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Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
OT
SpaceX would be crazy to fly this stage ever again though:
But it's a fantastic test of the 'short landing' scenario just off the Florida coast nevertheless - this could be part of the abort sequence of manned launches (when the stage is too damaged to bring back to a landing pad on land safely), so the more testing they have of this scenario the better.
So I believe the main thing they want to recover is the hydraulic pump that got stuck - pumps in rocketry are very much not supposed to do that, but are prone to. That recovery alone will be worth a hundred million dollars.
Every unexpected failure in a rocket that triggers in such a late stage and has such low cost (there was no effect on the payload which was already in space at this point) and is recoverable is worth a lot of money in terms of increased reliability of all future rockets. Navies around the planet have spent fortunes fishing out bent rocket engines that re-entered from first and second stages from the bottom of the ocean.
Fully recovering your failed hardware mostly undamaged that has just been to space is the holy grail of rocketry QA feedback loops. Often post-mortem analysis of rocket failures has zero hardware residuals to work with.
SpaceX would be crazy to fly this stage ever again though:
- The center engine almost certainly got irreparably damaged from the glowing hot engine being dunked in cold water. (Maybe even the 2 other engines used for the re-entry burn and which were glowing hot just a short minute earlier.)
- Salt water also doesn't do rocket internals any favors and even if in principle the rocket was designed to withstand this (ocean air has salt content to begin with), there's no natural high-volume, high-confidence test path for this. It only takes a single bad isolation and short circuit caused by salt water intrusion in the maze of wiring and electronics to cause hard to diagnose trouble down the road.
- I don't think they have the recovery hardware to take the stage from water and put it on the ship. It requires careful craning to move the ~25 tons of first stage to not damage it even in port behind seawalls - on high seas with significant wave action and a clock ticking it's much, much harder.
- The air-frame probably got a big lateral hit when it toppled - with a ~60 meters high first stage hitting the water at what must have been a speed of at least ~50 km/h that's a not an insignificant force and an unusual transient ...
But it's a fantastic test of the 'short landing' scenario just off the Florida coast nevertheless - this could be part of the abort sequence of manned launches (when the stage is too damaged to bring back to a landing pad on land safely), so the more testing they have of this scenario the better.
So I believe the main thing they want to recover is the hydraulic pump that got stuck - pumps in rocketry are very much not supposed to do that, but are prone to. That recovery alone will be worth a hundred million dollars.
Every unexpected failure in a rocket that triggers in such a late stage and has such low cost (there was no effect on the payload which was already in space at this point) and is recoverable is worth a lot of money in terms of increased reliability of all future rockets. Navies around the planet have spent fortunes fishing out bent rocket engines that re-entered from first and second stages from the bottom of the ocean.
Fully recovering your failed hardware mostly undamaged that has just been to space is the holy grail of rocketry QA feedback loops. Often post-mortem analysis of rocket failures has zero hardware residuals to work with.
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Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
Somewhat OT:
The Tories are going to allow Corbyn to become PM roughly when hell freezes over.
They'll only launch a coup against May in ~2 weeks if they are sure they have a replacement (Tory) PM.
The Tories are going to allow Corbyn to become PM roughly when hell freezes over.
They'll only launch a coup against May in ~2 weeks if they are sure they have a replacement (Tory) PM.
Actually, they may force Tesla to start using interior camera to track driver's face and eyes etc, like somebody else did for ICE brand. I wish it didn't come to that, kind of feels uncomfortable, then some law can be introduced that the govt has the right to request and review your behavior in the car if they have certain suspicions and then those records end up on youtube, so everybody can laugh at them...People, don't abuse Autopilot please.
Carl Raymond
Active Member
No. I am not Ross Tessien. I expected the image to post under my comment making it clearer, but still a bit interface challenged by the rarely used options.
When and if will TaaS arrive? Neroden, from memory, says a decade. I think much sooner, in assigned geofenced good-road areas at first.
My lesson in dismissing technologies was learned from smart phone adoption. I figured the phones were only for the rich, the bandwidth would never be sufficient, the apps were all gimmicks. Six years later the company, putting ads in newspapers, went belly up. Nobody was buying newspapers. I was IT Manager, the one who should have seen it coming and advised soonest.
I spend more time watching nascent trends these days, trying to make change my friend. I post warnings on fb to friends and rels to roll their super into a fossil divested fund. As far as I can tell, none are listening.
Edit: btw, my degree was Mech Eng. I'm a coder with a base in physics, chem, thermo, calculus. So I 'get' Musk, and I 'get' what the Keeling Curve is telling us. It's a curse.
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Buckminster
Well-Known Member
cheshire cat
Member
Krugerrand
Meow
There are no quarter panels on the 3. There is a fender and then a very complicated body side, which is steel.
They would already be using lubricants to make current aluminum and steel body panels.
There is no special press required for a aluminum vs steel. The press lines they have now do both and can continue to do so.
Steel is way easier to stamp. Waaaayyyyy. Especially when discussing Tesla body panels, which are some of the most sophisticated in the industry.
Don’t be ridiculous. Toolmakers all learn with steel first. Then will branch out to brass, copper, aluminum etc... it is a specialty to do class A panels in the first place. The majority of vehicle panels on the planet for the last 100 years have been steel. Anyone at Tesla that can do class A aluminum panels will have zero issues doing them in steel. Design of dies will be changed accordingly.
Longevity of dies is determined by what they are made of, whether for low volume or high volume, preventative maintenance program, how they are stored etc... Typically dies last for decades.
They’ll have run computer simulations on all their die designs before building them.
You’re concerned about nothing. They’ve had toolmakers for 7 years. It’s not their first rodeo.
anthonyj
Stonks
Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
I think this is a "it depends".
Firstly, I think the next decade will be dominated by new EV production and the big historic EV transition of humanity, which will mask any genuine drop in sustained demand for individual ownership of vehicles.
After that:
- A big chunk of the lack of vehicle ownership by Millennials is plain old-school economics of take-home pay levels: wage gains were particularly low for that demographic so vehicle ownership is disproportionately expensive for many.
- Rise in shared services like Netflix is mostly related to the convenience and location independence of those services. A car is a lot more specific to a person and a lot more constrained geographically, with physical and convenience costs of sharing. Whoever can afford to will still own cars I believe, because of the significant increase in convenience and future stability.
- There will nevertheless be a big rise in professional shared economy related to cars: self-driving makes a lot of car sharing business models viable and ridiculously profitable, and the central bank of that economy will be the owner of the IP and of the manufacturing capacity: the car maker such as Tesla.
Likewise I think the shared economy of cars will be mostly in a separate segment of 'taxi-alike' cars, replacing taxi companies and the likes of Ueber and Lyft who are not owning the capital that produces value.
(Could be wrong about it though, homes are still 5x-10x more expensive than cars and have no mobility, so their economics is different.)
cheshire cat
Member
Only if he knew what he wanted, We'll let "miss" Diane do the maths, the result will be a payment between 0 and one hundred and Fortily Six - million billion trillion gazillion OR 2 supra dupa bargain buckets of KFC
Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
Excellent points. Tesla has also acquired their own toolmaker two years ago I think.
Maybe, but I think their first reason for dispatching the recovery ship is to retrieve the booster so they can inspect the failed pump and reduce the risk is similar failures in the future.
I liked the idea one person posted, after Elon tweeted that they might reuse it for an internal mission:
Fix the broken grid fin and any obvious damage, then launch it, and land it.
Then immediately fill it with only a cursory inspection (rapid turnaround), and launch it and land it again,.
And again. And again. And again.
And keep doing so until something breaks and you don't get the rocket back.
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Brexit, SpaceX. The path to Tesla wisdom is meandering again.
Won't the sound of the negotiations be drown out by the sound of the singing fat lady sitting with a flock of flying pigs in a money tree, and the mooing of the cows coming home, across the frozen wastelands of hell, during a week comprised entirely of Sundays?
stef
Member
humbaba
sleeping until $7000
By "they" do you mean government regulatory requirements? That is possible, but usually those issues are forced by some event. A safe pull over doesn't seem like a triggering event. Since Tesla is not doing the nanny cam I would expect competitors to push for that but, at least in the USA, there would be quite the market in circumvention systems -- and that is assuming legislation could even be passed with the "liberty or death" crowd fighting it tooth and nail.
In fact, the better the autonomous driving (or underlying safety system that I mentioned earlier) the less you need nanny nagging. I think the best defense against government regulation of that sort is for Tesla to make cars that live up to Musk's repeated claims (such as them being crash proof). That would create strong evidence against the need for government regulation.
OT....
Yes, put in the order last month. Still waiting to hear from them. A little bit impatient (chomping at bit). Just got off the phone with support confirming that, yes, I've done everything. I wish the online interface was more informative -- such as listing a status: "waiting on VIN assignment". Absent cashing out my stock during a short squeeze I can't get it without financing and their process for that is also "wait and find out". I'm keeping an eye on the 45-day refund window -- I'd hate to lose the reservation payment because of lack of movement on their part and being turned down on financing after the window (it shouldn't be turned down, but getting the house loan was "interesting").
Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
OT:
Very bad idea: the launch pad is a very valuable and complex piece of ground support hardware that is in the critical path of rocket launches.
SpaceX was in big trouble when Amos-6exploded conflagrated, not primarily due to the loss of the payload (which was insured), but due to the loss of launch pad 40 which is a unique combination of low tech (gobs of concrete, big tanks, crazy lot of steel) and high-tech equipment (lots of electronics), worth hundreds of millions of dollars, custom built with a lead time of years and a repair time of 6+ months and not easily replaced.
The SLC-40 damage took 15 months to survey, repair and validate (the heat of the fire reportedly damaged concrete structures) ... In addition to the capital costs the missed revenue is significant as well: with ~15 launches over 15 months that's about a billion dollars of revenue missing.
They don't want to risk the launch pad, they only want to launch something they are certain won't break anywhere near the pad.
Very bad idea: the launch pad is a very valuable and complex piece of ground support hardware that is in the critical path of rocket launches.
SpaceX was in big trouble when Amos-6
The SLC-40 damage took 15 months to survey, repair and validate (the heat of the fire reportedly damaged concrete structures) ... In addition to the capital costs the missed revenue is significant as well: with ~15 launches over 15 months that's about a billion dollars of revenue missing.
They don't want to risk the launch pad, they only want to launch something they are certain won't break anywhere near the pad.
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