Boeing again 47

[1503-44]

NASA was always just as much a political venture as a technical one.
Nobody had to go to the moon for technical reasons.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[debodine]

JohnRBaker THANKS for the great photo survey, visiting sites I will probably never get to see in person. Much appreciated!

 

[Brian Malone]

Oops409 isn't a thread in the Pat's Pub the place for your last post? It has no engineering relevance.

 

[Brian Malone]

1503-44 it is good to know the pub is sensible.

 

[TugboatEng]

Pat's Pub decided that the Pub is not the place for pub like conversations so they've spilled into the working forums. Thanks Branch Covidians. I miss the days of a good rowdy conversation.

 

[1503-44]

Brian, I wouldn't know.
I have not entered the pub since 2010.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[Brian Malone]

I haven't ventured there either. So maybe it is the wild west . . .

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Half way through


The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy.

Pretty good so far.

 

[JohnRBaker]

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Starliner might be coming back empty next week.

 

[3DDave]

SpaceX now has it's turn on the wheel.

 

[JohnRBaker]

The SpaceX issue is a bit lame. They lost a booster due to a mishap that happened at sea, the first incident in a couple of years. No one was at risk due to the accident. No private property was destroyed, other than the rocket booster and perhaps some damage to the SpaceX-owned ocean-going landing platform. I can't help but wonder if this was done so as to save face with the Boeing crowd: "See, we also nailed SpaceX for screwing up."

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Oops409]

John, you Nailed it! Booster recovery is probably not required, it is just the approach SpaceX took and developed the technology to do it. Has NO effect on the Actual Mission Requirements, other than it increases cost for SpaceX since they only got to use that booster 27? times before they lost one........

 

[3DDave]

It was inspected just the same as a new one and it failed. Is it because something wore out and they didn't detect it or was it a part that was brand new and recently replaced? Ignoring this for a potential manned flight is little different than ignoring o-ring burn-through was. It's OK, it worked before?

 

[Oops409]

3DD, are you refering to 0-rings on Starliner or the failure on the manned 1986 shuttle mission, where they knew they had ablation issues on previous flights, and they were launching outside of the design temperature range for the SRB o-rings? Politics/Management over ruled technical experts that day and flew anyways.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that this particular booster, this was IT'S 23rd flight. I suspect that SpaceX more than broke even on the life-cycle cost. But the point is that if SpaceX had just allowed this boosters to crash into the ocean, like every OTHER launch system currently in use, there would have been no issue whatsoever. BTW, occasionally SpaceX does not attempt to recover a booster, usually when the flight operation requires the use of all the fuel onboard, generally for a heavier payload or one that needs to be inserted to a higher orbit, but in those instances, the client has to pay the full cost of the booster since there's no 'refund' for turning-in the old one ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[3DDave]

Yup. Crash away. Unless something unexplained happens for a design used for manned spaceflight. Then the device has to perform exactly as it was promised to perform. They didn't promise it would crash.

It also ignores that being whatever number of missions there is zero chance that every part was installed before the first one and they need to find out what the cause of the failure is. Maybe they are getting complacent at SpaceX and this is the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Oops409]

John, you earned a Star for the last two posts. Clearly, if SpaceX just dumped in big blue sea, like everybody else, then Government would not have any excuse to slow them down. SpaceX has mountains of data on flight, and should be able to pin point failure. If everything perfect till landing, then it will be quick software or hardware fix.

Perhaps Elon's AI figured it out immediately after splash down?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Question: Has SpaceX used a refurbished booster for any of their manned flights?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[JohnRBaker]

I just found the answer to my question:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-launches-first-astronauts-on-a-reused-rocket

So it's happened at least once, perhaps more...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without