SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Happening Now

Interesting sidenote, in the late 1950s before the Saturn family of rockets the DoD/NASA studied the Juno V class of missile-derived reusable rockets.

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The Juno V/Saturn A was never produced, but the Saturn IB and proposed successors borrowed heavily from the design.

It's a shame they cancelled the second run of Saturns. The Saturn 1B was cheap and the Saturn V could launch 5x the payload of a Shuttle for less than 2x the price. We probably could have had reusable Saturn-derived rockets by the 80s.

NASA does amazing science. Their Mars rovers are among the pinnacles of modern engineering. They can clearly build and manage big projects. The problem with NASA's manned program has been a lack of direction from the top post-Reagan. Both Bush's talked about big missions but they just kept the Shuttle (and now ISS resupply contracts) limping along. Obama talked about going to Mars... someday. Trump hasn't said much yet.
 
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Gideon said:
Secondly the Saturn V rocket plans were destroyed to keep enemies of the state from ever getting a hold of that tech.
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PaulP said:
Um, no. SpaceX did not "borrow heavily" from the Apollo program (which I am guessing you mean the Saturn V rocket). The designs for those engines were lost/destroyed.
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The Saturn V plans being lost is a myth that keeps on giving due to misconstruing statements that the Saturn V couldn't be rebuilt. NASA has since confirmed they still have the full plans, but the statement that the rocket can't be rebuilt is true from the standpoint that there aren't enough engineers around who are familiar with it and more importantly most (all?) of the parts are no longer being made by the original suppliers. To the point: we still have the original plans, but because the rocket would need all new suppliers/parts the rocket would basically need to be redesigned making the original plans irrelevant.
 
Xrave said:
The Saturn V plans being lost is a myth that keeps on giving due to misconstruing statements that the Saturn V couldn't be rebuilt. NASA has since confirmed they still have the full plans, but the statement that the rocket can't be rebuilt is true from the standpoint that there aren't enough engineers around who are familiar with it and more importantly most (all?) of the parts are no longer being made by the original suppliers. To the point: we still have the original plans, but because the rocket would need all new suppliers/parts the rocket would basically need to be redesigned making the original plans irrelevant.
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I have not heard that. But back in the early 90's when I was at space camp that is what they told us, the plans were destroyed. Doesnt matter anyway it would be cost prohibitive to even build one and launch it. We really dont need that tech, we need vehicle for long distance travel to be moon launched or space launched, far easier and less costly. They have a Saturn V rocket disassembled on the Space Camp grounds, really shows you how damn big it was.
 
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Gideon said:
I have not heard that. But back in the early 90's when I was at space camp that is what they told us, the plans were destroyed.
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Somebody wrote a book in the 90s claiming he couldn't find the documents, but they're stored on microfilm at the Marshall Space Flight Center and other archives.

It's like Xrave said, the problem isn't that we don't have 'blueprints', the problem is that all the components are out of production and the workers and tooling are long gone. This is a problem when any big aerospace project ends, it's why they can't just go and throw together another B-2 or F-22 whenever they want.
 
PaulP said:
And what exactly did NASA get for that "contract"? They got cargo service to the ISS at a much lower cost than they could have done themselves. That contract was for the Dragon capsule which is only needed by NASA, so yeah, of course they had to pay SpaceX to design, test, and build the thing for them. All the development costs for the Merlin engines and the Falcon 9 rocket were covered by SpaceX. Look, you can believe all you want that had NASA not contracted with SpaceX for cargo delivery to the ISS, that SpaceX would have failed, but that's just speculation on your part since history did not unfold that way, and I am free to disagree with your speculation. The fact is, we'll never know for sure. The important part is that SpaceX did succeed and in spectacular fashion; no need to piss on Elon's shoes.
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Seeing as the launch where dragon successfully landed the first time was the do or die launch - if it had failed SpaceX would have been bankrupt (elon's own words) - yes SpaceX would not exist today w/o NASA. Not sure why you're so fixated that that's not the case...
 
travisty said:
Seeing as the launch where dragon successfully landed the first time was the do or die launch - if it had failed SpaceX would have been bankrupt (elon's own words) - yes SpaceX would not exist today w/o NASA. Not sure why you're so fixated that that's not the case...
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Now you're just moving the goalposts; before you were arguing that had NASA not contracted with SpaceX they would have gone bankrupt. Now you are saying that had they had a failure to deliver on that contract, they would have gone bankrupt. Not the same thing at all. Of course failures on large contracts early in a company's history can be catastrophic, but that is not the same thing as saying that without the contract in the first place, the company would not be in business today. Sometimes companies survive because they know which risky contracts to walk away from. In the case of SpaceX and the NASA contracts, it has so far payed off.
 
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odditory said:
And SpaceX certainly isn't run like the government, certainly not our current government. When you see SpaceX employees interviewed it's very apparent how re genuinely excited and proud they are to be working there, to have a leader they're inspired by and believe in - one that genuinely seems more interested in tech-human advancement than mere self enrichment.

Love this guy.

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I would say, don't mistake the awesome people at NASA and their enthusiasm for the slimeballs in Congress and their opportunism.
 
PaulP said:
Now you're just moving the goalposts; before you were arguing that had NASA not contracted with SpaceX they would have gone bankrupt. Now you are saying that had they had a failure to deliver on that contract, they would have gone bankrupt. Not the same thing at all. Of course failures on large contracts early in a company's history can be catastrophic, but that is not the same thing as saying that without the contract in the first place, the company would not be in business today. Sometimes companies survive because they know which risky contracts to walk away from. In the case of SpaceX and the NASA contracts, it has so far payed off.
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You're totally misreading what i'm saying. I am not moving the goal post, instead what i'm saying is money was tight even w/ the NASA contract and w/o the contract SpaceX would have been severly underfunded.

It's not easy to fund a "moon shot" project

I think you're convinced the government is evil or something... at least you're agreeing that the government did help SpaceX unlike you're original denial like you're misinformed belief the Saturn V plans were lost. It's really not worth my time talking to an ignorant brick wall.
 
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travisty said:
You're totally misreading what i'm saying. I am not moving the goal post, instead what i'm saying is money was tight even w/ the NASA contract and w/o the contract SpaceX would have been severly underfunded.

It's not easy to fund a "moon shot" project

I think you're convinced the government is evil or something... at least you're agreeing that the government did help SpaceX unlike you're original denial like you're misinformed belief the Saturn V plans were lost. It's really not worth my time talking to an ignorant brick wall.
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I have no trouble with the government contracting with companies, but when you say "government funding" people automatically think of giveaways and grants where the government is not expecting anything directly back in return. This is definitely not the case with SpaceX and that was my point. Also it is mere conjecture on your part that SpaceX would not have been able to succeed without those government contracts; you can't state that as a "fact". I admit that those contracts were very important and helped SpaceX get to where they are today quicker than otherwise. But neither of us, or even Elon, can know what might have been if those NASA contracts had not materialized.
Edit: As far as the Saturn V plans are concerned, I've seen claims for years that the plans were lost. Frankly I didn't have a hard time believing that considering all the mismanagement from NASA over the years. If I was misled about that, then I concede the point, however it really makes little difference to my claim that the Merlin engine is a new design on an old idea and does not "borrow heavily on the Apollo" program. Unless you think that modern cars borrow heavily on the Model-T.
 
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