Commercial Launch Market Made Different

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." - George S. Patton.

For years after the Saturn V rocket was retired, rockets in the United States were reduced to a set of parameters.  This reflected a way of thinking in the industry.  If a rocket failed on liftoff, it was to be blown up.  It was an easy solution to minimize collateral damage.  Of course, computers then had a tiny fraction the power of today's computers.  By the way, that smartphone you just dropped? Yeah, it has more computing power than they could dream of back then.  Manufacturing was largely done by hand, or by hand operated mechanical/electrical machines.  Flaws were checked by only human hands and eyes for hours on end.  Now, we have robotic arms equipped with X-rays, infrared, ...etc, sensors.  The flaw checking is done in a fraction of the time it used to.

Saturn V was the so big that it took five of the biggest rocket engines on its first stage.  It was said that it could loose one engine and still complete the mission, or at least it could get its payload to orbit.  That capability went away with the Saturn V.  Elon Musk brought it back with the advent of Falcon 9.

So now, we have a contrast of operations.  One is a legacy operation founded on old technology and a robust track record.  The other is based on new technology capabilities and the need to take launch operations in a whole new direction.  I say 'new' though it's been in operation for four years now, it's still relatively new compared to the many decades of launch history we've had.

On October 7th 2008, Falcon 9 rocket lifted off carrying the Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station.  There was an engine anomaly and one engine shut down.  The rocket kept on going.  The primary payload got to complete its mission.  The secondary payload did not.  The rocket was not blown up.  If any other rocket had a main engine anomaly and was shut off, the rocket would have to been blown up because there would be no way it could get its payload to any orbit.  Atlas V and Delta IV would have to be blown up if such a thing happened to them.

In contrast, on October 28th 2014, Orbital Sciences rocket, Antares, lifted off and had allegedly a main engine anomaly within seconds.  It was blown up by mission control as soon as they detected the anomaly.  I gathered that from the briefing after the mishap and some articles.  The exact reason and conditions of he anomaly is still being investigated.  Antares was built on the old mindset on how you design a rocket.  Orbital is good at getting parts together and making a rocket.  They leverage the market.

You can see the difference here between the mishaps between Falcon 9 and Antares.  Falcon 9 was purposely designed to succeed with redundancy and Antares was not.  You can say the designers of Antares didn't know or didn't realize.  I say that is total BS.  Everyone knows!  Everyone in rocket design knows the Saturn V.  They know about all the mishaps in the past.  They are just making the same mistake as everyone else is doing by not thinking, or they are rationalizing the problem away.  This problem still exists in Atlas V and Delta IV.  The designers of those rockets did not account for this problem.

I was going to go into other points, but this point is so big and poignant.  It just makes me mad.  It makes me mad that for years big companies have been ripping off NASA and the US taxpayers with high cost for launches on rockets that are sub quality.  In contrast, this entrepreneur is offering high quality rockets at low cost launch service.  How can anyone pass that up?  The reality is they can't.  The Atlas V days are numbered because it's too costly and its engines are politically risky.  So they are trying to give it different engines.  Europe is trying to make a new rocket in an attempt to compete with SpaceX.  Through all of this money is scarce.  Recession is coming back to Europe and things are slowing down in China.  So reducing cost to launch satellites is too tempting.  The old ways have to go.  Elon has the floor.

Lack Of Imagination

In the HBO miniseries "From The Earth To The Moon" the episode "Apollo One" depicts the investigation into the deaths of  Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee and the loss of the Apollo capsule CSM-012.  They perished in a fire during a plugs out test on the launch pad.  In the episode, a Senator asks Astronaut Frank Borman what was the cause of the fire.  His answer was, "failure of imagination."  The idea was that nobody thought that the conditions of that particular test were dangerous.  They were all thinking of getting to the Moon.  NASA lost its innocence because of that incident.

Now we live in the wake of two commercial space disasters,  One commercial astronaut is dead.  One is wounded.  For all those who love space and commercial space, this is a time of pause.  One reusable space plane is destroyed.  One non-reusable rocket and cargo spacecraft with all of its cargo and research is also destroyed.  Accounting and insurance takes care of the rocket and the spacecraft.  The cargo must have had many customers with their hopes going to ISS.  Their projects may be insured but their hopes were dashed.

Many outside of the industry do not understand how these accidents happen.  There is a lot of anger out there on the net.  That's understandable.  There's a lot of fear and uncertainty.  That's also understandable.  Understand that these things affect everybody.  They affect all the CEO's of every space company to every kid who dreams about space and all the people and engineers in between,  We are all rattled even if we don't admit it.

Our innocence is gone.  Now, we will see how the space market reacts to it.  Investigations have to be completed.  They will find stuff that nobody may have suspected before.  Other stuff may be confirmed.  Plans will be made and implemented to avoid the same disasters.  These things must happen and will happen to move forward.  Moving forward is in the hands of the market.

Why are we doing this?  Why are we going to space at all?  Why did the crew of Apollo One and of VSS Enterprise die or get injured?  Why did Orbital Sciences Cygnus' customers loose their hopes?  Why did they even try?

They did it because they believe in a future that was better than this present one.  Space is out there.  We have been dabbling in low earth orbit for several decades trying to figure out how to proceed out in deeper space where higher radiation lives,  Out there where asteroids can be studied and mined and  where a moon can be settled.  Out there where a second planet can possibly hold life again (Mars).  Where we can study a dense atmosphere up close and figure out how to keep climate in check (Venus).

One of the biggest reasons is that life as we know it is a single point failure.  That means we know that if a big enough asteroid hits the planet it will wipe out all of life,  We know the size of the asteroid it would take to do it.  We know there are many asteroids much larger than such a size.  So in a real sense we are trying to save no just the human race of all of life from certain extinction.  It's not a matter of if but a matter of when.

My condolences to the family of the Virgin Galactic astronaut who died.  I hope the injured astronaut makes a full recovery.  I sincerely hope Virgin Galactic and Orbital Sciences are able to carry on with their programs.

Space programs should continue.  We must renew our hope in space.  We owe it to those who have perished and to our children and their children.  We must imagine again.

Remember the fallen:  Apollo 1, Challenger OV-099 STS-51-L, Columbia OV-102 STS-107, VSS Enterprise 4th rocket powered test flight.

PS I call the pilots astronauts as a way to honor them.