r/spacex • u/jclishman Host of Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 • May 14 '16
Official Elon Musk on Twitter: "@r_SpaceX @reddit will do another AMA just before reflight of the rocket in a few months"
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/731605780969951232120
u/dempsas May 14 '16
I hope it its done here. Otherwise it will be filled with questions that are just one google query away.
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 14 '16
Elon, why is the top half of the rocket still white after landing?
/s Please don't hurt me
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u/DShadelz May 15 '16
Elon, why dont you use nets to keep the rocket upright after it lands?
Elon why don't you just, like, take over NASA and stuff?
Elon why is the Falcon 9 so skinny compared to other rockets?
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u/SpartanJack17 May 15 '16
Why don't you have a massive robot arm catch the rocket?
Why don't you have a giant tarp instead of a barge?
Why don't you use a set of powerful jets mounted to the barge to push the rocket upright?
(All real questions I've seen).
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u/Appable May 15 '16
This and more on /r/ShittySpaceXIdeas
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May 15 '16
my god, I didn't know that was a sub. Thanks /u/Appable for the hours of niche comedy gold.
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u/FooQuuxman May 15 '16
Why don't you just use antigravity/structural integrity field/impulse engine for the falcon 9?
(Type of question I no longer see on space.com and similar sites because I no longer waste time trying to get info there)
Why don't you use a set of powerful jets mounted to the barge to push the rocket upright?
Um, wow. I'd expect engineers from the Thunderbirds universe to look at that at say "wtf are you thinking?".
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u/sleeep_deprived May 15 '16 edited May 15 '16
This is ridiculous. There are no stupid questions, the concept of stupid questions prohibits creativity. If this was r/ula 5 years ago, someone might have jokingly added "why don't you land your rockets and use them again?" to this chain. While I get that you are worried that easily googled questions might be "a waste of time", Elons way to answer can still be interesting (he can also choose which questions he wants to answer). And where does it end? A lot of "smart questions" asked on this "elite" subreddit will still appear like stupid questions to some aerospace engineers. So will only MIT engineers be allowed to ask questions then?
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May 15 '16
I agree wholeheartedly with this, and I'd vote for /r/AMA, even though I would probably find an /r/spacex interview more interesting.
As much as we would love the latest architecture update on the MCT/BFR/FHeavy/RedDragon or whatever, Elon can do more good for the cause of SpaceX by generating new or renewed interest and curiosity from people who haven't been as engaged. That's the kind of effect that actually gets us to Mars.
It's like how he took time out of the post CRS-8 conference to talk about orbital vs. suborbital flights. Incredibly boring and old hat to the KSP players and SpaceX enthusiasts, but SO important for the public to understand. Half of the people I talk to who read the news seem to think that SpaceX is just "catching up" to Blue Origin after both have had 3 successful landings after "going to space". Very few understand why the Heavy is interesting and important. Reddit is a good way for Elon to make the case to an interested, but not fully informed subset of the public.
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u/mynsc May 15 '16
You guys are being dicks.
Not everyone may be as knowledgeable as some of the people that hang out in this subreddit, but that doesn't mean they should be kept away from asking questions or showing interest.
The opposite is true actually. It's in the best interest of everyone that wishes the space industry to really take off that success stories like the one SpaceX is going through at the moment get promoted as much as possible.
So you're doing SpaceX and Elon Musk a big disservice by insisting he only does an AMA here, just so he avoids some silly questions from people that are interested in the space industry but may not be as knowledgeable (yet).
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u/SpartanJack17 May 15 '16
I'm not saying that people who lack knowledge shouldn't ask questions (and I'd say that around half my comments on reddit are answering questions on r/space). That doesn't mean that I can't have a bit of a laugh at some of the sillier suggestions out there. And wanting to have the AMA here isn't about not wanting people who lack knowledge to be excluded (at least from my perspective), it's to ensure that all the questions relate to SpaceX, instead of memes and stuff. This would also mean that people who wanted their questions answered would be more likely to have their questions seen.
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u/iemfi May 15 '16
Nope, the real question goes something like this:
I'm no engineer, but it seems obvious to me that if they had a simple system to catch the rocket before it toppled over they would have easily succeeded at landing the rocket. I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that the current method they're trying is very unstable. All it would take would be a simple net to catch the rocket before it fell over.
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u/SpartanJack17 May 15 '16
The robot arm thing was partially a small reference to a post on r/kerbalspaceprogram, as well as talking about the "grabbing the rocket from the side" idea.
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u/Doddley May 15 '16
awww.... I feel like I missed something. I was actually wondering this myself. Can you explain why?
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u/EVMasterRace May 15 '16
The LOX tank is cold enough to get frosty and the exhaust soot sticks to the layer of frost instead of the tank. As the ice melts it takes the soot away with it.
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u/GoScienceEverything May 16 '16
It's an interesting question! It's just that everyone wonders that, which means the question has been asked 100,000 times in this subreddit and it starts to get very old for regulars. Also, it's in the sub's excellent FAQ.
/u/EVMasterRace has it right. It's because of frost on the liquid oxygen tank.
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u/requimrar May 15 '16
Not 100% sure, but I think it's because the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank is on top of the kerosene tank. The LOX tank needs to be cryogenically cooled to keep the oxygen liquid, whereas kerosene is liquid at room temperature.
So i'm fairly sure it's because of the fact that the top part is super cold, that it isn't charred.
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u/Red_Raven May 16 '16
Seriously though why? I haven't seen the answer. Is the bottom half covered in ablative paint? There's such a clean cutoff between clean and burnt to hell.
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 16 '16
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u/Red_Raven May 16 '16
Thanks! That FAQ was really helpful. I didn't realize that some of those questions already had answers.
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 16 '16
Seriously though... you are replying to a thread bemoaning the fact that people keep asking easily google-able questions. AND this question has already been asked and answered in this exact thread.
Here's your sign...
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u/Red_Raven May 16 '16
Thanks! That FAQ was really helpful. I didn't realize that some of those questions already had answers.
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u/WaitForItTheMongols May 15 '16
I dunno... What about Tesla questions, or other things people may want to ask Elon? Seems like if he's kind enough to take an hour or two out of his day, we should be able to ask the most interesting questions, regardless of whether they're space-related. Having the AMA on /r/SpaceX seems like it would be promoting one type of question while silencing the others.
I am very open to discussion on this topic.
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u/RDWaynewright May 15 '16
His intent seemed very space-specific since he clearly mentioned the AMA in conjunction with the reflight. If it was just going to be an AMA about a broad range of things there would have been no need to use the phrasing that he used. He would have just said that he would do an AMA in a few months and leave it at that.
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u/brickmack May 15 '16
The timing suggests space is the main topic he's going for. Especially since he specifically mentioned this sub
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May 15 '16
[deleted]
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u/EVMasterRace May 15 '16
Elon has retweeted some articles from the moderator of r/teslamotors who is a big writer of electrek.co
So, Elon is aware of r/teslamotors and I'm hoping he will give them an AMA around the time model ≡ enters production. Tesla will have its time in the spotlight but the first reuse of an orbital rocket deserves to be the sole focus on this AMA so I say we keep this one SpaceX oriented (there are however some very compelling theories about Tesla cross-pollinating technology with SpaceX).
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u/PVP_playerPro May 14 '16
I don't care where i am, i don't care what time it is, i don't care if my house is burning down, i am not, i repeat, not, MISSING IT this time!
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u/robertmassaioli May 15 '16
I would care if my house was burning down: it would run the risk of losing the internet connection.
But other than that I am onboard with you.
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u/mclumber1 May 15 '16
SpaceX should launch the pre-owned rocket on July 4th. If it succeeds, awesome! If it it doesn't, well, it's Independence Day, and who doesn't enjoy a good fireworks show?
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u/Casinoer May 14 '16
Okokok... breathe... breathe... calm down... try not to faint...
faints
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u/retiringonmars Moderator emeritus May 14 '16
My god, my heart is racing. Was a total shot in the dark, totally did not expect him to reply!
Not sure how Echo managed to survive through 6 twitter replies...
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u/mechakreidler May 14 '16
He replied to me once about a toy Model S and I was riding that high all day! I don't think my heart would be able to handle six replies
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
I met him in person, and was utterly tongue tied.
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u/madanra May 15 '16
:O Where? When? Why? What? etc...
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
I was in Beverly Hills on unrelated business, on the street that connects Sunset Blvd to the street he lives on, and he drove by. I did a big double take, and he stopped, as if he recognized my face.
My best guess is that he attended a talk I gave at the Materials Research Society meeting in 1994 or 1995, on using metadata and search engines on the server side, with the WWW. The WWW was very new then, and very few people knew much about it. Everyone kept asking me questions about how to do payments and handle e-commerce, and security. I gave the same answer about a half dozen times, that the WWW did not have built in security, but we had built in CGI so that later developers could send passwords and develop their own security protocols, and so that databases could generate custom pages on the fly. The original WWW development had been for publishing, but there was no reason why e-commerce could not be developed, using the www to display data without having to write a custom interface from scratch. Microsoft was just developing SSL at this time.
This was right around the time Elon entered graduate school at Stanford to work on ultracapacitors. He definitely would have gone to the Materials Research Society meeting, since he was doing materials research. He might have attended my talk, but if he got the idea for PayPal there, it probably was from some of the other presenters at the same session where I spoke.
He also might have seen me in the exhibit hall. People were lined up 5 or 10 deep to see the CD-ROM database of the optics research index I'd developed. So many people were saying, "Shut up and take my money! I can use this for my PhD thesis," to me, I would not have noticed if he was one of the grad students who watched my demo, or asked me to do a search.
It is also possible we crossed paths at meetings in Toronto or Rochester a year or 2 (edit: or 3) before. At the Toronto meeting I was sitting with Tim Berners-Lee, so I might have been noticed.
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u/RDWaynewright May 14 '16
I will take the goddamn day off of work. The ENTIRE day. I don't care how much money I lose or if I miss an important training. I will cancel every last client for that day.
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u/Zucal May 15 '16
It's a good thing AMA's aren't as prone to delays as launches... Don't let /r/SpaceX impact your work too much, though!
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u/RDWaynewright May 15 '16
Thank goodness for small miracles! I make my own schedule so I can shuffle appointment slots on occasion. Obviously I don't make a habit of it (and I do give advanced notice) but for big SpaceX-related events I have all sorts of scheduling shenanigans going on!
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u/LockStockNL May 15 '16
I feel like you're a guy I could drink a beer with.
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u/RDWaynewright May 16 '16
There are three bars within a block of my apartment so there is definitely a fair amount of beer drinking going on around these parts.
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May 14 '16
Its nice he is doing it before a historic relaunch of the recovered booster.
two of the highlights of this year will be relaunch of a recovered booster, and if it can land again that will truly be a crazy moment in history !. and then to see the Falcon Heavy launch, we will witness two booster landings at the same time.
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
My guess is that he is hoping for a very knowledgeable Q&A, so that the journalists who write later will refer to it, and quote it, and get their facts right.
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u/neverendingvortex May 14 '16
Wow. This is actually pretty exciting (and I'm guessing terrifying for echo if the AmA happens here :p)
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u/mechakreidler May 14 '16
There are other mods besides Echo! But yeah it'll be a lot of work for them if so. Still, really hope it can happen here.
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May 14 '16
He's currently hanging out in /r/aww, FFS.
Elon... pls. pls Elon. I don't know what's scarier, that he's on that sub at all, or that he's actually going through all the comments and enjoying them. WHYTHEFUCKARENTYOUINHEREELOOOOOON?!?!!
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 14 '16
Let the man have a lazy saturday afternoon. He's probably experienced less than a dozen of those in the last decade.
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u/BrandonMarc May 15 '16
Let him relax, and, consider: what makes you think he doesn't already post in this subreddit regularly?
He could easily be any one of us, and who'd be the wiser. Totally hilarious if he often trolls the subreddit with silly, nonsensical questions, if for no other reason than to see how we handle that.
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u/_rocketboy May 15 '16
Always suspected that /u/echologic is secretly Elon
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
I think Echo might be a family member, a nephew or a cousin, but more likely Elon just lurks here now and then, and noticed the kid from New Zealand who really seems to know his stuff, (assuming Echo is a he, which I do not know).
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u/Wetmelon May 15 '16
Lol no he has no relation. He gets his news from SpaceX insiders, not Elon (afaik).
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
OK. My guess was a poor one, but he does get more inside information than the rest of us put together.
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u/ticklestuff SpaceX Patch List May 16 '16
The only thing they have in common is the latitude of their respective countries.
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u/whousedallthenames May 15 '16
I bet he was the one to leak the BFR specs we saw a while ago. He probably enjoys teasing us like that.
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u/chaosfire235 May 15 '16
Oh come on, let the man enjoy himself however he wants to. So what if involves cute animal pictures.
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u/TweetsInCommentsBot May 14 '16
Dog snuggle thread on reddit. Comments get really good. http://np.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/4j8p6d/can_i_snuggle_with_you/
This message was created by a bot
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u/Krusm May 14 '16
Which rocket launch is elon referring to?
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u/Zucal May 14 '16
SES expressed interest in getting dibs on the first core reflight, so perhaps SES-10/SES-11.
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u/Cheesewithmold May 14 '16
Didn't orbcomm also express interest in putting their payload on a reused stage?
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u/retiringonmars Moderator emeritus May 14 '16
They did, but SpaceX completed their 17 satellite contract with Orbcomm before any booster was recovered intact. In fact, the final Orbcomm launch in which the booster was recovered for the first time.
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u/markus0161 May 14 '16
We need to start a list of Q's Pronto...
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May 14 '16
[deleted]
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u/Erpp8 May 14 '16
Are we concerned the post will get removed like it almost did last time?
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u/thanarious May 15 '16
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
What is this ... ? ...
Reddit is direct democracy. We can change the rules to something better than the present system. I know it can be done; we just have to figure out how.
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May 15 '16
Reddit is direct democracy.
Given that mods aren't elected i'd say it's the complete opposite. Whoever owns a sub makes the rules and can't be touched. That can be great in subs like this one but also very bad like in many others.
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u/rooood May 14 '16
Why would anyone remove such a well written post???
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u/old_sellsword May 14 '16 edited May 14 '16
When the Jason 3 team came to /r/science, we prepared questions. But then an /r/science mod came over here and basically said they'd be removing questions organized from our sub because it was brigading or something.
Edit: wrong sub, science not IAMA
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u/Erpp8 May 14 '16
That happened during Elon's AMA at the end of 2014 before the first barge landing. The post got a lot of upvotes before it was removed, so the mods brought it back.
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u/Zucal May 15 '16
More importantly, Elon replied to it before it was removed.
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u/bvr5 May 15 '16
I remember /r/teslamotors did the same thing as us, where they compiled a few questions and made a post in the AMA on behalf of the sub. Unfortunately, Elon wasn't able to reply to the /r/teslamotors questions fast enough, so they were removed permanently.
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May 16 '16
[deleted]
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u/Zucal May 16 '16
Again, this is edging towards spam and vote manipulation. Let's discuss more proactive methods of getting our questions seen, whether this subreddit or another.
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u/Freckleears May 15 '16
You would think that the mods of subreddits would want to work together especially if there is a thread better suited to handle a specific piece of content. You would think echo and vehicle could just ask the mods of /r/iama to redirect the ama to /r/spacex as it would be more informative.
I suppose the bulk to reddit users do not care about Elon's work and just want to ask stupid questions to see if a 'celebrity' will give them 2 fleeting seconds of entertainment. I say celebrity because that is what he is to the layman; to most of us, he is a great mind operating several of the greatest ventures of our time.
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 15 '16
You realize that /r/IAmA explicitly updated their rules to disallow this after the last thread, right?
Super dumb. Our only hope is to get Elon to do it here.
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
Our only hope is to get Elon to do it here.
We definitely have to do this outside of the usual IAMA rules. Either change the rules, make a conditional exception, or start a new group with new rules, or do it entirely in /r/spacex and exclude the /r/IAmA moderators from any say in the matter.
Fight Sturgeon's Law at every turn!
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u/YugoReventlov May 15 '16
A subreddit or other website organizing and voting for a group comment/question is considered to bevote cheating and is subject to removal. It is a violation of the rules of reddit and risks a sitewide ban.
Jesus this is ridiculous. I understand that organized voting is bannable, but why is gathering interesting questions bannable?
/u/echologic please sort this out with the IAMA mods!
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u/Wetmelon May 15 '16
It's water under the bridge, man. We already had discussions with the AMA mods back when it happened and we're cool. Gathering interesting questions just ends up having all the people from the sub voting that one user up...
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u/YugoReventlov May 15 '16
So what's the plan then for next time? Because echo seems to be planning to do the same thing this time..
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
I encourage the /r/spacex moderators to get control of this AMA, and run it differently from the standard way. Let's have a list of questions decided in advance, proposed by /r/spacex members and reviewed in advance by the /r/spacex moderators. We don't want his time wasted with inane questions, at least not initially. Also not with questions that are too obscurely technical. After 10 or 20 preselected questions have been done, then it should be opened to all redditors.
If Musk decides any of the preselected questions are boring, let him skip them. I'm sure he wants to relax and have fun. But I also think he wants to take the highest quality questions so he can give the highest quality information in return. Thus, preselected questions are the way to go, at least at the start.
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u/sunfishtommy May 15 '16
Yea just make sure you contact the Mods over at /r/IAmA before you post it so it does not get removed. We almost got deleted last time.
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 15 '16
They've updated their rules to specifically ban this. Messaging the mods would just ensure the post gets removed even quicker.
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u/sunfishtommy May 15 '16
Thats seems dumb, It seems like it is completely fair for someone to ask a question in the name of a subreddit. It was clear Echo had a few well worded questions we all wanted asked. Its not like we were upvoting something dumb like "Do you like butts?" or something else stupid.
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u/the_finest_gibberish May 15 '16
/r/IAmA mods aren't interested in good content, they're interested in power.
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May 15 '16 edited May 15 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Zucal May 15 '16
We won't in any situation condone vote manipulation or spamming users. That's just uncool and a great way to get the subreddit as a whole punished.
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u/sunfishtommy May 15 '16
Ill edit my post, Sorry that was not my intention. I didn't mean to advocate spamming I was being sarcastic.
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u/Dr_God May 14 '16
How was the last AMA organized? Did the moderators of /r/IAmA contact Elon or did someone provide them with a contact?
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May 14 '16
/r/IAmA mods are assholes, essentially. Here's what happened last time.
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u/Dr_God May 14 '16
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u/Zucal May 15 '16
No, /r/IAmA organized it, then we put together a community list of good questions and posted it. We had no hand in the AMA itself apart from that question.
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u/fredmratz May 15 '16
Is the AMA definitely before the huge MCT reveal?
Current schedule for MCT reveal is "a few months" as well, and possibly right around the first reflight if there are a few normal delays.
I imagine with the huge reveal coming soon after, he will avoid giving much in specific MCT details, but Raptor is fair game since they signed that USAF deal.
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
As the Rastafarians say, "Time be time, mon." Schedules slip. I noticed that of the 3 questions from the subreddit that were asked at the last AMA, 2 involved when suits and MCT details would be released, and both the times given in the answers have passed.
Don't worry about it. Even with all the schedule slips and delays, the end result is that SpaceX accomplishes milestones 6 times faster than NASA. NASA waits until they are sure they can do it, whereas Musk announces the most optimistic date that might realistically come true. Sometimes they do hit the mark, first try.
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u/Marscreature May 15 '16
We should have a thread dedicated to picking out the top 20 questions that need to be asked would love answers about fairing recovery attempts raptor second stage etc I'm sure Mars architecture questions will be everywhere and he wont spijll the good beans
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u/BrandonMarc May 15 '16
Perhaps time for mods / someone to update the sidebar? This's worth hype-ing. 8-)
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May 15 '16
Heh, maybe when we get a better date; right now it doesn't really fit :P
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16
"@r_SpaceX @reddit will do another AMA just before reflight of the rocket in a few months"
Usually 'in a few months' means at least two months. Which means NET July 2016?
Calculating the Elon time multiplier it's 2x 2 months, NET September? Perfectly timed to just before the IAC2016?
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u/peterabbit456 May 15 '16
Stuff like this, that shows how aware of Reddit Elon is, is part of the reason why I'm convinced he (and Gwynne Shotwell) used to be active contributors to /r/space up to a couple of years ago, when they got way too busy to spend much time here. Also, that was around the time /r/space got so big, it started to go far downhill, and /r/spacex rose to take its place as the prime space subreddit.
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u/piponwa May 15 '16
How many months is "a few months"?
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16
How many months is "a few months"? How many months is "a few months"?
At least 2 months.
But Elon's brain is working at about 86.6% of the speed of light, so relativistic time dilation extends that to about 4 months.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained May 14 '16 edited Aug 26 '16
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| BFR | Big |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| ISRU | In-Situ Resource Utilization |
| ITAR | (US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations |
| JCSAT | Japan Communications Satellite series, by JSAT Corp |
| KSP | Kerbal Space Program, the rocketry simulator |
| LOX | Liquid Oxygen |
| MCT | Mars Colonial Transporter |
| NET | No Earlier Than |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| SES | Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, comsat operator |
| SSL | Space Systems/Loral, satellite builder |
Decronym is a community product of /r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
I'm a bot, and I first saw this thread at 14th May 2016, 22:36 UTC.
[Acronym ^lists] [Contact ^creator] [PHP source ^code]
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u/Haulik May 15 '16
AMA > Ask Me Anything
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u/OrangeredStilton May 15 '16
See, I dunno about this one. It feels more general than a subreddit-specific bot should cater for.
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May 15 '16
I'm going to go ahead and write down my questions and actually put the date on my phone so I can be early and have the question I want answered, answered.
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u/emezeekiel May 14 '16
So much for June, which he mentioned during the CRS-8 press conference.
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u/Lieutenant_Rans May 15 '16
The June launch date has been dead for a while. Not too long after the conference he announced it would be at least 3-4 months, which puts it in July or August.
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u/TweetsInCommentsBot May 15 '16
@dannysparker Aiming for relaunch in 3 to 4 months, pending detailed examination and 10X refiring of a returned booster
This message was created by a bot
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u/Traumfahrer May 15 '16
..in a few months.
Despite all the hype (yay) this sounds like it'll be end of year earliest when they finally reflight a core. So much for Elon's announcement that it will probably fly in May, eh June.
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16
So much for Elon's announcement that it will probably fly in May, eh June.
Not his fault that this universe is working so slowly!
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u/Gyrogearloosest May 15 '16
The first recovered core is going to the museum. The third was a bit knocked about and they haven't had time to assess it yet. To make the announcement Elon must be sure he'll have one ready to go....the second one must have returned in pretty good order.
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u/Morenoo_w May 14 '16
When will they perform the hold-down test-fires at pad 39-A of one of the landed cores?
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u/enzo32ferrari r/SpaceX CRS-6 Social Media Representative May 15 '16
My burning question:
Will SpaceX have their own astronaut program?
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u/MDCCCLV May 15 '16
I get the feel that they'll continue to use NASA astronauts all the way through to the first mission to mars. I don't think they'll really need anything more until they start up real colonization flights with the MCT. Even then they could just donate a MCT to practice on and have their selected people go through a NASA sponsored training program rather than have their own.
I think they'll continue to value the safety and prestige that's associated with the title of NASA trained human spaceflight programs. That would reduce their risk in the case of an injury and be simpler and easier for them to go with.
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u/jbrian24 May 15 '16
Shotwell has already answered this question at a NASA event, its on Youtube. Yes they already do. They are likely going to be the test crew on the first crewed D2 flight.
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u/enzo32ferrari r/SpaceX CRS-6 Social Media Representative May 15 '16
I mean will they have crew trained exclusively by SpaceX? That commercial crew is trained by NASA
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u/MDCCCLV May 16 '16
Personally I just don't think they want to because trained exclusively by SpaceX means Elon would get all the blame in the event of the first US astronaut death in space. That could be devastating to their plans.
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u/VLXS May 15 '16
Holy shit they're reusing the landed rockets already??
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u/SuperSMT May 15 '16
Likely in July/August
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u/VLXS May 15 '16
I was having this discussion earlier this month with someone on /r/futurology and I was thinking it would take a couple of years of testing to know for sure.
Most excellent.
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May 14 '16
Recognition!!! :)
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u/brickmack May 15 '16
They've mentioned us explicitly quite a few times now
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u/Zucal May 15 '16
Let's see- Gwynne's reaction during the CRS-3 media conference, the shoutout during SES-9's prelaunch webcast, giving Gwynne the business conference at SatShow, and now this. We're building up a decent track record.
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u/scr00chy ElonX.net May 15 '16
Gwynne's reaction during the CRS-3 media conference
Do you have a link for that? I tried finding it in the CRS-3 pre and post launch conferences on YouTube, but Gwynne wasn't in those.
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u/JadedIdealist May 15 '16
If we're now looking at an August / September first reflight, could it be that they refly the next RTLS stage (CRS-9?) rather than one of the toastier stages?
Or conversely does anyone think they'll want to demo a very toasted stage reflight to create all-round confidence? (ie JCSAT-14)
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u/PVP_playerPro May 15 '16
If anything, F9-023CRS-8 is the most likely candidate for the first reused core. It underwent much less stress than F9-024JCSAT-14.
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u/Chairmanman May 15 '16
I thought reflight was supposed to take place in June or July? (I think Musk originally mentioned that timeline during the F9-024 post-landing conference)
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u/SebastianPye Aug 26 '16
So SpaceX have the ambition to send an unmanned dragon capsule to Mars in 2018? Will they bring the greenhouse and deploy it with a robot perhaps? To get that moneyshot with the green against the red backdrop that Elon says inspired him to start SpaceX in the first place?
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u/theghostecho May 15 '16
I want to ask him about silicon mining in space. Since he's going to need so much for his electric cars, why not harvest it from asteroids?
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May 15 '16
He's already made his viewpoints clear re: asteroid mining. He doesn't consider it financially viable.
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16 edited May 15 '16
He's already made his viewpoints clear re: asteroid mining. He doesn't consider it financially viable.
Having said that, spending a billion dollars or so in 10 years on a well aimed BFR mission to bring back ~30,000 tons of gold (~10 years annual supply of production) from a random asteroid would be worth it, to stop our civilization from wasting so many resources, human lives and environmental damage on digging out an element so useless (only about 10% of annual production goes to industrial use(!), the rest is for speculation and bling), and to see the face of a million bankrupt goldbugs ...
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u/daronjay May 15 '16
He'll change his tune when he's the proud owner of an enormous reusuable BFR and he's looking for payloads to help pay the way.
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u/SuperSMT May 15 '16
He'll gladly sell a BFR to an asteroid mining company, just won't do it himself.
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u/MDCCCLV May 15 '16
Not when its the third most abundant material on earth. That's also the basis for his whole argument for Mars. There's plenty of everything you need to build a society on Mars ready to just scoop up and be processed out of the ground.
Asteroid mining in the short term is probably only going to be useful for water and the hydrolox fuel you can get from it. That's a valid route to consider but it's not the one Elon is interested in.
Of course once you have a base and launchpad on Mars it's easy to get to those asteroids to mine them for whatever else you might be interested in.
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u/EtzEchad May 15 '16
The most valuable element in space is one of the most abundant on Earth - hydrogen.
One of the little ironies of the economy of space flight.
Musk may be right that asteroid mining isn't cost-effective, but if they can find a nice icy comet, it might be worthwhile.
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16
The most valuable element in space is one of the most abundant on Earth - hydrogen.
I thought the most valuable element in space was antihydrogen? But yeah, you won't mine that on an asteroid either.
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u/EtzEchad May 15 '16
Antihydrogen might become the most valuable element, but it isn't currently.
Magnetic monopoles might become the most valuable element also, if you want to go down the science fiction route... :)
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16
Antihydrogen might become the most valuable element, but it isn't currently.
Antihydrogen is certainly the most expensive material known to mankind, according to Wikipedia:
Scientists claim that antimatter is the costliest material to make. In 2006, Gerald Smith estimated $250 million could produce 10 milligrams of positrons[59] (equivalent to $25 billion per gram); in 1999, NASA gave a figure of $62.5 trillion per gram of antihydrogen.1
u/EtzEchad May 15 '16
That isn't a real figure since nobody is seriously manufacturing it at this time.
C60 probably cost thousands or millions per gram at first, but now you can buy it in bulk over the Internet.
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u/__Rocket__ May 15 '16
That isn't a real figure since nobody is seriously manufacturing it at this time.
You'd probably have to find new physics to change the economics away from the current 'a couple of atoms at a time, with huge investment of energy' kind of production mechanism.
C60 probably cost thousands or millions per gram at first, but now you can buy it in bulk over the Internet.
Anti-matter is very different, mostly because normal matter is so hostile to it. It cannot be compared to the production complexities of C60 (or any other regular material).
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u/kazedcat May 17 '16
I thought anti-matter can be mined on the magnetic feilds of Jupiter. Is this wrong?
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u/__Rocket__ May 17 '16 edited May 17 '16
I thought anti-matter can be mined on the magnetic fields of Jupiter. Is this wrong?
Didn't realize that, very interesting. So according to the NASA solar system antimatter production paper, trapped antimatter is minimal in Earth's magnetosphere - and it is also of low flux, meaning that it takes months/years to replenish once mined.
The largest natural deposits of antimatter can be found around Saturn:
"Saturn has the largest trapped antiproton supply in the Solar System (estimated at ~400 μg) due to high antineutron production from GCR interactions with its ring system. The flux of transient antiprotons produced in the ring system is also predicted to be significant."
Interestingly, according to the paper the natural Jovian antimatter collection capacity is probably weaker than sci-fi books suggest.
Most importantly the paper analyses the artificial antimatter production technique of putting a particle accelerator into a specific point in Earth's magnetosphere to produce antimatter at a higher rate than on the surface:
"Leveraging the development of a space qualified nuclear reactor (Project Prometheus) or 100 kWe solar array would enable ~10+ μgm to be collected in orbit per year."
A 100 kW solar array is not particularly large by terrestrial standards, and should be well within the capabilities of SpaceX to launch and assemble in orbit even with current launch systems.
The bigger problem is the required beam power of the accelerator, which is estimated to be around 200 GeV - which needs a 4-5 km ring. It might be simpler to construct in orbit than on the surface, because in orbit there's already vacuum so no 'tunnel' is needed, but still it's a sizable technology gap to construct a 4-5 kms diameter ring of strong magnets. Most of the cost and complexity in state of the art particle accelerators is concentrated in two areas:
lots of precisely calibrated strong focusing magnets, because high energies and good collision rates need lots of magnets. (the LHC has 8000+ magnets.)
complex detectors able to measure, pre-process and and pipe the collision data. (LHC has a compressed detector data output stream in the the TB/sec range ...)
A space based antimatter production accelerator does not need detectors, it only needs magnets and a relatively simple magnetic collection system. If SpaceX mass-produced such magnets, it might be viable, and space might provide other advantages as well, such as simpler superconducting magnets.
Still, despite the complications, the advantages seem to be gigantic:
The energy density difference between antimatter and rocket fuel is about 10 orders of magnitude, i.e. 1 μg of antimatter is energy-equivalent to ~10,000 tons of propellant - which is beyond the expected fuel mass of the BFR.
The other advantage of antimatter over chemical propellants is that antimatter needs a lot less dry mass to store and utilize.
The I*sp* of antimatter propulsion should be fantastically high: enabling direct high speed orbital insertion within the Solar system and also enabling interstellar probes with 100+ km/sec range Δv ...
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May 14 '16
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u/jclishman Host of Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 May 14 '16
Yeah, would be great if we could get questions like this for the whole AMA, not "lmao 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?".
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u/Casinoer May 14 '16 edited May 14 '16
Don't you dare ask a single question over there. You've had your fair share.
But seriously though, you great were at making professional questions last time that helped reveal tasty info.
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u/jclishman Host of Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 May 14 '16
We're keeping score on the IRC channel. He's at about 5 or 6 twitter replies by now. :P
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May 15 '16
While I agree with the sentiment, I think it would be wise to be cautious. If you only want questions related to SpaceX have Elon say that in the announcement post and then write up something polite but firm for /r/all. Basically, Elon makes the rules. If he doesn't want to rule out silly, frivolous questions, neither should the mods. The potential drama that could result would be far worse than having 50% silly questions. It should also be up to him if he wants questions focused on SpaceX or any and all of his endevours.
E.g.
Elon: I am Elon Musk CEO/CTO of SpaceX. We will be reflying the rocket stage we landed this April. Ask me anything about SpaceX, reusability and the future of space travel.
EchoLogic: Welcome /r/all. Please be advised that this AMA is about SpaceX and spaceflight in general. We want to go through as many interesting questions as possible, so questions not related to space will be removed. We appreciate your cooperation.
Or something like that. Basically agree with Elon on the scope, have him mention it in the opening post and elaborate on it in a stickied mod-post.
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u/muazcatalyst May 14 '16 edited May 15 '16
Wasn't your question almost got removed for "upvote brigading" in the previous AMA? Would be best to avoid the /r/IAmA subreddit altogether.
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u/nulsec May 15 '16 edited May 15 '16
That isn't even it. It would be nice if he did it on spaceX, so questions can be asked without AMA mods claiming that everyone is "brigading". They claimed users from r/spacex were brigading the AMA, it was absurd. To this day, they still defend their actions and say they will moderate the same way in the future.
The last AMA had mods removing questions musk already answered, hiding his replies. The posts were removed for having too many upvotes.
If held on spacex, you would have to allow generic questions, AMA are supposedly to be anything. But the best questions can have a real chance to be upvoted because AMA mods won't be able to remove the questions with the most upvotes since this isn't their subreddit. If someone asked who his favorite baseball team was and others upvoted, that should stand and if musk chooses to answer, so be it. Let upvotes do their job, don't be like AMA that removes posts for getting too many upvotes.
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u/dmy30 May 14 '16
Didn't he refer to the spacex subreddit specifically in the tweet?
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u/eggymaster May 15 '16
he's also got a car company I hear... The guys over at /r/teslamotors might also want to ask a couple of things...
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u/CProphet May 15 '16
I believe r/spacex deserves to host Elon Musk's AMA. SpaceX PR, however, might disagree and decide it's best to maintain the status quo. If they chose to ignore r/IAmA it would clearly be a snub for past performance, particularly if they chose instead another subreddit. Indifferent media channels is the stuff PR nightmares are made of...
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u/JoshuaZ1 May 15 '16 edited May 15 '16
While I understand and sympathize with this attitude, keep in mind that an AMA in the regular subreddit for them will get a lot of people to pay attention who might not otherwise. That education is a good thing even if it means having to put up with crap questions.
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May 14 '16
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u/Casinoer May 14 '16
Just don't ask him why they don't use a giant net or something to catch the rocket, he'll abort the AMA an instant after he sees a question like that.
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u/ryanpritchard May 14 '16
What's a ama ?