When Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact (in public, no less)

[georged]

Crazy engineering stuff---CERN discoveries, laser weapons tests, and so forth---are only revealed after the fact (if at all) as written reports.

Not this time.


What am I talking about?

Remember the impossibly huge Saturn 5 that was one fourth the size of the Empire State Building?





That's how big.

And they not only returned the booster portion to Earth in re-usable condition, but set it back gently in a supporting tower/cradle.

Holy

Shit

 

[FurCoat]

Incredible.

 

[mawnansmiff]

It was a great thing to witness, of that there is no doubt, but I do wonder how much of that rocket will actually be reused.

I mean, all that incredible heat, all those stresses on the metals used in construction, must have rendered 90% of the whole to be trashed.....no?

Jay.

 

[JOHN72]

Magnificent.....................

 

[BingBong]

It was a great thing to witness, of that there is no doubt, but I do wonder how much of that rocket will actually be reused.

I mean, all that incredible heat, all those stresses on the metals used in construction, must have rendered 90% of the whole to be trashed.....no?

Jay.

Yes, but at least they can pop it in the recycling bin.

 

[Jebi]

It was a great thing to witness, of that there is no doubt, but I do wonder how much of that rocket will actually be reused.

I mean, all that incredible heat, all those stresses on the metals used in construction, must have rendered 90% of the whole to be trashed.....no?

Jay.

I would be inclined to disagree. Re-entry modules are generally built for the task. Rocket boosters are built to be reusable nowadays and they generate more heat than the friction from re-entry. So if you solve the incredibly destructive power of hitting water or earth then you should be able to do a check and reuse the rocket. Especially since most of the re-entry stress is only on the outer shell meaning that you can reuse all the internals for more and more.

Even if they replace the entire outer shell, it would be cost effective as they can recycle metal very easily. Material science has come such a long way since the Saturn program which is what makes most of space flight and space advances possible. Re-usable rockets being one of the giant leaps from a couple decades ago.

 

[jackattack]

It was a great thing to witness, of that there is no doubt, but I do wonder how much of that rocket will actually be reused.

I mean, all that incredible heat, all those stresses on the metals used in construction, must have rendered 90% of the whole to be trashed.....no?

Jay.

SpaceX's entire business model is based on making spaceflight affordable by re-using rockets...so I imagine they save quite a bit of it for re-use.

 

[VDL_Piper]

It was a great thing to witness, of that there is no doubt, but I do wonder how much of that rocket will actually be reused.

I mean, all that incredible heat, all those stresses on the metals used in construction, must have rendered 90% of the whole to be trashed.....no?

Jay.

In a post from Elon on Twatter he said it looked very good with only some warping on rocket heat shields which he stated “are easily replaced”. So I’d say the turn around on this rocket will be pretty swift.

 

[kcghost]

It was quite an engineering feat to witness. And @Jebi is correct. The booster is in good shape after landing and is mainly reusable.

 

[huntertrw]

"I've got this!'

 

[georged]

FWIW, the former Chief Mission Architect at JPL (20+ years) told me that Elon & Co. are getting things done that haven't been seen at NASA since the Apollo days, and that he's just getting started.

 

[Sobrbiker]

Well, I guess when one realizes that the foundational work for the Saturns was done on slide rules, and today we’ve got processors we could only dream of five years ago….

 

[hakchuma]

I want to see the code.

 

[DesertDan]

An amazing feat, SpaceX continues to impress!

 

[Jebi]

I want to see the code.

I think you would be amazed with how simplistic it would be. My guess would be something like this:

1. Input from sensors.
2. Digital Signal Process (DSP) them through something like a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller.
3. Adjust thrusters to accomodate.
4. Repeat

Though that being said, to fine tune those equations with really calibrated sensors controlling a system that must be around servo levels of precision of rocket boosters, etc.. It's incredible that it all comes together. I think this is more a win for control circuits and mechanics than crazy programming but I could and am willing to be wrong.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Back in my day, rockets were guided by a computer the size of a SUV that merely did simple math equations. You youngsters and your fancy AI guided rockets are just losers.

 

[Briarcutter]

And they can't get my check engine lite to turn off........

 

[DesertDan]

Back in the day:

Core rope memory - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory

 

[PipeIT]

SpaceX is amazing!

Don’t mean to go off topic, but what about NASA after all these years, finally taking to space again, now with the Europa Clipper, I mean Wow!

Europa Clipper - NASA Science

Europa Clipper is Earth's first mission to conduct a detailed science investigation of Jupiter's moon Europa.

science.nasa.gov

And then, how about this for Sci Fi - Ai-Da, like Holy Crap!

Ai-Da

Ai-Da, the first ultra-realistic humanoid AI robot artist.

www.ai-darobot.com

 

[rmpeeps]

Quite a feat of engineering and perseverance.
I drove down to Boca Chica the day before the launch to see the rocket stacked and ready to fly, and got into Isla Blanca Park early to witness the takeoff and catch landing.
After all the bone rattling volume of the launch and re-entry, along with the sonic booms, there was the distinct knowledge that I’d just witnessed history.