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Close but no cigar.
Failure is not an option, it is a feature.
“In 1959 the U.S. Navy submarine USS Barbero assisted the Post Office Department, predecessor to the United States Postal Service (USPS), in its search for faster mail transportation, with the only delivery of “Missile Mail”. On 8 June 1959, Barbero fired a Regulus cruise missile — its nuclear warhead having earlier been replaced by two Post Office Department mail containers — targeted at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Naval Station Mayport. The Regulus cruise missile was launched with a pair of Aerojet-General 3KS-33,000 [3 sec duration, 33,000 lbf (150 kN) thrust] solid-propellant boosters. A turbojet engine sustained the long-range cruise flight after the boosters were dropped. Twenty-two minutes after launch, the missile struck its target.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mail
The ultralight landed intact at the Capitol with the mail.
And the postage for that one trial missile mail was only 8 cents? I wonder what that works out to be in 2015 dollars?
Reusable, reusable. Yeah, I keep hearing that con job. The Space Shuttle had reusable booster rockets. And it’s been said that the Shuttle launches cost more than conventional, one time use rocket, would have. So reusable didn’t make it any cheaper, in the long run.
And the same goes for all the other “refill” things, in out lives. K-cups, room air fresheners, liquid dispensing mops, etc. They design these things to be deceptively more costly, than the original designs were. But we’re never told about that. They always sell the appliance cheap. And make all their money on the proprietary refills. Which can cost plenty.
And that’s what I suspect Elon has in mind. Get a government contract for another “reusable rocket”, that ends up costing the taxpayer, whatever he wants to price each mission for. Which will “skyrocket” from the original proposed price. As all other government contracts do. It has become an accepted practice to lowball the initial price, and jack it way up later.
You don’t want in on the razors without getting a piece of the action on the blades. Right now it looks like a bloody mess. Hard work is for washing machines and horses. Edison was killing dogs and cats to make a point.
http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/10/19/edison-publicly-tortured-animals-to-discredit-ac-power/
Fix your little problem and light this candle. It’s gonna take more candles for sure.
Definitely an A for effort!
Thomas Edison is quoted saying:
“The three things that are most essential to achievement are common sense, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness…..”
I am glad to see Elon practicing this; it’s inspirational!
Edison is also quoted saying:
“Our schools are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work….”
In spite of mechanical failures it really tries hard to land upright.
“The test was so hard that even Albert Einstein reportedly failed.”
http://knowledgenuts.com/2015/04/12/the-employment-test-edison-wanted-everyone-to-fail/
Kill them softly, like the song says. With some tweaks a soft landing is possible. Meanwhile keep lighting candles.
“The real test came in 1890 though, and it was no ordinary animal: The victim was a convicted murderer named William Kemmler. Edison campaigned for the opportunity to create a “more humane” method of capital punishment and, still in the midst of the War of the Currents, he opted to create the electric chair with AC.”
http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/10/19/edison-publicly-tortured-animals-to-discredit-ac-power/
It made a 5 cent bullet look more humane. With political money more experiments could be done on the public at large. Sell $500 chairs to save 5 cent bullets. I think they used the same formula with Iraq and the bill is $3,000 billion. You could blow rockets up for the next few years and not come close to what they wasted.
Why?
Why is someone (a supposed genius) allowed to financially rape the public and then whimsically spend that blood money on (expensive) full sized rockets? Hasn’t anyone ever heard of scale MODELS?!
Bender: Mirrors reflecting mirrors? Hi-tech sorcery! Sorcery, I say!
[He breaks the periscope and hits it against the walls.]
Lisa: Did you see anything?
Bender: Yep, we’re there. Prepare to surface!
[Scene: Outside Submarine. The submarine surfaces and the crew climb out through the top.]
Bender: And now, technology shall taste the lash of the hickory switch!
[Montage: The robots swing through the streets of New New York. They use magnets to pull gadgets out of a shop called The Sharper Gadget and cheer. At a rocket test field, a rocket takes off. The robots jump on it, it crashes and they hit and kick it. Outside Mom’s Friendly Robot Company factory, the crew stand atop their vessel, load a rock into a catapult and fire. It blocks a sewage pipe, the building fills with sewage and it comes out through the windows. At the Cookieville Orphanarium, Bender sneaks through a window and smashes a night light. The orphans cry and Bender cackles.]
[Scene: Outside Submarine.]
Sinclair: Technology is defeated. Let us return to the island and celebrate by counting rocks!
[Cartridge Unit, Lisa and he cheer. The monkey bangs its cymbals.]
Cartridge Unit: I’m for that!
http://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:Obsoletely_Fabulous
That was coming down WAY WAY to fast to successfully land. Either the system was not detecting the altitude correctly, or it was unable to provide enough retro thrust, or the system was configured for a landing approach speed that was excessive.
I’ve seen suggestions that the issue was that it landed but then tipped over.
Yeah, uh, nope.
I wonder how many more rockets can blow up before SpaceX runs out of money.
It can’t be unlimited.
Me thinks they can blow up many if not all of their booster stages! This is the genius of Elon, getting paid to do a CRS job successfully and using some of that money to invest in improving your product offering!
SpaceX has launched 16 Falcon 9 rockets with 15 successes and one partial failure, and has at least 30 planned future launches for clients such as NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission.
SpaceX is a private company founded in 2002 and their Dragon Capsule has delivered cargo to and from the space station multiple times and again with the latest flawless CRS-6 mission liftoff.
In Aviation Week Retrieved 2014-03-11. “Advertised at $56.5 million per launch, Falcon 9 missions to GTO cost almost $15 million less than a ride atop a Chinese Long March 3B”.
Srry, but what is the substantiations for your concern regarding Elon or his private company SpaceX. They have neither picked anyone’s pocket or broken anyone’s leg and doing what we expect entrepreneurs to do, take risk!
Yes, you are right. He doesn’t need to reuse his vehicle to make a profit.
Musk knows what he’s doing in the space business.
Next, let’s see if he can turn a profit on Tesla.
http://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/as-tesla-gears-up-for-suv-investors-ask-where-the-profits-are
The coffee houses with roasters make five times more than the places without roasters. For more profit they are installing robots. We’re trying to export to make up for the losses on importing. Boats have more profit in them. Cars that can run on land and water would help stop traffic congestion. If it floats and flies it should be good for a profit.
Three.
Zapp: Captain’s inspection!
[Leela puts Fry’s arm back around her and smiles weakly.]
[Scene: Titanic Casino. Bender is already settled in, standing at a craps table.]
Bender: Hmm. [Through his eyes we see his cheat unit predicting the dice. He chuckles.] I’m bettin’ it all! [He empties the chips from his chest cabinet.] Come on, baby needs a new pair of feet!
[He rolls the dice.]
Croupier: Snake eyes.
[He rakes in the chips.]
Bender: No! My cheating unit malfunctioned! You gotta give me a do-over!
Croupier: Sorry, the house limit is three do-overs. Next shooter.
[Bender takes a seat at the bar and sighs.]
Bender: Gimmie you’re biggest, strongest, cheapest drink.
[The bartender, iZac, turns around.]
iZac: You got it!
http://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:A_Flight_to_Remember
Fry: You want a banana?
Guenter: I don’t eat bananas. I prefer banana-flavoured energy bars made from tofu.
[Fry narrows his eyes.]
Fry: I don’t like you.
[Scene: Mars University: 20th Century History Lecture Hall. The teacher scrawls “20th Century History” on the blackboard with a piece of chalk and presses a button which converts it to clean text. Guenter is sat to the left of Fry and Amy two seats left. Fry chuckles.]
Fry: This is gonna be a cakewalk!
Teacher: Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Look to your left, then to your right. Then in nine other directions. One of the 12 of you will not pass this class.
Amy: Boring. [She leans over to Guenter.] Let’s hear about Walter Mondale already!
Teacher: Be forewarned: The only sure way to get an A in this class is to have lived in the 20th century.
Fry: Swish!
[He swishes his hands. The teacher presses a button in front of him marked “Fry” and Fry gets electrocuted.]
Teacher: You were saying, Mr. Fry?
Fry: I’m from the 20th century. Go ahead, ask me anything.
http://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:Mars_University
It’s a long way to the top if you wanta rock and roll.
Meanwhile, Back at Space X Mission Control
It don’t come easy. Better upgrade.
Technician: [shrugging] Everyone experiences the upgrade differently.
Bender: Oof. If that stuff wasn’t real, how can I be sure anything is real? Is it not possible, nay, probable, that my whole life is just a product of my or someone else’s imagination?
Technician: No, get out. [He presses a button and the conveyor belt starts up.] Next.
[Bender slides out.]
[Cut to: Outside Mom’s Friendly Robot Company Factory. Bender walks out and watches three police cars chase another car down the street.]
Bender: Well, I guess reality is what you make of it. [He crosses the road and walks down a flower-lined path with a white horse and lush trees nearby. He takes out a cigar and a fairy lights it for him.] Oh, thanks, baby!
http://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:Obsoletely_Fabulous
What I don’t understand and maybe somebody could explain it to me, what is supposed to keep the rocket upright on a moving barge? I know it has legs but the rocket is tall and it seems it wouldn’t take much to make is fall over.
The blue pill makes my rocket stand up!
Mark and the rest of his cult is supposed to be there to hold it in place.
The floating barge is not the final destination for the landing pad. It is only there to work the bugs out of the process.
Once the process is tweaked, they’ll move it to a more stable platform: probably an island and then a continent.
His goal is to get the damned thing to land where he launched it from.
Go with the island concept
“I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas–he’s the controller–and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land. ”
http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html
It’s cheaper than crashing and burning.
That residual velocity again, wobbling on the way down. Result: RUD