moon, so the lander would need to be around 10 times larger than an Apollo style LM to hold all the extra propellant for landing (and taking back off to return).

After the Mars lander returned to orbit and docked with it's command spacecraft, it would then need to do another engine burn to leave Mars orbit and come home. The burn would need to be enough so that it escaped Mars gravity field and crossed the point where the earth's gravity became dominant. So, after leaving Mars, the spacecraft would go slower and slower, almost to a crawl, before crossing the point where earth took over and started pulling it in.

Flying so slowly (literally 1000 to 3000 mph) for such a long time would make the return trip unbearably long.

And we haven't even mentioned that every drop of water, every drop of fuel, every piece of food, all the support equipment (CO2 scrubbers, GH2 and GOX for fuel cells, etc..) would need to be carried on board. Plus the astronauts would need to be able to stand being cooped up in a smelly, dirty spacecraft, stuck with their colleagues, no peace or privacy, literally for several YEARS.

That is, if EVERYTHING worked flawlessly and kept working flawlessly for probably 3 years or more.

With chemical propulsion, the spacecraft would need to be THOUSANDS of times larger than an Apollo moon rocket, and be 100% man rated reliable for years. Never gonna happen.

And if some new means of travel is eventually invented, Mars will be so close as to not being worth the bother to visit......... (other than to grab one of the old rovers and bring it back for the Smithsonian).

You're lying. I saw Mission to Mars and the greenhouse kept the black guy alive.

[Goodman]

Return trip fuel supply: launch fuel supply ships ahead of the manned vessel, leave some in Mars orbit, others routed around Mars and back toward Earth at a speed that can be matched by the manned vehicle

ETA: supplies and return vessel components could be landed on Mars' surface prior to a manned vehicle departure from Earth. This would help confirm the feasibility of return to orbit from Mars surface

[Viking350]

Return trip fuel supply: launch fuel supply ships ahead of the manned vessel, leave some in Mars orbit, others routed around Mars and back toward Earth at a speed that can be matched by the manned vehicle

ETA: supplies and return vessel components could be landed on Mars' surface prior to a manned vehicle departure from Earth. This would help confirm the feasibility of return to orbit from Mars surface

^^^This. Think of it as inter planetary juggling.

[Viking350]

Agreed. We should have been to Mars by now.

The problem is that the Space Shuttle was a huge hindrance to manned interplanetary flight. It was a huge resource hog that was less efficient than rocket flight to low earth orbit.

[Goodman]

Mariner 7 reached Mars in just over 4 months back in 1969. Sounds to me like a manned round trip with extensive surface exploration could be done in under 2 years.
http://m.space.com/24701-how-long-do...t-to-mars.html