Maybe in the very longterm. SpaceX is at the moment in orbit where NASA was in the 60s. Going to the moon is a much greater distance than most people imagine. Not even speaking of Mars.
http://i.imgur.com/CLqdeKf.jpg
People severely underestimate the distance to the moon!
Getting to the moon from LEO takes less than half the delta-v that it takes to get to LEO, and WAY less fuel (because by this time you've dropped so much weight getting to LEO)
So the real problem will always be the stupidly inefficient method by which we conduct space flight. We send all of our supplies out of an enormous gravity well with a thick atmosphere.
Imagine what we could build if we already had everything in space for us already.
The only way we'll be able to become truly space-fairing is if we either become an astroid-mining civilization, or if we build something that lets us virtually ignore Earth's gravity well, like a space elevator.
Watching the launch today, I couldn't help wonder why they don't use standard jets to get the vehicle to a height where a rocket could take over.
The highest a jet has flown is about 37km and LEO is considered to start at about 160km. That 37km though in my mind would be the toughest and most fuel costly to ascend.
Would it not save both weight and money to use jets and fixed wings up through the low altitudes before turning to rockets for the higher altitude ascent?
They are the two big approaches to cheap space being done now. 1) Be cost-effective at making rockets, 2) launch from jets. My money is on #1, which SpaceX is doing, but #2 has some things going for it that could prove me wrong. #2 is also strictly limited in just how big you can make a payload, while for #1 you can get up to around 200 ton payloads before things start working against you.
Since they don't need to achieve anywhere near the required velocity to enter LEO, they can use a much smaller solid-fuel rocket engine and launch from a jet.
LEO isn't that far away, but it goes by _really_ quickly. And getting going that fast requires a lot of propellant mass, and that's judged by the tyranny of the rocket equation.
Because gravity. If you aren't going fast relative to Earth, you aren't going to escape Earth orbit [0]. Heck, if you aren't going fast relative to Earth, you aren't even going to be in Earth orbit [1], you are going to be falling back to the surface.
The difficulty is that we see pictures and videos of our satellites and shuttles in orbit, and they look peaceful and serene. What's missing from those images and videos is a visceral feel that they are going over 17,000 mph. If they went less, they would leave orbit, and hit the Earth.
Objects in orbit are not "outside" of Earth's gravity; they are not just up there, just floating in space. The reason they don't "fall to Earth" is that they are falling to Earth. Constantly. It's just that their horizontal speed relative to the Earth is so large that they are - literally - falling around the Earth.
Basically, if you don't go fast enough, you're going to come back down to earth. Once you get to a speed that's fast enough that you aren't going to come back to earth, you'll find you are now in orbit around the sun, in a path remarkably similar to the one the earth is on. To get to Mars you need to get up into a higher orbit around the sun, so you need to go even faster.
For yet more perspective - an astronaut on the ISS in LEO is at most a couple of hours from the ground-based facilities in an emergency, probably more accessible than researchers at the South Pole. Sending people to Mars (on the order of magnitude of a year round trip, with very limited opportunities for early return) would require them to carry with them not only more expensive redundant systems, but also more advanced medical equipment and repair systems than anyone has had to carry into space before (which requires yet more mass, and hence a bigger and better launcher).
Of course, Orion itself doesn't deal with any of these issues - it's meant to be used for ascent and Earth return only, and to be attached to the larger systems that deal with the challenges of a Mars journey. Which indicates pretty well how little of the engineering work has been done towards NASA's Mars mission.
True, but it doesn't actually cost very much to do so. The cost of fuel for getting into orbit is only 0.3% of the total cost for the rocket [1], so if we could rapidly re-use them, we could potentially launch them every day of the year for not a lot of money.
[1]http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html
if we're talking about probes, the delta V aspect becomes a lot more fun when you consider the web of gravity slingshots that can be pulled off to up your dV
Not for long: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Climate_Observatory
It's a good way to improve space technologies. SpaceX builds on a lot of the research and development NASA did with taxpayer dollars, just as Apple benefited from government subsidy and investment in things like early computers and the Internet.
While for profit sounds great, and does work amazingly well at a large number of US, EU, and multi-national corporations. It also doesn't.
Complex scientific programs can have developmental studies measured in decades. Which even very healthy multi-nations can't stomach. Selling a 50+ year ROI R&D program is really hard, and will likely get you laughed out of the boardroom.
But this is ultimately something that happens in academia. Due to largely public funding. Because as an charitable entity profit doesn't necessarily interfere with development and/or research of new ideas. Your goal is literally to piss away money experimenting on things.
While business and innovation to go hand in hand very happily. Business by definition don't transcend profitability. It is their goal. So while they do join hands for the short term, this is a short fling, not a life long love affair.
:.:.:
Also SpaceX does seem impressive. But everything they've currently done was done in the 1960's, without modern computing, or even integrated circuits. I like SpaceX but they are literally riding NASA's coat tails.
A structural analysis of a rocket engine can be done in a CAD simulation. Instead of by 5 guys with slide rules, and an IBM batch processing computer barely performing 100 KFLOPS.
has been for now. Significant differences though start to appear -
1. their rockets are modular from the start (even Russia has trouble to get similar system - Angara - off the ground)
2. GrassHoper - self-explanatory
3. "Raptor" full flow staged combustion engine - once they get that one, they will become way ahead of any previous development.
So you confirm my argument.
> their rockets are modular from the start (even Russia has trouble to get similar system
I'm glad a US company can do in 2014, what a cash strapped USSR couldn't in 1970/1980. Luckily there have been few technological innovations in the past 30 years to allow this to be a fair comparison.
>3
Once again, we are hedging our bets on what may happen. Not what has. Until it happens its vaporware.
actually it is cash rich Russia which is trying to do it today with much less success than SpaceX.
>So you confirm my argument.
my point here is that while the both functions have the same value, the SpaceX's has much higher first derivative at present and that, for all practical purposes, guarantees that it will be well ahead tomorrow
The issues with Russian space isn't money. It is widespread corruption which is able to drain any amount of money and lack of educated professionals. The "old guard" is retiring and new people are too young/inexperienced. People who should have come into the industry during the 199x are pretty much missing. Add to that especial Russian government and near-government corporate ineptitude, lack of modern technological base across the country, especially in electronics/communication...
You should read how US (DoD) buys rocket engines from Russia - US buys them from Florida 5-guys shop (all guys are very well connected Russian guys, some of them are even officially sanctioned by US :) for say $10/engine while the Florida shop buys them from the Russian state corporation at $1/engine while the cost of the engine is something like $2/engine, so the Russian state is something like losing the money here :)
Russia has put people in orbit on a yearly basis since the 60's. SpaceX is successful at coming up with promising designs, but it's quite a bit early to call them more successful than Russia.