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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the caution-deck-is-slippery dept.

SpaceX had a successful launch, orbit insertion, and recovery of all 3 rocket boosters last Thursday. Unfortunately, they were unable to fasten down the central core on the ASDS (Autonomous spaceport drone ship) "Of Course I Still Love You:

Shifting seas and high winds brought it down.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:02PM (7 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:02PM (#830480) Journal

    Certainly. $500 million SLS is a complete fib. $1 billion might be correct, with the true cost per rocket being many billions if you factor in total program costs. You could probably see six Falcon Heavy launches per SLS pork barrel.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:15PM (6 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:15PM (#830546) Journal

    $1 billion per launch is the figure I've most often heard. And that is not counting total program pork.

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    • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:54PM (5 children)

      by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:54PM (#830641) Journal

      That puts it on par with the cost of a shuttle launch.

      I'll support immediate termination of the program on the day FH does its first manned flight.

      It will take a compelling argument to get me to buy into another contract like it too. Parting out development to subcontractors in every congressional district is a great jobs program, but a terrible way to get to space. That much is obvious now.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:32PM (4 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:32PM (#831002) Journal

        F9 can do the manned Dragon 2 fright. FH can send up the primary mission which the Dragon 2 docks with. The FH launch is first. Don't send crew until main mission equipment is already in orbit and verified working. How much more difficulter is it to dock with the mission than with the ISS? Maybe easier, because the main mission might be in a lower orbit than ISS?

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        • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:29PM (3 children)

          by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:29PM (#831036) Journal

          This is a completely reasonable approach, and matches what we're going to do out at (the useless) LOP-G anyway. I don't have a good answer for why we can't assemble and fly from LEO.

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:24PM (2 children)

            by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:24PM (#831122)

            > I don't have a good answer for why we can't assemble and fly from LEO.

            As Ars's Statistical puts it, it's because the Senate has been mandating the SLS pork barrel, so the whole architecture is designed to keep SLS absolutely necessary.
            Technically, there are quite a few absurd choices in there (the gateway makes things much harder, the capsule can't go to LLO...), which only make sense because no other rocket than SLS Block2 could do it.

            • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)

              by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:38PM (#831134) Journal

              If the Senate keeps mandating SLS pork they may find that a private manned lunar mission might beat SLS to ever getting off the ground.

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              • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:26PM

                by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:26PM (#831165)

                One can only hope.
                The question is more whether the Private US company will get there before the Chinese.