Comments on: SpaceX installs much larger arms for net on ship for fairing recapture

By: pzatchok

pzatchok — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 18:09:53 +0000

Mr. Stevens is the name of the boat.

Why they named it that I don’t know.

Maybe after Samanthas husband.

By: Col Beausabre

Col Beausabre — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 09:34:23 +0000

Who’s Mr Stevens?

By: Localfluff

Localfluff — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 02:25:26 +0000

@Peter Francis
My very speculative take on faring reusability is that it would allow for much more expensive and advanced fairings. The fairing is the womb of a launcher that protects its payload. Maybe the payload could be somehow suspended to lower the vibrations, so that washers don’t fall off $9 billion telescopes, for example. There’s much more money to be saved on the payload’s design and testing, than on the fairing itself.

The upper stage is much more difficult to reuse than the first stage. The upper stage goes where the satellite goes. The upper stages of the Voyagers are also leaving the Solar system. It would have to be deorbited and enter the atmosphere with a heat shield. I’m surprised SpaceX even had the ambition, initially, to try to reuse it! The Shuttle and Buran and X-37 have heavy wings to make it possible for them to come down from orbit. And the heat shielding tiles was a big problem for the Shuttle.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 02:05:31 +0000

I thought Feynman said the puck goes off to another universe and an identical puck appears from a another universe on the other side of the goal – or maybe it was Zener.

By: Blair Ivey

Blair Ivey — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 01:55:45 +0000

I am so waiting for the Elon Musk biopic:

“We’re gonna need a bigger net.”

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 01:41:55 +0000

I though that Feynman said the puck went off to another universe and an identical puck replaced it on the other side of the goalie …. maybe that was Zener

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 00:57:34 +0000

In reply to Peter Francis. Peter Francis: As quoted here:

To reduce the cost of launch, SpaceX hopes to recover and reuse the fairing which represents an estimated $6 million – about 10% of the Falcon 9’s launch cost. Since the five meter diameter fairing splits into two halves when jettisoned, two recoveries are required per launch – with each saving about $3 million worth of hardware.

See also this comment at Behind the Black, in connection with the article above. The bottom line is that SpaceX thinks it can save money by recovering the fairing. This is their business decision, and they certainly have more detailed cost information that we have.

By: Peter Francis

Peter Francis — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 00:29:31 +0000

Is capturing and recycling the fairings THAT big a deal? How will their recycling contribute to lowering launch costs (and pricing)? 10, 20, 50% of the equivalent savings of reusable first stages? To me a fairing is a protective cover that doesn’t seem to be a substantial portion of the total cost (of a Falcon 9).

I would appeciate an explanation that opens my eyes.

By: wodun

wodun — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 20:21:28 +0000

Bigger but they also look a lot more robust than the old ones.

By: Andi

Andi — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 19:07:16 +0000

Quantum tunneling. The puck goes from a high energy state, tunnels through the space around the goalie, which would normally require a great deal of energy to go over, into a lower-energy state in the net.

By: Localfluff

Localfluff — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 17:42:05 +0000

I wish that the Swedish soccer team could’ve installed much larger arms on their goalie. That’s why I prefer ice hockey. (However do they get the puck inside of a cage smaller than its keeper? Is it maybe quantum mechanics?)