I think, with some confidence, this might be the period in history where we will look back and say things changed, the change will be dramatic and historic and fast and I'm talking space colony stuff here over the next few years and I never really felt that before.
I totally agree, and I hope you got that gist from my presentation. Everything is accelerating now. :-) But Single Stage to Orbit will truly change everything.
Let's say for the sake of argument that SpaceX gets the total cost of a launch down to $1M. What specific business plans does this enable that would not have been cost effective previously? Ultimately that's what we need for a new age of space travel. If there's nothing worth doing up there, then it doesn't matter how cheap it is to get there. But if there are opportunities in space, they should start booming as soon as the benefits outweigh the costs.
It's not the private funding. It's the vision. When private companies do everything only for money, everyone in those companies acts alike. So there is no compromise with the product. The compromise is with their individual pockets and the vision is just being vain and pretending they're important.
With this achievement, the Mars landing plan from Space X does not seem so far fetched anymore and sending humans to the moon may become easier. It is an enormous step in the space race indeed.
I saw that reused SpaceX booster launch live on UA-cam! It's amazing, and I hope that in 60 years, I'll be telling my grandparents that I saw the first reused rocket being flown! And they'll probably be like, "So what, that's perfectly normal these days!" ^.^
Thank you for the shout out and proud to be a supporter. Your show answers some questions that are really exciting and just interesting. Thank you for all you do for us. It truly is a pleasure watching the videos and learning. Thank you again.
As a schoolboy I watched the moon landing in 69 and this reminds me of the sense of possibility that was around then although it tends to take more time than expected. I was 10 then and recently had to explain to my eldest granddaughter why we haven't been back since Apollo!
Oh, Fraser! I absolutely LOST my composure and belted out into uncontrollable laughter with the way you slipped in that unassuming pun about Blue Origin's current goal stages. So eloquently stated. So good. THIS is why I love this channel!
Yes indeed, the presenter Dr Kevin Fong talks about all the failed Mars probes before your quote and name appear on screen. Congrats ! Correction: it's called "Should We Go To Mars? The Big Think" I think you're the first person they quote. Not bad considering the second quote is from John Glenn !
I get that because they need to be aerodynamic, rockets often look like... "adult entertainment equipment" But I feel like they didnt even try with the New Glenn... :D
What I think about reusability is not only for cost saving, but also reducing pressure at Hawthorne factory. When reusing booster, they did not have to build a core for the next customer/s, and so ramping up the number of launch per year. Right?
I think this would reduce the delay of colonizing planets like Mars. This might be too science fictioney, but companies might use this way of flight to create SpacePorts (Airport for space) after colonizing at least one planet and add places for tourists.....
They haven't managed to actually reuse the fairing yet, although they are planning to. For this launch they managed to get back half of the fairing. I understand that in the future it's supposed to land on a giant air bag (or as Elon Musk says a "bouncy castle"). This was only the first test recovery.
Fraser now I know that it's purely science fiction but have you ever seen Fireball XL5? It's a Gerry Anderson production from about 1964 and is about a space ship. It's launched along a rail, propelled by a rocket sled. As it leaves the rail the ship's boosters are fired to take it into space. The Ship has a front unit that can detach, land and then take off from planets whilst the main section remains in space, similar to the Apollo CSM. The whole ship returns to Earth although we never see it land. The concept is a good idea, although at our present level of technology is probably not possible.
I think Spacex and Blue origin right now have the best approach by splitting the performance and mass fraction requirements by using two stages. The weight and propellant mass fractions margins on SSTO's razor-thin. Even an expendable SSTO with no thermal protection or fuel for landing has never flown. With two stages you can make into each stage can be more robust, less complicated, and thus cheaper. There is also another cool concept called the Sea Dragon, where instead of making small efficient rockets you make them as big and as simple as possible. The reasoning behind Sea Dragon is that cost of a rocket goes up exponentially with complexity while it goes up less than linear with size. It's often referred to as the "Big Dumb Booster".
I'm going to be doing an episode on SSTOs, but it'll really be ruining sci-fi Christmas. Without some kind of amazing new fuel source, multi-stage rockets are the best we can hope for.
I have to say, when SpaceX first announced they will be landing and reusing rockets, I had doubts, mostly because the amount of extra fuel needed, which I thought would render the amount of payload very small compared to standard rockets. I am really glad to have been proven wrong here. Reusable boosters can and hopefully will chop down the launch price by a very significant margin. I wonder what the impact on manrating reusing a rocket has, though? I suspect the booster doesn't go through re-entry unharmed. Even if it would significantly impact man rating, though, there's still the massive scale down of costs for cargo launches.
I think it'll make it more human rated. The reusability provide a much better understanding of reliability, helps them understand which parts fail, and which need beefing up.
If those rockets return to their own launchpad, do they go straight up for the first stage? Or do they have to cancel out their own horizontal velocity?
SpaceX has already landed a rocket on solid ground, they do a boost-back to flip around their horizontal velocity! They launched at Cape Canaveral and landed back there, just not on the launch pad, but a separate landing pad nearby. This picture here in a SpaceX tweet shows the launch and landing in a single frame: twitter.com/SpaceX/status/754906212429238272/photo/1
I like the idea of a single stage engine. Only one thing to worry about, not three. LOL Good luck to the brave people doing the research. Thanks for these videos.
It'll be interesting to see how block 5 will make it even more routine. I imagine that "tenth reflight of booster B1051, launching astronauts to the ISS" will be viewed as completely normal in two years or so.
Since antimatter seems to act a lot like regular matter (especially in the case I'm thinking about here with the wavelengths of light emitted matching between elements of antimatter and matter, at least with hydrogen) is it possible that many of the galaxies we can see with telescopes are made entirely out of antimatter?
Fraser, I read the other day that nebula are actually so sparse that if you were upclose to one (close as the star trek enterprise could get) that you really wouldn't see it. I definitely would look like a cloud. So my question is: Could we be in a nebula and not know it?
I definitely wouldn't underestimate Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. He'll be the richest man in the world shortly, and can dump money into this for decades.
Fraser Cain Well, i mean the ITS is probably capable of a SSTO fligth to deploy a small satelite, it would be overkill but hey, migth as well snag the achivement
If I were you I would look into Quantum Field Theory to answer this question. Fraser is a smart guy, but it's not quite his field. It's easy to give the laymen explanation, but that would just give you the wrong idea if you want to truly understand. Misleading, in a way. Look up some lectures that go into the field explainations.
3:33 - You said they "reused" the fairing. I would have to double check sources, but I believe so far they only tried "recovering" the fairing, and only one half of it was potentially reusable. Fairing re-use is still to come.
So how are they going to get it to reverse its direction and land on its own launchpad without burning through half the fuel they launch with to do it?
I was only a child during the start of the shuttle missions but wasn't there some controversy involving reusability with the shuttle's boosters? Something like NASA was legally obligated to reobtain them after splashdown but it was a massive waste of their time and energy?
SpaceX updated the payload figures on Falcon Heavy within the last month. They now claim 63,800kg to LEO which I assume is in expendable mode. Source: www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy
Yes, but in the video you said "In addition to the first stage, SpaceX also *reused* the satellite fairing" which makes it sound like they already reused a fairing, which they haven't.
QUESTION: suppose that I'm looking through the super telescope on the surface of Mars and suppose that there is a guy on this surface. I'm looking at him: he holds a flashlight in his hand, point with it in my direction and turn it on. Will I see the light from the flashlight instantaneously? What if instead of flashlight he shoots a bullet with say 99,9% the speed of light?
Yes, you'll see the flashlight instantly. Because what you're seeing in the telescope already happened 20 minutes ago. The bullet that you see fired will arrive in a few seconds.
I'm wondering how they will manage the re-entry of the second stage. What do you think? A heat shield or not? A big entry burn to cancel 3000 or 4000 m/s and not burn up without a heat shield...?
They haven't put together the details of their system yet. I would assume an upper stage that needs to land well down range, or maybe even goes once around the Earth?
I wonder if they can realy slowly lose speed in the uppermost part of the atmosphere using nozzles (already heat-resistant to some degree) as a heat shield.
I don't think the reusable rockets themselves will usher in a new age of space exploration. I think it will simply enable the steps that do usher such a thing in. By reducing the cost of getting materials up there you can start doing neat little things like possibly stockpiling fuel and parts into orbit. When we can build ships in orbit and fuel them there without having to factor in significant costs of escaping Earth's surface, that will be when the real exploration breakthroughs happen.
SpaceX have achieved a huge milestone with their latest launch. With any luck it will be a total game changer. It's rather pathetic that a major newspaper in Australia where I live didn't even mention the story online. That's modern journalism for you though. Can't agree with you Fraser that safety is SpaceX's prime motivation not cost. Elon Musk is running a business where containing launch costs is critical. Hopefully the first stage can be refurbished many times to prove the viability of this economic model. Early days but I'm very excited.
Very good video and i can see what you say about safety than cost but with safety comes lower cost......cost at the end of the day will always be the dream to a private company
Hey Faser, I keep hearing people talking about mars rocket launch window opening every 1.5 year or so. Please make a video about how launch window works and its significance and how it changes according to the planet we want to visit for ex. what will be the launch window for visiting venus or a specific asteroid.
when the cost of sending things into space gets lower...more things go into space. that said then universities, small companies and even private individuals can now send things into space, so experiments that were only in someones mind a decade ago can be made real and tested in space. its just a matter of time before new things are found and invented, so yes its a totally new time for space flight.
ah! but lets not get silly here...profits are needed so even if they can launch for 1/4 of the competitors why do it? so long as they get the business and prices are low enough to cut out everyone else, take the money and run...lol and musk is going to have half a billion coming in when he gets 2k satellites up for his internet company too, so making new things will just keep on coming.
Hmm, interesting question. I'd probably go with Tabby's Star right now, you know, the one that might have an alien megastructure? :-) ua-cam.com/video/IiLDYM2Asx4/v-deo.html&index=62
The problem with reusing rockets was always the fact that you were taking a multi-gigawatt power plant, normally spread out over hundreds of acres, and compressing it into something the size of a van. Oh yeah, by the way, BO reused a rocket first! Not an orbital one, sure, but if you could strap an upper stage on the New Shepard...
Fraser, Is 'space junk' (debris from human hardware launched into space) a danger in Earth's orbit? Will we have to launch a future mission to 'clean up' this problem?
You know Perry Rhodan? Well, then sphere shaped spaceships with equatorial engine setup, maybe in combination with metalic hydrogen... that would be nice.
Well I hope it does get well funded. I would just like to see some of the great innovations that we have seen in other fields repeated in health. It seems like science fiction is coming alive before our very own eyes. But in the field of health, it seems so slow.
*PAYLOAD TO LEO:* · Blue Origin New Gleen: 45,000 kg (99,000 lb) · SpaceX Falcon Heavy: *63,800* kg (140,700 lb) · SpaceX ITS (reusable): *300,000* kg (660,000 lb) · SpaceX ITS (expendable): *550,000* kg (1,210,000 lb) *PAYLOAD TO GTO:* · Blue Origin New Gleen: 13,000 kg (29,000 lb) · SpaceX Falcon Heavy: *26,700 kg* (58,900 lb)
Unrelated Question: What would be your reaction, and what do you think would be the scientific community's reaction, if planet 9 turns out to be a massive, rocky, super earth?
Personally I think we will have to wait, to know, how reliable are these rockets after *X* number of trips. How cheap to reuse, If the price is significantly lower, by the risk factor of its reuse, we will be at the doors of a true revolution.
According to Gwynne Shotwell it cost significantly less than half of the price of a new booster to refurbish the booster. And that's for the very first booster they reuse. Given that they have 2 more iterations of Falcon 9 in the pipeline (block 4 and 5) with the lessons learned from their landed booster, I think it's fair to say that the economics of this will at least be advantageous. Reliability is something else, but with proper maintenance the argument can be made that a reused rocket can actually be more reliable. Any manufacturing defect (like the one that caused CRS 7 to explode) would have surfaced on the last flight. How much of a beating those engines can take will truly determine how often a Falcon 9 can fly again.
How many times can a rocket engine be reuse without endangering lives and payload? We must take into account the enormous fatigue of the materials with each trip.
As I said in the video, I really think the goal here is long term reliability. With disposable rockets, companies don't actually know how their rockets break. But when rockets can return, you can see how they're wearing and fix those parts.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and much safer to launch several smaller rockets with cargo into orbit than to launch one huge rocket? What if there's a failure? If you sending a mission to Mars, you wouldn't want to risk blowing up your entire stash of supplies in one go. Is it actually worth the extra expensive developing a massive, tower of Babylon style rocket?
These are the things that keep me glad to be born in this era... really. Mine was a transition generation, the next one, and I am and will be alive to see it, it will be cornerstone for the future... well... if Trump doesn't destroy it of course. Question: do you think there will be possibility of some reusability for the Space Launch System?
Thanks! I imagine you know everything about the last Nasa's announcement about Encelado and Europa. I hope you will prepare something on that. Here in Italy we followed the live and the group which I belong to (link4universe by Adrian Fartade) is very excited, probably more than the Tappist's one! Thank you, good night
Fraser Cain Wich i doubth it will even be practical, wheren't the Shuttle SRBs damaged by salt water so much to the point of them being harder to repair than to build new ones?
I can see the day coming when people will be able to rent a hotel room in space and enjoy some zero gee fun for a day or two. I also see orbital assembly plants in space to build the interplanetary spacecraft. With orbital facilities you can have shuttle craft on hand to move satellites and spacecraft to higher orbits. This would enable the building of space stations in higher more stable orbits. The ISS is nearing the end of it's useful life. A new facility will need to be built soon and it should be built in a higher orbit. This can only be done with an orbiting shuttle craft. One that stays up there and can be refueled when needed. It would be remote controlled. A pilotless vehicle. It's only purpose would be to lift things from low orbit to high orbit. The question is who's going to build it and how much will they charge for their services?
I think, with some confidence, this might be the period in history where we will look back and say things changed, the change will be dramatic and historic and fast and I'm talking space colony stuff here over the next few years and I never really felt that before.
I totally agree, and I hope you got that gist from my presentation. Everything is accelerating now. :-) But Single Stage to Orbit will truly change everything.
i feel similar, like a new era of space exploration is right around the corner. exciting and inspiring.
Let's say for the sake of argument that SpaceX gets the total cost of a launch down to $1M. What specific business plans does this enable that would not have been cost effective previously? Ultimately that's what we need for a new age of space travel. If there's nothing worth doing up there, then it doesn't matter how cheap it is to get there. But if there are opportunities in space, they should start booming as soon as the benefits outweigh the costs.
There are current plans to look into asteroid mining.
LOL!
Oh man, can you imagine seeing three rocket boosters coming back side by side after Falcon Heavy is lauched? Goosebumps guaranteed.
Yeah, it'll be crazy. Can't wait. :-)
Fraser Cain What a wild time to be alive!
Fraser Cain I think only the two side boosters will return for
a ground landing while the center stage lands on the drone ship
I'm from the future, and yes it was graceful
space x's achievements and plans always seem to be a step up from other space companies
Independence from Governments and use of private funding allowed them to innovate more.
It's not the private funding. It's the vision. When private companies do everything only for money, everyone in those companies acts alike. So there is no compromise with the product. The compromise is with their individual pockets and the vision is just being vain and pretending they're important.
It's making everyone else play catch up. I think we'll start to see big launch companies go under if they can't keep up.
I credit it all to Elon's and his partners vision. None of this would have happened if they weren't willing to risk. And it was big risk.
I think we may be on the verge of a space revolution.
Competition encourages advancement to stay relevant.
Floating weightlessly in other passengers vomit, I bet that will be the tag line Blue Origin uses in their ads ;-)
I'll suggest that too them. It's seems almost magical. Like floating among the spheres.
Oh, those heavenly orbs of yesterdays lunch... :-)
With this achievement, the Mars landing plan from Space X does not seem so far fetched anymore and sending humans to the moon may become easier. It is an enormous step in the space race indeed.
Yup, we're on our way to living that "Expanse" future. :-)
Remember when SpaceX was chasing Cows around with the Grashopper? good old times...
Hah, we should have snuck one of those videos in. :-)
I saw that reused SpaceX booster launch live on UA-cam! It's amazing, and I hope that in 60 years, I'll be telling my grandparents that I saw the first reused rocket being flown! And they'll probably be like, "So what, that's perfectly normal these days!" ^.^
Thank you for the shout out and proud to be a supporter. Your show answers some questions that are really exciting and just interesting. Thank you for all you do for us. It truly is a pleasure watching the videos and learning. Thank you again.
Thank you so much for your support, it means a tremendous amount to me and the team.
As a schoolboy I watched the moon landing in 69 and this reminds me of the sense of possibility that was around then although it tends to take more time than expected. I was 10 then and recently had to explain to my eldest granddaughter why we haven't been back since Apollo!
I think the difference is that this time, we're going to stay.
Reusable rockets can be extremely helpful. Space journeys will be much more frequent.
Let's hope so. :-)
Oh, Fraser! I absolutely LOST my composure and belted out into uncontrollable laughter with the way you slipped in that unassuming pun about Blue Origin's current goal stages. So eloquently stated. So good. THIS is why I love this channel!
Hah, glad to bring you some hilarity. ;-)
Hi Fraser, I'm watching "Why Go To Mars?" on BBC TV.
Featuring the text quote
"Mars eats spacecraft for breakfast": Fraser Cain.
😀
Wait... what? Where? How do I see this?
It's live on BBC4 in England right now, but I have no idea how Canada gets to see it :(
They actually quoted me?
Yes indeed, the presenter Dr Kevin Fong talks about all the failed Mars probes before your quote and name appear on screen. Congrats !
Correction: it's called "Should We Go To Mars? The Big Think"
I think you're the first person they quote. Not bad considering the second quote is from John Glenn !
Look at that. You could make a career out of phrases!
You have 2 popular ones already!
Competition is good, it encourages the companies to make more rockets.
Exactly, SpaceX is changing the game, but Blue Origin will give them tough competition.
I get that because they need to be aerodynamic, rockets often look like... "adult entertainment equipment" But I feel like they didnt even try with the New Glenn... :D
I think it's the proportions. That's a girthy rocket.
What I think about reusability is not only for cost saving, but also reducing pressure at Hawthorne factory. When reusing booster, they did not have to build a core for the next customer/s, and so ramping up the number of launch per year. Right?
For sure, once these things are in full re-used mode, they might reduce the number of new rockets they build significantly.
I think this would reduce the delay of colonizing planets like Mars. This might be too science fictioney, but companies might use this way of flight to create SpacePorts (Airport for space) after colonizing at least one planet and add places for tourists.....
The more infrastructure we can get into space, the easier everything gets to do anything else. :-)
Wow. Reusing rockets means that the more you missions you commission SpaceX for, the cheaper each subsequent mission would cost in theory.
And the more you help them figure out their technology to make it even cheaper.
How did they reuse the fairing? Isn't it attached to the second stage? Did they bring it back with parachutes?
Parachutes, and then recovered from the ocean.
Ah I see, thanks a lot for the quick answer.
Did they let it fall in the ocean or did they catch it coming down on parachute like ULA plans to do with the engines?
They haven't managed to actually reuse the fairing yet, although they are planning to. For this launch they managed to get back half of the fairing. I understand that in the future it's supposed to land on a giant air bag (or as Elon Musk says a "bouncy castle"). This was only the first test recovery.
Tiny boosters and parachutes
I think the idea of the engines being jettisoned with parachutes is a great idea for ULA to put into use very soon.
It's better than completely disposable rockets. :-)
Fraser, that was the best vomit joke I've heard all day!
Hi praise, I know we hear a lot of vomit jokes every day.
All efforts of human race should be aimed at conquering space instead of fighting over issues which are totally insignificant
Can you imagine what we'd accomplish with the military budget used for space exploration?
I literally had tears in my eyes when I first saw SpaceX accomplish the landing :)
Fraser now I know that it's purely science fiction but have you ever seen Fireball XL5? It's a Gerry Anderson production from about 1964 and is about a space ship. It's launched along a rail, propelled by a rocket sled. As it leaves the rail the ship's boosters are fired to take it into space. The Ship has a front unit that can detach, land and then take off from planets whilst the main section remains in space, similar to the Apollo CSM. The whole ship returns to Earth although we never see it land. The concept is a good idea, although at our present level of technology is probably not possible.
Nice job Fraser. I can't wait for falcon heavy. I also can't wait for James Web.
These spacecraft will be coming so fast, you won't have time to wait.
Keep up the good work Fraser, fantastic stuff!
Thanks!
I think Spacex and Blue origin right now have the best approach by splitting the performance and mass fraction requirements by using two stages. The weight and propellant mass fractions margins on SSTO's razor-thin. Even an expendable SSTO with no thermal protection or fuel for landing has never flown. With two stages you can make into each stage can be more robust, less complicated, and thus cheaper. There is also another cool concept called the Sea Dragon, where instead of making small efficient rockets you make them as big and as simple as possible. The reasoning behind Sea Dragon is that cost of a rocket goes up exponentially with complexity while it goes up less than linear with size. It's often referred to as the "Big Dumb Booster".
I'm going to be doing an episode on SSTOs, but it'll really be ruining sci-fi Christmas. Without some kind of amazing new fuel source, multi-stage rockets are the best we can hope for.
How far are we from getting the SABRE engine, or to have a SSTO plane?
Far, like I said, that's a whole other topic. I'll start working on it now.
"But that'll be the topic for another time" NOOOOOOO
Soon, soon. Like, in 3 episodes. Patience. :-)
The maximum payload of the falcon heavy was updated, its 64 tons to LEO not 54 :)
Nice, I guess I had older numbers from my brain. 64 is pretty sweet.
I have to say, when SpaceX first announced they will be landing and reusing rockets, I had doubts, mostly because the amount of extra fuel needed, which I thought would render the amount of payload very small compared to standard rockets.
I am really glad to have been proven wrong here. Reusable boosters can and hopefully will chop down the launch price by a very significant margin.
I wonder what the impact on manrating reusing a rocket has, though? I suspect the booster doesn't go through re-entry unharmed. Even if it would significantly impact man rating, though, there's still the massive scale down of costs for cargo launches.
I think it'll make it more human rated. The reusability provide a much better understanding of reliability, helps them understand which parts fail, and which need beefing up.
7:34 XDDD "float in the womit of other passengers"
It'll really add to the experience.
This is one of those times we should be able to stack thumbs ups.
Evolve new thumbs, just to be able to give more thumbs up.
If those rockets return to their own launchpad, do they go straight up for the first stage? Or do they have to cancel out their own horizontal velocity?
Mostly up, starting to head east. They do have to cancel some horizontal velocity.
SpaceX has already landed a rocket on solid ground, they do a boost-back to flip around their horizontal velocity!
They launched at Cape Canaveral and landed back there, just not on the launch pad, but a separate landing pad nearby.
This picture here in a SpaceX tweet shows the launch and landing in a single frame: twitter.com/SpaceX/status/754906212429238272/photo/1
I like the idea of a single stage engine. Only one thing to worry about, not three. LOL
Good luck to the brave people doing the research.
Thanks for these videos.
Less complexity is good, but you won't be able to launch as heavy payloads.
I can't believe this first reuse was just a year ago. Reused F9 launches feel so routine now.
Yeah, it hasn't actually been that long. :-)
It'll be interesting to see how block 5 will make it even more routine. I imagine that "tenth reflight of booster B1051, launching astronauts to the ISS" will be viewed as completely normal in two years or so.
Ya, they don't call it the "vomit comet" for nothing. Thank you for the great laughs.
Since antimatter seems to act a lot like regular matter (especially in the case I'm thinking about here with the wavelengths of light emitted matching between elements of antimatter and matter, at least with hydrogen) is it possible that many of the galaxies we can see with telescopes are made entirely out of antimatter?
What about EM accellerators (rail gun) launchers? What's the feasability and where are we at with those?
We did a video about them here: ua-cam.com/video/Mg1hF6lmEl0/v-deo.html
Fraser Cain Cheers 🖒
Fraser, I read the other day that nebula are actually so sparse that if you were upclose to one (close as the star trek enterprise could get) that you really wouldn't see it. I definitely would look like a cloud. So my question is: Could we be in a nebula and not know it?
Yup, here's a video I did on this: ua-cam.com/video/_9NMXy1FKPA/v-deo.html
Thanks!
Excellent & informative content. Thanks
I'm a huge SpaceX fanboy, but cannot fucking wait for New Glenn and ULA's ACES. We live in exciting times.
I definitely wouldn't underestimate Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. He'll be the richest man in the world shortly, and can dump money into this for decades.
your channel is awsome
Thanks a lot, make sure you subscribe. :-)
I did
Is this the Wright Brother moment for Space travel?
No, I think an actual single stage to orbit will be that moment.
Fraser Cain Well, i mean the ITS is probably capable of a SSTO fligth to deploy a small satelite, it would be overkill but hey, migth as well snag the achivement
I feel like SSTOs aren't a good idea unless you can get ISPs in the 600 second range, preferably higher.
Hey Fraser, I asked about 6 months ago if you could do a video on Zero Point Energy, any chance that video is coming soon?
If I were you I would look into Quantum Field Theory to answer this question. Fraser is a smart guy, but it's not quite his field. It's easy to give the laymen explanation, but that would just give you the wrong idea if you want to truly understand. Misleading, in a way. Look up some lectures that go into the field explainations.
Not yet, it's on my list. A more general conversation on the Casimir Effect. But did you see this? ua-cam.com/video/Kn5PMa5xRq4/v-deo.html
great video.
Thanks a lot! make sure you subscribe. :-)
3:33 - You said they "reused" the fairing. I would have to double check sources, but I believe so far they only tried "recovering" the fairing, and only one half of it was potentially reusable. Fairing re-use is still to come.
The fairing hasn't been reused yet, but it was captured for theoretical future reuse.
So how are they going to get it to reverse its direction and land on its own launchpad without burning through half the fuel they launch with to do it?
You're coming back through the atmosphere, which slows you down greatly. You really only have to cancel out terminal velocity.
I was only a child during the start of the shuttle missions but wasn't there some controversy involving reusability with the shuttle's boosters? Something like NASA was legally obligated to reobtain them after splashdown but it was a massive waste of their time and energy?
The shuttle program reused the solid rocket boosters. The problem was that about 5,000 parts needed to be refurbished for each mission.
SSTO Video? Can't wait!
Coming soon. I'm doing Aliens, Fast Radio Bursts then SSTOs. Spoiler alert, you're going to hate it.
Now lets have faith in that soon-to-be-retiered english fellar and his company...
SpaceX updated the payload figures on Falcon Heavy within the last month. They now claim 63,800kg to LEO which I assume is in expendable mode. Source: www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy
Nice, I grabbed the old ones, these are even better. Reusable mode is more interesting to me, though.
A payload fairing(just one half) was recovered, not reused.
This is the plan, fairing reuse (as much as possible).
Yes, but in the video you said "In addition to the first stage, SpaceX also *reused* the satellite fairing" which makes it sound like they already reused a fairing, which they haven't.
QUESTION: suppose that I'm looking through the super telescope on the surface of Mars and suppose that there is a guy on this surface. I'm looking at him: he holds a flashlight in his hand, point with it in my direction and turn it on. Will I see the light from the flashlight instantaneously? What if instead of flashlight he shoots a bullet with say 99,9% the speed of light?
Yes, you'll see the flashlight instantly. Because what you're seeing in the telescope already happened 20 minutes ago. The bullet that you see fired will arrive in a few seconds.
Thank you very much for your answer
"K"alcon "K"eavy NEEDS MORE BOOSTERS!!!!
But also it needs more STRUTS too!!!!
KSP...
To the Mun!
I am starting to believe that I will see space colonization in my lifetime.
I think so too. 😀
I'm wondering how they will manage the re-entry of the second stage. What do you think? A heat shield or not? A big entry burn to cancel 3000 or 4000 m/s and not burn up without a heat shield...?
They haven't put together the details of their system yet. I would assume an upper stage that needs to land well down range, or maybe even goes once around the Earth?
I wonder if they can realy slowly lose speed in the uppermost part of the atmosphere using nozzles (already heat-resistant to some degree) as a heat shield.
I don't think the reusable rockets themselves will usher in a new age of space exploration. I think it will simply enable the steps that do usher such a thing in. By reducing the cost of getting materials up there you can start doing neat little things like possibly stockpiling fuel and parts into orbit. When we can build ships in orbit and fuel them there without having to factor in significant costs of escaping Earth's surface, that will be when the real exploration breakthroughs happen.
Once we have factories in space making this out of space-based resource, then we're a true space faring civilization.
I wanna see them reusing fuel!
L Galicki
Nice joke.
Now that's cost savings!
I am SO excited!
Sounds like we will run out of satellite parking spaces pretty soon
You could argue that we already have.
Had to rewind at 7:35 to make sure I heard you right. 😆
The vomited champagne will sparkle in the sunlight like tiny crystals.
Priceless mental picture! LOL
So, when does the space tourism start?
Any day now, you too will have the opportunity to float around in other people's vomit.
+Fraser Cain vomit?
Nice!
at 10:14, I think that's Montreal getting destroyed once again. dommage!
Poor Montreal. I've been there once, though, so at least I'll always have my memories before the alien invasion.
Mention those Patreons at the end!
Like, mention them again?
Hi! and Thanks +Fraser Cain, that was really good. I shared it on a few sites. Not sure I'll be taking the vomit comet anytime soon though. Cheers!
just a reminder: SpaceX did not recover rocket. Just the first stage. Recovering from orbital velocity might by a bit harder.
Absolutely, that's why they pushed back their upper stage plans, but now with the Falcon Heavy, it might be on the menu again.
The culture novels ❤️
Oh man! What a great series of books!
So great. :-)
I was watching some Isaac Arthur the other day, and it occurred to me that the northern Rockies might be a good place for a mass driver.
Thoughts?
You want it on the equator, ideally. Mt. Kilimanjaro would be perfect.
SpaceX have achieved a huge milestone with their latest launch. With any luck it will be a total game changer. It's rather pathetic that a major newspaper in Australia where I live didn't even mention the story online. That's modern journalism for you though. Can't agree with you Fraser that safety is SpaceX's prime motivation not cost. Elon Musk is running a business where containing launch costs is critical. Hopefully the first stage can be refurbished many times to prove the viability of this economic model. Early days but I'm very excited.
We'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX doesn't give any discount to its customers.
Huh, Falcon heavy you say?
Well I just launched a 60 ton space station to space in 1 launch! In Kerbal Space Program of course :p
If it happens in Kerbal, we KNOW it can happen in real life.
Haha, of course! =3
Very good video and i can see what you say about safety than cost but with safety comes lower cost......cost at the end of the day will always be the dream to a private company
In the long run, safety does reduce cost, but it mostly provides safety. :-) Would you fly on an airplane that will probably crash?
Hey Faser, I keep hearing people talking about mars rocket launch window opening every 1.5 year or so.
Please make a video about how launch window works and its significance and how it changes according to the planet we want to visit for ex. what will be the launch window for visiting venus or a specific asteroid.
Every object has different launch windows. Check out this: clowder.net/hop/railroad/sched.html
Fraser Cain thanks
when the cost of sending things into space gets lower...more things go into space. that said then universities, small companies and even private individuals can now send things into space, so experiments that were only in someones mind a decade ago can be made real and tested in space. its just a matter of time before new things are found and invented, so yes its a totally new time for space flight.
No kidding. And if the BFR actually starts flying, the price will come down even more. It's kind of ridiculous how cheap it'll get.
ah! but lets not get silly here...profits are needed so even if they can launch for 1/4 of the competitors why do it? so long as they get the business and prices are low enough to cut out everyone else, take the money and run...lol and musk is going to have half a billion coming in when he gets 2k satellites up for his internet company too, so making new things will just keep on coming.
NASA's SLS seems antiquated before its even been used.
Simon Coles it is WHOLLY obsolete before it has even flown
The ITS will make the SLS small and antiquated
I'd wait for SpaceX to prove, in actual dollars, that there is a significant cost savings from reuse before I believe that everything has changed.
We'll really have turned the corner when GM and Toyota are getting into the game... Of course that might be a few years from now...
Self driving rockets...
hey fraser heres a question for you:
what is your favorite star that you know of?
Hmm, interesting question. I'd probably go with Tabby's Star right now, you know, the one that might have an alien megastructure? :-) ua-cam.com/video/IiLDYM2Asx4/v-deo.html&index=62
yea i saw the video
The problem with reusing rockets was always the fact that you were taking a multi-gigawatt power plant, normally spread out over hundreds of acres, and compressing it into something the size of a van. Oh yeah, by the way, BO reused a rocket first! Not an orbital one, sure, but if you could strap an upper stage on the New Shepard...
+Bad Beard Bill the race really begins once the New Glenn starts launching
Let's hope they can get it flying soon.
DC-X tested well in '95
Just like with Tesla, everyone else promises they can do what space X and Tesla can do but They haven't delivered yet
so the vulcan rocket is a large electron rocket?
To boldly do, what no man has done before
Throw nuclear waste into the Sun?
Fraser, Is 'space junk' (debris from human hardware launched into space) a danger in Earth's orbit? Will we have to launch a future mission to 'clean up' this problem?
It's potentially a huge problem. Did you see this? ua-cam.com/video/ISbs-XdW76k/v-deo.html
Oh thanks. I missed this one.
this vid made me excited about rockets😂
Join the club. :-)
Will do man
You know Perry Rhodan? Well, then sphere shaped spaceships with equatorial engine setup, maybe in combination with metalic hydrogen... that would be nice.
It will become a true "ermahgerd" moment when they reuse the second stage.
Yeah, I really need to find out "how" they plan to do it.
I do like Rockets but why doesn't Aubrey De Grey get more funding?
Surely curing ageing is more important?
I'd say health and age extension gets a lot more funding.
Well I hope it does get well funded.
I would just like to see some of the great innovations that we have seen in other fields repeated in health.
It seems like science fiction is coming alive before our very own eyes. But in the field of health, it seems so slow.
What are your thoughts on the Stratolaunch system?
*PAYLOAD TO LEO:*
· Blue Origin New Gleen: 45,000 kg (99,000 lb)
· SpaceX Falcon Heavy: *63,800* kg (140,700 lb)
· SpaceX ITS (reusable): *300,000* kg (660,000 lb)
· SpaceX ITS (expendable): *550,000* kg (1,210,000 lb)
*PAYLOAD TO GTO:*
· Blue Origin New Gleen: 13,000 kg (29,000 lb)
· SpaceX Falcon Heavy: *26,700 kg* (58,900 lb)
Great!
Thanks for watching.
Cool! :)
And now they reused a rocket the third time! It's counting up mah bois...
Unrelated Question: What would be your reaction, and what do you think would be the scientific community's reaction, if planet 9 turns out to be a massive, rocky, super earth?
Personally I think we will have to wait, to know, how reliable are these rockets after *X* number of trips. How cheap to reuse, If the price is significantly lower, by the risk factor of its reuse, we will be at the doors of a true revolution.
According to Gwynne Shotwell it cost significantly less than half of the price of a new booster to refurbish the booster. And that's for the very first booster they reuse. Given that they have 2 more iterations of Falcon 9 in the pipeline (block 4 and 5) with the lessons learned from their landed booster, I think it's fair to say that the economics of this will at least be advantageous.
Reliability is something else, but with proper maintenance the argument can be made that a reused rocket can actually be more reliable. Any manufacturing defect (like the one that caused CRS 7 to explode) would have surfaced on the last flight. How much of a beating those engines can take will truly determine how often a Falcon 9 can fly again.
How many times can a rocket engine be reuse without endangering lives and payload? We must take into account the enormous fatigue of the materials with each trip.
As I said in the video, I really think the goal here is long term reliability. With disposable rockets, companies don't actually know how their rockets break. But when rockets can return, you can see how they're wearing and fix those parts.
Fraser.....if you had the chance would you take a ride into space?
Once I was sure it was safe, I would. But I'd want to come back. I like Earth too much. :-)
Wouldn't it be cheaper and much safer to launch several smaller rockets with cargo into orbit than to launch one huge rocket? What if there's a failure? If you sending a mission to Mars, you wouldn't want to risk blowing up your entire stash of supplies in one go. Is it actually worth the extra expensive developing a massive, tower of Babylon style rocket?
Jeff Bezos looks like Blofeld from James Bond...
These are the things that keep me glad to be born in this era... really. Mine was a transition generation, the next one, and I am and will be alive to see it, it will be cornerstone for the future... well... if Trump doesn't destroy it of course.
Question: do you think there will be possibility of some reusability for the Space Launch System?
There are no plans for reuse, beyond the solid rocket boosters.
Thanks!
I imagine you know everything about the last Nasa's announcement about Encelado and Europa. I hope you will prepare something on that. Here in Italy we followed the live and the group which I belong to (link4universe by Adrian Fartade) is very excited, probably more than the Tappist's one! Thank you, good night
Fraser Cain Wich i doubth it will even be practical, wheren't the Shuttle SRBs damaged by salt water so much to the point of them being harder to repair than to build new ones?
Imagine when Space makes ssto's! (Single stage to orbit) everything would be so cheap.
I'm covering SSTOs shortly, and they're actually not that great an idea with current technologies.
in the vomit of other passengers 😂
It'll be a beautiful sparkling wonderland of vomited champagne.
I can see the day coming when people will be able to rent a hotel room in space and enjoy some zero gee fun for a day or two. I also see orbital assembly plants in space to build the interplanetary spacecraft. With orbital facilities you can have shuttle craft on hand to move satellites and spacecraft to higher orbits. This would enable the building of space stations in higher more stable orbits. The ISS is nearing the end of it's useful life. A new facility will need to be built soon and it should be built in a higher orbit. This can only be done with an orbiting shuttle craft. One that stays up there and can be refueled when needed. It would be remote controlled. A pilotless vehicle. It's only purpose would be to lift things from low orbit to high orbit. The question is who's going to build it and how much will they charge for their services?
Yeah, I think we'll see this kind of thing for rich people in the next decade or so.