SpaceX's Abandoned Plans - Final Episode (for now!)
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2020
- The final batch of projects which SpaceX announced development of but later abandoned in favour of other goals. As technology was developed some plans were realised to be beyond what was possible in the timescale, or more cost effective solutions were discovered, or the benefits weren't going to deliver an advantage to the overall business.
- Наука та технологія
"SpaceX customer support, how can I help you?"
"Hello, yes, Yusaku Maezawa here. I like to upgrade my flight plan."
Would like
Quazar501 He is awesome!
I hope someone has informed 前澤 友作 that the first woman to visit the moon shouldn't have to be someone's girlfriend as a prerequisite.
@@pentagramprime1585 "Someones girlfriend."
That is a bit demeaning. You're talking about an actual human being here.
If a billionaire wants to take someone he loves on an amazing trip, I don't think anybody should be complaining about what gender that person is.
@@VainerCactus0 Did you fail to notice that every soul aboard the ISS right now is a man? I want more inclusion in the space program. That said, we need more female pilots and astronauts (as opposed to to a contest where some billionaire picks a date for his flight).
It won't change as long as people keep pretending that everything is fine.
Much of this series: "they were gonna make Falcon 9 better but then they remembered that Starship will make every rocket ever obsolete
Every other heavy lifter maybe. Still need smaller boosters for small and specialized shots.
@@jeffreyroot6300 The good Electron fanbase
@@jeffreyroot6300 SpaceX Draco ( in Dragon 2) and ion thrusters ( in Starlink ) will do the Job
@@northMOFN The other factor: even if they could make money selling Starship launches for $6M each, they'd make even more money selling Starship launches for $60M each. So basically, they'd only need to start under-bidding Electron launches if they have excess capacity and would rather fly those launches than have the rockets sit around idle. Given they also need to launch however many Starlink satellites, never mind migrating over all Falcon 9 payloads, for the foreseeable future it'll be more profitable to do something else with Starship rather than compete against Electron.
@@jeffreyroot6300 If Musk Math numbers work out, that's not even true. This may be cheaper to launch than pretty well any other operational launch system, regardless of size, including Electron!
It's mind bending if it works.
My partner doesn't watch all of the science/electronics stuff with me, but she knows Scott Manly wants us to fly safe!
I've got a feeling that Starship is going to be a lot more challenging than we care to admit. So many problems to overcome with that monster project. Not to mention Superheavy.
Super heavy seems like the simplest part of the whole system. If there's one part of the SS/SH system that Spacex has experience with it's landing and reusing 1st stages.
SH deals with significantly less dramatic heating and will always be returning to the launch site which removes lots of variables. If anything will be challenging itll just be getting so many engines to function in such close proximity without issue.
Starship has way more significant issues to deal with.
not really sure how they get to mars and back on a pile of cryogenic propellants when they boil off relatively rapidly compared to the journey time
Not really sure how they intend to land something that top heavy on mars (or the moon) without some sort of developed landing pad either
Not really sure if the fuel bleed heat shield even works either.
Additionally nobody's got a good idea of what a stainless steel space vehicle of its size does in space with regards to expansion and the million other little daunting metallurgical problems
@@AsbestosMuffins Weight and landings are problems that I think SpaceX will overcome without to much trouble. Starship will weigh less on the moon and Mars than Earth. The lunar dust needs to be addressed. If they try to land Starship on the moon without a pad it will put a lot of dust in orbit. Entry and landings on Mars will always be sketchy. That will never get easy.
@@scottdorfler2551 theres a new moon design for the starship,they are planning on using some Draco/Raptor thrusters on the upper part of the vehicle. It's not a draco thruster but it's like the raptor version of it
@@isaiahphillip4112 Very naive indeed. SH should withstand about 6000 tonnes of thrust so it definitely cannot be made the same way as those sn-xxhoppers that cannot properly handle theirs own weight.
So what we're seeing is that Musk is playing an augmented reality version of Kerbal...
... or an IRL version!
he is jeb and he does whatever the fuck he likes, thats why we love him
"Theres no shame in being an abandoned project"
Thats good to hear.
Don't take it personally...
SpaceX's Abandoned Plans - Episode 4 : Sending Jeff in Sun-synchronous orbit
Jeff who?
@@dotnet97 Jeff Bezos, the Amazon guy
@@Kyle-gw6qp missed the joke lol
@@jakebrown5967
On the other hand "Jeff Who" is beyond being a joke now. It's a _meme_ .
@@jakebrown5967 oops I'm not very up on jokes
"If someone convince us that our route is wrong and there are better ways to improve our work that would be a gift" Elon musk 2019.
He said that about Aerospikes
@@premiumbananaguy5319 his quote was about all aspects of rocket including aerospike engines.
Go and do some research bro.
@@omidrastin3745 Now you said yourself that it included aerospikes.
@@aesbj9228 you two don't get the point
I am trying to explaine the same thing.
Come on guys areospike engines are the main part of a rocket.
@@omidrastin3745 I've watched the video of everyday astronaut many times already. It's possible that I misunderstood him, but my native language isn't English. As far as I know they were talking about Aerospikes, and Elon said, if someone would say the way they are taking is wrong, it would be a gift. But it is possible that I am wrong
"there's no shame in being an abandoned concept" -scott manly
*googles graveyard intensifies*
Abandoning a concept is a lot more forgivable than abandoning a _product_
@@illuminati.official If only disney knew this, we would still have club penguin...
@@illuminati.official sound like your saying abandoning "produce support" or fucking the people who bought your products, like windows phone, sega dreamcast, etc.
All those concepts were abandoned in favor of Starship. Which at this point is an absolute disaster.
@@DavidJohnson-tv2nn is it? What inside knowledge do you have that you can say it's not exactly on schedule and performing the tests as they wanted it to perform?
You had me worried with the "Final Episode" text in the title. I absolutely love your channel, Mr. Manley! Thanks for your work.
If you love his channel you also love the other videos and not only this series!
There won't be a final episode on SpaceX abandoned projects until he covers their exploration of big dumb pressure-fed boosters.
Yeah I was worried for a second until I read the rest of it.
I love watching video of the fuel inside the tanks.
If you put on Antarctic clothing and full face protection, could you row a little boat around inside the LOX tank?
I TF· ·FR ME· ·R ATE TenFramesPerSecond
That would be cool. VERY COOL...
@@dunneincrewgear Nice name.
@@-danR of course you could. Just don't light a...nevermind.
There’s actually one more concept: in a really old video, there was a Falcon 9 that, instead of landing on a barge, had big floats at the end of each leg
ApolloParks wow. That is a very bad idea XD
Do you have a link to that vid?
Last time I was this early, landing a rocket upright was impossible
If something was done, it was never impossible, they just hadn't figured out how. 😁
@@lordgarion514 True but that's what people said back then
In ksp with more boosters you can...
So, last time you were on UA-cam in the 1960s?
DC-X...
The one on the left in the thumbnail is just everyone's first KSP rocket.
Ha
Jokes on you my first successful KSP Launch was an LKO relay sattelite.
Things KSP doesn't teach you: Fluid Dynamics, Proper Fuel Management
“Fly safe”
Noted
@@dr.shalabhsaxena4420 "No ted"
Play safe
I always salute when he says that.
@@dr.shalabhsaxena4420 Come on now. We don't call it a racist term like "crashing" anymore. It's "lithobraking".
Thanks for the awesome videos Scott! I love that SpaceX has been around long enough now that we can talk this in depth about their history.
I said "Sunken Cost Fallacy" to myself this morning as I realized that the video I was editing was not going to work as expected.
Abandoned projects are painful reality of meaningful progress.
Thanks so much for making this series!
I remember when they were planning on sending the Dragon to Mars
"Red Dragon" always sounded sick imo
@@Sin526 And a Lunar version called 'Gray Dragon.'
holly mother of confinement.
Or lunar dragon
Or lunar dragon
"Final Episode" Don't *_DO_* that! You about gave me a heart attack!
FINAL COMMENT: I'm outta here. Sayonara ... 😎
So replicants have actual hearts
@@Thefreakyfreek Well yeah. We are more human than human.
I stil miss the 3 fined starship when that came out a shiny futurama styled starship I was blown away
and here's where I keep assorted lengths of wire.
Scott, how much extra performance (Delta V) are we talking about regarding the current Falcon Heavy vs the hypothetical cross propellant feed version?
It is really massive. You basically get a Falcon 9's delta-V, except it's more because of the higher altitude (hence higher ISP), and your rocket is already going pretty fast. The current non-crossfeeding FH is not really that efficient, but hey, it still works!
If they needed more capability they would just make the thing fully expendable.
Your best case senario is effectively converting Falcon Heavy into a 3 stage design where the center booster becomes the second stage. It matters for thrust and engine testing that the center booster ignites at launch, but crossfeed vs ignite center booster at stage seperation doesn't change the Δv, however the extra thrust may let you fly a more efficient accent trajectory.
Tricky complications though on how much of those gains are left on the table for full crossfeed once you've already got a big chunk of them by simply taking the center booster to minimum throttle. Plus how much extra fuel is required in the center booster to still recover it with that extra kick. The tradeoffs get into fickle numerical solutions that are sensitive to all the details.
Not really an answer but should give an idea of upper and lower bounds.
Bare in mind, there is only one fairing size with the falcon 9/heavy
As LueLou said, the first stage is about mass more than orbital energy (Δv). There was a previous video about the specific impulse of the MVac engine which is not that great because it uses kerosene. It is great, in that it shares most of its parts with the first stage engines. That saves cost which is critical for the one non-recoverable part of the Falcon9. ULA uses hydrogen which has a much better specific impulse and because of that they are the better choice for any high Δv mission. SpaceX is content to stay in earth's gravity well with the Falcon9/heavy. For a commercial rocket it is a good economic choice because 99% of all launch costumers just want to orbit the planet we all live on. The controlling factor then becomes mass (and absolute thrust) instead of Δv.
Super fascinating synopsis of what SpaceX is trying to aching and how it is getting there. Must have taken ages to put together :) Thanks for posting x
Thanks for the video. The quadcopter view of the booster landing is really impressive. I had never seen it.
Are you going to say the 2019 launch won't occur in 2019?
There is still a small chance...... It involves time travel
@@davidteer80 Lol
@@davidteer80 Im pretty sure we would remember that as it still allready wouldve happened.
@@rtg5881 depends. Some scientists believe that if if time travel occurs it would create a parallel timeline to the original so anyone in the original timeline would have no knowledge or memory of the prior events being altered..... According to Back to the Future Part 2
@@davidteer80 i dont think Back to the Future is a good source of what scientists have to say on the matter. In fact, scientists speaking to normal folk often arent, either.
For instance, have you ever heard it being said that the light you see from stars was emitted a long time ago? Well, turns out thats not entirely accuate. Now if we want to speak about a timeline of events, yes, that will differ based on your frame of reference, in fact even what exactly happened will depend on your frame of reference as time dilation also comes with length cotnraction, what would make the most sense in my opinion is to use light as that frame of reference and rebrand the speed of light as the "speed of now" to deal with relativity of simultanaity. Becouse light actualy reaches every point it will ever reach instantaniously from its frame of reference and theoreticly it would be possible for you to get to the point of origin of that light at the time it originates with the use of wormholes. We dont know wether wormholes are possible or not, but they are in line with our descriptions of the universe. And they require negative mass. Thats not antimatter or anything, no, negatgive mass. Turns out you can take something away from nothing. That you can do, and it happens all on its own on a subatomic scale all the time and immediatly bubbles back, for a wormhole the size that a person would fit through, we are talking about a moons worth of negative mass at least. Lets say its not feassable unless wevve got several solar systems worth of energy (and when i say their energy, i mean turning all their mass into energy in accordance with e=mc², not fusion, fission, or any other compareativly low power forms of energy), you could call that timetravel depending on your frame of reference but causality is never broken... except for roman rings involving multiple wormholes. And we dont even know if wormholes are possible at all at this point, even with infinite energy. Just that they arent ruled out by what we know about the universe. So ill hold off on investments into roman rings incorporated for now ;)
WONDERFUL , work/research/analysis, . . . . thanks !
A video on ideas/projects that were completely abandoned, and then revisited with success would be interesting.
These have been fascinating videos. What strikes me most is the fluidity of SpaceX's plans vs. those of NASA. Might be a cool topic for a future video - to dive into how differences between private vs. government space development in terms of bureaucracy, agility and reliability. As always, thanks for all the fascination info.
I love these crazy space concept vehicles. Plz do more!
Thanks, Scott, I thoroughly enjoyed the video. It reminds me of all the concept cars the automakers create; although most never make it past the design stage, bits and pieces and ideas from them can end up being used in the vehicles we see in use today.
Great piece. Thanks for all your work.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a million abandoned projects gathering dust on the shelf.
Nicely done!
great as always
Outstanding video as always!
Concise entertaining and informative. You have great videos my friend!
Just makes the Apollo program all that more remarkable.
Saturn V,the ole girl will always be remembered like The Beatles,Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin,remember when music was amazing?Yes,the 60’s and 70’s!!!
Thanks Scott 👍🙂
Awesome presentation, I always learn a lot from you. Much appreciated 👍
Really awesome!
Terrific series, Scott! 👍
You've got a great channel Mr. Scott. Good work sir.
Great video as always! Thanks Scott
Hey, Scott! Congratulations on achieving 1 million subscribers, mate!
Hey Scott Manley!!! We have the same initials!!! And I AM BALD TOO!!! SUCH A SMALL WORLD!!
Coincidence? I THINK NOT
@@docnathan3959 EXACTLY!!! ITS A CONSPIRACY COMING STRAIGHT FROM NASA!!!!!!!
U.A.?
Great series--More please ??!!
great info Scott
Abandoned concepts often mean, we'll come back to it another time. And the work that was done before will be useful later.
I'll hope we can see series like this for other commercial and non-commercial providers. Ex ULA, Boeing, Lockheed, ...
That is my kind of content. Thank you.
Gteat update
Thanks for sharing 👍😁
Morning y"all out there in Lockdowntown...Big 👍's up as usual Scott👉💎👈👉🇬🇧👈
Scott you are my hero
Great episode 👌 really enjoyed it 👏
"Lets return the Falcon 9 upper stage from orbit!" "It's too small and heavy to avoid excessive shock heating." "Hmm, too small? I got an idea, lets make a bigger one!"
SN1 Birth.
Nice update
Please make a playlist or add the other episodes to the description, I can't find them
2:34 That Solar eclipse tho
I got to watch ballute testing at a military facility (snuck in by my father, as were a few other kids) in the early 1970s, as my father was in the chase helicopter filming. It was for the F-111, if I recall. The first test failed (literally shredded) in a spectacular manner. The second test was awesome, with a huge clear (probably mylar) balloon lowering the ballast to the target area.
That's a neat trick 10:40
8:30 - On the other hand, used rocket stages are big and light, meaning that they slow down a lot more quickly higher in the atmosphere and don't heat up as much in the process compared to something small and dense like a nuclear warhead or manned capsule.
Dude, what mod set are you using for that falcon nine, it looks great. Also what smokescreen config?
👍🚀🚀🚀👍 Thanks for chapter 2. :)
Oh I expect we'll see a Falcon 9 second stage recovery and landing soon. I just don't expect it to recover itself.
I.e. I expect one of the early Starship missions will chomp up a Falcon 9 second stage waiting on orbit and land with it. Closing the loop on testing and performance simply too valuable to pass up.
the falcon 9 second stages orbits deteriorate after a few months i believe
C H O M P
Afik the Falcon 9 second stage does a deorbit burn a few hours after a mission and before it's batteries die. This will be a specially modified 2nd stage with add on solar cells so it can wait for 1-2 months for pickup. Two starlink launches would fit the bill nicely.
@@martylawson1638 Would the extra mass of the Starship not make reentry more aggressive? Also the second stage would have to be accomodated in a snug cradle, adding more mass. And the presence of the cradle reduces Starships paying payload. Interesting, I wonder of Kerbalers can do this. I also wonder, does KSP model the financials?
@@martylawson1638 What would be the trade off in wasted resources if a little more fuel was expended taking the stage into parking position in space where material and engines could be reclaimed at a later date? maybe if some local way of making fuel was discovered, building a Frankenstein out of it?
Scott, great video as always. Would like for you to explain the difference people will experience when they climb into a rocket to fly from NY to Japan as opposed to getting on an air liner (Delta, United so-on). Not every body will be able to handle this.
So FH has been flying for a couple years now and crew Dragon seems to have turned out OK - granted there are no problems with its (and astros') return in August.
These things coincidentally moved them closer to be able to pull "Gray Dragon" if they ever reconsidered. I'm assuming CD would need some modifications for that, though (heatshield? ECLSS? power?)
"If this thing gets off the pad, that'll already be mission successful" -Elon Musk
I'm just gonna assume putting crew in there isn't the smartest thing ever...
@@yanislahtal6253 That was because they had pretty much run out of tests they could do without launching at least the first stage. Since that's the bulk of the costs, they put an actual second stage on top of that, so that in case the first stage worked, they could demonstrate further capabilities.
Elon may also have been exaggerating somewhat, to temper expectations.
They've since have had several successful flights, and a lot more data to work with, so expected chance of success should be a lot higher now.
Biggest issue I see is that they dropped human rating the falcon heavy, so they'd have to re-engineer it.
@@yanislahtal6253 Elon likes saying dramatic stuff. It didn't mean they actually expected the rocket to blow up on the pad... it was just a reminder that it was nothing more than a test flight of a new and unproven rocket.
In perhaps the same vein as projects planned but not realized, I would love to see the Scott Manley touch applied to the long story of Google Lunar X Prize competition and its legacy. Several teams worked hard on their projects over so much time, with the prize being for the most part canceled, but some enterprises continuing, like the ill-fated Space IL which you covered so well, and the ALINA project, which I hope comes to pass next year. The mechanical difficulties of designing a lunar lander and rover is something I'm sure you could add some insight into, and if no one is going to make a documentary on the teams and competition, a long Scott Manley video would fit the bill for me.
I think it was you who used KSP to show that the center of gravity on the second stage makes it want to re-enter the atmosphere nozzle first. It appears that there is plenty of room for a packed ballute in the area around and above the engine. Then put a parachute on barometric switch on top.
I think the cross feed would be very challenging engineering. You need very high throughput with significant vibrational shifting between the two ends and needing quick and clean severing of the line when it comes time to separate. And the materials you can use are considerably limited by one of the fluids being LOX.
What mod do you use to get those very nice plumes on the engines at 1:14 is it some sort of real plume ?
What mods where you using for the gray dragon? Those engine blooms look amazing!
They look beautiful! I most get that mod!
I believe its tundra/kk spacex launchers(idk which) + realplume
Realplume
@@user-is2nn8mc9q It's just such a shame that exhaust plumes in KSP are always so slow. These have the right-ish dimensions, but the particle flow is like x0.25 slowmo.
So - does one tweet from Elon count as a 'plan'?
What visual mods are you using? For the rocket exhaust spread?
in the Falcon Heavy recreation at the beginning of the video, what plume mod is that? It doesn't look like realplume
Please make it one episode. I was able to watch first and last. Can’t even find the second part 😞
t- 2:35 can we just look at that partial eclipse in the background as the dragon comes back that’s amazing
Scott, Your UA-cam channel is very informative and thanks for all of the great videos. Something I want to see if you would make a video on is how SpaceX on the Texas coast would handle a large hurricane with a high storm surge say of 15 to 20 feet? As I have watched many different videos about the SpaceX complex and its proximity to the coast I am befuddled as to how SpaceX would handle such an event. Its obvious they have invested a large amount of money in their operations along the Texas coast. Having watched the tropics for many decades I have seen all to often how fast a system can spin up in the Gulf of Mexico. It just doesn't seem possible that SpaceX could move all of their equipment, rockets, cranes etc away from the coast fast enough. Needless to say SpaceX it seems is taking a lot financial risk just by the fact they are so close to the Gulf. I understand of course why they want to be so close to the coast but what a risk for weather related devastation and equipment loss. Keep the videos coming as I really enjoy the education you provide. All the best. Rich
Really enjoy your channel. Please consider discussing Spacex's use of various grades of stainless for Starship - It seems that they are trying several types, and none of them are what might be called exotic. These grades have well documented properties and it seems odd that they have to spend so much effort to test them out. Why?
Heart stopped for a moment when I thought Final Episode meant end of Scott Manley!!!
Think would be great a video explaining how spacex's star tracker works
Hot one! Have a nice holiday!
Propellant crossfeed between the boosters... I think this is what veterans of Kerbal Space Program will recognise as Asparagus staging
Hey Scott, I loved your old intro song(tune). Please use it again.
Every abandoned plan by SpaceX effectively represents a burocracy hurdle overcome by SpaceX that NASA wouldn't be able to move beyond.
Ironic that one of your first videos might be the video in which you mention what would become your flight to the moon... good luck Tim!
Great video I was wondering why we never hear about falcon heavy anymore.
Falcon Heavy has a Specific Use Case, that is for Heavy, and Expensive, Satellites, which may be Communication Satellites, or Military Satellites, but, either way, those Take lots of time to plan, and build, too!
I understand there is another Falcon Heavy Launch this year, though! (But It might be delayed, due to Coronavirus distractions! Or, I have no clue, as well!)
Heavy is still available for anyone who wants to pay for a launch... it just flies very rarely due to the limited demand for a rocket that big.
I think a lot of that R&D will inform current+future projects.
Maybe it’s worth building the world's largest 3D printer and printing the Starship?
This would solve all the problems with welds, strength and quality of the source material.
Just need a large vacuum hangar for stable printing.
You can set any structure to the walls of the tanks and the hull. They can be double, with thermal insulation, have a honeycomb filling. In the walls you can lay channels for cooling and heating sections.
For fast printing, you can make a printer with many print heads at the same time. And some of them with different materials. For example, metal and thermal insulation.
It is best to print in a large vacuum chamber, where there are no extraneous gases and impurities.
No exposure to various temperatures and radiation.
Tanks and structures will turn out stably the same with the very same properties.
For Falcon Heavy mass increase is limited by the size of fairings ... with bigger fairings (needed for some future launches) cross-feed maybe will be again in the game
All rocket manufacturers consider return on investment, but SpaceX was the first to seriously embark on developing return _of_ investment.
Ooooh, neat plumes!!
Can’t wait for KSP 2!!!!!
nice
Upper stages in orbit.
Or keep them up there. Reconfigure to allow refueling and docking with other upper stages. Connect these upper stages together, refuel, and really go places.
You've got some audio issues at three and a half minutes in. :)
To make the SLS tanker more efficient, its 6 engines could be replaced with just one Raptor with a giant retractable nozzle extension. That can shave a substantial amount of weight off. The nozzle extension can be made of light carbon carbon, and be even bigger than a vacuum Raptor, giving an even better specific impulse. In addition, it can just have one set of fuel tanks. It doesn't need two separate sets of tanks to hold propellant fuel and payload fuel.
One of the most important traits of an entrepreneur is knowing when to halt development of a good idea. There are simply too many good ideas to develop - You have to focus on the most beneficial ones to avoid resource wastage. Probably not too far away from seeing SpaceX engineers spin some of the abandoned plans into separate businesses.
After burning all the fuel, the second stage COM is at the aft. Re-entering nose forward would require significant control effort to counteract the aerodynamic instability. Probably bigger cold gas thrusters and bigger heavier nitrogen tanks.
Thanks for sharing. I had the chance to witness a rocket launch in 2018. Memorable experience. I posted a pretty awesome clip of the trip on my page.
Regarding the lack of potential payloads big enough to benefit from asparagus staging, isn't the main reason for that that there currently aren't any _launchers_ big and powerful enough to put them into orbit? (I.e., you'll start seeing those sizes of payloads _after_ someone starts building a rocket big enough to carry them?)