SpaceX

[Eagle]

Musk ROCKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

[Golddalek]

Unreal....Guess the 1950's Sci Fi movies were correct in how rockets should land.

 

It's a bit eye opening how fast they approach then at the last few seconds, slow their descent.

 

Thanks for posting !

[Eagle]

Can you imagine the technology leaps involved in this process.  First the stabilization. The Accelerometers and gyros. The speed of the gimbal operation for the retro rockets . The ability to minutely throttle rocket motors that size. Finally,,the processing speed to bring it all together. When the Eagle first came out the USAF had a requirement that the engines in the F-15 had to have instantaneous throttle response.  In 1972 that was unheard of. Even today ,,other than military engines,,  jets just don't do that. You're fighting a lot of rotating mass and inertia. A fuel control was developed along with a rudimentary engine mounted computer called the EEC. Electronic Engine Control. It controlled the fuel control, intake ramp position, convergent/ divergent  exhaust nozzle position, the variable Inlet guide vanes and the compressor bleed valves. All of this came at a VERY high cost to the health of the engine. The resulting FTIT [ Fan Turbine inlet Temperatures ] rose to 2200 Deg F. Normally a jet runs at about 900 Deg F . The result was melting the turbine blades. However Pratt overcame that [On Paper ] by creating core cooled single crystal turbine blades..Problem was the metallurgy didn't exist to create such a blade. So, they built the fighter and the engine anyhow. The result. For the first 3 yrs we were changing engines with a core time of 50-100 hrs. Normal time to overhaul on a jet is 6000 hrs.  We were doing 4 engine changes a night and rebuilding the Turbine wheels.  In the end,,the USAF sued Pratt and won back about 180 million. Eventually the single crystal blades emerged and are standard on most engines now.  Watching those landings just brought back memories of the battles we fought in the land of Leading Edge Technology . These guys give me Goose bumps. It's Aerospace porn. Then we have NASA flying bottle rockets around the moon carrying 3 dummies. A senator and two congressmen..

[Golddalek]

When NASA needs cutting edge technology and vision, it;s the civilian world that delivers.

I been guilty of not watching much of SpaceX, I was annoyed Elon launched an automobile into space instead of a useful payload.

But perhaps it seems I need to give SpaceX a 2nd look.

[Eagle]

That was a test flight. Normally thousands of lbs of ballast is loaded in the payload section for these test.Without it the harmonics of the platform is out of whack. Concrete or water are loaded in.  Musk simply looked at it and thought it was an opportunity to do something with flair. Like Andy would say,,that's the way he rolls. 

 

 

[Andyman]

What Musk has done with Space X is simply incredible. He is a brilliant nut case.

[Eagle]

My favorite kind of people. 

[Phil R]

I like to think of it as the advantage of private enterprise.  And please ,everyone always give too much credit to the man with the money.  Give Musk credit for being a risk taker but give most of the credit to the work of brilliant scientists.