Another 1st for Musk !

[Mega]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-mission-fails

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Another 1st for Musk !

That event is emblematic of the trouble with SpaceX.
To be fair to SpaceX this failure may not be SpaceX fault, but the trouble is still there waiting for the next launch.

Musk and SpaceX were never able to fully satisfy requirements for paperwork and analysis to be certified to carry the highest value payloads.
Eventually the Air Force modified its certification process and granted SpaceX certification anyway.

In big aerospace projects the stakes are so high that we spend vast sums of money searching for the one remaining mistake that can cause failure.
Lockheed and Boeing have small armies of engineers who check and re-check everything attempting to find that one hidden mistake, and they create a mountain of paperwork documenting all of it. The Air Force has its own swarm of engineers who go over all these reports looking for the one explosive mistake among the pile of reports.
The whole thing is expensive and takes lots of time.

But if we lose a payload like the Hubble telescope, we lose not only lots of money, we lose ten years or twenty years of development time, and the project may never come back at all ever. If the payload is a spy satellite like this one we may leave a gap an enemy can exploit and pay a very high price.

SpaceX is fundamentally trying to do this work on the cheap by short-changing the search for hidden errors and omissions.

[Mega]

Re: Another 1st for Musk !

He has got to be "Connected" to someone BIG...............anyone else would have been bankrupted by now.

Mike

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Another 1st for Musk !

He has got to be "Connected" to someone BIG...............anyone else would have been bankrupted by now.

Mike

Mike, I think it's all on the square. As much as anything is at this scale.
The Air Force and NASA have been stuck with a monopoly supplier, United Launch Alliance. That's a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed for heavy lift launch rockets, the Delta rockets and Atlas rockets. Elon Musk saw the opportunity to offer some competition which the customers want very badly, and he had enough money to start a heavy lift rocket company.

Much like his Tesla car company, he has enough money to get it started but not enough money to really compete head-to-head with the giant competitors.
So he uses his amazing talents as a charming promoter to stay in the game.

I don't see SpaceX as an outright scam. Rather it's over promoted and under performing, and he keeps it alive nurturing the dream and twisting whatever arms he can.
SpaceX gets paid handsomely for these rocket launches, and has a pretty small staff and not many facilities compared to Boeing and Lockheed. SpaceX will probably keep going for years unless they have a few back-to-back failures that lose exotic payloads the customers can't tolerate losing. Who knows, he might succeed. I hope he does grow into a reliable launch provider that does things right.

Until then Spacex should stick to resupply flights for the space station or the less exotic satellites.

[Techdread]

Re: Another 1st for Musk !

Mike, I think it's all on the square. As much as anything is at this scale.
The Air Force and NASA have been stuck with a monopoly supplier, United Launch Alliance. That's a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed for heavy lift launch rockets, the Delta rockets and Atlas rockets. Elon Musk saw the opportunity to offer some competition which the customers want very badly, and he had enough money to start a heavy lift rocket company.

Much like his Tesla car company, he has enough money to get it started but not enough money to really compete head-to-head with the giant competitors.
So he uses his amazing talents as a charming promoter to stay in the game.

I don't see SpaceX as an outright scam. Rather it's over promoted and under performing, and he keeps it alive nurturing the dream and twisting whatever arms he can.
SpaceX gets paid handsomely for these rocket launches, and has a pretty small staff and not many facilities compared to Boeing and Lockheed. SpaceX will probably keep going for years unless they have a few back-to-back failures that lose exotic payloads the customers can't tolerate losing. Who knows, he might succeed. I hope he does grow into a reliable launch provider that does things right.

Until then Spacex should stick to resupply flights for the space station or the less exotic satellites.

Under Performing? SpaceX outperformed in my book launching and landing the first stage of their rocket's was a huge achievement and I was one of the people saying he is dreaming when first proposed.