Moon landing myth busted

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:15 pm

Well the Falcon Heavy will probably make for a simillar show next year.
Not quite Saturn V levels yet, but almost there.

choff · Post by **choff** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 6:43 am

The impression you get from the Falcon 9 launch videos is that if they had a cup of tea sitting in the capsule it wouldn't even have a ripple on the surface, so smooth. Falcon Heave must be very different, or the videos very deceptive looking.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:01 pm

Well the Falcon Heavy has 3 times as many engines (3 parallel Falcon 9 cores). It has more than 50 tons of payload to LEO, so it is quite a massive rocket. As I said, not quite Saturn V, but the closest thing we will see for a while.

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:07 pm

Yes, there really is no orbiter presently taking pictures of the Moon. Those pictures and the supposed pictures of the landers and footprints are totally faked.

The pictures of the Mars Face, on the other hand, are real, and obviously show the hand of intelligence on Mars. NASA took those from an orbiter they sent there which is real. They got the technology from aliens, who would not let them have the technology to go to the Moon.

Makes sense to me, but then again I've been short on sleep all week and I have a headache.

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:41 am

Tom Ligon wrote:Makes sense to me, but then again I've been short on sleep all week and I have a headache.

That's because you forgot to wear your tin foil hat to fend off the mind control techniques of the little green men.

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:45 pm

Skipjack ...

Consider that the Falcon 9 is just 9 Falcon 1's strapped together ... Falcon Heavy is a Falcon 27. Just pick a suitable integer and determine how you can pack them into a workable bundle. The concept was to get one propulsion system working right, then build lots of copies. Developing something with a Saturn V's capacity is mostly a matter of having a market for it.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:22 pm

Skipjack wrote:Well the Falcon Heavy has 3 times as many engines (3 parallel Falcon 9 cores). It has more than 50 tons of payload to LEO, so it is quite a massive rocket. As I said, not quite Saturn V, but the closest thing we will see for a while.

IIRC, that is 50 kips, not 50 t.

Encyc-Astro now says 61 kip, 28Mg. Still quite nice, on par with Delta IV Heavy.

Now if only they would put deployable fly-back wings on those booster cores and re-use them.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:15 pm

From the SpaceX website:
http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php
Falcon Heavy 28.5 degrees 200 km 53,000 kg
That is 53 metric tons. I always talk metric system. I have no clue what that is in English tons, but clearly neither have the Senators that "designed" the SLS, so I am in "good" company

And reusability is the long term goal for SpaceX. I think that they will first mature their tech and gather experience with more conservative systems and then slowly go from there. The next step for them is a more powerful engine, IIRC (that and trying to recover the first stage after ocean splashdown).

krenshala · Post by **krenshala** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:28 pm

Giorgio wrote:
Tom Ligon wrote:Makes sense to me, but then again I've been short on sleep all week and I have a headache.
That's because you forgot to wear your tin foil hat to fend off the mind control techniques of the little green men.

Didn't you get the memo? The tinfoil beanie focuses the mind control rays into your brain!

Skipjack wrote:From the SpaceX website:
http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php
Falcon Heavy 28.5 degrees 200 km 53,000 kg
That is 53 metric tons. I always talk metric system. I have no clue what that is in English tons, but clearly neither have the Senators that "designed" the SLS, so I am in "good" company Wink

To answer your (implied) question:

SpaceX website wrote:Mass to LEO (200 km, 28.5 deg): 53,000 kg (117,000 lb)

Skipjack wrote:And reusability is the long term goal for SpaceX. I think that they will first mature their tech and gather experience with more conservative systems and then slowly go from there. The next step for them is a more powerful engine, IIRC (that and trying to recover the first stage after ocean splashdown).

My understanding is they are already trying to recover spent stages, but have focused on getting to orbit and doing so reliably over refurbishing any parts they have so far recovered. They probably also want to tear up the first few they do recover for testing/analysis to see what all is needed to make them flight-worthy again.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:58 am

Tom Ligon wrote:Skipjack ...

Consider that the Falcon 9 is just 9 Falcon 1's strapped together ... Falcon Heavy is a Falcon 27. Just pick a suitable integer and determine how you can pack them into a workable bundle. The concept was to get one propulsion system working right, then build lots of copies. Developing something with a Saturn V's capacity is mostly a matter of having a market for it.

Nope, Falcon 27e.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:59 am

To answer your (implied) question:

Not sure what question I implied.

My understanding is they are already trying to recover spent stages, but have focused on getting to orbit and doing so reliably over refurbishing any parts they have so far recovered. They probably also want to tear up the first few they do recover for testing/analysis to see what all is needed to make them flight-worthy again.

I know. They have had no luck with recovery though. It was not their priorty though so far. As Elon said "it is hard". He wants to keep trying though and slowly get to reuse more and more of the LV, eventually turning it into a full RLV.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 2:21 am

Skipjack wrote:From the SpaceX website:
http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php
Falcon Heavy 28.5 degrees 200 km 53,000 kg
That is 53 metric tons. I always talk metric system. I have no clue what that is in English tons, but clearly neither have the Senators that "designed" the SLS, so I am in "good" company

Hmmm. It is odd that the core vehicles (Falcon 9 and Delta IV) have about the same capacity but the Falcon 9H has almost twice the capacity of the Delta IVH. Maybe encyc-astro is losing its touch.

paulmarch · Post by **paulmarch** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 3:30 am

KitemanSA wrote:
Skipjack wrote:From the SpaceX website:
http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php
Falcon Heavy 28.5 degrees 200 km 53,000 kg
That is 53 metric tons. I always talk metric system. I have no clue what that is in English tons, but clearly neither have the Senators that "designed" the SLS, so I am in "good" company
Hmmm. It is odd that the core vehicles (Falcon 9 and Delta IV) have about the same capacity but the Falcon 9H has almost twice the capacity of the Delta IVH. Maybe encyc-astro is losing its touch.

No not odd, it's just that Falcon Heavy will be using a cross fed propellant design where the two outboard boosters feed LOX and Kero to the center first stage so its tanks are still full when the outboard boosters fall away at Mach-5-ish. And yes that can make a big difference in the delivered LEO payload, provided you are willing to pay for this payload increase with the required increased system complexity and resulting decrease in reliability such a plumbing arrangement brings to the table.

93143 · Post by **93143** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 3:38 am

They've also got an engine upgrade in the pipeline (the Merlin 1D), and I believe a core stretch is involved... The corresponding Falcon 9 is supposed to hit 16 Mg IIRC...

Betruger · Post by **Betruger** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:52 am

KitemanSA wrote:
Tom Ligon wrote:Skipjack ...

Consider that the Falcon 9 is just 9 Falcon 1's strapped together ... Falcon Heavy is a Falcon 27. Just pick a suitable integer and determine how you can pack them into a workable bundle. The concept was to get one propulsion system working right, then build lots of copies. Developing something with a Saturn V's capacity is mostly a matter of having a market for it.
Nope, Falcon 27e.

27e?