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Space X launching today @ 1:30 EST


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Quote from article: "When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two"

 

Impressive!!

 

Johnny J

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Joe Frickin' Friday
Quote from article: "When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two"

 

The biggest one today, but not the biggest one ever:

 

The Falcon Heavy has 5.13 million pounds of thrust with its main first stage augmented by the boosters, and can put 140,700 pounds in low earth orbit.

 

The Saturn V had 7.9 million pounds of first-stage thrust, and could put 310,000 pounds in low earth orbit.

 

The Soviet N1 rocket was even bigger (10.2 million pounds of thrust), but had a bit of a problem with violent self-destruction and never put anything into orbit.

 

The articles I've read are giving pretty good odds (even by Musk's own admission) for a fireworks show. With the boosters attached, there are TWENTY-SEVEN engines firing at once; that's a whole lot of opportunities for things to explode...

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The Soviet N1 rocket was even bigger (10.2 million pounds of thrust), but had a bit of a problem with violent self-destruction and never put anything into orbit.

:grin:

 

Here, hold my beer while I launch this rocket... :grin:

 

Johnny J

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Joe Frickin' Friday

Good video coverage

The guy calling out events sounds a bit like a carnival barker though, kind of annoying.

 

The two boosters landing simultaneously at around the 15:00 mark is pretty slick, looks like a science fiction movie. :Cool:

Edited by Joe Frickin' Friday
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Danny caddyshack Noonan

[quote=

The Soviet N1 rocket was even bigger (10.2 million pounds of thrust), but had a bit of a problem with violent self-destruction and never put anything into orbit.

 

And, when the engines were sold and tried to make them work in another launch vehicle....something not good happened around 2:45 ish time.

 

I'm actually impressed. Getting a smaller single core to fly isn't much compared to a set of three candlesticks side-by-side. Granted, self funding isn't much of an issue for Elon. I think he learned his lessons and decided to be a bit conservative with this one. A number of cases where he ignored the government's independent reviewers before the failures.

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Joe Frickin' Friday

I wish I was rich enough to build a rocket to launch one of my cars into space with an astronaut mannequin in the driver's seat, and a camera to record the scene and beam it back to earth while Life On Mars plays in the background. If they made a movie about this, critics would say it was unrealistic. :grin:

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This brought one of our team meetings this afternoon to a screeching halt. We threw it up on the big display screen in the conference room and we all oooooed and ahhhhhed. I put the replay up on the TV this evening for the kids while cooking dinner and they we equally entranced. Watching something like this live in person has always been on my bucket list. Hope to make it happen someday. That is some seriously cool stuff. I had assumed that the Tesla Roadster was just going along for a ride in some sort of cargo hold. I didn't realize it was going to literally be bolted to the outside of the final stage so the "driver" would have a first class seat to Mars. That is freakin awesome.

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This brought one of our team meetings this afternoon to a screeching halt. We threw it up on the big display screen in the conference room and we all oooooed and ahhhhhed. I put the replay up on the TV this evening for the kids while cooking dinner and they we equally entranced. Watching something like this live in person has always been on my bucket list. Hope to make it happen someday. That is some seriously cool stuff. I had assumed that the Tesla Roadster was just going along for a ride in some sort of cargo hold. I didn't realize it was going to literally be bolted to the outside of the final stage so the "driver" would have a first class seat to Mars. That is freakin awesome.

 

It is worthwhile to see them live Keith, particularly a night launch, amazing.

 

Terry

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Joe Frickin' Friday

Now I remember why the video footage of that Tesla Roadster in orbit seemed so familiar:

 

 

Musk has packed that roadster with all kinds of cultural references. Not only does the GPS screen say "DON'T PANIC," but the glovebox reportedly contains a copy of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - and a towel.

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The Soviet N-1 Rocket suffered from both a lack of resources and a bad process. The USSR lacked the facilities to assemble the rocket on site, so it was assembled, disassembled, shipped and reassembled. And it was a complicated beast to begin with. I've been reading about the Soviet space program, and given Stalin's propensity for throwing people in gulags and having them shot, it's a wonder that they ever were able to launch anything, much less put satellites and people in orbit.

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...The two boosters landing simultaneously at around the 15:00 mark is pretty slick, looks like a science fiction movie. :Cool:

 

That was the biggest feat. Amazing.

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Danny caddyshack Noonan
The Soviet N-1 Rocket suffered from both a lack of resources and a bad process. .

 

Bad design also on the later engines, NK-33. They intentionally designed the turbopump to be unable to handle a wide range of input/output imbalance. Relatively little axial bearing shaft load capability. Should there be a high, or low, flow rate on the impeller, it might come apart.

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Good call on the Heavy Metal reference......I haven't thought about that movie in at least 20+ years. Ha......well done Mr. Musk, well done...

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Fear is a very big motivator.

 

Terry

 

Yeah, but it's bad for design continuity. The book I'm reading is 'Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race 1945-1974', and it details the early years of the Soviet aeronautic and rocket program. The regularity that bright, young engineers were imprisoned by Stalin is astounding, and that they maintained their loyalty to the program is a testament to the human spirit. Give that the Soviets also started off on a back foot when Von Braun made a deal with the US prior to Germany's surrender to bring both his personnel and a great deal of the V2 technology to our side. And that US forces had literally 'made off with the goods' before the Soviets arrived at the main V2 production site at the end of the war.

 

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Quote from article: "When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two"

 

The biggest one today, but not the biggest one ever:

 

The Falcon Heavy has 5.13 million pounds of thrust with its main first stage augmented by the boosters, and can put 140,700 pounds in low earth orbit.

 

The Saturn V had 7.9 million pounds of first-stage thrust, and could put 310,000 pounds in low earth orbit.

 

The Soviet N1 rocket was even bigger (10.2 million pounds of thrust), but had a bit of a problem with violent self-destruction and never put anything into orbit.

 

The articles I've read are giving pretty good odds (even by Musk's own admission) for a fireworks show. With the boosters attached, there are TWENTY-SEVEN engines firing at once; that's a whole lot of opportunities for things to explode...

 

A little something to give you an idea of the monsters that are the Saturn V's first stage engines: the Rocketdyne F1. The fuel pump for each engine required a 55,000 horsepower turbine to get the kerosene into the engine at the required flow. 55,000 horse power. One engine. There were five of those engines on the first stage.

 

Another fun fact about they Rocketdyne F1: They were originally developed in the late 50's to power ICBMs. The early models tended to develop a nasty combustion oscillation that would quickly lead to explosion. The engineers debugged the problem by setting off TNT charges attached to the nozzle while the engine was in operation. They analyzed the resulting vibrations to come up with changes to the design that fixed the problem. Can you imagine being one of those folks? "Hey, I know, why don't we set off a stick of dynamite attached to the nozzle while it is producing a million pounds of thrust? What could go wrong?" Or maybe it was "Hold my beer and watch this."

 

 

 

Edited by poodad
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For those on the west coast, SpaceX has a launch scheduled for early next Saturday morning:

https://spaceflight101.com/events/falcon-9-paz/

 

We usually watch from here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/13th+St+%26+W+Ocean+Ave,+Lompoc,+CA+93436/@34.6705013,-120.5630667,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x80ec225a21c7c021:0xcaddfb26b3c1edfc!8m2!3d34.6705013!4d-120.560878

 

Here's the view:

 

No landing back at Vandenberg yet, that should be coming in a couple of months.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Joe Frickin' Friday

Got a good sound system? Try this on for size:

 

 

Lots of explanation upfront; actual launch (with 15-second countdown) starts around 3:10. It's a spacious audio experience with headphones, but if you've got a home theatre system with a butt-rattling subwoofer, you'll feel like you're ON the rocket. :eek:

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