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Speaking at the International Space Station Research and Development conference, Elon Musk said that a successful maiden flight for Falcon Heavy was unlikely:
SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk has downplayed the chances of a successful inaugural flight for his Falcon Heavy space launch vehicle, admitting there is a "good chance it would not make it to orbit in its first launch."
Development of the booster rocket, which is powered by 27 engines, has proven to be "way harder than the team initially thought," he told the International Space Station Research and Development conference on Wednesday.
Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful rocket booster in the world, capable of delivering a 54 ton payload into orbit.
Musk said that combining three Falcon 9 rockets together had multiplied vibrations throughout the vehicle making it difficult to test without a launch.
The maiden test flight is due to take place toward the end of the year.
As if watching the inaugural launch of the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V were not tempting enough, how many more people will watch in hopes of seeing it go BOOM!?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday July 20 2017, @08:59PM (8 children)
I am pretty convinced that slapping a Dragon on top, putting out a call for free volunteers, while making it very clear that not only is reaching orbit uncertain, but the crew escape system probably will not save them, would results into a lot more applicants than there are seats.
By a few orders of magnitude.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:18PM (6 children)
Its been studied before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf-UOVOYRxE [youtube.com] ---Run the speed down to .25 setting after viewing it once.
You will see the capsule clears the highest tower at the pad (by a wide margin) evee while starting from ground level, in less time than the fireball envelops the rocket, and just barely reaches the top of the tower.
You know that was a design requirement, right?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:37PM (3 children)
That requires it to properly fire and perform during whatever lateral acceleration big BOOM the FH may throw at it.
Imagine a dislocation at max-Q with some spinning and a sheared side booster exploding next to the Dragon instead of below.
It's designed to work during a worst case, so it should. But that doesn't mean it's going to. Never been tested.
If it ain't 100%, you tell the volunteers that their quest for eternity may be a nice marble/granite monument to them, and a check to their kids.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 21 2017, @04:19AM (2 children)
Safety measures never are 100%.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 21 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
But if you take a boat or a plane (>99% safe), they only tell you which steps to take to try to behave properly in an "unlikely unfortunate unplanned emergency" and omit the fact that in many cases they won't be enough.
I'm pretty sure the people flying a prototype rocket would have to go over a thick stack of legalese detailing the various casket sizes for each type of dysfunction of untested last-chance hardware (is KYAG an official acronym?).
The original point was "Yes, you'll be famous, but you're highly likely to die, despite our best efforts to avoid bad publicity. Anyone wants to leave? Okay, we're gonna need more resources to process all those resumes".
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 22 2017, @01:19PM
It's always seemed to me that those "crash routines" were designed primarily to minimize expressions of passenger panic likely to make things worse. I mean in what crash scenario is "put your head between your knees" so that any sudden deceleration is absorbed neck-first a good idea? It does however keep everyone in their seat so that the vehicle's center of mass remains constant. It also keeps them from seeing the flames billowing from the engine, which won't help anyone's frame of mind, and in a position where you can't breathe deeply so your screams will be short and muffled.
As for "...but you're highly likely to die, despite our best efforts to avoid bad publicity..." I think that's exactly why you refuse to carry passengers on such a test flight. Period. An "energetically disassembled" rocket makes for a good firework show, with minimal PR fallout - especially if you make sur the hype is that you epect to fail going in. Just prep a few good lines about "lessons learned for the next attempt" and the "revolution eventual success will enable", and you're good to move on. Put some people on board though, even fully disclaimered, and it becomes a "human interest story" of the sort that can turn popular opinion against you terribly. Passengers couldn't pay a high enough ticket price to be worth risking that kind of backlash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:40PM (1 child)
Yeah, but his point was, even if you removed the ability to say "well, the escape system will save me", there are people who would take that risk of death in exchange for the certain glory (such as it is) of being the first Dragon pilot.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 22 2017, @01:23PM
Except they wouldn't be the pilot, they'd just be a passenger on a suicide trip aboard an autonomous launch vehicle. I suspect the "glory" would be limited to a Wikipedia footnote about how the pointless passenger deaths inspired well-justified regulatory interference that drastically slowed further development.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @02:56AM