Interview with Neil Armstrong

[Sir T]

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/neil-armstrong-breaks-his-silence-to-give-accountants-moon-exclusive.php

Very cool interview. He hardly ever gives interviews so this is something to treasure.

[K9]

Awesome, thanks.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks for that link.

It is frustrating to me that our technology seems to be progressing almost exponentially, yet we have utterly stopped exploring.  All that awesomeness of that part of the 60's era is simply gone.  It just seems like we don't do anything that won't make us money.  I suppose the whole space race can be summed up to a "whose dick is bigger" contest if you boil down the parts, but I'd like to think it was more than that. 

[Sky]

The era of cowboy space exploration is on hiatus. The hurdles to putting a man on Mars are insanely high, it's just not worth the investment vs unmanned missions.

But exploration? We're doing more and better exploration than we ever have. We've got some amazing eyes and ears out and about returning ground-breaking data.

[Yegolev]

It was more than dick waving, sure, at least for the space-race in general.  It was to see who could build the biggest rocket in the shortest time; point being if we could put 200 pounds of meat in orbit, we could hit Moscow with a bomb.  Today's wars are all with small-time nations full of brown people, no need to build a space elevator or a Mars colony to show we can occupy a desert and mine its resources.

[Morat20]

Thanks for that link.

It is frustrating to me that our technology seems to be progressing almost exponentially, yet we have utterly stopped exploring.  All that awesomeness of that part of the 60's era is simply gone.  It just seems like we don't do anything that won't make us money.  I suppose the whole space race can be summed up to a "whose dick is bigger" contest if you boil down the parts, but I'd like to think it was more than that. 

Space flight is hard, it has pretty low margins for error, and if you don't want to spend astronaut lives like water it's expensive as fuck just to raise a pound to low earth orbit.

It hasn't gotten any easier, really, since Apollo. Materials technology is a bit better, but not that much better -- we're still using aluminum and titanium alloys. Fuel? We're still using the same shit we used in the 50s -- liquid oxygen and hydrogen, kerosene (well, some varient), and solid rocket fuel that hasn't really changed formulation in 30 years.

It's a pretty hefty wall. We brute forced it to get where we are now, but the last few decades there hasn't been the resources for a brute force "solve it via liberal application of insane amounts of money" solution. So we've gone incremental, focusing on what we could afford. (NASA's budget has been peanuts for the last 3 decades, and ISS ate up half that).

We're trying to do it cheaper now, trying to make it a private industry, but they're running into the same problems. No new materials, no new fuels, and the paradigm is still 'rocket'. Which means the only way to do 'cheaper' is cut corners. You can make a case that NASA, or the DOD is too top heavy and risk adverse -- which is costly.

But you can't cut corners too fine in space travel, because of that tiny margin for error. I'm looking forward to the next SpaceX launch though! I've heard some rumors about the tank they're supposed to be using. They have a...unique...approach, apparently. NASA would never fly the tank that's supposedly up next, for reasons I tend to view as "fucking sane". Maybe SpaceX knows something NASA doesn't, or else they're just going with cross their fingers. (Or, more likely, they'll downcheck the tank.).

There's been some good shit out of space, but it just isn't easy and until we develop some miracle alloy or a new way of getting to orbit that isn't "rocket" it's going to remain costly.

[Sir T]

Really to be serious about shifting crap into space in a regular fashion you are talking about a space elevator. But... um you can only build those at the equator. So, even the first problem is getting a place to put it there you can be fairly sure that the locals wont decend into civil war inside 50 years. And that's even before you get down to thinking about the engineering of something like that.

So, until we figure that out, rockets are what we have to go on. But even on that the cost of one aircraft carrier would keep Nasa going for years. Its really amazing what they have done with the little money they have.

[Morat20]

Space elevator isn't doable -- materials again. Carbon nano-tubes in a particular matrix can handle the (theoretical) stresses involved, but no one has been able to make them in sufficient length. (You need fibers about a foot long. The best anyone has done has been two or three inches, and it costs a fuckton).

There's a lot of other serious engineering problems, but they're probably solveable. The materials issue? There's no way around it. Strength, flexibility, toughness, repairability (it needs to be able to be repaired -- IN USE -- to full functioning), weight....

Once you've got one, making other space elevators is cheap. The first one's a bitch and a half even once they have a material. You try launching a 26,000 km thread into orbit, keeping it safe from impacts and high winds until you weave the fucker a foot wide.

[CmdrSlack]

I still have my towel, just in case I need it.

[Obo]

I'm looking forward to the next SpaceX launch though! I've heard some rumors about the tank they're supposed to be using. They have a...unique...approach, apparently. NASA would never fly the tank that's supposedly up next, for reasons I tend to view as "fucking sane". Maybe SpaceX knows something NASA doesn't, or else they're just going with cross their fingers. (Or, more likely, they'll downcheck the tank.).

The CRS1 fight?

Can't wait to see the Grasshopper tests, that will be pretty insane...
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/205723666590334976/photo/1/large

[edit] Actually I suppose you mean grasshopper, I just didn't see it flying before august.

[Morat20]

I think so. To be honest, I was tuning out the meeting until the SpaceX stuff came up -- specifically the tank issues. Mostly because my job has (finally) trained my ears to be alert to words revolving around materials stress. (Way out of my league, but our software is heavily involved in it and is used widely by the space and air industries. And some other folks, but I hear our pressure models are overly specialized).

There was a description of the tank, which was fucking frightening -- a comment that their last expert on a certain form of molding pressurized tanks had quit (friction stirred? Fuck if I can remember the term) -- and the description of the tank as "doublers from hell".

Apparently it's welded and spot-welded in a LOT of places NASA wouldn't tolerate (they'd permanently down-check the tank for flight). Worse yet, they're having some material stresses on and around the welds they couldn't figure out, so they bored out samples-- through the goddamn tank. And then plugged it.

So, to wit: Their next flight tank is -- according to what is entirely unsourced rumor, but from a guy who usually says good stuff about SpaceX (so I doubt he's lying, but someone might have lied to him. Except about the one specialist leaving. Everyone knew he quit a month or so back) -- the tank is welded in a lot of odd places, it's had fucking bores punched all the way through then plugged (shove a cork in it, epoxy it in place, and then put doublers -- kinda like plates -- over it inside and out), and it's apparently being readied for flight.

Personally? If that's true, the sane thing to do is destructively test the fucker to figure out their stress problems and fix it with the next tank. NOT to fly it.

I'm having a hard time believing it. It seems a real roll of the dice, and SpaceX really doesn't need a blatant failure at this juncture.

[Obo]

Yeah, they use friction stir welding. I seem to recall about a year ago there was an issue with welds on the second stage on the F9 that just flew this week, which may have accounted for some of the delay. There were also issues with engine nozzle de-lamination.
I follow most spaceflight stuff on nasaspaceflight.com. They have a lot of insider info from NASA and the like behind their paywall, but it eventually works its way out to the public forums or their articles. I hadn't noticed anything mentioned recently (but I don't subscribe, so there may be something).

I know the next F9 is ready and waiting at the Cape for the first cargo resupply mission (now that the demo is more or less done); it's just waiting for its Dragon.

[pxib]

I've been recommending this piece to a lot of folks lately:

This brings us back to the compelling narrative that our evolutionary ancestors finned their way out of the water, so it is only natural—nay, inevitable—that we will wing our way off the planet. When creatures crawled out of the water to inhabit the land, it was to reap the unbelievable vegetative bounty of the land, free of the threat of predation. No bounty of food or sense of safety tugs us into space. It’s quite the opposite on both fronts, in fact. We live on the bounty right now.

Ideas of terraforming Mars must be seen in a new light given the challenge revealed by global warming. Compared to pre-industrial levels, we have a 100 part-per-million (0.01%) CO2 problem in our atmosphere that has us completely stymied. Crudely speaking, Mars has a one-million part-per-million (100%) problem with its atmosphere. As much trouble as we are having mitigating climate change with unfettered access to all the resources on Earth, what hope would we have of turning around a place like Mars with no infrastructure to rely upon?

As the more poetic post he links comments, we need things like SpaceX just to keep our current orbital infrastructure operating without having to ask the Russians for a lift. A space elevator or a mission to Mars are, at this moment, almost as hypothetical as Dr. Banzai's trip to the 8th dimension.

Armstrong is absolutely right when he focuses on the educational inspiration that the space program provided rather than the specifics of the engineering involved. Kids grew up dreaming of being famous scientists and astronauts the way that they dream of being sports stars and rock stars today. It's that which we have to recapture, not the rockets that happened to do it last time. We need something new that makes wide-eyed kids strive to be brilliant and imaginative rather than merely fast and pretty.

[Morat20]

Yeah, they use friction stir welding.

That's what it was. Their last expert on that vacated a month or so back and was cracking jokes about how many doublers they had slapped on their tank. Anyways, the room was full of materials guys (half of them experts in how they crack and break) and they were shocked -- like could-not-believe -- that SpaceX had cored a weld, all the way through the pressure vessel, to diagnose it, and then just glued a plug in place and added some doublers and called it a day.

They're not using any exotic materials for the tank (an aluminum alloy, same as everyone else) so that's just begging for problems when the sucker pressurizes. Each bored hole creates a stress pattern that no one fully understands, unpressurized or pressurized.

There was some back or forth on whether that was really a flight tank and whether or not they'd really done it.

OTOH, SpaceX is a remarkably young company. :) They simply refused to hire anyone with DoD experience. (They couldn't avoid NASA experience, but they could darn well avoid military stuff). I got to admit, the DoD guys don't take a shit without creating a specifications worksheet and a panel to handle recommendations. SpaceX didn't really want that mindset.

[Merusk]

Of course not.. that costs money and creates a paper trail. Two things you really want to avoid as a private company.. particularly if one of your failures can burn down a suburb.

[Morat20]

Of course not.. that costs money and creates a paper trail. Two things you really want to avoid as a private company.. particularly if one of your failures can burn down a suburb.

Eh, I agree with SpaceX that DoD is too much one way.

OTOH, they're neglecting the reasons that NASA itself is rather top-heavy in that respect -- because NASA launches people and "dead workers" at a private company don't shut down business the way "dead astronauts" shut down NASA. NASA was quite good with "cheaper, faster, expendable" if there werem't people on board. (of course, they went a bit too far and had to move back to "cheaper, but not so cheap we're not actually paying a lot of attention to what amounts to really delicate work").

Dead workers is, in the private world, the cost of doing business. It happens. Some jobs are dangerous. Being an astronaut? You're a test pilot. Every time. Rockets never go into production, they never stop being experimental vehicles on the bleeding edge of what technology can do. But dead astronauts aren't acceptable to the American public (whereas dead test pilots are unnoticed, for the most part. Experimental aircraft are dangerous. Unless they're rockets, apparently).

So I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX happily cuts corners NASA considers unacceptable. NASA is pretty human-launched focused, since they spun off unmanned awhile back. (Other than handling the actual launches. After all, why not let the company that builds them handle everything else. It's not like they need NASA breathing over their shoulder to launch an insured Delta V for the one millionth time).

And I fully agree with cutting some of the DoD corners. I'm just hoping -- because really, a lot of things are riding on SpaceX besides investors money  -- that SpaceX hasn't gone too far the other way.

My most powerful memory of spaceflight, the most telling thing I ever saw, was at the Saturn V museum. It was ten minutes of rockets taking off and blowing up in ludicrous ways. I mean "can't even get past the gantry" stuff, all from the late 40s and 50s as we struggled to get the damn things to, you know, work.

Rockets in concept are simple. In practice, it's sticking something on top of a stick of dynamite and hoping a ridiculously complex machine can channel the explosion properly with pretty much zero room for mechanical or engineering failure.

[Furiously]

Rockets are expensive because you have a paper trail for where every bolt comes from. Where the titanium came from for that bolt. And destructive testing on a 2nd copy of the finished item. For airplanes you generally have redundant systems. For manned space flight you have triple redundant systems for most things.

[Morat20]

Rockets are expensive because you have a paper trail for where every bolt comes from. Where the titanium came from for that bolt.

MANNED rockets have that paper trail.

Unmanned ones don't, but the cost savings per pound to orbit is not that much lower. Shuttle runs up to 10,000 dollars per pound, unmanned lift vehicles range from 5000 to 8000 per pound. The heavier the load or the higher it goes, the more expensive because heavier lift vehicles are inherently more complex because they're still using fuels with similar properties. (X amount of fuel generates ~Y amount of thrust, which means to lift more you need more fuel -- which must also be lifted some distance).

Only unmanned one I've heard of recently with anything remotely like that sort of paper trail was a 3 billion dollarish DoD launch. Government self-insures, so to speak, and it was 3 billion dollars of whatever-the-fuck-it-was.

And destructive testing on a 2nd copy of the finished item. For airplanes you generally have redundant systems. For manned space flight you have triple redundant systems for most things.

Again, manned only. You don't think the guys churning out Delta's are doing that for every rocket, do you? They're not. SpaceX isn't for their unmanned.

That sort of traceability and testing is only required for manned launches, because NASA literally cannot afford astronaut deaths. It shuts down their entire manned program for years each time it happens, and not because NASA isn't aware that space flight is risky. Because Congress and the American public want it that way. Astronaut deaths are unacceptable, ergo NASA's man-rating requires metric fuck-tons of backups, traceability, and testing for every little bit and piece. (And still a HUGE amoung of shit slips through. Then again, that's life. And doing what you can gives better odds than washing your hands of it entirely and leaving it up to luck).

[Furiously]

You don't think they did static and destructive testing of rockets before they sent them up for the first time?

[Sir T]

You don't think they did static and destructive testing of rockets before they sent them up for the first time?

I have no idea if they did or not. And that scares the shit out of me.

But to be fair to NASA, their recent astronout deaths were the utterly worst type of deaths from a PR point of view. I mean look at Challanger. They ran a nationwide competition to go up in the shuttle, the woman was on every news broadcasters, the launch was on live TV and then you got to see her friends and family stop celebrating and look on in horror in real time when Challanger exploded. It was the perfect storm of bad publicity.

Bot you are right, space exploration is extremely dangerous, and people should be taught to accept that. Space battles if they ever happen will be faught with drones from carriers as asking people to go out into vacumn with spacecraft will be met with crazy looks.

[Ghambit]

You don't think they did static and destructive testing of rockets before they sent them up for the first time?

Actually they never tested a single Apollo LEM engine before flight.  They burned once and that's it.  Kinda like a firework shell.

My opinion about NASA (as I've said before) is that the current direction is the right one.  Promoting cutting edge research (reminds me I wanted to check up on the new facility) with consulting for the private sector grunt work missions.  "Bleeding edge" manned stuff should be shunted to a pre-60's NASA model of a more military-type agency with bigdicked test pilots at the controls.  This nets less p.r. collateral damage and brings costs down a bit while pushing the limits in a viable fashion with crews that are built to do that.

Lockheed and the like are actually poised to take up the slack with this as much of their bleeding edge stuff is govt. contracted anyways, and therefore out of the public eye that NASA gets.  But there's no reason NASA couldnt make some "NASA skunk works" to take up the slack.

[Morat20]

Lockheed and the like are actually poised to take up the slack with this as much of their bleeding edge stuff is govt. contracted anyways, and therefore out of the public eye that NASA gets.  But there's no reason NASA couldnt make some "NASA skunk works" to take up the slack.

AS best I can tell, NASA is doing a great deal of theoretical and one-off stuff in much that fashion. Part of hte problem is budgetary -- NASA's budget is small, a large chunk goes straight to ISS and another large -- and quite invisible if you don't look carefully -- is flow-through to other governmental departments. It's research by "NASA" under "NASA" budget but it's really for DoD or DoE or FAA or whatnot. (Generally part of the money comes from the relevent governmental group, but not always).

On one hand, that keeps NASA afloat and too important for routine TeaParty-esque posturing to try to kill off. (They're all trying to ax the Department of Eduction or Energy anyways). But on the other, it's a sizeable amount of cash that doesn't go to anything like what the public views as NASA's mandate.

Right now NASA seems to be looking forward to finally clearing out the James Web telescope (damn that sucker too a lot more than they'd budgetted) and going back to research on next-gen launch options while letting SpaceX (or someone else) handle the headaches of resupply. After all, if it fails -- it costs NASA just as much money and problems, but they can blame SpaceX instead of ALSO dealing with a PR nightmare.

Any actual savings from SpaceX's "improved" processes is eaten up (and probably then some) by the costs they charge NASA, so at best it's a wash but at least NASA doesn't have to shut down for three years because a widget failed.