Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #3

Gee, I would hate to have someone point this out to him:

Elon Musk fueled by $4.9B in government subsidies.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

Elon Musk Gravy Train:
https://mises.org/wire/elon-muskss-taxpayer-funded-gravy-train

miketheterrible wrote:Gee, I would hate to have someone point this out to him:

Elon Musk fueled by $4.9B in government subsidies.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

Elon Musk Gravy Train:
https://mises.org/wire/elon-muskss-taxpayer-funded-gravy-train

Yeah the dude is a charlatan, and he serves as nothing more than a Trojan horse to privatize NASA.

Its like another Tesla and Edison story the scientist that focuses more on scientific progress over business will always have the better designs. The future after liquid or solid fuel rockets might soon rest on nuclear propulsion and I have my doubts that he has any expertise on a completely different field of science, nor have I heard any news of him safely launching astronauts or humans into orbit.

thegopnik wrote:Its like another Tesla and Edison story the scientist that focuses more on scientific progress over business will always have the better designs. The future after liquid or solid fuel rockets might soon rest on nuclear propulsion and I have my doubts that he has any expertise on a completely different field of science, nor have I heard any news of him safely launching astronauts or humans into orbit.

SpaceX appears to be using technology developed elsewhere. Given the pathetic failure with those ridiculous vats they call rocket segments just
from attempts to fill them with cryogenic fuel, it appears that there is no genuine in-house expertise at SpaceX. I can see them being able to
produce parts (engines, fuel tanks, other components) from a prepared cookbook. It is not clear where they got the cookbook. Probably
from NASA. The rotten political system in the USA would cover up such information since it exposes privatization for the scam that it is.

The irony is that it is happening the wrong way... normally you under fund hospitals and schools and prisons and then after a few scary stories appear in the newspapers (owned by the families about to go in to the hospital/school/prison business of course) and then there is a call to privatise and fix all those terrible problems.

This seems to be the reverse where the private enterprise is incompetent... what are they doing... scale up a house hold hot water cylinder... that will be fine for space use wouldn't it?

Well, well, well, this explains a lot.

The video starts out OK and then degenerates to SpaceX worship. What we are seeing is the failure of this "one stop shop" for
space tech. It obviously started out fast from the gate thanks to direct technology transfer, but it has not delivered in terms
of real in-house innovation. All those landing stunts prove f*ck-all. The narrator of the video talks about SpaceX having
reusable launcher capability. Really? Where?

The US deep security state drinks its own propaganda koolaid and is thus a dangerous joke. Privatizing is not a panacea since
the work environment is important too. Working for some ego-tripping playboy is not fun for real engineers. And SpaceX
must have lots of similarities to Theranos. So it is a slowly moving train wreak.

kvs wrote:The video starts out OK and then degenerates to SpaceX worship.    What we are seeing is the failure of this "one stop shop" for
space tech.   It obviously started out fast from the gate thanks to direct technology transfer, but it has not delivered in terms
of real in-house innovation.   All those landing stunts prove f*ck-all.   The narrator of the video talks about SpaceX having
reusable launcher capability.  Really?  Where?  

The US deep security state drinks its own propaganda koolaid and is thus a dangerous joke.   Privatizing is not a panacea since
the work environment is important too.   Working for some ego-tripping playboy is not fun for real engineers.   And SpaceX
must have lots of similarities to Theranos.   So it is a slowly moving train wreak.  

Muskrats fan boys are like: Don't judge him empirically, he's an expert on everything...apparently even on virology and pandemics!

Musks fake projects like HyperLoop and StarShip are beyond a joke. These are nothing but vanity projects designed to stroke his ego, and it makes me cringe to read so many fucking idiots singing his praises. It's a little depressing that the cattle are just so stupid.

Big_Gazza wrote:Musks fake projects like HyperLoop and StarShip are beyond a joke.  These are nothing but vanity projects designed to stroke his ego, and it makes me cringe to read so many fucking idiots singing his praises. It's a little depressing that the cattle are just so stupid.

.
The kicker is that if these were state ran projects people would be trashing it. But since it's media friendly Musk, apparently they praise it.

miketheterrible wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:Musks fake projects like HyperLoop and StarShip are beyond a joke.  These are nothing but vanity projects designed to stroke his ego, and it makes me cringe to read so many fucking idiots singing his praises. It's a little depressing that the cattle are just so stupid.

.
The kicker is that if these were state ran projects people would be trashing it. But since it's media friendly Musk, apparently they praise it.

Cold War propaganda did its job. It convinced the sheeple around the world that wealth comes from privatization and corporate oligarchs (tycoons).
But as with all fairy tales, reality is nowhere to be found. In the real world, the bastion of laissez-faire capitalism does not practice what it preaches
and big bad government subsidizes and protects via tariffs and sanctions critical companies.

The hordes of migrants trying desperately to enter the USA for the good life are f*cking fools. Unless they are starving to death in their original
locations, moving to the USA is not going to make them wealthy and happy. A lot of Mexican illegals are basically plantation slaves.

The kicker is that if these were state ran projects people would be trashing it. But since it's media friendly Musk, apparently they praise it.

I think the media are being quite consistent... imagine the response to the Russians putting up thousands of small satellites to provide everyone with broadband... they would dedicate hours to all the military applications and how it is just Putin trying to take over the world...

When they send up the first paying customer it will be amazing.... When Russia did it... it was because they are poor and need the money....

The cold war propaganda does continue... why is the western equivalent to Oligarch sound so positive... Tycoon is an entrepreneur... it is a good thing, a selfless person who creates jobs and runs a business to provide useful products.... while an Oligarch is a wealthy manipulator of politicians for nefarious selfish purposes...

But the main success of the cold war propaganda is that only the Soviets and Russians lied and did bad things... the west was good and can be trusted to this day to do the right thing for everyone. It is important for the health and well being of countries like Syria to be controlled by terrorists because anarchy and chaos are good things in such places. Good for us. Us being the 1% really really rich western people...

The older I get (54yo and counting) the more I am convinced that karma is real. It is the universal mechanism for dealing with arseholes. Give them rope and just wait for them to hang themselves. The 2020s may well be the decade that the Muricans finally get what is coming to them.

Space X now charges $84.9 million for a Falcon 9 launch and $127.2 million for a Falcon Heavy launch.
Falcon 9 has an LEO payload of 22.8 tons. The Proton-M has a payload of 22 tons and cost around
$60 million per launch. The Angara equivalent of Proton-M is not supposed to cost more since it is
a modular design to save costs.

kvs wrote:
Space X now charges $84.9 million for a Falcon 9 launch and $127.2 million for a Falcon Heavy launch.
Falcon 9 has an LEO payload of 22.8 tons.   The Proton-M has a payload of 22 tons and cost around
$60 million per launch.  The Angara equivalent of Proton-M is not supposed to cost more since it is
a modular design to save costs.

 

F9 only has a 22.8T payload to LEO if they don't recover the 1st stage.  You only get that performance if you burn your stages to completion rather than leaving a significant amount of fuel in the tank to perform your powered return flight. F9H is the same deal.  To recover stages you need to hamstring the vehicle with very significant performance losses.

In reality, the actual cost of Proton or A-5M is not relevant as the barrier preventing them gaining more market share is political, not technical or financial. If Russia makes a big effort to improve its market share then the US will simply sanction them under bullshit false pretenses and embargo Russian launch services for US payloads, or any payload that includes US-origin components.  They did this with Chinese launch services in the 90s and murdered their fledging international commercial space industry while it was still sucking its thumb in the crib. Murican nationalist idiots are salivating at the idea of dong the same to Russia (again), and once US domestic manned launch capability is restored (ie Russia loses a potential pressure point), what is going to stop them returning to their old ways and being complete cunts like the CW days?

The older I get (54yo and counting) the more I am convinced that karma is real. It is the universal mechanism for dealing with arseholes. Give them rope and just wait for them to hang themselves. The 2020s may well be the decade that the Muricans finally get what is coming to them.

Sadly karma acts slow or not at all... an evil person like McCain can live to a ripe old age, and many much better people do not.

The Americans will end up having to pay a real price, but the people who actually pay it wont be the ones responsible... when the brown stuff hits the air conditioning systems the 0.1% will up and leave the US and move to some nice Island somewhere... quite a few will move to NZ and I rather suspect a few will move to Australia too, and to be fair some of them are not responsible for US foreign policy either, but they certainly benefitted from it and don't want to wait around for the consequences...

GarryB wrote:

The older I get (54yo and counting) the more I am convinced that karma is real. It is the universal mechanism for dealing with arseholes. Give them rope and just wait for them to hang themselves. The 2020s may well be the decade that the Muricans finally get what is coming to them.

Sadly karma acts slow or not at all... an evil person like McCain can live to a ripe old age, and many much better people do not.

The Americans will end up having to pay a real price, but the people who actually pay it wont be the ones responsible... when the brown stuff hits the air conditioning systems the 0.1% will up and leave the US and move to some nice Island somewhere... quite a few will move to NZ and I rather suspect a few will move to Australia too, and to be fair some of them are not responsible for US foreign policy either, but they certainly benefitted from it and don't want to wait around for the consequences...

McCains comeuppance was living long enough to see the unmistakable signs of impending US collapse, Russian renaissance and global dominance of Communist China.  He didn't need to see US hegemony totally unwind to get that sick feeling in the pit of his gut that history books would judge the US a FAILURE and that his expectations of endless global US control would end in ignominy as it did for the machinations of the 3rd Reich and the USSR.

As for the rest of the murican herd, they must bear collective responsibility for the crimes of their regime.  They are, at least nominally, a democracy, and if they insist on electing deeply corrupt  people into positions of power then they deserve their fate.

Big_Gazza wrote:

kvs wrote:
Space X now charges $84.9 million for a Falcon 9 launch and $127.2 million for a Falcon Heavy launch.
Falcon 9 has an LEO payload of 22.8 tons.   The Proton-M has a payload of 22 tons and cost around
$60 million per launch.  The Angara equivalent of Proton-M is not supposed to cost more since it is
a modular design to save costs.

 

F9 only has a 22.8T payload to LEO if they don't recover the 1st stage.  You only get that performance if you burn your stages to completion rather than leaving a significant amount of fuel in the tank to perform your powered return flight. F9H is the same deal.  To recover stages you need to hamstring the vehicle with very significant performance losses.

In reality, the actual cost of Proton or A-5M is not relevant as the barrier preventing them gaining more market share is political, not technical or financial. If Russia makes a big effort to improve its market share then the US will simply sanction them under bullshit false pretenses and embargo Russian launch services for US payloads, or any payload that includes US-origin components.  They did this with Chinese launch services in the 90s and murdered their fledging international commercial space industry while it was still sucking its thumb in the crib. Murican nationalist idiots are salivating at the idea of dong the same to Russia (again), and once US domestic manned launch capability is restored (ie Russia loses a potential pressure point), what is going to stop them returning to their old ways and being complete cunts like the CW days?

The whole concept of vertical rocket return is a BS gimmick in my view. A real solution that saves fuel and is vastly more reliable is the
the Baikal land like the shuttle approach. So first stage boosters and core return to the surface via controlled glide descent like the
Buran and the Shuttle. Russia has not deployed the Baikal approach since the economics do not justify it. Space X makes it seem
like recovery is economical, but if it is then it is marginal.

The one redeeming factor of a space craft using rockets to land itself is that such a capability could be used on the moon where parachutes and wings wont make any difference... of course if you are going all the way to Mars or Venus then being able to descend with wings means gradual decelleration without needing to carry enormous amounts of rocket fuel and the potential to end up on the planet surface with a largely intact rocket you could then refuel with water (H2 and O2) and launch again found in situ...

GarryB wrote:The one redeeming factor of a space craft using rockets to land itself is that such a capability could be used on the moon where parachutes and wings wont make any difference... of course if you are going all the way to Mars or Venus then being able to descend with wings means gradual decelleration without needing to carry enormous amounts of rocket fuel and the potential to end up on the planet surface with a largely intact rocket you could then refuel with water (H2 and O2) and launch again found in situ...

Even for trips to the Moon and Mars, recovering the Earth launcher components would still be better with winged return. What to do on the
Moon and Mars is really another topic.

For the Moon the lander could be fully recoverable since it does not take much fuel to land. Trips to Mars another sort of problem. Getting
off the Martian surface will be a pain since it requires substantial propulsion and thus it requires a serious rocket. There were plans to process
the fuel on Mars from buried water sources. But establishing a fuel production line is dicey. Carrying and landing large amounts of fuel is
not trivial either.

kvs wrote:There were plans to process the fuel on Mars from buried water sources.  

LOL!! Yeah, I've heard that before, but how many rocket fuel plants do you know of that are built on underground permafrost deposits and make LH2 and LOX out of the water extracted from frozen dirt using no power source except electricity from solar cells?

kvs wrote:A real solution that saves fuel and is vastly more reliable is the the Baikal land like the shuttle approach.    So first stage boosters and core return to the surface via controlled glide descent like the Buran and the Shuttle.  

Despite the nonsense from SpaceX groupies (who insist a winged glide-back isn't "scaleable"), the Baikal would be a good option for 1st stage strap-ons that are ignited at the pad and whose job is simply to burn fast and hard and get the rest of the vehicle up out of the dense lower atmosphere. Weight isn't really that critical and they don't need to be mass-efficient as the core and upper stages do. Shuttle SRBs were heavy as @#^% with all that mass-inefficient solid fuel, but it didn't matter. Likewise, for the Baikal, the added weight of wings, guidance vanes and return engine won't really matter.

Big_Gazza wrote:

kvs wrote:A real solution that saves fuel and is vastly more reliable is the the Baikal land like the shuttle approach.    So first stage boosters and core return to the surface via controlled glide descent like the Buran and the Shuttle.  

Despite the nonsense from SpaceX groupies (who insist a winged glide-back isn't "scaleable"), the Baikal would be a good option for 1st stage strap-ons that are ignited at the pad and whose job is simply to burn fast and hard and get the rest of the vehicle up out of the dense lower atmosphere.  Weight isn't really that critical and they don't need to be mass-efficient as the core and upper stages do.  Shuttle SRBs were heavy as @#^% with all that mass-inefficient solid fuel, but it didn't matter. Likewise, for the Baikal, the added weight of wings, guidance vanes and return engine won't really matter.

I think the Angara booster modules could all be Baikal variants. That is one of the advantages of having a fully modular design consisting of identical
modules strapped together in various configurations. The SRBs were glorified gunpowder barrels without any ability to be turned off. No Russian
or Soviet space rocket used such nonsense especially manned launchers.

Anyway, my point was that gliding back to the surface using the atmosphere is vastly smarter than burning fuel to fight gravity to achieve
a vertical landing. As you noted, it reduces the payload substantially. It is just another SpaceX gimmick. Like their so-called ventilators for
Covid-19.

GarryB wrote:Sadly karma acts slow or not at all... an evil person like McCain can live to a ripe old age, and many much better people do not.

Agreed. Either Karma doesn't work or it works very slow.

However, we as individuals can develop a value system without citing such supra-human divine database & evaluation