Will DARPAs New Space Shuttle Crush the SpaceX Grasshopper? (BA, LMT, NOC) image Will DARPAs New Space Shuttle Crush the SpaceX Gras... This experimental space plane promises to drop the price of satellite launches tenfold. - Rich Smith - Industrials View on fool Preview by Yahoo I dont think much of this article, and while the comments are more correct than the article itself, they are NOT error free either. SpaceX has tried softlanding in the ocean three times not two. And it has succeeded twice. And 97% of the delta-v required to softland was achieved during the first attempt. SpaceX appears to be using the KISS motto! Keep it simple stupid! SpaceX is landing like almost every 1950s sci-fi movie predicted we would. SpaceX is landing like Apollo 11 landed on the moon. SpaceX is doing veritcal landings just like the 1967 Bono Study predicted. Just like DC-X did several times. Just like several robotic craft have landed on mars. It would be fair to compare the DARPA XS-1 to the SpaceX Falcon 9 reusable first stage ONLY! But the history of mixing rockets and wings has not been good. In fact, its killed 14 astronauts on the Space Shuttle alone. And the Space Shuttle was sold to the taxpayer as a cheap reusable rocket that was going to dramatically lower the cost of space travel. AND IT DID NOT HAPPEN! SpaceX has a much better chance of succeeding as a rapidly reusable rocket than the space shuttle did however. The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage might be reusable 100 times. The SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage might be reusable somewhere between 10 and 100 times, but nobody knows for sure and they have not even tried it yet. It will require a re-entry and softlanding burns. SpaceX has claimed that the Dragon Crew Capsule might be reusable ten times. Adding up all that variable reusability of stages might add up to an average reusability factor of 50 for all the stages. Reducing the cost by a factor of 50 is still a breakthrough! I think SpaceX is at $1000 and pound to low earth orbit now and dividing that by 50 might mean launch wholesale costs will drop to $20 a pound. Thats about twice as expensive as airmail shipping costs. SpaceX could really become the FedEx of Space. This will change everything in the space world. Highly time critical items, like human organ transplants, could be shipped anywhere in the world in 90 minutes. Advertiser supported free Cable TV could become a reality. Worldwide Advertiser supported free Satellite Smartphone Service could become a reality. Colonizing Mars will happen. Colonizing the moon will happen. Colonizing the upper atmosphere of Venus will happen. Asteroid impact sites on the moon and mars will be mined, just like they are on earth already. Asteroids will be moved into the Earth Orbit Goldilocks zone and they will be converted into Massive Space stations with Earth like environments. Revelations 21:16 predicts a Borg-like Cube space colony, some 1400 miles long on an edge, will be the House of God. Resistance is futile, SpaceX will be assimilating us! But there are problems at SpaceX that transcend even Elon Musk. Silicon Valley has this dog eat dog Machiavellian mindset that says work your employees to death with 60 hour weeks, and bonus your top 10%, and fire your bottom 10% if they cant hack it. This mindset has destroyed Microsoft and other Silicon Valley bright lights. There has to be a balance between work hours and family hours if our American Way of life is to survive.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 20:29:26 +0000