For those wondering, this isn't a simple repeat of CRS8 which landed on a drone ship about a month ago. CRS8 was a mission to low earth orbit which left the first stage with plenty of fuel to effect a landing. The landing was made as slow as possible and limited only by how low a single engine could be throttled. The re-entry burn which slows the rocket down before the landing burn was also more agressive.
This mission was to launch JCSAT-14 to geosynchronous orbit which requires the falcon 9 to move the already heavy satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. That meant the first stage had to do a lot more work and was left with a lot less fuel as a result. Therefore, the re-entry burn was less aggressive, the first stage came in with twice the speed, and SpaceX needed to do a far harder landing with three engines lit in the quicker and riskier suicide burn. Somehow, despite playing down expectations, they managed an even more precise landing than last time.
To expand on this slightly the CRS8 (and OG2, the land landing) landing was done using only 1 engine, which even then was presumably throttled. This landing burn was done using 3 engines so they spend less time below terminal velocity, and thus use less fuel. The total deceleration should be ~40 m/s during the burn.
He did say total deceleration, so I believe he meant the landing burn starts at a velocity of 40 m/s and consequently the total ΔV of the landing burn is 40 m/s.
That said, I have no idea where he got that number, whether 40 m/s or 40 m/s^2; both are incorrect.
This shows the landing burn starting at a velocity of 269 m/s and experiencing a peak deceleration of 12.3g = 121 m/s^2
I don't know how accurate these numbers are, but some fans put quite a bit of effort into getting the flightclub.io profiles as close to reality as possible, so they tend to be pretty good.
The approximation I had is almost certainly less reliable than flightclubs, not sure why it was so low, will have to look at the math I did and figure out what I screwed up.
Check out the flight profile on Flightclub.io -- I'm not sure how accurate their instantaneous data is but they're showing ~12g acceleration upon landing the booster. Seems more like what I'd expect.
TheVehicleDestroyer (who makes FlightClub) actually commented [1] to say that the 12G is an error due to how he models the deployment of the landing legs.
Ugh sorry, there's a bug of some sort in Flight Club there. There's no way it was that large. A constant deceleration down from terminal velocity over 6 seconds is
So it looks like that peak is due to the sudden increase in drag during my landing legs deployment. I deploy them at 500m altitude which is a time when the stage is probably still moving a bit too fast. It's a really large increase in cross-sectional area, but I'm probably not treating it correctly. I'll revise before Thaicom-8
Impatient to know if the 1st stage is reusable after a 12g phase. The entire concept hangs on this and it looks like we don't have a firm confirmation yet.
12g but empty. A structure meant to survive being filled with 10+ times (fuel+upper stage) it's own weight will survive 10+Gs without effort. In other words, the stress of a 12g acceleration isn't much different than the stress of the stage sitting on the pad a few minutes previously.
The overall structure actually goes through all sorts of stresses, not all of which are measured in G. The combination of push from the rocket and air resistance compresses the rocket from both ends, something that isn't reflected in G numbers.
I think this is only sort of true. Yes, the fueled rocket is much, much heavier. But not all parts of the rocket are load bearing as it sits on the pad waiting for launch. All parts of the rocket experience the 12g (or whatever it was) deceleration.
Also, rocket skins are really, really thin (relative to their size, the forces they endure, etc.) I've read that without the fuel inside to reinforce the rocket, it is quite fragile - think of trying to crush an empty soda can vs a full one. This is part of why rockets which deviate too far from prograde on launch are ripped apart mid-air.
Regarding your last part, some rockets have balloon tanks, which means that the tank requires pressurization to keep its shape.
The Falcon 9 has a sort of partial balloon tank. It's strong enough for ground handling without pressurization, but it requires pressurization to handle flight loads.
Note however that it's pressure, not fuel, that provides the extra strength. These tanks are still pressurized even when almost empty.
From the video it looks like it lands on a ship in rough seas and they do nothing to secure it. Won't it just fall over if the seas are rough enough, and if so, why don't they have some sort of robotic system that locks it down tight the moment it lands?
If the sea is still enough to land, it's still enough to take time securing. The previous stage was secured by tying down the thrust structure ("octaweb") to tack-welded fixings on the deck with hoofing big chains. There may also have been shoes, we couldn't see clearly.
Tack-welding fixtures to a steel deck is apparently SOP in big shipping, so it's not as radical as it sounds.
With respect to Musk, that is total bunk. Any structure like this will have to be secured to the deck. The fact that it is a rocket doesn't matter. He may think that it is safe from falling over, but the insurance company and/or the health and safety people will tell him that cargo that tall needs to be secured. Ropes, chains, welding ... it cannot just sit there. A Volvo station wagon, on that deck at sea, would be tied. A box of onions would at least be secured so that it doesn't shift onto someone's foot. Boats move, cargo cannot.
I suspect he is in a unique situation to know the numbers for this much better than you do, because he runs the company that has successfully done this.
Bonus points that the overwhelming majority of ships lack the giant oil rig thrusters that all of the ASDS armada contain to keep them as stable as feasible and prevent listing too much in normal ocean condiditons.
It is amusing that you insist your speculation about something you've never done is more valuable than the experience of someone that has pioneered it.
Ya, because SpaceX is the only company to have ever transported something on the deck of the ship. It was a rocket until the moment it landed. Now it's cargo.
This isn't my area of expertise and what you've said certainly makes sense, however from my understanding ship-to-ship, or in this case ship-to-barge, boardings at sea aren't without their own inherent risks.
It could be that having the first stage untethered is deemed less risky to personnel than having a team of welders board the barge and tie it down.
The key is movement. Doing something like moving objects from one ship to another is pretty standard, but only in good conditions and normally not when the ship is moving. The rocket may well be safe to stand on the ship at the moment it lands. The conditions at that moment are good enough to make the choice to do the move. Once it is on the ship, that choice is over. Conditions change, most dramatically in that the stationary ship is going to drive away to port. Not bringing the object aboard is no longer an option, as it was prior to the rocket landing. Under those conditions the cargo has to be secured not against current conditions, but against all possible conditions.
If they don't need it, they don't need it, but I wonder if there would be any other way do the secure the rocket without requiring welders to board the barge. Coat the deck with solder and put heaters in the feet to attach? A robotic Roomba-style welder? Giant arms that rise up to clasp the rocket regardless of the exact landing position? Fun to think about...
Cargo shifting is a big deal. The yearly casualty rate for Bering Sea crab fishing used to be over 1% per year, because the shifting weight of crab pots on overloaded vessels in heavy seas. I saw a training film when I was aboard a tender boat in Alaska. Those boats could look fine one minute then capsize and be as good as sunk in the next 2. Shifting weight on vessels has and does cause rapid capsizing and deaths at sea.
This is pretty light cargo relative to the weight of the ship. It's a few tons of rocket and thousands of tons of ship. I don't think it's going to matter to the ship if it shifts, the only risk is losing the rocket over the side.
What you say is True. My comment explains why the shipping industry and regulatory bodies seem paranoid about shifting weights at sea. There are good reasons to be conservative about certain things and brook no exceptions.
Just to elaborate: due to wave action and leverage on the underside of the hull, parts of the deck of a ship can accelerate downward faster than the acceleration from Earth's gravity, and while the deck underneath the rocket has fallen faster than the rocket and its heavy engines it can also lurch to a side. Even if the center of gravity makes it equivalent to a sheet of rolled steel, so that it wouldn't tip over, it could become displaced, then go overboard or cause unwanted damage.
While I suppose that the rocket could be heavy enough to lower the center of gravity of the entire vessel below the troughs of any waves enough to make it incredibly unlikely, it isn't just the prospect of tipping over that makes it important to secure cargo.
A lot of rules around shipping actually have to do with physics. See my other comment. Shifting cargo can be very bad news. It has caused a lot of deaths. It's probably not a big deal in this case, except that booster is worth about (I'm guessing) 20 million dollars, SpaceX's cost? It's tall, but the center of gravity is low and it's on a barge.
Engineering is conservative "just in case." So are a lot of practical activities that happen on the sea. In neither case, is this irrational or a waste of time.
They will of course have modelled the cargo scenario, and I suspect that Musk means that it's nice and stable when they do that -- but then shipping norms come into play because, like you say, unsecured cargo is unsecured cargo.
It needs to be both stable and secured, because only one is inviting woe.
... which means there's nobody around to be injured or killed if the rocket falls post-landing. Maybe it's a precaution worth taking when they intend these stages for commercial re-use; for now, the whole thing is one big experiment.
There is a ship a few miles away with engineers on it. Once the stage has vented all excess liquid oxygen and is safe to approach, they can return to the ASDS and secure it.
More like a Pepsi can with a bloody big brick in the bottom 9*470 kg merlins).
Main threat to stability would seem to be wind, but doesn't seem to be the case in practice
Before it landed, the most likely scenario was that the rocket was going to crash into the deck and be destroyed. (That's happened several times before.) If they can deal with that, they can deal with the rocket landing safely and then falling over.
To add to above: In the previous barge landing they did weld the landing legs to the barge using some kind of bracket. But they discovered that the centre of gravity is low enough to not need any welding. During the previous attempt the sea was heavier than this time.
Maybe they still weld it this time, but that is done by having someone go to the barge and do it.
Actually no they did not weld anything to the legs. Elon said that they realize it wasn't needed. They did use octojack though to support the weight off the legs.
Plus the platform has four computer controlled engines on basically universal joints to stabilize it. A crew then boards the barge and puts 'shoes' over the landing legs then welds them to the deck.
What's notable about this attempt (as opposed to the last) is that the first stage rocket was traveling twice as fast (4x the energy to overcome on landing), and didn't have enough propellant to do a 'boostback' burn.
Instead, coming in very hot, the rocket had to use three engines (instead of one) to slow for landing. The last time this was attempted, the first stage put a nice hole in the deck of the drone ship.
Seeing the rocket dead-center on the barge was quite a sight!
One of my favorite facts is that merely relighting the engine provides enough thrust to lift the rocket (at its minimum throttle of 60%).
This means that it must slow to a standstill, cut the engines and hit the platform at exactly the same time or it will either start going up again or be dropped onto the platform from a less than ideal height.
Slow to a standstill and cut the engines at the exact point where it pushes enough on the platform that when the engine stops thursting, the platform bumps back exactly to the bottom of the rocket.
Slightly off topic but I was watching a television show the other day and someone said they worked at NASA. The host then said "So you're literally a rocket scientist?"
And the guy said emphatically "Rocket engineer, there is a big difference"
I'm sure this particular task probably was a little bit of both. After all, they had to run several real world experiments to prove their calculations.
One thing I'd point out is that your model ought to include that engineering also quite often is forced to run ahead of science, too. Engineers don't have the luxury of waiting until science nails down every last parameter, Julius Ceasar wants his aqueduct now, and materials science isn't going to be around to help for another 1800 years or so.... and that's just an example, it happens all the time even today.
"In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it. In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it. Of course, you seldom, if ever, see the pure state." - Richard Hamming
Science is the knowing of things by their causes. Science is the putting into knowledge what is in reality.
Engineering [which he would call techne, from which we get the word 'technology'] is the art of putting ideas into reality. It is putting what is in our knowledge into the real world.
Thus they are perfectly complementary things, one bringing the world into ideas, the other ideas into the world.
There's also experimentation to generate hypotheses. I.e., let's sequence the genomes of healthy people and the genomes of people with some disease and see if there is a difference.
It's possible to argue that the implicit hypothesis there is that there is some sort of difference, but that is a particularly weak hypothesis compared to the specificity of hypotheses that can be formed once we have this pile of data -- i.e maybe X, Y, Z differences are important in this disease.
There's so much overlap it would make sense for C.V.s of either to include a % science/engineering to suss out their own feel for both history and preference of activity.
A friend of mine in Houston Texas had a bumper sticker that said, "Yes, I'm literally a Rocket Scientist!" He had a degree in physics and maintained the software that tracked the Space Shuttle's trajectory.
In a way this time was a first as well, considering that they only recovered boosters for LEO missions so far. GTO is much less fuel to work with for landing and higher velocities.
Different use cases. This was a GTO launch which means the first stage had way more energy and therefore way tighter margins than the last attempt. This attempt used three engines to land and had a more difficult landing trajectory.
Looks like the landing was perfectly centered on the barge this time as well. Does anyone know when they plan on reusing one of these recovered first stages?
The first recovered stage, F9-021, has already been static fired and will likely end up as a monument outside of SpaceX HQ as they've filed an FAA request to do so.
The second recovered rocket, F9-023, will be relaunched. It has already been static fired with no announced problems. Elon said it'd be a few months before a customer was announced, but the general feeling is that it will be an SES satellite as SES has already publicly expressed interest.
Based on that FAA application it looks like someone will be losing their prime parking spot.
In all seriousness though, I'm not sure how I feel about this monument. It's going to be really crammed next to the main building and I don't think it will have a very strong visual presence with a giant grey wall directly in the background. There isn't really a good vantage point for viewing either. I suppose it will look ok from the opposite corner of Crenshaw.
You probably know best here, but I'm seeing a first stage height of 135 ft. Perhaps they're thinking of placing it on the roof of the main building? Though I do totally agree that it would look better elsewhere, like over by one of the onramps to the 105. Just a shame that the Western Museum of Flight moved, a nice little rocket garden in that museum would have been a nice touch.
The first one definitely will (unless negotiations break down and they decide to launch without a customer, but that seems unlikely). Eventually when it becomes routine maybe not.
We're dealing with a group of people with strong ideas about space. They probably won't pass on much of the savings, but for a different reason - they need the budget for Mars project. That's the whole purpose this company exists in the first place.
If they're smart (and they are) they'll figure out ways to reduce the price of launch in the right way to maximize an increase in their margins. They could more than double the number of customers using secondary space in the "trunk" and cube-sats. The secondary customers will pay far less than the primary ones, but there will be many more of them.
If they're smart, they're figuring out ways they can own a big part of the infrastructure for an emerging market.
Only marginally - if none of their competitors can reuse a rocket then they only need to undercut the cost of a non-reusable rocket. The reward for innovation is that you get a temporary monopoly on that innovation and so can extract something very like a monopoly rent.
The demand seems to be quite inelastic at the current price levels, but the comsat industry has been gearing up for reusability. It is possible that there will be some price elasticity at radically lower prices, and the increased demand makes up for the lower unit margin. SpaceX need to kickstart a whole new trans-lunar economy for the Mars colonisation project to work, so it is within their interest to stimulate long-term demand.
If Musk wanted to maximize his risk-adjusted profit, SpaceX would never have started. Remember, he financed the cashflow out of his own pocket, and went from a 100-millionaire to not being able to afford rent during the process. He himself said SpaceX had less than even chance of success, and he is known to be both very meticulous in preparation, and an incurable optimist.
Its more favorable for SpaceX to lower prices as much as possible to crush incumbents (ULA). Extracting maximum profits just gives time for other competitors to catch up.
That may be favourable in the short term but a monopoly position stagnates R&D due to lack of need. Plus Elon Musk doesn't strike me as the type to avoid innovating.
Assuming SpaceX gets to the point where they are re-flying stages a dozen or more times, I might expect to see a discount on a "new" rocket, as opposed to a "tried and true" rocket.
Would you rather be on the first flight an aircraft makes after leaving the factory, or the tenth?
Amusing... I was wondering why they needed to get FAA permission to park the rocket, but the application says it'll be 160 feet tall. So they're standing it up, as opposed to the NASA methodology of positioning their monuments horizontally.
Not sure why your comment was downvoted but this is true, there really isn't much open space around the SpaceX property.
I wish we had a campus like Raytheon or Northrop have in El Segundo/Redondo Beach. The 60's & 70's were certainly the high points in aerospace campus architecture here in SoCal.
Do you work for SpaceX? You have it in your username and comment like you're part of the company, but also spend your time discussing the merits of the NRA. Do you represent SpaceX or are you just super enthusiastic about them? It's not easy to tell.
I do work for SpaceX although I'm not in engineering or software dev. I work in the technician/skilled labor side of the house.
I don't think I've posted anything specifically discussing the merits of the NRA, although I have posted on the subject of gun control and self defense. In any case I'm not sure why discussing that topic and working at SpaceX would be mutually exclusive.
Obviously it should be said that I don't represent SpaceX and the views I express here are my own and not the company's.
That's the response I was hoping for. My only critique then is please register a personal account. You can't have a name like SpaceX_Tech and not expect us to take everything you say as something that they would endorse. I'd be appalled if a programmer I employed created an account under my company name, for use of expressing every personal opinion under the sun. I hope you understand the position I'm coming from and that others may be thinking the same thing when reading your comments.
To be honest, I hadn't considered the ramifications of using the company name as part of my username. You make a good point about the potential of being mistaken for representing the company in some official capacity and I will heed your advice and register under a different username.
I'm curious about the etiquette in regards to identifying myself as a SpaceX employee though. I originally joined to relay some of my personal experiences with the company, is it generally a bad idea to identify myself as an employee, or is the bigger issue in your opinion the use of the company name within my username?
Also, if I do identify myself as an employee, do you think it would be wise to maintain two separate accounts, one exclusively for discussing SpaceX/space related matters and another one for other possibly more controversial topics or is it no longer an issue as long as I have a more generic username?
I certainly understand your position and appreciate the advice.
I wouldn't think twice if you had in your profile something like "I work for SpaceX." Good to know, but not the source of your opinions. Your account is young enough that you can gain all that back without the boss in your name. This isn't my first account.
Plus, and I can't speak for everyone, but as a former would-be astronaut, this kind of stuff is tops to me. Info from insiders is always welcome. Consider starting a blog.
Thanks again for the advice, I certainly value your point of view. This is the last time I'll post from this account, I'll go ahead and start a new one at some point.
I appreciate your sentiment in my starting a blog but I don't think I'd have the time to meaningfully contribute to it and I don't feel comfortable enough in my writing ability to do the kind of long form writing I feel such a topic deserves.
There are certainly many would-be astronauts here as well. Thanks for the kind words in support of the work we're doing.
At the presser following the first barge recovery Musk said they would probably re-launch it in June. It sounds like they aren't planning to do much with it beyond test firing.
I attended a conference from the head of the CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, ~ French NASA) in Paris a week ago and he talked about that.
Ariane 6 is going to be built with a cost effective approach and trying to focus on market needs (3D printing of parts, reusability of the first stage, etc.)
At first, concerning SpaceX, his group of experts told him that the design of the rocket wasn't going to work and was going to explode at high altitude due to fluctuation. They also told him that the first stage would just go through the barge, sinking both the first stage and the barge. Now they are taking new entrants way more seriously.
I can't imagine how anyone with the slightest clue could conclude that the first stage would sink the barge. The scales are just too different; the barge outweighs the rocket by orders of magnitude.
I hope this is one of those "lost in translation" things, because otherwise I fear for that group of supposed experts.
> the barge outweighs the rocket by orders of magnitude
The energy amount the rocket impacts with is dominated by its speed, not its mass. A small, fast-travelling projectile can make a hole in just about any kind of armour. The terminal velocity is quite low, but that's in part because of the way it is engineered — an ICBM would probably be able to put a hole through a ship deck with ease.
There is a lot of reasoning by analogy vs. reasoning from first principles going on, and the latter seems to be winning. But the main driver of the space industry is governmental funding, not commercial. Much of those statements were probably political; SpaceX have prevailed, and indeed found some champions of their own (John McCain is rabidly behind them, and some of the statements he comes up with are ludicrous in their own right, for example), though not before enduring some setbacks.
The energy amount the rocket impacts with is dominated by its speed, not its mass. A small, fast-travelling projectile can make a hole in just about any kind of armour. The terminal velocity is quite low, but that's in part because of the way it is engineered — an ICBM would probably be able to put a hole through a ship deck with ease.
While what you've said is true, in practice it isn't a problem.
If the F9 first stage is out of control and going too fast, it will almost certainly miss the barge to begin with. The barge is small, the ocean is big, and the F9 has to maneuver very precisely to reach it.
If it does reach the barge, it will likely be moving relatively slow, and thus is less likely to sink the barge, even it things go crazy at the last moment.
That brings up an interesting question, can't the range safety officer just scuttle the first stage after separation? I can't imagine that they don't have that capability after separation.
mass != momentum. I'm sure the thinking was that they wouldn't be able to slow the rocket down enough and that the speed of impact would punch through the barge. The autonomous control needed to get the rocket to slow down and stop at just the right time, while accounting for the movement of the barge, the movement of the rocket (eg: unpredictable wind impact), and the difficulty of gathering telemetry through the rocket engine exhaust, is pretty amazing.
They initially aim the rocket to the side, then correct over to the barge after the engine lights, so a failure there doesn't cause a high-speed crash.
Either way, the relative masses matter. It takes a lot more effort to punch a hole through something much more massive than your projectile! It doesn't make much sense that a light, nearly spent rocket stage would punch all the way through a massive barge. And even if it did, the hole still wouldn't be big enough to sink it.
Also the fact that if the rocket has actually lost control its unlikely it would hit the barge anyway at least at any significant amount of speed. The only time that would be likely is if it loses control right at the end where is velocity is low.
> I'm sure the thinking was that they wouldn't be able to slow the rocket down enough and that the speed of impact would punch through the barge.
Would any "expert" really believe SpaceX didn't run the numbers millions of times, and do millions of simulations to confirm they could slow it down before actually spending the money to buy and outfit drone ships, build landing legs onto their rockets, etc. etc. ?
I mean, honestly, while the devil is in the details for an actual landing, they must have been pretty damn sure they could at least slow the thing down sufficiently.
Of course, but my point is that the barge is so much more massive that the idea of punching a hole all the way through doesn't really make sense, and even if that were possible, such a small hole wouldn't sink it anyway.
Ariane 6 looks like it will be a fine rocket. Should be quite competitive if they can get it to market before, say, 2010, and if SpaceX's reusability efforts come to naught.
Otherwise, I fear it'll be much too little, much t0o late.
Well, but SpaceX hasn't. They have not reused any rockets. They've landed a few rockets, they've test-fired one of the landed rockets. But that's far from a track record of reliably recovering their rockets, turning them around and sending them back up that could drive the massive cost benefits that they hope for.
I'm not really playing skeptic here -- SpaceX's progress has been incredible, and I'm inclined to believe them that they can do it -- but it hasn't happened yet.
Newton's approximation for impact depth [1] gives a way to calculate how thick the barge deck would have to be to survive a high speed impact from the rocket stage. The impactor punches through until it has displaced an equal mass. An empty F9 stage masses about 23,100kg and has a diameter of 3.66m. [2] Steel has a density around 7,700 kg/m^3. Doing the math, the deck would need to be about 29 cm thick to survive a high speed impact. Estimates are the actual barge deck is 25-35 mm thick [3], so 1/10th that thickness. If the F9 stage came down onto the barge completely uncontrolled, it probably would punch through!
Punch through the deck. Which we already know can happen, the SES-9 landing attempt punched a nice hole in the deck. But you'd need to punch all the way through the hull to even think about sinking the barge, and of course the barge is built with compartments so even that wouldn't do it.
I expect the hull is thinner than the deck: it isn't designed to hold up to a rocket blowtorching and landing. But good point about compartments: the barge may well be able to survive a rocket-sized hole punched through it!
I'm kind of fascinated -- and not necessarily in a good sense -- with how unbelievably conservative the aerospace industry became right after its greatest moment of glory. That would have been Apollo in 1969. Seems like after the Moon landings everyone just said "welp, that's it, nothing else will ever be done."
I agree, I can imagine NASA became complacent, stopped embracing risk, prioritised perfection over practicability and became similar to many public sector departments.
Airbus is working on Adeline, which would fly back and recover the first-stage engines and avionics (but not the fuel tanks) on an Ariane rocket.
The Chinese have mentioned an effort to recover and reuse first stages by landing them with parachutes.
So far, the Russians seem to think the effort isn't worthwhile.
Closer to home, ULA's new Vulcan rocket is supposed to recover the first stage engines (but again, not the fuel tanks) using a parachute and helicopter.
It remains to be seen whether any of these schemes will work or how long they'll take. They have a lot of catching up to do in any case.
Say what you want about SpaceX's plans for re-usability, nobody can deny they are making progress at an incredible pace. I've just checked on Wikipedia and apparently the first flight of the Falcon was in 2010. That's six years ago.
Compared to that, Arianeespace's target of 2025 (in nine years!) for Adeline is almost ridiculous.
Pre paywall ""Europe must take stock of what is happening in the United States , because if nothing is done , in ten years, our launcher sector will be in big trouble. "
Faced with the offensive for two and a half years in the space by Elon Musk , who breaks the prices of commercial satellite launches, Arianespace boss Stephane Israel sounds alarm . The distortion of competition will intensify as the founder of SpaceX was awarded on April 28 , its first contract with"
Why should we care. I see no benfit in government funded rockets. I much rather see ESA buy launches on a competitive market. The should invest in innovative new missions instead of an ill fated attempted to beat comercial producers at rocket development.
Other then subsadising your own industry and for military reasons, their is no argument for making your own rockets. Both those are terrible arguments.
I'm not sure Stephane Israël's warning is directed at governments. It's more of a warning call for all European industrials who should increase their efforts to prepare for the present and upcoming US competition.
I mean it's not as if Ariane 6 is being built entirely by government money. It's more complicated than that. As a matter of fact, a new company Airbus Safran Launches[1] has recently been created out of the two big aerospace companies and is working mostly on Ariane 6. As I understand it, the CEO of Arianespace is calling for more initiatives like these.
It's a bit like with aerospace, when Boeing started building big airlines, European companies gathered and formed Airbus. They were not government owned but I supposed the government did intervene some way or an other considering it was a strategically crucial economic sector.
Also, whether the government funds an aerospace company is a bit blurry. SpaceX is privately owned but its major client is the government and, as Stephane Israël often complains about, they get extremely advantageous and arguably unfair contracts notably with the US military. It's kind of a government funding in disguise.
That being said, money is not the only issue here. The big thing SpaceX has is passion : since those guys think they're basically saving the world or something, they work much harder than anyone in Europe. I mean it's surely much easier for an engineer to keep working late at night when he thinks that his work will allow man to walk on mars and save the human race from extinction. That's the only way I can explain the extreme speed at which they're making progress when compared to what is done in Europe.
As far as I can tell Arian 6 will get tons of government money, almost 3 billion, while private share is only about 0.5 billion. Even with this massive investment the estimated costs are per launch are still quite high.
SpaceX actually has to do a lot of work for those government contracts, and they will lose that money if they can not diliver the capability in the required amount of time. They had to carry most devlopment cost themself and they were also always flighing comercial launches. Governemnts are 70% of the launch market, so I don't think any space company can or will live totally without government contracts.
If they can make the Ariane 6 compete within a decent price, I am not against some government contracts going to them. It makes sense not to give all contracts to one company, but Arianspace (or whoever) has to first devlop a rocket without massiv governemnt investment and show that they are in the 20% range of price. If they can not do that, their are other companies who you can go to. Sure its not fair if the rockets from china or russia are subsidised (not saying the are or ar not) but thats good for Europe because we get cheaper launches that are payed for by other governments.
Are engineers in Europe really less passionate about their job than those in the US? Personally, I'm skeptical. For sure, having a mission to go to Mars is cool, but just working on rockets alone seems like it should be exciting enough to inspire passion and hard work.
I would guess that European rocket engineers are, or could be, just as passionate, and work just as hard as those in the US. But what saps the passion of engineers is bureaucracy, inefficiency and mismanagement that slows them down and interferes with their work, and by most accounts, these problems infest the aeronautical industry, on both sides of the Atlantic.
SpaceX has managed to build a company that doesn't seem to suffer from these problems. From reading Elon Musk's biography, it doesn't sound to me like the SpaceX engineers are driven by some dream of landing on Mars, even if that's Musk's goal. Rather, they just have a no-nonsense, "get stuff done" attitude. They don't spend weeks doing tests when they can get them all done in one day. They don't spend millions of dollars buying outsourced components when they can build them better and cheaper themselves. They don't thoughtlessly replicate inefficient processes because that's how it's always been done, or it's done everywhere else in the industry.
Put Elon Musk and his management staff in charge of the ESA and I bet they'd install the same no-nonsense attitude in European engineers, and it would be Ariane that was delivering reusability before everyone else. As it is, let's just hope that the example SpaceX sets eventually pays off in changes to the way NASA, the ESA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc. are run.
Although I think that the big US defense contractors would rather get out of spaceflight completely than match SpaceX's costs. Because if they can, then it proves they could have done it all along, and that they've been hugely overcharging the US government for years. And if they've been overcharging for access to space, it might make congress ask questions about all the other pork-barrel military contracts they get, and why they can't deliver those cheaper as well?
I don't think so. Engines have been used before. Rockets have been landed on their tails by many organizations. And I don't think too many people doubt SpaceX can go to Mars. The questions are over the date.
That's the point, though. They do miss most of their deadlines, and if they miss the 2018 date they're going to have to wait a few years for a comparable launch window.
That was an unexpected and delicious bit of Hollywood drama. My first assumption with the flash followed by darkness is that it had impacted too hard and exploded or wrecked the camera. The autobalance stabilizing was a great big-reveal moment.
The stream I was watching had the video delayed a couple seconds from the audio. Based on the initial crowd reaction I assumed the landing was a failure.
Much like with the moon landings, then SpaceX will do it another dozen times, and the deniers will pretend there was only one landing so as to fit the narrative better.
I remain confused about why SpaceX is getting so much fanfare and praise. What have they accomplished that NASA didn't already accomplish during the Apollo missions?
I know SpaceX is doing it all more cost effectively, because we have better technology, but have they actually accomplished anything tangible that NASA didn't a generation ago?
The Apollo missions were one-offs. They left nothing behind that future missions could utilize. Everything was disposed of after use, even Spacelab which had a very short life and completed a specific programme of missions and then burned up.
The shuttle was the first attempt at re-usability but was far too expensive to be viable. Only the space station is genuinely long term re-useable infrastructure. It's something you can actually use as a platform for further missions beyond it's initial purpose but it also has been excessively expensive. We can't go on like this. Nobody is talking about a replacement space station, the appetite just isn't there. Unless somebody does something, the space station might be the last long term repeatedly occupied human habitat in space.
SpaceX is doing something about that. If they really can reduce launch costs by a factor of 100:1, it will change the fundamental economics of everything we do in space. Suddenly going to the moon stops being a pointless gesture and becomes an economically viable long term proposition. Human habitats in space of the scale of the ISS or bigger become affordable. They're even talking about colonizing Mars and plan to do what's effectively a tech demo of that in 2018.
For the first time the rocket man dreams of the 1970s look like they could actually happen. For a lot of people, that's pretty exciting.
P.S. Downvotes for this question? Really? I'm as much a fan of SpaceX as anyone but it's a fair question, SpaceX haven't even launched one of their recovered rockets yet.
As an Engineer I might be a little biased but I see this is a massive achievement. We are seeing a paradigm shift in space exploration with the rise of the influence of the private sector. Space exploration used to be the domain of government entities. That is gone now. I believe we are seeing a new age of exploration not seen since the 15th and 16th centuries of discovering the "new" world. These new space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and others are challenging the norms and will only push each other to new achievements that we haven't dreamed of yet.
Compared to NASA, around a 10x cost reduction. That's before reusability.
>And well, can the "materials" really be recycled without loss of security/quality?
They aren't going to recycle rockets, they're going to refly them. They are aiming for around 100 flights per airframe.
>Is the metal more expensive than the carburant/comburant?
The cost of the metal isn't the major concern, it's the cost of shaping the metal into a working rocket. But yes, fuel costs are a couple hundred thousand, rockets are tens of millions.
Unfortunately, it's worth noting that while NASA's achievements were extremely laudable, it's an open question whether they could reproduce the results in a short timeframe. Some of the technologies of the Apollo era have been misplaced (either within NASA's large body of hard-copy material or never transferred from private contractors who have gone away).
SpaceX is exciting because they're doing launches and landings right now, reliably and successfully.
NASA accomplished amazing engineering feats while aiming at certain (mostly) one-off goals.
SpaceX (and others) are accomplishing amazing engineering feats aiming at sustainable, repeatable use of their technology, and improving as they go.
Both are amazing accomplishments. But just because "landing a rocket on a barge" is not as sexy as "landing a ship with humans on the moon" doesn't mean it's that much less of an accomplishment. Remember vertical rocket landing is something NASA chose not to attempt because they thought it was going to be too hard. And that's just what SpaceX is doing.
NASA reused every engine (not just the first stage) of an orbital payload delivery system, many times, 30 years ago. Runway rather than barge but that's not really an important difference.
(The exciting part will be much cheaper refurbishment than the STS. But SpaceX haven't actually delivered on that component yet)
> Runway rather than barge but that's not really an important difference.
it is an important difference when you look beyond earth
the moon, mars, and any future site that has yet to send robots to pave a runaway that is: 4,500 meters long, 91 meters wide, and 40 centimeters thick(o); will necessarily be vertical take off and landing
The point is that SpaceX hasn't yet accomplished anything NASA didn't. That SpaceX's approach will be more suitable to future things is not a good counterargument.
Doing things cheaper is good, sure. All I'm saying is that zupreme's original point is fair (they haven't (yet) really done anything concrete that NASA haven't (just done it cheaper), and the current enthusiasm is perhaps disproportionate)
If SpaceX can deliver what they're claiming in terms of refurb time/cost then that will be something to celebrate. But projects have a way of revealing unexpected challenges right at the last moment. I'm going to hold off the champagne until a refurbished booster actually flies.
That so negative. Of course they don't do this all in one go, it is incremental, step by step to get it to work. And each step is one closer to that goal and something to be happy about. If there are 'unexpected challenges right at the last moment' that's a real pity but those will be met just like all the unexpected challenges along the way. Yes, it's difficult, not it does not seem to be so impossibly difficult or different from what they've done to date that we should assume that it will not work. It will work, the bigger question is when.
Technically, the full SRBs were never (to my knowledge) re-used. Because of the salt water damage, they were parted out and some of those parts were used in new engines.
A shuttle launch cost over an order of magnitude more than a Falcon 9 launch does, though. This is hugely relevant because the biggest factor limiting space travel is cost more than it is anything else. The demand for space travel is absolutely there, and all that is required to satisfy that demand is simply lowering cost.
Quantity has a quality all of its own. Apollo-era NASA consumed 1.5% of the entire federal budget. You're right that SpaceX is still catching up, but they're doing it on a lot less than that to say the least. (Compare: 1980-present NASA has arguably never done anything as exciting as the Apollo programme)
Red Dragon (assuming goes ahead as planned) will be the heaviest payload ever landed on another planet - an incremental improvement to be sure, but a real one. Mars sample return will be a concrete new thing that NASA never managed. Watch this space.
They've done most of the hard work in demonstrating a fully reusable rocket stage of an orbital launch vehicle. That's historic, beating even what the Shuttle managed (the Orbiter was not a full stage).
Nailing down the remaining operational workflow and they'll be able to achieve reusable rocketry, and bring down the cost of spaceflight significantly. It truly is the dawn of a new space age.
Based on some talks the first lunar landings were way more adventurous and lucky than what SpaceX is doing. Making a snooker trick shot is nice, announcing it and doing it twice is another thing.
Announcing it seven times and doing it six times....
Luck did play a pretty big role in Apollo. This is not to discount the huge amount of work and skill that went into making most of those missions a success, but there was sometimes not a whole lot separating them from failure. Apollo 11's landing site ended up being covered with boulders and they nearly had to abort before they found a suitable landing site. Apollo 12 got hit by lightning on the way up, knocking out computers and nearly causing an abort. Apollo 13 came within seconds of exploding on launch, and was saved by a false fuel alarm shutting down the misbehaving engine.
Of course, this is only to be expected when you're doing something so big and new. SpaceX has the benefit of all that experience.
Luck was a significant factor, however. There were _so many_ things that could have gone wrong, that is not an understatement at all. They found bugs in the AGC's software years later that could have sent 3 men to their deaths, had they occurred.
This success was unexpected. That means that they can recover a stage from a higher speed than previously thought. Does that mean that the recovery of the second stage from LEO may actually be feasible?
Second stage recovery is a whole different beast. Recovering the first stage on a flight like this is a delicate dance because margins are so small, so everything has to go exactly right. The previous attempt (SES-9) didn't quite go exactly right, and made a big boom, perhaps because the engine burns were slightly mistimed.
Recovering the second stage is difficult because it's coming in from a much higher speed. The first stage came in doing about 2km/s. The second stage would come in doing 8km/s or more. That means 16x more kinetic energy to deal with and 64x more heating. You need a proper heat shield, not just clever engine burns. There's much less extra margin to play with as well. The second stage does most of the work but is much lighter, and one pound on the second stage is worth ten pounds on the first stage.
SpaceX definitely believes second stage recovery to be feasible at some point, but not on the current Falcon 9.
KE = 0.5mv^2, so the second stage would only have 16x the kinetic energy if the two stages had the same mass.
The dry mass of the first stage is approximately 25,600kg. At 2km/s, its kinetic energy is 51.2 terajoules. The dry mass of the second stage is approximately 3,900kg. At 8km/s, its kinetic energy is 125 terajoules.
So the KE of the second stage is actually about ~2.4x that of the first stage.
The second stage has a smaller ballistic coefficient than the first one, though. Their cross-sectional areas are the same, but an empty second stage has much less mass. If it could survive entry (and that's a big if), it's terminal velocity would be smaller.
It could be argued that flying to orbit with a first stage that's being reused will be as historical when SpaceX will do it.
The Space Shuttle did reuse SRB casings and the orbiter, it was a bit different but a great achievement too.
However this time there is more potential for cost savings. It can still happen that they can't be realized because of some details or even fundamentals we don't understand from the outside.
In space it uses nitrogen thrusters to orient. Once in the atmosphere it uses grid fins to orient. The entire liftoff and return is piloted by Falcon's flight computers -- no humans involved.
Thank you - how does the barge communicate with the falcon? And what types of comminucations are they having. I assume the barge is stating its GPS location, but does it also communicate things like sea conditions - and its elevation (what is it called to describe the condition of the sea), as well as wind, north-south orientation, etc...
I am impressed - but I want to know how this works.
Rumor is (https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3b0stk/falcon_9_wha...) that the barge does not communicate any information to the booster. Instead, it uses GPS and some ingenious motors to maintain position and orientation, and the Falcon booster uses a radar altimeter to judge accurate vertical distance.
Thats just fucking awesome if true. Its like "how can we maximize the use of some 'cheaper' technology and a shit-ton of math to accomplish this in the technologically simplest way?"
I wonder if there's coordinate potential with seasteading? Astronauts are gonna want all sorts of goods and services upon landing I imagine. Having someone stationed nearby will mean swifter pickup of equipment and astronauts. And if there's someone stationed nearby they'll want goods and services as well.
I don't think astronauts would land on the droneship, as that's just for the first stage. When the Crew Dragon lands, it would be coming in from orbit, so I imagine they would just target the landing platform at the Cape as part of their de-orbiting plan.
That being said, would you want to be in the nearby path of the rockets if they were going to be ditched?
Am i missing something, is the need to land vertically a requirement of a fragile fuselage? Seems wasteful to carry extra anything (in this case rocket propellant) to space, just to avoid having to re-right the rocket when you get it back on earth for a subsequent launch. Is extra fuel payload < landing gear or parachutes?
Parachutes aren't massless. The parachutes you'd need to land a rocket like this are actually comparable in mass to the extra fuel and landing legs needed for the vertical landing approach.
You also can't land on a ship with parachutes. You don't have enough control. You can still land at sea, but then you have to actually land in the water, which means getting seawater on all your rocket hardware. That causes lots of problems when you want to use that hardware again.
SpaceX did experiment with this approach. Here's a picture of the second Falcon 9's interstage with parachutes packed inside:
NASA had some success with this approach on the Shuttle SRBs. It's easier with solid fuel rockets, because they're less efficient and built tougher. Even then, the cost of recovery and refurbishment ended up roughly breaking even compared to just building new ones each time.
As far as "wasteful" goes, that depends on what you're looking at. Saving fuel for the landing subtracts from payload capacity, which is wasteful in theory... but in practice, many payloads are smaller than the maximum anyway. If you suffer a 30% payload penalty, but you're launching a satellite which is 40% smaller than your maximum, then who cares? The only waste is some extra fuel, which is super cheap. The full fuel load for a Falcon 9 launch is something like $200,000, compare to the total mission price of around $60 million.
This pool of freshwater would need to be many kilometers in diameter to give a high chance of hitting it with an unpowered parachute descent (thanks to unpredictability of the winds). At this point you are talking about doing something that is much, much more expensive than the current approach of a powered landing. How are you going to get so much freshwater out into the sea, anyway? That's way more water than could be carried in the largest cargo ship that exists.
The barge was located about 400 miles downrange of the launch site in this case, so if you're landing in Lake Michigan then you're launching from somewhere around western Iowa/Minnesota or eastern Nebraska/South Dakota. When your rocket goes off course or explodes, you'll rain parts and fuel down on Minneapolis or Chicago or whatever other inconvenient population happens to be in the way.
"Oh, I'm sure I know a lot better than the accumulated centuries' worth of knowledge from actual rocket scientists, and I can come up with solutions to their problems based on no in-depth knowledge of the field and a minute's thought."
It was also an observation that this particular body of fresh water is an "easy target," apparently stated without putting any thought into what makes a target easy or hard for this purpose.
That's a lot of complexity to add compared to the current landing which boils down at it's simplest to an inverted pendulum balancing problem, hard but the dynamics are pretty well understood. First parachute landings aren't super accurate without a lot of engineering and controls and would rely on calm or no winds down range wherever you're landing to have any chance of hitting the 'pool'. Second that pool would want to float and to my knowledge no one's made anything like that, so they'd have to invent and build then deploy a huge piece of engineering for every single launch.
Lack of wings. (That's obviously for the landing gear part of the question)
But fragile fuselage is certainly spot on. Parachute-landings still have quite some impact velocity. Strengthening an object the size of a Falcon 9 first stage to survive that impact would require a much stronger and thus prohibitively heavy structure, even if the parachute itself was free. The nice thing about powered upright landing is that all the forces involved are pretty much the same as during launch so that there is little (if any) additional strengthening required.
Note also how the ULA plans for the use of parachutes to recover first stage engine blocks require the parachute to be caught in-flight by a helicopter to avoid any uncontrolled ground contact.
I believe they did try or at least look into parachutes initially, but gave it up as not feasible.
With the powered landing, you already have the engines there, it's just a matter of leaving a bit more fuel. It's not a lot of fuel because you've already dropped a bunch of mass (the whole second stage and a bunch of fuel), and air is helping instead of hindering.
There's also the fact that, unlike parachutes, you can use a powered landing on Mars and the Moon.
It is partly because they are trying to develop a system which can be used regardless of atmospheric conditions, so reusable in another sense. Parachutes don't do so well on the moon, for example.
But also because a parachute landing actually does a lot more damage than you might expect, and sea water is the last thing you want in your million dollar rocket engine.
IIRC it's the most stable position because it's a big empty tube with some really heavy rocket engines at the base. It's also precise so they can land on a tiny barge in the ocean.
Keep in mind everything SpaceX are doing is with the goal of getting to Mars.
They don't want to use cranes, or parachutes or helicopters or complex landing structures, because none of those things will work on Mars in such a way the rocket just needs to be refueled and can fly again.
Airliners could certainly land with parachutes. They could even glide in for unpowered landings. And doing so would save a lot of fuel in either case. But that fuel savings would come at the cost of adding huge operational complexities, and risks. Powered landings are more precise, more predictable, and more reliable. They reduce operational complexities, even if they are costly, and for that reason they are more than worth the fuel costs. An airplane could carry more weight a farther distance if it glided into landing unpowered, but effectively all landings would become emergency situations, and it's just not worth the small benefit of increasing payload.
The same is true in orbital rocketry as well. Parachutes may seem like a good idea, but they increase recovery complexity and costs, they increase the likelihood of damage to the rocket, they reduce predictability, and so on. Powered landings are the most dependable way of ensuring the stage can be returned and of doing so within an operational profile that can be streamlined and optimized until its very reliable and efficient, just like landing a plane. The fact that it comes at some cost of payload capacity is comparatively inconsequential, as it substantially increases the likelihood of recovering the tens of millions of dollars worth of launch vehicle hardware (which over its lifetime will service launches worth hundreds of millions of dollars).
I just don't think you can generalize like that. A "powered" landing for an aeroplane is very different from what SpaceX is doing, e.g. an aeroplane can and often does abort and go around, whereas the rocket has no such capability.
Rocket landings are different than plane landings, but that doesn't mean powered landings are less worthwhile. In either case a powered landing means a more precise, more reliable, more repeatable situation. And if you want to maximize the operational lifetime of the equipment, that's what you want.
Anyways, as a non-American living in the US since 2001, I fail to see an issue with chanting USA, one way or another.
It is an American company, with majority US employees, running this project (mainly) for an American entity (NASA), on US sovereign territory (or ocean?), using a significant chunk of US resources. So, it is their company and their country. I say, let them do what they want with it. And if chanting USA is what they wish to do, I have no problem with that.
Any proud chant is problematic only to the degree of pride it conveys for the wrong thing(s). Landing a space ship in 2016 surely warrants significant pride.
Whether the USA is worth praising for this particular success, I'm not as sure. But damn, congrats to everyone involved. You just landed a fucking space ship. Good job.
SpaceX is a company full of highly-dedicated, ridiculously hard-working patriotic Americans who went to prestigious American universities - both private and public - and is run by a extremely ambitious and innovative legal immigrant.
The company embodies everything that makes America great. Chant away.
I think its offensive to have nationalistic robot-like-chanting being defended as an okay thing. Its the sort of thing you expect people to do at rallies or cult gatherings, and from an outsider perspective it always tarnishes what is otherwise a very rational event, because its an implied irrational, collective mindset. As a non-American, I wish it'd stop - its a major turnoff for these events, and I switch away when it starts up.
I know, I know - Americans have a right to be proud, and they do. But expressing it with a cult-like mechanism that is, essentially "our group is great, nobody else can/has done this" is just .. revolting.
I say this, knowing full well I'm going to get down voted for it, but I really do wish you Americans would think about it from the other side of your dark mirror. Can't we come up with a chant that includes all of humanity? After all, America wouldn't be the nation it is today without all other nations on Earth, including the ones that America has invaded, and destroyed completely, wantonly, for decades.
EDIT: Feel how this post detracts from the main article, and is a distraction from the feel-goodness of SpaceX's accomplishments? For us non-Americans, thats how the USA-cult chant feels - a total distraction. I wish I could down vote the chanting when I see it on TV, too.
"ON! TO! MARS! ON! TO! MARS!". I would sooo much love to hear that chant next time.
That would really do justice to this kind of historic event. A chant like this would celebrate progress and claim this for what it is, an accomplishment of/for humanity. After all, space travel does focus our attention on how we are all humans and on earth.
You're getting downvoted into oblivion, but yeah, that's basically how I feel. Cultural differences, I'm sure, because I'm not USian; but every time I see it on the youtube videos it makes me deeply uncomfortable.
I'm fine about sporting events, because it's about something that doesn't matter --- the whole point of sport is to channel the sex-violence-and-tribalism thing in a safe and relatively controlled fashion.
What disturbs me about something like the chanting at SpaceX is that it's something that does matter, and which I feel strongly about. Seeing their great technical achievement turn into exclusionary tribal posturing makes me very sad.
I'm sure there's a long way to go before SpaceX fans and STS fans start beating each other up in the street... but it is one step down that path.
Its a collective/cult response, is why it makes me uncomfortable. "Everyone else is doing it, so should I", and while its occurring, no other rational thought is occurring. It is a known thought-stopping technique in cults.
I also despise it when it happens at sports events. Its just demeaning to whoever doesn't fall in line and start the goose-step.
First "and while its occurring, no other rational thought is occurring". I'm not really sure how to respond to that. Of course no rational thought is taking place. It's a celebration. They aren't trying to have a rational discussion.
Second "Its just demeaning to whoever doesn't fall in line and start the goose-step". I have never seen anyone that is somewhere people are chanting it and be ridiculed for not joining along. It is completely up to anyone whether they want to participate.
I think space exploration/achievement is a very big point of pride for Americans. Ever since the moon landing, everyone has fell in love with the space program. Chanting USA! doesn't mean give up all rational thought and blindly follow the countries leaders. It means a bunch of Americans just did something amazing. I'm glad to be a part of this country that is doing great things. It also doesn't mean go USA fuck Europe. Sure there is a little bit of a competitive undertone, but so what. If SpaceX says look what we did, I dare you guys to do better well then good. Competition is the reason why space programs are where they are. Sorry you don't like how one country likes to celebrate. Luckily everyone is free to do whatever they want.
The idea that a group of SpaceX employees chanting "USA", not "Europe Sucks" or "Death to Russia", or some other chant that specifically calls out and demeans another group, but simply USA-USA-USA, is somehow analogous to a Nazi rally is very surprising to me.
Perhaps you haven't taken enough time to observe and understand the conditions of those who are on the receiving end of Americas military-industrial aggression...
I would be wary in making assumptions about a stranger's background and what conditions they may or may not have grown up under prior to immigrating to the US. I can assure you I am more than familiar with the receiving end of both American and Russian military aggression.
I continue to find the notion of SpaceX employees chanting USA to be analogous to the rallies of a man who thought it a good idea to send several million people to the gas chambers as suspect.
I suppose I'll just chalk this up to me not being as enlightened as you.
If you want to see it on a dialectic +/- scale, fine by me, who am I to convince you otherwise .. but it is in fact a gradient scale, which starts with witless/robotic/cult chanting, and ends with crimes against humanity. BTW, yes, the USA is on the upper echelons of this scale: or did you think its wanton pillaging of nation after nation with its military-industrial toys is justifiable, somehow?
Hey, "Sieg Heil!" started off 'harmless enough' too, yo. All the cool cats were doing it .. at first.
So .. Who knows where all this is going to go .. we may well be on the precipice of an enormous catastrophe, all for the whim of wanton displays of pride, prejudice, nationalism, and awe-/fear-inspiring technology. All I'm saying is, it took a lot of nations for America to get where it is today. It didn't do it alone. And some of those nations were seriously broken in the process ..
(Besides which, there is no such thing as 'USA'.. it is a fiction. Gravity doesn't care about your fancy flag. In space, nobody can hear your chant..)
Surely you have seen examples of nationalism outside of the 1930-40s comtext? It's an ugly thing. Maybe watch a Trump rally and then you get a good idea with an American context.
I knew I would get down voted, because the collective group-think mindset is very strong around this particular issue, and Americans have been programmed to think its acceptable to make these kind of cult-chants when they do something special. It is a special event - most definitely - but the cult-chant ruins it. Very obnoxious.
Honestly you just sound kind of brittle if others chanting USA! ruins something for you. Sometimes the USA chant is overdone but in this case I think it's awesome.
To each their own. What starts as an awesome technological event, ends with thought-stopping cult-like behavior. I guess the two are entwined, eternally, throughout human culture, so I shouldn't be surprised ..
> running this project (mainly) for an American entity (NASA)
NASA is the largest customer but so far they account only for about 50% of the launches. This one in particular was for JSAT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSAT_Corporation), a Japanese company.
I'm a little uneasy with the chant mostly because I (want to) perceive it to be largely a commercial enterprise and this win should belong firstly to the company and people working there. Too bad that "SpaceX" just doesn't sound that great as a chant.
It reminds, a little, of certain systems where the state is held above all else, where patriotism is a requirement and a virtue in itself, and where there's no division between government and economy.
WATTENBERG:
I got to think a lot of illegals add a lot of value to the United States. You have been quoted as saying that you are nauseatingly pro American.
MUSK:
Yes, that’s true.
WATTENBERG:
What do you mean?
MUSK:
Well, I mean, I think the United States is the greatest country that’s ever existed on earth. And I think that it will be difficult to argue on objective grounds that it is not. I think the facts really point in that direction. It’s the greatest force for good of any country that’s ever been.
There would not be democracy in the world if not for the United States. We’re obviously falling in the recent few occasions -- maybe three separate occasions in the Twentieth Century -- democracy would have fallen with World War 1, World War 2 and the Cold War, but for the United States.
WATTENBERG:
And perhaps the threat of terrorism would be much greater if it were not for the United States.
MUSK:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it would be a mistake to say the United States is perfect, it certainly is not. There have been many foolish things the United States has done and bad things the United States has done.
But when historians look at these things on balance and measure the good with the bad -- and I think if you do that and -- on a rational basis and make a fair assessment -- I think it’s hard to [unintelligible] that the United States -- is there anything better [speaking over each other]
WATTENBERG:
I have a reputation of interrupting my guests. But when they say exactly what I believe, I just let them talk and talk. I think you’re 100 percent right.
MUSK:
And -- you know I wasn’t born in America -- I got here as fast as I could.
What exactly is wrong with that discussion? I found the level of evangelical, employee circle jerking at these SpaceX events to be nauseating. And that was before they started chanting. Well done guys but it's just not necessary.
Good ol' HN. These folks are pushing the boundaries like nobody else, advancing humanity more than a thousand Facebooks or Snapchats ever could, but if they express pride in their work it's a "circle jerk."
If they chanted "SpaceX," or "Falcon 9," or "JCSAT-14" it would signify pride in their work. The "USA" chant glorifies the state/government above all else.
It's the same reason why foreigners are baffled by, for example, the Pledge of Allegiance.
I wouldn't say it glorifies the state above all else but I would point out that even in a private company such as SpaceX the employees tend to be aware of the role government plays within the realm of space exploration.
I choose to view the chants as a showing of pride in the acceptance that despite the hard work being done by the employees at SpaceX, none of this would be possible without the pioneering work of NASA and other governmental research organizations, as well as the myriad of universities that educate our workforce, largely supported by the American taxpayer.
I won't propose to speak on behalf of others but in my case whenever I feel a sense of pride or accomplishment for something I have done, whether that be here at work or in my personal life, I certainly try and take a moment to acknowledge in my mind the many people, some of whom I have no direct connection with, who have played a role in my success.
As the child of immigrants who sacrificed a great deal for the opportunity to come to the US and as someone who grew up poor, not particularly bright, and with no formal education beyond that of high school, but who now has the opportunity to work on hardware that is launched into space, I always try and maintain a sense of appreciation for the country, and its people, that I now call home.
Well the advances remain to be seen in the decades to come. I could understand that level of excitement for putting a person on Mars but not for a satellite deployment or ISS restocking mission.
Maybe it's just a cultural difference but there is something unsettling and cringey about seeing those employees act so enthusiastic.
Is it genuine? Maybe for some employees. But the camera setup makes me think there is some expectation placed upon the employees that they will be there to cheer. It's not natural.
Soccer and sports in general are the spaces reserved for tribal and pre-civilized behaviours: rooting for one team against another, chanting, cheering for a victory or for the defeat of the opponent (in confrontations that are purely symbolic).
Those who take this behaviour outside of the stadium often tend to salute their comrades with a straight arm, and resort to knives and sticks to prove their superiority outside of the pitch.
Or, you could see it like this. Europe has seen enough of nationalistic pride and of masses chanting in the streets. It didn't end well, and we know it. The USA don't happen to have made the experience yet in first person, though they certainly have a second hand knowledge of it.
Pride in the accomplishments of your own nation is a good thing. However often it clouds your perception of its faults and wrongdoings.
> Those who take this behaviour outside of the stadium often tend to salute their comrades with a straight arm, and resort to knives and sticks to prove their superiority outside of the pitch.
Or... they launch rockets into space, and land them back on a small platform.
The main missions are fairly routine and I don't see people getting particularly excited about those. What everybody's excited about is the landings, and those absolutely deserve every bit of excitement we can put up.
Since they don't have to deal with the insulation issues like the shuttle did, the most dangerous phase of flight for a crew is during launch. Last Spring, SpaceX demo'ed their launch abort system which in theory should be able to protect the astronauts against any launch problems;
There are always people on HN who love being contrarian and trying to diminish amazing things. It's like they hate seeing people excited for something and want to point out that this isn't that big of a deal.
We're literally watching things happen for the first time ever, and this person's response is "what's so great about this?" while implying that people who are excited about this are fanboys. I can understand the downvotes honestly.
This is a new thing, 2-3 years ago downvotes were still rare, these days people treat it like reddit where it means disagree rather than inappropriate. The culture's changed.
The karma threshold for downvotes likely means that there are far more people with the ability than there were 3 years ago. Honestly, I only collected enough karma recently to down vote (and it's a privilege I use quite sparingly).
The text turns grey if something is being downvoted. If it's downvoted too much it'll eventually go [dead] and you need to turn on showdead in you profile to see it.
Sorry. We are living in a period where mediocrity and even complete fraudulent stuff is hailed as profound and "amazing". People with differing opinions matter, and I would say they matter more than ever.
And I don't think people love being a contrarian". It is quite easy being a fanboy, but it is hard to go against popular opinion, and be a "contrarian". There is no love in being a contrarian, there is only hate and ridicule.
Even easier than being a fanboy is to promote one's own superiority via dismissal and sneering at the efforts of others. You probably see yourself as sophisticated, but your remarks are no different than a 7 year old putting down somebody for throwing like a girl.
Please don't respond in kind when someone else is name-calling. Instead, flag the comment (by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag') or email us at hn@ycombinator.com.
How come I haven't noticed that it isn't working, then?
>sneering at the efforts of others..
This is where you show your fanboy colors. The GP said something along the line "I don't think that is as amazing as you say", and you overreact, saying that they are, "sneering at others efforts". Another commenter said SpaceX is facing "incredible" criticism in HN. All signs of over reaction, typical of fanboys when their need and expectation of unquestioning acceptance and praise from everyone, for their object of worship, are not met..
>You probably see yourself as sophisticated, remarks are no different than a 7 year old putting down somebody for throwing like a girl, It's adolescent, not contrarian.
More typical, hurt fanboy reaction. Stop for a moment and and think about what exactly in my comment have provoked you to attack me in this fashion.
We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com. We're happy to unban people when there's reason to believe that they'll only post civil, substantive comments in the future.
Getting stoked about trivial stuff and mistaking stunts for real achievements is one of the ways we will end up in Idiocracy. I see here, a whole generation of people reduced to a bunch of stupid cheerleaders...
The shame is on you. Not because you play along in this charade. But for how you see and project me for not taking part in it.
I suppose the ultimate compliment that can be payed to the employees at SpaceX is when the successful launch of a rocket, the successful delivery to orbit of its payload, and the subsequent successful landing of it's first stage on a remotely piloted barge in the middle of the ocean can be described as trivial.
I always knew the day would come when such things would be looked at as routine and trivial, but I honestly didn't think the day would come so soon.
Perhaps HN readers such as yourself are way ahead of the curve in this regard.
Look around. If you don't see it already, I won't be able to make you see. And what does the transistor has to do with the period we live in? I mean, right now, not 50 years earlier.
>It's fine to be critical, but let yourself get excited sometimes too.
Do you know why landing a rocket in salt water is bad. I mean, do you really, really know?
It's tribalism, which is never good, no matter how common or accepted it might be in certain regions or cultures.
Much the same as sports fans cheering for their teams or extreme nationalists at a political rally, chanting such as this is symtomatic of an "us versus them" and/or a "we are better than them" mentality.
I feel pride in SpaceX accomplishments even though I have in no way contributed to their success because I see them advancing the state of the art in spaceflight for humanity. And I am a human.
I hear Elon's stated goal of "making life multi-planetary", and perhaps it sounds idealistic or corny, but I genuinely belive in that goal; I think it is important and I am proud that there are other humans on this planet who are making a concerted effort to see it happen.
I do not object specifically to what they chant: chanting "SpaceX" would be very much just as bad. I follow SpaceX not for its own sake or because I think SpaceX is "good" and others are "bad", but because of what they do and what they plan to do. Chanting "SpaceX" would be showing support for the SpaceX-tribal-team as opposed to the ULA-tribal-team or NASA-tribal-team. It is not the team itself that is special, the team is not better than other teams due to intrinsic virtues, it is what the team has accomplished that is important. Let the accomplishments speak for themselves.
There is at least one chant I would have no problem with: "Humanity! Humanity! Humanity!". Perhaps it's not quite as catchy, but at least it would put things into the proper perspective.
> It's tribalism, which is never good, no matter how common or accepted it might be in certain regions or cultures.
If they were doing it out of tribalism they'd probably be chanting 'homegrown', which is common after a big win over competitors who recruit mostly foreigners as a way of sticking it to them.
Instead my guess is that they're doing this out of acknowledgement of the infrastructure and regulation that makes this possible.
As a Brit we don't have anything as catchy. UKGBNI, or even just UK doesn't have the same ring to it. 'Enganld' wouldn't work because we're too diverse. It would be a bit like the SpaceX folks cheering 'California' in that I'm sure a lot of them are from elsewhere.
I've come across it in a few other contexts and I take it like a football chant.
I've actually managed to get a crowd of Brits chanting U-S-A before.
We're so saturated with American culture that we do this naturally. We know all about the constitution. We care more about American politics than our own. We feel put out that we can't vote for Bernie.
Every so often I get reminded I'm not actually American, and it's a bit jarring.
In my opinion, it may not necessarily be a national pride thing, as much as it's just an impulse. Because in sports, this happens often, I think it's more about showing how happy they are than crediting the United States for the accomplishments they made.
As an American (and specifically, a 16-year-old Software Engineer), growing up in the United States, this is normal, and is sometimes patriotic, sometimes an automatic response to excitement. I understand why some people might find it odd.
I don't really believe that the act of chanting "USA" is meant to alienate people. I guess you could equate it to the cultural oddities, sort of like when you travel to a different country. Some people bow, shake hands, etc for greetings, just the same way that Americans show excitement by chanting "USA", while other countries may not.
Have you ever thought about how this pride for your nation, pervasive at the point of feeling natural, might cloud your judgment when dealing with other nations that might have competing, but perfectly legitimate, interest?
In other words, are American citizens able to put themselves in the place of others, and judge fairly and dispassionately about international events? Because this is what I have strong doubts about.
Have you considered if your instinctive discomfort with group identities might make it difficult to understand the genuine differences in mindsets and worldviews that arise between different groups of people? I ask because it seems that people who reflexively dismiss the importance of groups can make as many errors in judgement as those who reflexively adhere to group identities.
I think you're overthinking this cultural convention. It's like talking to a Japanese person and saying, "How you ever thought about how bowing instead of shaking hands de-normalizes physical human contact?"
Hell, my in-laws sing patriotic songs at the dinner table during holidays. They were forced to emigrate in the 60s, settled in the US, worked extremely hard to rebuild their lives, and revere it for the opportunities and freedom it provides.
Space started out as a national effort. Most space travel is still a national effort, both here (NASA) and abroad (national space organizations). Even though it's a private company, and the stakes are well beyond a single country, I can imagine a sense of pride for representing your country well at such huge scale. For these engineers and other staff, this is the Olympics.
In short, people have all sorts of reasons for feeling prid. These folks certainly earned it. Watching others describe variations of hand wringing and alienation seems silly in comparison.
No it's not. The French, British and Italians for example all have extreme amounts of nationalistic pride and show it throughout their economies, the pride they hold regarding their history and culture. Scandinavia is very proud of its broadly tremendous standard of living and their well run welfare states, etc. - and Scandinavians are never shy about bragging about it online in my observation, you can hardly get away from it. The Chinese and Japanese are extremely nationalistic, and that's downplaying how nationalistic they are, extremely doesn't do it justice. I also find any time India has an accomplishment that gets global attention, Indians take a massive amount of pride in it, and you can see that pour out on HN or Reddit for example (and I don't think there is anything wrong with that).
The chant may be a quirk of the US, the nationalism it represents is absolutely not.
But it is the chant we are talking about. I can't think of anywhere else I've been where someone starting to chant the country's name in response to the actions of a single company wouldn't lead to embarrassed looks and face-palming from people around them.
This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation elsewhere. This doesn't mean nationalism elsewhere is weaker - just that there are cultural quirks to how it gets expressed, and what actions are seen as representing something of the nation.
E.g. most places I've worked I'd expect quite a few people would be offended if you started shouting the country name instead of e.g. the company name as taking away glory for the teams achievements.
But in general chanting is perhaps rarer in many European countries outside of sports arrangements. I can't remember a single big work-related success where anyone started chanting anything. Cheering and clapping and popping champagne, sure, but not chanting. I think most places the latter would be seen as tacky more than anything. So the cultural quirk might be more about the level of exuberance considered appropriate in the workplace.
You're thinking about SpaceX as just a random company in a random industry. It's not. SpaceX is the space company. On PR area they compete with NASA, the space agency. I can imagine that for many SpaceX employees, their work is synonymous with getting America back into space exploration game.
Why wouldn't an American company, doing business in America, funded mostly by American government contracts and helping carry out American space priorities, and THEN doing it in a way that brings about the first major advance in spaceflight technology in generations not be a place where they might chant the name of the country that this is all happening in, by and for?
> I can't remember a single big work-related success where anyone started chanting anything. Cheering and clapping and popping champagne, sure, but not chanting.
Have you ever worked at a place that did anything within even an order of magnitude of what SpaceX has done?
I'm an American and we don't chant USA at the end of an IT contract delivery, or because we set up a database well or something. But if I put something in outer space, then brought it back down to earth and landed it on a robot ship in the middle of the ocean at night, I'd sure as hell be chanting something.
I'm not saying they shouldn't. There's nothing wrong with it per se. I'm saying it seems bizarre from my viewpoint, and that it seems like a cultural quirk.
> I'd sure as hell be chanting something.
The question isn't whether or not there'd be celebration, but whether or not that celebration would involve chanting a country name or similar. As I wrote: Cheering and clapping and bringing the champagne out, sure. Chanting a country name? To me that's something people to at football (soccer) matches, and that would seem ridiculously out of place.
Company settings or not, I have never chanted a country name in any setting, or been present while it's been going on other than people doing it to stereotype Americans.
> I have never chanted a country name in any setting, or been present while it's been going on other than people doing it to stereotype Americans.
I think this may be more of a personal quirk of yours and/or your immediate social circle. National chants pretty much abound throughout the world, especially in nations that perceive themselves in high competition with others.
and yes, many are from sporting events, but I've heard people shout their nation name or some national slogan outside of sports enough times to know it's pretty common (but not universal).
(I notice you live in/near London from your profile, don't you ever notice the conspicuous displays of "Britishness" all over the place? I certainly did the few times I was there. I wasn't bothered by it, and though it did take different forms from the way we do it in the U.S. felt it was okay as a demonstration of national pride.)
Chants are just a show of strong emotion. Something the professional life generally abhors - that's why it feels weird. People are not supposed to be that happy about their success, and especially not to connect private business with national pride.
But space industry is a bit different, and SpaceX is a very different company - they're honest-to-god driven by the idea, not profit.
(This chanting irks me a bit too, tbh., but I know it's because I'm not American and I want to picture SpaceX's successes as something done for all mankind, not just one group of people I don't belong to. A funny psychological bias :).)
We British would never dream of claiming our country was the best at everything - we might grudgingly admit that we get by all right considering - and my impression is that the rest of Europe is similar. Whereas Americans seem to get offended if you suggest there might be anything that another country was better than theirs at. Not to say it's necessarily good or bad but there is a real cultural difference there.
> We British would never dream of claiming our country was the best at everything
That's kind of silly. The British are widely known for claiming to have the best in many things. And I've watched enough TV in the U.K. to know that even currently extends into Science and Technology education.
It's a quirky American thing. But plenty of other countries do it to. Not surprisingly it originates in sports like most of these kinds of chants. Go to an international football/soccer match sometime and let me know how many national chants you hear.
In Chile, I've heard the chant is something like "CHI CHI CHI! LE LE LE! EN EL MAPA NO SE VE!", here's a comedic routine around it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gigjq9GExuE
If France had a SpaceX equivalent that did something as amazing as this, it would be completely appropriate for the French people who spent years of their lives achieving something thought impossible to suddenly break out and start singing La Marseillaise or chanting.
If it happens for something as unimportant as a sporting goal, it's probably okay for it to happen for something that advances the entire species.
I'm kind of surprised by all the people from different countries that aren't even aware it happens in their own country or that they might have a similar national chant.
I'm pretty sure they were definitely mocking the American U-S-A chant, but everybody was having a fun time of it. Americans and Brits are always giving each other some ribbing anyways and I think everybody understood that these kinds of chants are kind of tongue in cheek in many ways.
Good points. I don't know if the Mexican one counts though. They're saying "Si, se puede" which I believe translates to something like "Yes we can". You can also hear that chanting alongside. It does not appear to be nationalism, except to the extent that it's Spanish chanting in US Congress.
It's a tribal chant, which is a bit different to having pride.
Obviously the SpaceX staff can do whatever they want when they're celebrating a successful launch and landing. But all non-Americans who are watching and also feeling a lot of pride in what the company has achieved instantly feel alienated when the chant gets going because it's exclusionary. Whether the staff care about this alienation is another matter, but it's real. If you browse the /r/spacex subreddit you constantly see comments about the chant whenever it happens. And that is a community made up of almost total SpaceX supporters.
To give maybe a shallow analogy, it's like a group of men achieved something and then celebrated by chanting “Men, Men, Men!”.
> But all non-Americans who are watching and also feeling a lot of pride in what the company has achieved instantly feel alienated when the chant gets going because it's exclusionary.
Yes, it is, and yes, as an non-American I feel alienated. But I suck it up. Because I'm just a supporter. A fanboy, for a lack of better world. In reality, this is not my success, but the success of men and women working there, almost exclusively American. They have the right to chant however they like and I don't see the reason to make a big deal out of a bit of national pride. Not compared to what they're doing.
Also Musk, who's the driver of the culture there, doesn't seem very nationalistic, so I'm not worried they'll try to turn this into USA space hegemony.
I didn't really look it up but it would be hard to believe SpaceX being a strictly American company with 100% American workforce. Hell, even if it were, it would still be troublesome if the company didn't position itself as an American nationalistic company - think about all the stakeholders. Maybe some supporters wouldn't be so passionate and some suppliers wouldn't be so perfectionist if they felt they were there for the success of a group that they are not a member of (Humanity vs citizens of USA). From that perspective, it would be even weird for NASA employees to do this, let alone a private company's.
SpaceX's rockets are basically intercontinental ballistic missiles being used for benign purposes. So there are legal regulations that make it difficult for them to hire foreigners. So...
> I didn't really look it up but it would be hard to believe SpaceX being a strictly American company with 100% American workforce.
I didn't say strictly American, I said they're employing "almost exclusively" Americans. Which logically follows from rocket technology being regulated under ITAR.
I wasn't referring to that statement (actually skimmed over it, which is unfortunate because it's an interesting piece of information). Apart from that, my point hopefully is clear.
Most people aren't gay. Yet we still consider their feelings when we question hateful language.
Most people aren't disabled. Yet every office building in the western world has wheelchair ramps and disabled bathrooms.
Why alienate the employees who are working for the good of the Company, and the good of Humanity without considering the benefits for the Country (which is arbitrary and hereditary all too often) with no net benefit? (I highly doubt the USA chants are necessary for cohesion and unity at SpaceX)
I don't see how chanting for a group, without any implicit or explicit diminishment of other groups compares to hate speech against sexual minorities. Also, chants are not a company policy, it's what employees spontaneously do in their own private space, which you saw on their own private broadcast.
(If we're bringing SJW approach into this, then I think you're advocating the minority (SpaceX employees) should adapt to the random cultural expectations of the entitled majority, or whatever.)
If you're saying they should be more considerate, that's fine, but they're free to disregard that opinion.
Personally, I refuse to get outraged - outrage is more often than not a problem with the person who choses to indulge it.
I too find it hard to see how so many have conflated chanting for a group, in this case the USA, as being equivalent to actively admonishing another group. The employees at SpaceX aren't burning the flags of foreign countries or otherwise disrespecting or mocking them, they are simply expressing pride in the nation that many of us view as playing an instrumental part in our success.
I also don't know what could be done to remedy the situation, assuming its decided that a remedy is in order. I can assure everyone that to my knowledge the chants aren't at all staged, they happen organically and large numbers of employees participate in them.
Again, and I hate to be overly repetitive but I think its worth noting that while I don't partake in the chants myself, if we got word from higher up that this was no longer acceptable behavior I would be extraordinarily pissed. I don't care about the chants either way but the employees here are already sacrificing a lot for this mission, they don't need their spontaneous celebrations micromanaged.
The atmosphere during launches here is electric, and even I, someone who is usually extremely reserved and collected, often get emotional. Most of us work very hard and deal with a fair amount of stress, particularly in the week leading up to launch. If people want to let loose with some celebratory chants so be it.
I suppose we could all just start chanting SpaceX-SpaceX-SpaceX although somehow I have feeling someone would find that equally offensive as well.
I'm seriously starting to think SpaceX should just stop broadcasting the view from inside the Hawthorne facility.
You have given a fairly comprehensive explanation (here and in other comments) as to why it's unreasonable to be disturbed by the chanting and why it would be beneficial for SpaceX employees to be let chanting as they wish.
I don't think is enough or appropriate. A significant fraction of global viewership is disturbed and alienated by the chants. It might well be that they're having the wrong feelings for wrong reasons, but realistically they will not adapt, and SpaceX's actions will not change their attitude in this regard, and they will continue to feel alienated.
I would like to see this properly weighted and considered as a consequence. It's similar to many other situations where you believe that people with different religions and attitudes are offended for ultimately wrong reasons, but you still don't go casually provoking them or making them feel bad.
Thanks for sharing your point of view and I appreciate you doing so in a respectful manner and taking my own feelings on the subject into account.
I'm still not sure what the best solution to this problem would be. While I certainly believe that everyone, including and perhaps especially Americans, should be more cognizant of how our actions are viewed by others, I don't in general like the idea of constantly being fearful that some action, no matter how innocuous you may think it is, will cause offense to someone else and thus needs to be avoided. I think it's fair to assume that some of the things you or I may do or believe will be offensive or alienating to someone somewhere. I hope you can find my attempt at understanding your point of view sincere and that I don't mean to be dismissive of your concerns.
I also don't know what could be done to address the issue internally without upsetting many people here. Even I would find a banning of the chants to be heavy handed on the part of management.
As I said previously, perhaps the best course of action would be to simply stop broadcasting from within the Hawthorne facility. The launch and recovery feeds are far more interesting than the employee celebrations anyway.
Reading this thread has been an interesting opportunity for introspection. A number of people on both sides have made very valid points. In particular, your description of the atmosphere on the inside makes the whole thing quite a lot easier to accept, and even get behind.
With this said, I think I've also come to understand more about why instinctively I feel a little uncomfortable. It is because as a foreigner who would love to work for SpaceX, I don't feel I can - because it is nigh impossible in this day and age to become American without some decent amount of wealth. If it wasn't for ITAR, I think the chant would be less uncomfortable, because it would be less exclusionary.
That said, I don't think you or other Americans should give a rats about what randoms on HN think. We're just jealous of your opportunity to be part of history. Don't feel guilty about having an opportunity, but instead do your best with it. And if that means chanting USA, then do it without any second thoughts!
Thanks for the kind words and believe me when I say how disappointed I feel knowing that there are many people like you who would like to work at SpaceX that aren’t afforded the opportunity simply because of where you happened to be born. I can definitely understand how under your circumstances you may feel that the USA chants are exclusionary and I certainly harbor no ill will if that is how you feel. I would probably feel the same way if I were in your shoes.
Speaking of introspection, your comment highlights for me just how lucky I am to be able to work here. I say this as an immigrant who, while growing up in the US from an early age, wasn’t granted US citizenship until adulthood, so I have some first hand experience with the overly complex US immigration process.
ITAR is a tricky issue seeing as a Falcon 9 isn’t all that different from an ICBM aside from payload but I do generally feel that the US tends to over classify programs. And while I believe the US should make the process of immigration much less burdensome, I am nonetheless inspired by how many foreign born employees I meet at SpaceX. I wonder if the percentage of non EU born workers at Arianespace approaches the number of non US born workers here. I would be genuinely pleased if they were better in this regard than we are. I could be wrong but I doubt that Roscosmos, JAXA, ISRO or CNSA employ very many foreign born citizens. Having said that, I don’t mean to dismiss the very real concerns you have expressed with the difficulty of immigrating to the US, particularly if you don’t have a great deal of wealth.
Again, I’m very sympathetic to the feelings that others have expressed with regards to the USA chants being exclusionary, even if I myself don’t believe this to be their intent. My main problem with some comments in this thread have centered around equating the chants with a Nazi rally or describing those who engage in them as classless or devoid of dignity. I find those statements a tad extreme and the fact that some of those statements went unchallenged suggests to me that there may be many people here who hold similar views, which I find surprising.
Thanks again for sharing your perspective with me.
this is ridiculous... at what point do we have to just water down everything so much that we walk on egg shells 24/7 so we don't misconstrue our actions or unintentionally disturb the 7billion people of the world. Give me a break.
> A significant fraction of global viewership is disturbed and alienated by the chants.
What is your source? How can you be so sure? There is absolutely no factual evidence that anything other than a fraction of viewers with thin skin are being "disturbed" by what is a group of proud workers displaying their pride.
As a viewer of the launches, I'd be sad if the broadcast moved out of Hawthorne.
We get to see a sometimes-messy slice of the culture, but we're also seeing how real engineers celebrate a real milestone accomplishment. There's not enough of that visible outside the walls of engineering; people still think of it as a boring profession.
A society gets more of what it celebrates. We should keep highlighting the joys of a gigantic plan coming together.
I guarantee that nobody who worked their asses off to accomplish this amazing feat and chanted cares a single wit about your feelings of alienation and exclusion from their accomplishment. If you care that much about it, get competitive and get to work besting them.
The more space launch companies there are in competition, the better we are as a species. The chant is a call to you to get to work.
It's a culture clash, in Britain the only time you would be in a room full of people chanting like that is either a football match or a far right gathering.
For us, and possibly other European countries, that kind of patriotic expression is taboo because it's associated with football hooliganism and extreme right wing politics. I suppose there are certain circumstances where you might sing 'God save the queen' in some kind of particularly old fashioned formal ceremony but it would never happen spontaneously and makes plenty of people feel a bit awkward. Out of all my friends and family I can think of perhaps one or two people that would even know the words.
Maybe not bad per se, but from a British perspective, it's certainly quite strange.
I would never identify my own or my company's achievements as evidence that the UK was great as a nation. I'd be doing the same in whatever country I lived in. In some ways, we achieve things despite being in the UK rather than because of it. Crushing inequality, expensive education, corrupt politics, lack of housing. These are not very business or tech friendly and are less of a problem elsewhere.
Aside from that, feeling proud because of other people's achievements just because you were born in the same country as they were is not really very common in Europe as far as I can tell.
>Maybe not bad per se, but from a British perspective, it's certainly quite strange.
The UK is still working out empire guilt, in the same way the Germans tend to tamp down nationalism because of WW II. I don't find it surprising, but I don't think it's healthy either. A little bit of nationalism is good for a country.
I find your insinuation that by simply chanting U-S-A an entire group of people can be described as classless and without dignity to be troubling.
I work at SpaceX. I was not born in the US and although I now hold US citizenship and consider myself thoroughly American, I usually refrain from taking part in these chants. I do this not as a kind of silent protest against them, but because I simply don't like showing such outward exuberance as I have an extremely reserved personality. I’m the kind of person that would prefer to sit quietly during a sporting event rather than shout or clap. With that being said, the U-S-A chants don’t bother me and it's somewhat disheartening to see them consistently brought up as reflecting poorly on the employees at SpaceX.
I will also add that as an American even I have sometimes, particularly during my childhood living in Texas, felt uncomfortable with some of the more boisterous ways Americans tend to express feelings of national pride, so I can understand why others may find this troubling. It took me some time to realize that in the overwhelming majority of cases, there is no malice or jingoistic sentiment behind these expressions, and in fact I don’t even view them as exclusionary. It may be difficult for someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time living in the US to understand just how innocuous and widespread things like the USA chants are. Its simply something that is easy to say and catchy, while declaring pride in your country.
There are many employees here who aren’t natural born US citizens whom I see join in the chants. In fact, I’ve seen non US citizens working here join in as well.
I understand that I say this having adapted to American cultural norms, and I’m trying my best to be understanding of the opposing views. I personally don’t find it difficult to feel a sense of wonderment, respect and admiration towards the accomplishments of other countries, even when those countries view said accomplishments as matters of national pride and I am finding it hard to understand why so many others seem to be bothered by this.
It’s also important to note that the space program is, in my opinion, one of the few things that still elicit a strong sense of national pride and achievement across political lines here in the US. The American public still today seems to be aware of the broad national policies that have led and continue to lead to the achievements of our space program and rightfully feel a sense of pride in their successes. The accomplishments of SpaceX don’t exist in a vacuum and many of us working here realize a shared sense of gratitude that we owe the American taxpayer.
I also find it a bit strange that in my experience other nationalities, in particular those from Europe, tend to view Americans as rather close minded and without much understanding of foreign cultures. While I agree that in general this is definitely something that Americans need to work on, in this case I’m struck by the irony of the commenters here singling out a cultural “quirk” as has been described by others, and subsequently drawing negative conclusions about it despite the fact that I can see no way in which the U-S-A chants can possibly be misconstrued as denigrating of any other countries.
You said you find this criticism troubling, but then you said you understand why people find these expressions of national pride troubling. I think you're supposed to pick one?
> despite the fact that I can see no way in which the U-S-A chants can possibly be misconstrued as denigrating of any other countries.
I think it's about context, right? Many countries feel some imperialist pressure coming from the USA, which makes a "USA, we're number one!" type of chant different to an "Iceland, we're number one!" chant or whatever.
It was late, I was very tired and perhaps I didn't express my views as well as I should have.
I tried to make it very clear that I in fact didn't find the criticisms of the chants troubling, and that in some ways I could even understand them.
What I specifically found troubling, and feel I articulated this quite clearly, was the notion that by simply engaging in these chants, employees were automatically devoid of class or dignity. Those were the words of the parent comment, not my own, and that is what I took issue with.
With regard to your second point I can understand why countries may find the chants of USA off putting.
I think you were supposed to be patriotic, with the cold war and all.
Now a days, you are supposed to understand that governments indoctrinate patriotism and purposely inflict unneeded international distrust and tensions for their own selfish agenda.
Ugh, I completely agree. I'm Canadian and it's been a dream of mine for a long time to work for SpaceX.
I'll gladly take a big paycut and live in bumfuck nowhere, California to do it (my wife is another story but that's a different discussion).
But every time this USA chant comes up I just imagine what it would be like to be in that crowd and be absolutely exhilarated at each success - not just for the company but for HUMANITY (which I already do through the webcast), and feel nothing but cringe and exclusion when the USA chant started.
They really gotta reign that in because you just KNOW it's a couple of aggro-patriotic douchebags that start it and everyone else joins in out of excitement and tribal cohesion not because it's the thing that everyone feels in that moment.
As someone who works here and doesn't join in the chants but works closely with and respects many of the people that do, I find your description of them as "douchebags" to be rather uncalled for.
You are certainly free to disagree with the chants or the overall tone that celebrations like this set within the company, but I don't think that resorting to personal insults is the best approach to having a nuanced discussion on the topic.
What a complete load of utter tripe. Its a bunch of people getting excited and happy and celebrating success. That's it. Are England supporters chanting after a soccer match aggro-patriotic douchebags? The SpaceX crowd aren't even celebrating a victory over anybody, it's purely about achievement. Good for them.
> Are England supporters chanting after a soccer match aggro-patriotic douchebags?
Aggro-patriotic douchebaggery isn't exactly unheard of when it comes to football stadiums. For some it's a feature, for most others it's a very well known bug.
Also, you seem to have completely missed his finer point: a nuanced distinction between those who start and those who just sing along because they are in the mood for making noise, any noise.
PS: of all the stadium noises, the "god save the queen" of England supporters is by far the most enjoyable (and I say that as a german)
> you seem to have completely missed his finer point
That's because I don't think there is a finer point. If the only way a chant like that could happen is if it's started by aggro-patriotic douchebags, which specifically was the contention, then the chanting only exists as a result of aggro-patriotic douchebaggery. That's a slur that taints everyone involved in it, and I don't accept that at all.
I should not have used that term to diminish my point, I regret that.
My point was that Americans can claim all day and all night that "U-S-A" chants are not meant to insult or condescend to any other country. But ask around and I can tell you most other countries find it INCREDIBLY uncomfortable.
Sporting events are a completely appropriate venue for the release of testosterone and patriotism. The very nature of the event is a competition between Country X and Country Y.
I don't believe SpaceX's mission is to establish American dominance over other nations. Elon Musk spends a lot of time discussing his lofty aspirations for the future of humanity on Mars, about becoming a multi-planetary species, etc.
I think I read somewhere that they can only employ US citizens because of government and military contracts. So by definition everyone working there would be American anyway.
Generally SpaceX only employs "US Persons" due to ITAR restrictions. US Persons are either US Citizens, doesn't matter whether native born or naturalized, and US Permanent Residents, often referred to as Green Card holders.
There are ways to obtain ITAR exceptions for non US Persons but the process is long and very expensive so it is only utilized rarely. I will say that SpaceX does employ a fair amount of Permanent Residents as well as a few non US Persons.
You seriously think the SpaceX PR department is encouraging their employees to chant for... any reason? This is just a bunch of people who are proud of their accomplishment, and proud of the nation that has fostered the environment that allows them to achieve those accomplishments.
I'm pretty sure Elon considers himself thoroughly American at this point.
You may find this surprising but there are in fact many foreign born employees working at SpaceX. Some of us even have accents and unusual names to go along with certain cultural quirks.
I don't consider them, or myself, any less American.
I find the level of criticism for SpaceX on this site to be incredible.
I understand this is a place for intelligent discussion, but sometimes I feel like I can't find a single thread on this site without someone in the comments presuming they are smarter than someone else.
I'm pretty sure there's literally no other topic on which the HN community is so overwhelmingly positive.
There are a lot of commenters here, so there will a bell curve (or some distribution) on any topic at all. Picking negative comments from a tail is always possible, but it misrepresents the community, in this case completely. Posting indignant comments about it just adds to the problem and takes the thread off topic.
>I find the level of criticism for SpaceX on this site to be incredible.
This has to be the funniest comment I have seen today. There are more than one post regarding this event with 300+ votes. Still the level of criticism for Spacex on this site is "incredible", Really?
Good work! I still think that they should have some grippers on the barge, or a net, ready to spring and grasp the rocket on landing, instead of carrying flimsy legs all the way to space and back.
The current legs aren't flimsy, and they seem way less complicated than a gripper system would have to be. How would a gripper system handle off-centered landings? It would have to catch the falling rocket very quickly because there's not much fuel left in the tank to hover. Your proposed system would add a lot of complexity, all for the small decrease in launch mass.
I was all set to post something about how the Grasshopper used a different engine, but apparently both the Grasshopper and the F9 first stage use Merlin 1D engines.
Wikipedia says that these produce 700kN at sea level and can be throttled down to 70%, which means at minimum power one engine could hover about 50 tonnes.
I can't find out what Grasshopper massed. Does anyone know?
I'm still surprised there's no active system on the barge to secure the rocket. Even now they seem to be able to stick the landing with some reliability, it's always nice to have belt and suspenders.
I'm thinking a system with a pillar at each corner of the barge, pairs of cables between opposite pillars, and puller cables to open out the main cables into an iris-type aperture which can be rapidly closed on the rocket after it lands to keep it upright. Do that at 2-3 heights above the barge and it'll cradle the rocket even in heavy seas.
Now you've created a collision risk with all those pillars and cables sticking up. The rocket actually comes in from the side, because it initially aims next to the barge so that an engine failure doesn't cause it to crash into the barge. You'd have to change that approach, and your margin for error would become much smaller.
All that to solve a problem that doesn't seem to actually exist. A scheme like this might have saved the Jason-3 landing, where the rocket fell over due to a leg that didn't lock, but none of the other barge landing failures would have been helped by this.
I think there's a fundamental failure to understand the scale of this hardware, too. This is a massive machine (50 meters tall or so) built to weigh as little as possible, and therefore to only be strong where it's needed. It has approximately zero ability to withstand lateral forces from things like cables pulling it upright.
The center of mass of the rocket is _very_ low. According to Elon, the CRS-8 core was very stable (it needed even less stabilization than they thought it did).
They may add some means to secure it if it needs to travel through rough seas on the way home, but if the conditions are calm enough to land, they're calm enough for the stage to be stable. Watch the CRS-8 landing and look at how much the barge is rolling while the stage is parked on it...
I remember reading somewhere that the actual shell of the rocket is surprisingly thin and very fragile against horizontal forces.
Think of it like a very long can of soda with a ton of lead at the bottom. Any kind of attempt to keep it upright only at the top will most likely end up damaging the shell.
That's why their method of securing it after it lands is to weld the feet, the bottom of this thing is pretty much the only part that's solid, the rest is flimsy as hell in every direction but one.
Permanent decrease in launch mass is big money, whereas complications on the barge do not really matter. Like all good engineering problems, it only looks problematic at first sight and I am sure that SpaceX could rise up to the challenge. Use a big funnel mesh?
However, I accept the comment that perhaps they are really practising for landings on Mars, where fair number of probes have overturned on landing.
I'm not sure you realize just how fragile the stage is. The side walls are made of _very_ thin aluminum. Any landing support mechanism must put the impact force on the 'octaweb' structure that supports the engines. That's the advantage of the legs. They can be engineered to distribute the force exactly where they want it.
A significant problem with any sort of "catching" mechanism is that the load on the stage is far less predictable.
> Your proposed system would add a lot of complexity, all for the small decrease in launch mass.
While I agree with your overall sentiment, I imagine that people building rockets make complexity tradeoffs to save tiny amounts of weight all the time.
The rocket can land anywhere in a area of a couple hundred square meters. How would you design the "grippers" to work anywhere on the barge? How would you "grab" the stage without punching a hole in it?
The landing legs aren't all that heavy, are on the first stage (where the mass penalty isn't as bad), and can be engineered to distribute the force through the structure of the stage that can handle it.
The big difference between landing at sea and on land seems to be the PR value. Otherwise a target is a target, taking any differences in weather into consideration. In fact it seems that landing at sea is actually less pressure since you don't have the same safety concerns and crash pictures (which are bad for publicity) the rocket simply disappears.
The question to ask is, why are they bothering to land at sea?
And, if you had done any cursory research instead of just announcing that SpaceX is making a PR grab because it sounded good to you, you would have read in the abundantly available explanations that this launch was to geostationary transfer orbit, rather than low earth orbit. GEO is a lot, lot higher than LEO, which means the rocket has to be going a LOT faster to get there. This uses up a lot of fuel, leaving them very little to slow down from an even higher speed than the normal mission. Decelerating from a much higher speed takes MORE fuel than decelerating from a low speed, and they have less fuel available because so much got used up in getting to that speed.
So it's not plausible to get all the way back to the launch site. Instead they position a droneship way downrange so the rocket doesn't have to go as far back to land. But it's still going EXTREMELY fast, and managing to slow down all the way and land is an incredible accomplishment.
I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I'm trying to point out that you deliberately chose pejorative phrasing without having done any research. I'm trying to point out that it's not constructive to talk about someone else's work like that without at least learning what they're even doing or why they're doing it.
Could you name a suitable piece of land? There are not very many downrange from KSC. If you propose using a different launch site, note that launching over the ocean is a necessary safety precaution, unless you can find a large amount of very uninhabited land.
This is incorrect, it's about fuel. By the time the rocket has completed first stage separation it's traveled a long way "horizontally" and is no longer near the launch site. They are trying to create a landing spot as close to the rocket as possible so it can't make it back. The only orbits that can reasonable get all the way back to land are fairly low and from specific launch sites.
This mission was to launch JCSAT-14 to geosynchronous orbit which requires the falcon 9 to move the already heavy satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. That meant the first stage had to do a lot more work and was left with a lot less fuel as a result. Therefore, the re-entry burn was less aggressive, the first stage came in with twice the speed, and SpaceX needed to do a far harder landing with three engines lit in the quicker and riskier suicide burn. Somehow, despite playing down expectations, they managed an even more precise landing than last time.