HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ imglorp

Soyuz recently developed a 3 hour flight profile to ISS, instead of a 27 hour one. Maybe they'll revise the Dragon profile sometime.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/10/soyuz-ms17-ultrafast...

⬐ robbiet480

My understanding is that if they had launched yesterday as originally planned it would’ve taken only 8 hours to get to ISS.

⬐ solaris00

This was just answered in the coast phase broadcast:

Including a break for sleep is also a large factor in this profile given the time of day of today's launch.

⬐ m0zg

I can't imagine sleeping under these circumstances. I'd probably be pumped so full of adrenaline, I wouldn't be able to sleep for a week.

⬐ crazyjncsu

Ambien. Members of SEAL team 6 actually napped on the helicopter ride to take out Bin Laden: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/ho...

⬐ myrandomcomment

Humans are amazing in our ability to adapt to the new normal. I was of the same mind of how the heck could you do this, however my body learned when I was in the military to sleep whenever it could under circumstances that I would have never consider possible until it became the new normal. Years latter I had the pleasure of teaching my wife to sky dive. On the ride up to altitude I would close my eyes and nap she was a bundle of nervous energy. She said it freaked her out, I just smiled. The average humans ability to adapt is key to our success as a species. In the end, I did nothing special, I just adapted to survive.

⬐ skykooler

That would depend on whether the Falcon 9 has enough delta-V to do a plane change maneuver like the Soyuz does. Otherwise, launch windows would be months apart.

⬐ thamer

Scott Manley posted a great video a few weeks ago explaining the differences between the ways SpaceX and Soyuz do their orbital insertion and rendez-vous with the ISS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUi0yWc5Dnw

⬐ gdy

It's a bit incorrect -- Soyuz is using Russian-made rendezvous system Kurs-NA since 2016. Ukrainian-made Kurs system is obsolete.

⬐ NikolaeVarius

TLDW: First stage recaptured, nominal orbital insertion, 24 hours until autonomous docking.

⬐ ilyagr

Good place to follow the launch, will probably run until docking: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/ju7fxv/

⬐ m0zg

Flawless work. And to think that just a year ago the United States did not have the ability to deliver humans to the orbit, and now it not only has this ability, but also has it at a record breaking low cost, and it'll only get better from here on out.

⬐ Tepix

Your post is misleading on so many levels:

* It was not a flawless launch, there were (minor) issues.

* NASA's inability to deliver humans into orbit was a temporary one

* Technological advances are not a given, as both the past shows and Elon Musk is saying all the time.

⬐ NikolaeVarius

NASA still does not have the ability to send humans into orbit.

Its literally the point of commercial crew

⬐ baq

goal post moving at its finest.

⬐ m0zg

Your post, on the other hand, is facepalm inducing. Best I can tell NASA _still_ doesn't have the ability to deliver humans into orbit due mostly to bureaucracy and neglect. They purchase it from SpaceX. And to call a launch where everything went darn near perfect, 4 people were inserted into orbit and the first stage landed smack dab in the middle of the barge anything less than flawless is pedantic to the extreme. #3 is mind reading, so I won't even address it.

⬐ Tepix

They outsourced the development of this capability to two companies, one of them is able to deliver now. To me that sounds as if they can deliver people into orbit.

Regarding the flaws, well I woke up, checked twitter (the launch was a few hours earlier) and the first 20 tweets or so were about two flaws that had since been fixed. Clearly it wasn't flawless. It was a great launch for sure but calling it flawless is just wrong.

⬐ m0zg

"Outsourcing" is when you own the resulting IP. That is not the case here, so SpaceX is not "outsourcing".

⬐ plasma

The interior of the spacecraft definitely looks “modern” with those large screens like Tesla’s for heads up display.

⬐ app4soft

Intro Music from the Race Into Space may be the best SpaceX Crew-1 liftoff OST (and Final Music as OST for Falcon 9 stage landing).[0,1]

P.S. Crew-1 Live discussion thread on r/SpaceXLounge.[2]

[0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1328132147014721537

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/raceintospace/files/

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/juuthn/crew1_...

⬐ randrews543

Awesome achievement for SpaceX! So excited for what is in store for space travel the several decades

⬐ mlindner

Link to the next stream here for in-flight that is already live: https://youtu.be/eVB02SSeqgQ

⬐ gregoriol

I'm wondering what would be the procedure if that giant mosquito we saw at about 2:45:10 went inside the capsule (before closing of the hatch, or if discovered after!)

⬐ holler

in case you want to live discuss I also posted to sqwok

https://sqwok.im/p/QGSQH214bPZbBQ

⬐ option

If Elon succeeds in his mission on making humans multi-planetary species (an enormously huge IF), he will be remembered as the greatest human who has ever lived for a very long time.

⬐ hvdfhbj

In the long term I'm thinking that planets are the wrong approach. If you're going to get a significant fraction of the human race living off Earth you'll need to build something nicer than Earth, and Mars doesn't cut it.

Giant ring-shaped space stations like the orbitals in the Culture series seem like the way to go. You can build enough of them for a population of trillions simply by disassembling the moon, and build them with climate, gravity and aesthetics that are pleasing to humans.

Mars is probably a necessary first step, but it's small fry.

⬐ Tepix

Getting the cost of transport into space down by several orders of magnitude with full reuseability is the achievement.

⬐ nine_k

Being outside of control of any government on Earth would be a strong enough magnet for some.

Remember how people on Mayflower were not going for more daily comfort.

⬐ mandeepj

> If you're going to get a significant fraction of the human race living off Earth you'll need to build something nicer than Earth

that's what Blue Origin is working-on but their timeline is unsure to me :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Uyfqi_TE8

⬐ mrspeaker

How long has he lived?

⬐ credit_guy

Elon Musk may or may not know it yet, but his biggest contribution to humankind will not be that the Starship will take us to Mars, or that Tesla will help us shake off the dependency on fossil fuels. His biggest contribution will be to bring the end of the MAD world. The Mutually Assured Destruction world in which the majority of the living people were born, and never thought it will ever end.

You see, in the '80s the US had a missile defense idea called Brilliant Pebbles [1]. Basically they would put about 10k to 100k small missiles in orbit and these missiles would detect ICMB launches and go and destroy them. The problem was the economics of the system. It was simply too expensive. And because of that it was very easy to counter it: it was cheaper to build a few additional ICMBs than to add the necessary "pebbles" to neutralize them.

But SpaceX changed this calculus. It's now much easier to put things in LEO. And it will become cheaper still. It is very likely that in 10 years the Brilliant Pebbles will become economical. And if they do, they become obligatory. Because it will be only a matter of time until Russia (or maybe China) builds the capability of cheap space launches that will match SpaceX. And if they do, and build the Brilliant Pebbles first, then the US will find itself in a very unenviable position.

So in a very near future someone from the Pentagon will approach Elon Musk with an offer he won't be able to refuse. And why would he? Being part of the thing that ends the MAD will be certain to net him a Nobel Prize for Peace. And he will definitely be worth it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles

⬐ erklik

Isn't this essentially triggering another arms race? The US finding a way to way counteract MAD means that the nukes China, Russia, etc have are all useless in an attack against US meaning now there is an arms race to develop something that can fight against the "Brilliant Pebbles" which will the force the US to come up with something that fights against that and so on.

MAD has allowed for peace in our time. Yes, the world has problems but its significantly better now than before. Maybe its best to remain in this condition.

⬐ dkdk8283

I think we’ve always been in an arms race. Sometimes it’s money and not lives or power but we’re always struggling to one up everyone else.

⬐ erklik

Sure. But we aren't building more nukes. Breaking MAD means breaking the one fundamental principle/fact that has truly meant peace for quite a few years now. If we could maintain or improve this level so that wars are much less commonplace, that might just mean that we as a species might be able to move on from this petty warfare and actually work together.

⬐ garmaine

Uh, we are: https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/02/04/t...

⬐ ceejayoz

Not really. These are older warheads with a dialed-down yield. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W76

⬐ credit_guy

An arms race is a problem if it drains the resources of both participants. But the situation is so unequal here that this "arms race" would be more akin to a checkmate in one. Imagine this arms race would force both Russia and the US to invest $100BN more annualy in nuclear weapons. That would be economically devastating for Russia (who has a current defense budget of about $65 BN), and it would barely register for the US, with a current defense spending of $700 BN.

⬐ ekianjo

> Isn't this essentially triggering another arms race

Where did you get the impression that arms races ever stop?

⬐ m_mueller

If orbit gets weoponized to counter ICBMs it just sounds to me like midrange missiles from subs and allied countries are going to have a rennaissance. Basically the clock is going to reset back to the 60s. Then, ICBMs are probably going to get their own defenses against pebbles so you'd need more and more of those, until orbit is so full that space becomes inaccessible (Kessler syndrome).

⬐ cameldrv

And then then our adversaries build endoatmospheric hypersonic weapons and robotic doomsday submarines and nuclear powered cruise missiles (all of which Russia is doing or has done), and we're back to square one.

⬐ credit_guy

Best answer to my admittedly wild hypothesis. Yes, this would be the correct response from Russia. But it's quite likely the US would find that a much easier thing to deal with than the ICBMs (and SLBMs) were for the last 60 years.

1. Hypersonic weapons. They don't have enough range. The Russian officials claim the Kh-101 missile has a range of 4500km, but it's more likely it's about 1500 km. That's quite bad, but defenses can be set up 2. 100 MT TNT autonomous submersible drones. To have their purported devastating effect, they need to blow up close to the shore, otherwise they don't create a huge tsunami. It's not a slam dunk that the Russians are able to sneak in such a drone close to the US shores. 3. Nuclear powered cruise missiles. They do have the range, and they appear quite scary. If Russia makes advances in this, it would be a benefit for humankind, as this technology could be used in space exploration. The MAD doctrine could be alive and well, but we'd end up with a powerful new tool in our toolbox for exploring the Solar system. Elon Musk would not be very upset.

⬐ novaleaf

ICBMs are old hat. Expect hypersonic scramjets to ratchet things up a notch. A country will have less than a 5 minute window to press their red button in the event of an alert. Not looking forward to this.

⬐ blackrock

Get a robot to monitor your sky defense network.

⬐ garmaine

Hypersonic weapons are slower than ICBMs btw. You’re not comparing apples-to-apples.

⬐ dogma1138

Reducing the cost of putting things into orbit also changes the economics of direct kinetic weapons in space.

That said I think people overestimate how much the US and Russia actually strive to destroy each other militarily.

And in general arms races aren’t a good thing, you build a missile shield your enemy builds a better missile.

⬐ yellow_lead

What about submarines? Can a LEO missile hit a nuke launched from a submarine off the coast of New York in time to stop it?

⬐ jacobush

Maybe, if you had a string of pearls of LEO missiles orbiting above New York at all times.

But you might as well have land based anti-aircraft nukes, I guess. (Shooting nukes with nukes.)

⬐ bigbubba

The potential for ABM systems to actually neutralize their ICBMs is probably why Russia is developing nuclear powered (and armed of course) torpedoes and cruise missiles.

⬐ dragonwriter

That doesnt make sense for the torpedoes, which aren't a replacement for ICBM/SLBMs. It's plausible for the cruise missiles, which can replace SLBM/ICBMs in the strategic strike role.

⬐ bigbubba

I believe the torpedoes are intended as retaliation weapons. In theory they have the range of ICBMs, though can only attack coastal targets and are obviously orders of magnitude slower. They've spent a whole hell of a lot of money on these, including building the world's longest submarine (the K-329 Belgorod, which seems to be an Oscar-II given the stretch limo treatment) to carry these torpedoes. They may also be planning on creating 'silos' for these torpedoes on the floor of the Arctic Ocean.

⬐ new_realist

Submarines can launch nuclear cruise missles that can annihilate a country without requiring that they pass through space.

⬐ recuter

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..

⬐ ceejayoz

I'd expect such a system to severely ramp up tensions during development. "Our nukes are about to be useless, and theirs will work fine" is not a great thought to have in an adversary's mind for a 5-10 year period.

⬐ dogma1138

This is also is in line with the Russian objection to the the US wanting to convert some of their SSBNs to fire conventional warheads, to paraphrase their response “we won’t be wasting time trying to figure out what was launched and where is it heading”.

⬐ avmich

Unlikely. Russia's SS-18, a.k.a. Voevoda, a.k.a. Satan, a.k.a. R-36 - a big liquid fuel ICBM - are also known as Dnepr, a launcher which worked in Kosmotras. USA didn't have a problem with that.

⬐ dogma1138

Eh? We’re talking about launching Trident from a sub with a conventional warhead instead of a nuke.

There is a huge difference between using an ICBM as a SLV platform and using your nuclear triad.

⬐ aazaa

Amazing how normal this is all starting to seem. A private company sends a crew into space. The re-usable booster lands Buck Rogers-style on a robotic boat - without a hitch.

⬐ agumonkey

One of the nicest normalization of the decade I think.

⬐ nerdface

I read some of the NASA books recently and you’d think things are going without a hitch and yet hundreds of anomalies happen along the way that the casual observer simply didn’t see.

⬐ TaylorAlexander

A good example is the one we did see today - they closed the dragon hatch and noticed a very small leak during a pressure test. So they opened the hatch back up and inspected it for “FOD” (I think foreign object debris). They found some piece of FOD, removed it, and closed the hatch again. Then the pressure test passed. I did not see the debrief where they said they’d talk more about what they found. But needless to say they are checking and fixing so many tiny and big things I’m sure.

⬐ skissane

There was another anomaly after launch – Thermal Control System (TCS) loop pressure spike. They decided it was not a serious issue and to continue in spite of it.

⬐ grecy

Although it does have to be fixed before they can dock to the ISS, so they're working it right now.

Flight rules say they can't approach the ISS unless they have 2/4 propellant heaters working, and right now they only have 1/4.

EDIT: On the livestream they just said they fixed it.

⬐ jbay808

Earlier in the launch prep, they mentioned how much attention was being placed to the integrity of the seals of the zippers on their space suits, since they'd be required in the event of a cabin depressurization.

And shortly after I could see that, yes, they had good reason for these detailed precautions.

⬐ Jaruzel

> attention was being placed to the integrity of the seals of the zippers on their space suit

IIRC during the DEMO-1 launch, the two astronauts mentioned that their suit zippers were not fully fastened and there were minor suit pressure leaks.

⬐ inquirerofsorts

My brother is a commercial pilot and I think many people would be terrified of how many issues routinely arise on a normal flight if they were told about them. When everything double/triple redundancy and procedures are so regimented it rarely warrants mention and causes undue worry.

In contrast a flight with no engineering issues through heavy weather and turbulence would have many in the cabin stressed.

⬐ randyrand

all things norminal!

⬐ tenpies

See I consider it a non-issue because I largely consider SpaceX to be a government company. All the grants, financing, and their largest contracts - all government. Without government, SpaceX would literally not exist.

So in my mind they're as "private" as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, or Boeing; meaning sure, the government doesn't own the company shares, but they are de-facto extensions of the US government and would die if the government wanted them to cease to exist.

The truly amazing things for me with SpaceX are: Elon Musk is somehow allowed to have a role despite ties to China and a behavioural history that would make anyone else ineligible, and the fact that they are intentionally staying privately-owned in order to keep financials out of the public realm.

⬐ xfitm3

It very well could be characterized as a government institution but the structure frees the company from the bureaucracy that has kept NASA stagnant.

For example NASA is running low on mission ready space suits. This delayed the first all female spacewalk[1] because there weren't enough medium sized suits available although a SpaceX ISS supply mission failure did contribute to the delay[2].

It's extremely expensive to refurbish these suits and a new design has been in R&D for a long time. Russia has kicked the USA's ass in this regard[3].

NASA has done a lot of good for humanity but I can't help but feel it's overburdened with politics and featherbedding.

I didn't know anything about NASA and space suits until I read this: https://www.businessinsider.com/why-nasa-spacesuits-so-expen...

NASA report: https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-17-018.pdf

[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/03/26/706779637/nasa-scraps-first-a...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/29bf226917954d6e9358b01e83d3a6f5

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlan_space_suit#Models

⬐ simonh

Government institutions are managed and run by the government. That's what makes them government institutions. SpaceX is neither managed nor run by the government.

But more broadly, suppose I accept your characterisation. What does that say about SpaceX that is interesting. Why is that particular approach to organisational taxonomy useful?

⬐ nickik

This is a very one sided interpretation.

First of all, its factually wrong. SpaceX would exist without the government. It got started without government money. It is equally false that SpaceX would not exist without government money.

SpaceX might have gone bankrupt without COTS contract, but at that time they had already proven the technology and in some form would have come back in some form.

During all of SpaceX existence government flights were never the majority of flights and SpaceX didn't fly for the DoD for a very long time. They had a huge backlog of commercial buissness.

> The truly amazing things for me with SpaceX are: Elon Musk is somehow allowed to have a role despite ties to China and a behavioural history that would make anyone else ineligible, and the fact that they are intentionally staying privately-owned in order to keep financials out of the public realm.

This points me towards the real reason for your arguments. You dislike Musk and thus if SpaceX is doing well and is private he is both responsible and has a lot of control and he gets credit.

What is truly shocking is that some people believe any of this would have happened without Musk, or that it would simply continue at the same rate without him. Great now we have SpaceX, so we can kick away Musk and continue to milk the golden goose.

You claim that anybody else would not ineligible is just nonsense, nothing he has done would disqualify any other buissness owner from working for the government. The same goes for his relationship with China.

The reality is that SpaceX and their ability to innovate is what saved NASA, all of NASA internal development have been major shit-shows for the last couple of decades and it was SpaceX that made space popular again.

Even within NASA the type of contracting they are now doing with SpaceX was very controversial, but once COTS started happening slowly most of NASA was converted to this being a better way to do buissness that has now been adopted for a huge amount of new programs and has foster in the US the most innovative private space industry in the world by far.

SpaceX has profited from government money, but the government has profited 10x as much from SpaceX ability to actually get shit done. Non of that would have happened if SpaceX was 'just' part of the government or if it made sense to think think of them like that. They are different organizations with different culture working on different things and sometimes work together.

⬐ electriclove

Agreed!

Equating SpaceX to LM, Raytheon, Boeing just shows how much the parent doesn't understand that SpaceX is disrupting the industry. And it is definitely due to Musk whether you like him or not.

⬐ kevin_thibedeau

The incumbents will do everything possible to avoid paying for their own R&D. Nobody is subsidizing SpaceX's starship development.

⬐ ekianjo

> So in my mind they're as "private" as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, or Boeing; meaning sure, the government doesn't own the company shares, but they are de-facto extensions of the US government and would die if the government wanted them to cease to exist.

Ridiculous, as numerous industries depend from investment in Space anyway to launch satellites - private companies would survive even if there was no government involvment.

⬐ joefourier

That's a bit disingenuous. There is a huge difference between being a government institution, and having the government as a customer. At the end of the day, the US government is not in charge of the engineering approach, the exact specifications, the type of projects SpaceX chooses to work on beyond the contracts it accepts, or how it conducts research and development. If SpaceX chooses to spend its profits on crazy projects like digging tunnels because the CEO is sick of LA traffic, that is entirely within their right.

Sure SpaceX would not have survived without government funding, but neither would it without private capital. The original Falcon and its engines were completely privately funded, and both NASA as well as private capital contributed several billion dollars. Falcon Heavy was privately financed, and Starship only recently received fairly minor funds from NASA.

⬐ erklik

I honestly think this is a great model for other greenfield technologies, that further humanity but wouldn't be profitable enough at the start for the capitalistic system to move into it.

I truly believe this is how we will have to solve the anthropological climate change problem. It will have to be the government that grants, finances, and provides contracts for the private sector to build various carbon sequestering tech. Why I think the government should provide contracts to the private sector is because it seems like that allows for the private sector to maintain its efficiency and ensure the bureaucracy doesn't sink the whole thing.

⬐ joefourier

There is a vast difference between being a government agency and having the government as a customer. NASA has no say on SpaceX's engineering practices, the exact specifications beyond specified in the contract, or whether or not a senator's favourite supplier is used for certain parts. At the end of the day, SpaceX can choose to spend its profits however it pleases, whether that it on a stainless steel giant rocket or digging tunnels because the CEO is tired of sitting in traffic, without needing approval from any politician.

You also would do well to read up on the details of SpaceX's financing. Private capital has contributed several billions to its funding - just earlier this year, they raised $1.9 billion. Several projects were entirely privately funded, including Falcon 1 and its engines, Falcon Heavy and until recently, Starship. Government funding is of a similar magnitude of course, but it is disingenuous to say it comprises the entirety of SpaceX's finances.

As another poster said, just NASA's choice of using commercial operators (including Boeing) was hugely controversial, drawing skepticism even from Neil Armstrong and other astronauts. It's a massive departure from the previous approach where NASA would design the overall vehicle and subcontract portions of it to different subcontractors; instead, they're paying for a complete package that is owned by a private corporation that designed everything on their own down to the spacesuits.

⬐ greedo

While I agree largely with most of your points, NASA does have a lot of say in SpaceX's engineering practices. If you read up on the certification process and especially the reviews after the various failures (Crew Dragon tests), SpaceX had to get NASA sign off. Now as long as SpaceX can show that doing something with XYZ works fine, then they can do XYZ.

⬐ simonh

NASA has to sign it off so yes they do have input into engineering practices in that sense, but they do not have any say in the design itself or how SpaceX reach the engineering criteria. They set the goals, but not the methods of achieving them.

⬐ davidhyde

All the more important for SpaceX to keep the masses impressed and interested which they seem to be doing a good job of. The Apollo program died party because people lost interest.

> "And Apollo was a victim of its own success. For laymen, one moon landing after another was a little boring." Ref. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4204/ch22-8.ht...

⬐ gregoriol

That's actually true: I used to watch the first landings, but not anymore. Recently watched Demo-1 and the last Heavy, but not sure if I'll watch any other until something really new happens

⬐ irjustin

Starship is coming!