SpaceX’s Falcon 9 successfully launches Dragon freighter to ISS
SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch a Dragon freighter to ISS.
The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its first flight, only the third time this year out of 54 total launches that SpaceX had to use a new first stage. All other launches were with reused boosters.
The Dragon freighter is scheduled to dock with ISS at 7:30 am (Eastern) tomorrow.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
54 SpaceX
52 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 78 to 52 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 81 to 78.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch a Dragon freighter to ISS.
The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its first flight, only the third time this year out of 54 total launches that SpaceX had to use a new first stage. All other launches were with reused boosters.
The Dragon freighter is scheduled to dock with ISS at 7:30 am (Eastern) tomorrow.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
54 SpaceX
52 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 78 to 52 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 81 to 78.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A few minutes ago Elon Musk tweeted a reply to Eric Berger, who had just posted a similar (though not identical) list of national launch rankings. Musk’s statement? “Tonnage to orbit is the better metric.”
I guess it might be hard to trust the tonnage to orbit from unfriendly nations.
Michael McNeil wrote: “A few minutes ago Elon Musk tweeted a reply to Eric Berger, who had just posted a similar (though not identical) list of national launch rankings. Musk’s statement? ‘Tonnage to orbit is the better metric.’”
I suppose this all depends upon what you want to brag about. Musk could brag about the number of launches, as his company is rather impressive that way, or the number of tonnes launched, again impressive, or the number of satellites launched, for which his company could become the world leader by the time all his Starlink satellites are in place.
Musk could be looking forward, with his comment, because once SpaceX’s Starship is operational, it won’t take many of its launches for the measurement to change to kilotonnes launched.
My preference would be to measure the productivity of the payloads launched. This could be measured in gigabytes for data from exploration probes and in dollars earned for commercial satellites. Perhaps the exploration probes’ productivity could be measured in scientific papers written or referenced. I think that the overall revenues from the space industry is very relevant, especially now that commercial companies are becoming such a large part of the space operations industry.
I think productivity is an interesting idea but as the examples illustrate it is inherently difficult to define and apply consistently.
I think Elon is on the right track, but dropped a key bit by subsetting from his previously stated metric which is Dollars per Ton to Orbit. THAT is the metric that limits how many tons can get launched and what missions are ultimately feasible. In the end rockets are no different than any other transportation business and economics is the dominating factor to scaling up.
MDN wrote: “I think Elon is on the right track, but dropped a key bit by subsetting from his previously stated metric which is Dollars per Ton to Orbit. THAT is the metric that limits how many tons can get launched and what missions are ultimately feasible.”
This is true. It limits how many tons can afford to be launched. On the other hand, if Musk’s tonnage metric is used, it suggests that the more tons flown means lower cost per ton, so the tonnes launched metric gives the suggestion that the price has dropped low enough to bring in more business, more customers, and more economic growth.
“In the end rockets are no different than any other transportation business and economics is the dominating factor to scaling up.”
Even the Dot-Com business model in the late 1990s succumbed to economics, in the end, and the Japanese Price to Revenue ratio fiasco in the late 1980s was also an unsustainable bubble that succumbed to economic realities. If you build it, they will come only if it is more economical than not coming. There isn’t anything new in economics, but there are traps, as Bastiat noted in his essay What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
A few minutes ago Elon Musk tweeted a reply to Eric Berger, who had just posted a similar (though not identical) list of national launch rankings. Musk’s statement? “Tonnage to orbit is the better metric.”
If you want to see just how much SpaceX laps the field on tonnage to orbit, Bryce Tech does a report every quarter for global launch activity. https://brycetech.com/briefing
For starters, SpaceX launched about 212,496 kg of spacecraft upmass in Q3, followed by CASC (Chinese space agency) with about 55,107 kg.
In fact, SpaceX launched about three times as much mass to orbit as . . . the rest of the world put together.
Just imagine what it will be like once Starship is operational.