Is this what outsourcing our space program means - Rockets that blow up?

[liberal N proud]

SpaceX Rocket Supplying Space Station Explodes After Florida Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - An unmanned SpaceX rocket exploded about two minutes after liftoff from Florida on Sunday, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station in the latest in a string of mishaps in supplying the orbiting outpost.

The 208-foot-tall (63-meter) Falcon 9 rocket had flown 18 times previously since its 2010 debut, all successfully. Those missions included six station cargo runs for NASA under a 15-flight contract worth more than $2 billion.

However SpaceX, a company founded and owned by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, has twice previously tried and failed in an experiment to land the rocket on a platform in the ocean.

Sunday's accident soon after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was the second successive botched mission to resupply the space station. A Russian Progress cargo ship failed to reach the outpost in April following a problem with its Soyuz launcher.


http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/06/28/us/28reuters-space-spacex-launch.html?emc=edit_th_20150629&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=45299538&_r=0


And they want to put humans on these things in another year?

[mmonk]

1. Yes.

[Fumesucker]

2. Rockets are a ridiculously finicky technology, a barely controlled bomb

Making a rocket that can reach orbit is by no means a trivial task, all of the space agencies have blown up immense piles of hardware.

We lost two Shuttles with entire crews and this moron is complaining about an unmanned launch blowing up?

[Recursion]

5. Not to mention Apollo I (nt)

[Duckhunter935]

3. no

NASA had some issues also. It is rocket science for a reason.

[Recursion]

4. NASA has had 21 fatalities and dozens of explosions (nt)

[kentauros]

6. It boggles the mind, too,

that no one seems to be able to remember that NASA, and the military, are supplied by contractors. They do the engineering, the designing, and the manufacturing while the government operates the equipment they requested. Look at the Wikipedia page on NASA and then search on the word "contract." NASA doesn't build anything.

This is no different.

[Duckhunter935]

7. Yes it does

From the earth to the moon, great series that has a great view of this on the liner lander.

[A HERETIC I AM]

44. The Lunar Lander was NOT built by NASA

They were built by Grumman.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module

[Duckhunter935]

83. I know

Guess I was not clear

[MohRokTah]

49. You need to re-watch episode 5 of that series

Spider was all about the work done by Grumman Aircraft Engineering on the Lunar Module.

[Duckhunter935]

84. I know

Guess I was not clear

[hifiguy]

88. How brave were the astronauts?

Brave enough to sit on top of a highly explosive machine with a milliion parts - all made by the lowest bidder.

[Orrex]

35. Too bad Space-X can't seem to learn from 60 years of data.

The story arc here, as in all privatization schemes, is to let the government do (and pay for) most of the heavy lifting until profiteers find some way to squeeze money out of it, then step in to "save" the program or whatever.

With that in mind, and with mountains and mountands of data spanning 6+ decades, there's really no excuse for Space-X or any other johnny-come-lately not to start from where NASA left off. At the very least, one would expect them to say "let's do what NASA did, but with fewer disastrous explosions."

Not to worry. I'm sure that their funding is secured for the investors, and that's the most important part.

[tammywammy]

40. How much was that 6+ decades of data was available?

I imagine a lot of it was classified. Nevertheless, one failure doesn't mean SpaceX is a complete failure. The space vehies they're using are not the same as previous NASA launches.

[kentauros]

42. NASA has also been known to throw out blueprints, files, and other data records

when it became obsolete. Seems like I recall the Smithsonian lamenting that habit of theirs.

[Orrex]

43. A fair question

I would guess that a lot of the technical specs are either available or readily derived from available information ("readily," that is, for people with technical expertise).

Nevertheless, one failure doesn't mean SpaceX is a complete failure.

Perhaps not, but it took just a few failures (out of a much greater total number of launches spanning decades) to have Conservatives and pro-privatization interests declare NASA an over-funded failure and a relic of the past.

[One_Life_To_Give]

48. Alot of knowledge is only stored in Gray Matter

When those people retire the information which was not learned by a mentee is lost.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. Well, everyone else has already said it.

We blew up a lot of rockets already before allowing SpaceX into the game.

And, as your excerpted text points out, it worked right the first 18 times, delivering cargo like this a half dozen times already.

Yeah, you want to get those numbers improved, but spaceships are a lot more complicated than cars, with a lot more dangerous things able to go wrong as they try to punch through the atmosphere under enormous acceleration.

[marble falls]

9. I would challenge anyone to point out one service privatization of govermental.....

function that has been improved by that privatization.

[MohRokTah]

12. The Space program would not exist without privatization. eom

[marble falls]

17. Only because NASA was being defunded. Not because NASA wasn't keeping its....

mandate.

[MohRokTah]

20. NASA has outsourced the manufacture of rockets since the beginning

Last edited Mon Jun 29, 2015, 09:40 AM - Edit history (1)

NASA would have never got off the ground without privatization.

[Amishman]

23. see post #6

NASA didn't manufacture the rockets. Boeing and Douglas made the Saturn V rockets. The space shuttle program was supplied by just about every aerospace company you ever heard of and a bunch you haven't.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between SpaceX and the NASA launches is who is running the launch.

This is the first failure of a Falcon 9 rocket in 19 launches, for a 94.7% success rate.
The Delta rocket family has averaged 95% success according to wikipedia.

[tammywammy]

27. NASA isn't a manufacturer

They're a program office.

[daleanime]

77. Good way....

to not accept the challenge.

[MohRokTah]

78. I answered the challenge.

The space program is the perfect example of where privatization by the government has been overwhelmingly successful. We went to the moon with a privatized space program.

[daleanime]

80. And the privatizated portions....

out performed the public ones?

[MohRokTah]

82. Yes

Government production of rockets post WWII was a disaster. The aerospace corporations broke the sound barrier and put us in space.

[kairos12]

16. +1000

[MohRokTah]

10. Pssssst....

Um, NASA has ALWAYS outsourced the manufacture of rockets.

[Historic NY]

22. Can't argue with people that think its only a US government funded program...

the entire space program was built on the outsourcing of systems from food to waste disposal to private companies big and small around the country.

[kentauros]

24. I'm saving that graphic :)

For when this argument comes up yet again!

[Marr]

28. Outsourced manufacturing is one thing-- private industry running the launches is another.

I do think there's a difference. A commercial entity has a whole set of interests that a government entity does not. I expect they'd be less inclined to cancel an important launch based on a hunch, for instance.

[MohRokTah]

31. There is no fricking difference whatsoeer.

When NASA ran the launches, rockets blew up.

It's a fact. There is precisely no difference other than who is in charge of the launch.

[Marr]

33. That's what I just said. The difference is who is in charge of the launch.

Your contention is that a private group does not have concerns/interests that a government operation does not?

[MohRokTah]

46. The private group is driven to have a successful launch every bit as much as the government group.

There is no difference.

Both have successes and failures. Both strive for success.

This nonsense of pointing at a failure and blaming privatization is as stupid as throwing a snowball on the floor of the Senate and claiming Global Climate Change is a hoax!

[Marr]

50. That's the argument for privatizing government functions, alright.

Do you also apply this maxim to the Post Office, health care, the prison system, etc.?

There is a big difference between government operations and private operations. Yes, they both want to succeed-- but private operations want to succeed and make a profit.

[MohRokTah]

53. Privatizing of the launching of rockets makes perfect sense.

NASA gets so embroiled in internal bureaucracy that on two occasions they failed to see the forests for the trees and cost seven lives each time.

[Marr]

60. Do you feel the same way about the Post Office vs. FedEx? /nt

[MohRokTah]

61. No.

Actually, FedEx would go out of business without the Post Office.

Not to mention the Post Office is mandated by the constitution.

[Angleae]

92. The post office it not mandated by the constitution.

Article I, section 8 gives congress the power to establish post offices but does not require them to do so.

[MannyGoldstein]

81. Challenger was largely Morton Thiokol's fault, no?

Although NASA failed to call them on their BS.

[snooper2]

51. ROFLMAO

How is Kim Jongs rocket program going? 100% government run.....

[Recursion]

87. Elon Musk loses about 10 million a year on SpaceX

It's hard to accuse them of profiteering...

[RandySF]

57. You think contractors always worked for free?

[hardluck]

79. NASA didn't cancel the Challenger Launch

When an issues was raised by Thiokol engineers about whether the O rings would seal at freezing temperatures.

Forecasts for January 28 predicted an unusually cold morning, with temperatures close to 31 °F (?1 °C), the minimum temperature permitted for launch. The low temperatures had prompted concerns from Thiokol engineers. At a teleconference on the evening of January 27, Thiokol engineers and managers discussed the weather conditions with NASA managers from Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. Several engineers (most notably Roger Boisjoly) re-expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings that sealed the joints of the SRBs, and recommended a launch postponement.[12] They argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the joints would properly seal if the O-rings were colder than 53 °F (12 °C). This was an important consideration, since the SRB O-rings had been designated as a "Criticality 1" component, meaning that there was no backup if both the primary and secondary O-rings failed, and their failure would destroy the Orbiter and kill its crew.

Thiokol management initially supported its engineers' recommendation to postpone the launch, but NASA staff opposed a delay. During the conference call, Hardy told Thiokol, "I am appalled. I am appalled by your recommendation." Mulloy said, "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch — next April?"[12] One argument by NASA personnel contesting Thiokol's concerns was that if the primary O-ring failed, the secondary O-ring would still seal. This was unproven, and was in any case an argument that did not apply to a "Criticality 1" component. As astronaut Sally Ride stated when questioning NASA managers before the Rogers Commission, it is forbidden to rely on a backup for a "Criticality 1" component. The backup is there solely to provide redundancy in case of unforeseen failure, not to replace the primary component.

NASA did not know of Thiokol's earlier concerns about the effects of the cold on the O-rings, and did not understand that Rockwell International, the shuttle's prime contractor, viewed the large amount of ice present on the pad as a constraint to launch. Due to NASA's opposition, Thiokol management reversed itself and recommended that the launch proceed as scheduled.

Pretty damning of NASA and Thiokol management.

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Delays|

[tammywammy]

86. The Challenger Disaster is groupthink 101

during my graduate work i studied it for multiple classes in how to avoid groupthink.

[hardluck]

89. Groupthink is exactly right

And it bit NASA again in the Columbia disaster. The o-rings were a known danger but instead of revising the o-rings, NASA had many successful flights and just classified them as an acceptable flight risk. Same with the foam hits that damaged Columbia. This was a known catastrophic risk that happened so regularly that they classified it as a acceptable flight risk. They became complacent in their safety culture in a field where complacency leads to tragedy.

[MannyGoldstein]

37. As can be seen from your diagram,

NASA used to be responsible for much more of the high-level systems engineering and integration. They typically specified smaller (but still big!) bits, and were responsible for making the bits work together.

Today's paradigm is to move much of NASA's former responsibilities to contractors, who build entire rockets. Higher risk, higher reward, and less oversight for the contractors.

[JackInGreen]

11. Yes

1 out of 18 is pretty damn good for experimental rocket tech. If you want 1 failure to equate with "why bother" there's a whole host of scientific and social achievements you'd best bail out of.

[notadmblnd]

13. Has anything you know of gotten better and less expensive when it was contracted out?

If so, name one. Because I can't. Privatization of anything- always costs more and is less efficient.

[Recursion]

26. Rockets (nt)

[MohRokTah]

30. + 1,000,000,000,000 eom

[kentauros]

34. Aircraft.

Remember the second letter of "NASA" because most people think they only do space travel and research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_aircraft

[MindPilot]

54. The Internet?

both computers and the Internet originated as government programs.

[notadmblnd]

67. less expensive? I think not

Better? That too is debatable. Personally, the ads drive me nuts.

[City Lights]

14. NASA never had a rocket blow up?

Is that what you're implying?

[Android3.14]

15. As if

Apollo 1
27 January 1967

[Orrex]

36. Good point. And there have been no technological advances in 48 years.

[n2doc]

18. It's called "Rocket Science" for a reason

This will always be a dangerous field, with spectacular failures. I don't see that anything has changed, except that for the moment we don't have a proven way to get humans up in low orbit. That should change.

[SCVDem]

19. In the milliseconds before the blast,

the new internal escape rockets would have pulled a crew capsule to safety.

Take off to orbit these things work, unlike the old Apollo tower which was jettisoned shortly after take-off.

I guess when it's only cargo they don't need the extra weight so no escape system for cargo.

[hatrack]

21. Nah, Defense and NASA were blowing up scores of rockets for many years - Germany, too

[Android3.14]

25. The inverse of obtuse conservative

I swear...

[peacebird]

29. Three failures in last 8 months...

[tammywammy]

41. Three failures from three different sources

And the failure point on each aren't the same either.

[jeff47]

45. Not really true.

1 Failure, and 2 unsuccessful experiments.

Let's say they didn't try to land on the barges. What happens? The lower stage of the rocket is blown up after it has done its job, and it falls into the sea. What happened when they failed to land on the barge? The lower stages of the rocket blew up and fell into the sea.

The landing is a bonus. They are expecting it to fail for a while, and budget as if the lower stages blow up like normal. That's one of the main reasons the barges are unmanned.

[Baitball Blogger]

32. Anyone know what direction the wind was blowing?

I walked out this morning and smelled something foul. But I thought it was semi-unprocessed sewage sprayed on the golf course.

[Nye Bevan]

38. What's the NASA versus SpaceX body count? (nt)

[Adrahil]

39. Just so you know.... we've been "outsourcing" rockets for a very long time.

But they don't call it "rocket science" for nothing. It's fairly hard to do it reliably and cheaply.

[Baclava]

59. Quite right - Rocketdyne developed the Saturn V's F-1 rocket engines starting back in the 1950's

Even Russia's most "reliable" designs have been blowing up and failing a lot lately, so we're not alone.

China is the new kid on the block


China's Largest-Ever Space Rocket Takes Another Big Step Forward



China is assembling its largest-ever space rocket, the Long March 5. Chinese authorities state that this LM-5 prototype will launch in early 2016 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center. The LM-5 is a 62-meter-tall, 800-ton rocket which can carry up to 25 tons into low Earth orbit, or a 14-ton spacecraft bound for Mars or the Moon.

http://www.popsci.com/chinas-long-march-space-rocket-5-takes-another-big-step-forward

[Romulox]

47. This is not the same country that went to the moon. I doubt we could do it, today. nt

[1939]

58. White Sands Missile Range (WSMR)

As a newly minted ROTC Second Lieutenant in the Ordnance Officer Basic Course at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1961, my classmates and I were treated to a WSMR film which was a half hours series of clips of misadventures in the government testing of rockets and missiles during the 1950s. Some rockets high ordered on the launch pad, some fell over and spun around like a Roman candle, and some got partially into the air and then exploded.

[get the red out]

52. So far

Not so good.

[MohRokTah]

56. Actually, a better record than NASA. eom

[Act_of_Reparation]

62. By what measure?

Please elaborate.

[MohRokTah]

63. Successful launches of a new system.

Falcon X is completely new. It has a better launch record currently than the Delta rocket.

[Act_of_Reparation]

64. NASA has been launching shit into space for over 50 years.

I think you'll find they have more successful launches of more new systems than SpaceX.

The only thing the numbers tell us is that it is too early to tell which organization is better at putting things in space. SpaceX would have to fly a comparable number of missions to draw a representative conclusion.

[Humanist_Activist]

70. So far the Falcon series has about an 89% success rate...

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches

2 failures out of 19 launches.

For the USA it looks like this:

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/logsum.html

The interesting numbers are the Totals for each series of rockets, those are the percentages, many of them have better records than the Falcon Series, others do not and perform well below that. The point being that Falcon 9 is no worse than most other series of rockets ever manufactured by any other company.

[Act_of_Reparation]

71. Awesome. Great find!

And when you've been in the business as long as NASA has, you're bound to make a few systems that don't work as well as planned. I imagine that on a long enough timeline, the success rates between NASA and a well-run private spaceflight company would be in relatively close parity.

[Humanist_Activist]

72. The thing is, SpaceX will succeed or fail based on something as basic as rocket launches....

they will want to have at least parity with other major contractors of NASA if they want to remain in demand by that same agency.

ON EDIT: The major difference I can see here is that, in the past, NASA generally administered the deployment and overall specs of spacecraft and rockets. SpaceX has control over their spacecraft and launchers.

[Act_of_Reparation]

73. Right. And that's what gets me about this private/public debate

I consider myself pretty neutral on the issue, but I am nevertheless dumbfounded by some of the responses here. Private industry has been manufacturing spacecraft for as long as spaceflight has been a thing. NASA's sole monopoly has been in the administration of spaceflight. As far as I can tell, SpaceX and Virgin are only "new" insofar as they conducting their flights from their own facilities using their own pilots.

[Humanist_Activist]

74. Yes, and right now they are government contractors, in the future they may go independent on...

their own. Telecoms do this to launch many communication satellites, they rent facilities from a space agency(usually ESA, sometimes NASA), buy the rockets, and launch new satcoms themselves.

SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Space Resources and other companies are doing these things on their own, they are assuming the risk, so I don't see why people are so up in arms about it. Private development in space is inevitable, particularly if we want to do something beyond scientific exploration, which I think is what NASA is best at.

I side with Neil Degrasse Tyson on this, government and government agencies lay the groundwork, sponsor some of the early exploring, and heavy lifting, etc. but eventually they will turn some of it over to private enterprise. We shouldn't be opposed to that.

[Act_of_Reparation]

75. Totally agree.

Let SpaceX haul space station modules from earth to low-earth orbit. NASA would be better utilized gathering data and developing new technologies.

[RandySF]

55. Yes, because NASA never botched anything before.

[OilemFirchen]

65. The world's first air force:

http://www.armyaviationmuseum.org/index.php/heritage/spotlight-in-history/2-uncategorised/59-the-1909-wright-military-flyer

On August 2nd (1909), at the conclusion of the testing, the U.S Army accepted Army Aeroplane No. 1 from the (sic) Wilbur Wright.

On October 8th, Lt. Frederic E. Humphreys and Lt. Lahm began formal flight training at College Park, Maryland, each soloing on October 26th. Lt. Foulois began his training with Wilbur Wright on October 20th. Other training flights continued during the year at College Park.

On November 11th, 1909, Army Aeroplane No.1 was moved to the balloon hangar at Fort Myer. In early 1910, it then spent two weeks at the Electrical Trade Expedition in Chicago. Army Aeroplane finally arrived at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in February 1910. While there, Lt. Foulois completed his flight training by mail correspondence with the Wright brothers.

In 1911, the War Department turned over the 1909 Wright Military Flyer, Army Aeroplane No. 1, to the Smithsonian Institution, where it remains today.

[Democrats_win]

66. Conservative ideology destroyed Yankee ingenuity.

As American citizens we expect better results. Rocket failures are so 1960s (and 1980s--see O-rings). We saw these rockets come off the launch pad and then blow up. We fixed it--thirty years ago! Heck 30 years ago, contractors bragged about how reliable their rockets were.

Posters can apologize for SpaceX but it truly seems that we're going backwards with this round of privatization. We all like the guy behind SpaceX but once again, the free marketeers throw away our past assets for profits. America once had a reliability problem with the awesome Space Shuttle (the shuttle, the fuel tank and it's two rockets) now we have a reliability problem with single rockets? WTF? This is embarrassing.

We were great, but we threw it all away. Those that hate the government said that private industry could do it better. Yes, the NASA of the past relied on government contractors but today's privatization--a demand by conservatives because government can't do anything right--gave private companies the chore of launching the rockets. So if private industry is so good, why are they screwing up--you know like government did 30 to 40 years ago. It's the bottom line, stop making excuses, Democratic Underground people!

They're doing a heck of a job. When America launches a rocket there's also a silent partner--conservative ideology. This ideology has replaced Yankee ingenuity.

[friendly_iconoclast]

68. There has *always* been a reliablity problem with single rockets

All this carping about privitazation of space launches is ahistorical

[Humanist_Activist]

69. The Space Shuttle was a disaster waiting to happen, and 14 people had to die to prove it...

it had NO means to abort launches once the solid rockets are fired, and it was supposed to NOT use solid rocket boosters at all, except that Congress cut funding for the program, liquid fuel rockets are more expensive. Then the Air Force had their own specifications and other changes made to the design, turning the Space Shuttle into something other than what it was supposed to be, a cheaper, LEO orbiter that was reusable. Its conservative ideology that fucked that up.

As far as SpaceX, don't see the same problems, they have a new launching system (Falcon 9), failures will happen, its too bad that valuable cargo was lost, but we cannot expect perfection. This is the first failure of the Falcon 9 1.1, out of 14 launches. This is, so far a better record than the Russian Space Programs from the USSR to today, which boasts the most launches and least failures(note, reported) of any space agency.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/

You call this embarrassing but in reality rockets can fail, around the world, some agencies are more open about it(JAXA, ESA, NASA, ISA, Roscosmos), others are not(CNSA, Soviet Space Program, etc.).

[HFRN]

76. there have been cases of astronauts having to train their replacement astornauts

and then being left out in space

[ladjf]

85. You must have forgotten how many failures NASA had before they begin

to be fairly reliable. I believe they will work out the "kink" soon.

[davidpdx]

90. My only beef with this whole thing is they should have started the process much earlier

so that there was overlap between when this new technology was being worked on and the Space Shuttle was still operational. It takes years to get the technology right (or close to that) and essentially most of the space program was gutted with us relying on the Russians while we get ready for the newer phase. Not particularly smart in my book.

[LeftyMom]

91. The question isn't private or NASA, it's private or Russia.