But, the fact that the re-use (and subsequent examination/evaluation) did make it possible to increase the reliability of the SRB’s illustrates the point I was making. If SpaceX had followed their original plans they could be making the same sort of progress right now with the Falcon 9 first stage. Instead they are supposedly pursuing re-usability and as a result have yet to recover a first stage.

It is the destination that has meaning. If your destination is a LEO tourist club then the toxic dragon is going somewhere. If your destination is one or more of the moons of the gas giants then the hobby rocket is worthless.

For human beings to travel anywhere Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (BELO) I maintain a massive radiation shield will be required. The “Delta-V budget” for such a spaceship would require nuclear energy. Your caution to “watch the mass” when a true shielded rotating spaceship starts at several thousand tons is……redundant.

I have read the SRB’s on the shuttle cost more to reuse than throw away. But though they did not break even recovering them eventually lead to over 200 flawless firings in a row of a heavy lift booster; a remarkable achievement. Yet the hobby rocket is hyped as somehow being superior.

The miracle of public relations.

This will sound strange to anyone who has read my previous posts, but when the commercial cargo program started I was a supporter of it and especially SpaceX

At that time their plan was to develop the Falcon 9 with a set of parachutes that would allow the stage to be recovered down range. While the possibility of re-using ay least some of the first stage components (if economical) was mentioned the main rationale was to examine/evaluate the stage components to be able to modify the designs for greater reliability, manufacturability and safety. This could allow the development of an expendable vehicle that would be both cheaper and more reliable in addition to being easier to human rate.

It was an ambitious plan, but reasonable and potentially very valuable. Somehow this morphed in to the current SpaceX “plan” complete with: (1) Falcon 9 stages that can be reused 1,000 times with one day turnaround and no refurbishment, (2) Mars Colonial Transports to support an 800,000 population Martian Colony by 2027 and (3) Now 1,000’s of flights/year.

It is at least possible that this change was caused by Musk’s “eccentric” desire to be the object of a personality cult. At least in that, he is succeeding.

Moon Express flies things to the Moon for profit. I am sure that they would be happy to accommodate the payload of any paying customer.

ExoLance: Shooting Darts at Mars to Find Life.
JUL 17, 2014 01:40 PM ET // BY ERIC NIILER
http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/exolance-shooting-darts-at-mars-to-find-life-140717.htm

It would be great if this could be tested in a real space environment before trying it on Mars. I thought one of the GLXP entrants would provide an excellent opportunity. The most intriguing areas on the Moon are the poles. Since Moon Express intends to land there it would provide a good carrier craft for the Exolance. Also Exolance would provide an alternative source to retrieve data in case the Moon Express lander does not land successfully.
Imagine if Exolance could prove the large amounts of water, perhaps even pure ice, subsurface on the Moon. Imagine if it could confirm the tentative detections of valuable minerals at the poles suggested by the LCROSS mission.
That would give further support for the idea we must return to the Moon if we want to explore the rest of the solar system.

Bob Clark

I mentioned in a previous comment that the SLS was not quite big enough for easy use as a “wet workshop.” Mr. Brown popularized the concept of empty fuel stages that astronauts would move all the necessary equipment into after using up the wet propellants; a wet workshop. Skylab was an empty stage already mostly converted before flight, so it was a “dry workshop.” It is only a coincidence that I seem to keep connecting the term wet workshop with lunar water, which was discovered decades after Von Braun.

The only guaranteed arrangement for creating effective cosmic ray shields as specified by expert Eugene Parker is 5 meters (14 and a half feet) of water massing about 500 tons around a small capsule. While a empty rocket stage with a double hull of about 50 feet providing a 20 foot inner cylinder would be desirable a ten foot inner cylinder with around 40 feet total diameter would be the minimum. We need a bigger SLS core stage reconfigured as a “cosmic ray workshop.”

This large mass of water is in one sense the “ocean of space” President Kennedy and so many others have spoken of; I do not believe we are going anywhere without this shield. And indeed water is transparent and the stars will be seen through windows in both sides of these future radiation shields.

Just as we do not have a ready-made spaceship cabin we also have no ready-made nuclear engine to push this Moon-water shield around the solar system. And while a cosmic ray workshop is straight forward enough with the lunar ice being a huge enabler, nuclear energy to propel the shield is a far more difficult resource to take advantage of. A survey of nuclear propulsion candidates shows three possibilities:

1. Nuclear Pulse Propulsion. This is the most simple path yet the most difficult because pulse engines are essentially metal plates that only become efficient when they mass in the thousands of tons. H-bombs can then push this plate and several thousand tons of payload stacked on it to anywhere in the solar system at high speed. The problem is of course…..the plate. The “Medusa” is a parachute stand-in for the plate in a lower powered system that might work as an interim.

2. Nuclear Thermal Rocket. These engines have already been built and ground tested. Unfortunately they are only about twice as efficient as a chemical rocket engine. Pathetic.

3. Fission Fragment Rocket. The same isotope in smoke detectors allow this small engine design to be the dream come true of any spacecraft designer. Unfortunately Americium 242 is so rare it is essentially the “unobtanium” of science fiction. Ideally a reactor design using lunar thorium might be able to supply this fuel but that would be a brand new nuclear industry from scratch and decades away. However I believe Aluminum was once very expensive and there is a great deal of plutonium laying around this planet that we need to get rid of so some new nuclear research might solve the problem.

I have speculated that some kind of interim vehicle with a smaller fission plate brought in sections or slices from Earth or using a parachute might be a quick spaceship but in my view of reality only lunar underground factories are going to eventually be able to manufacture these engines in large numbers and open up the solar system to human exploration. But what is even more important is these same engines can lift from the surface of the Moon immense masses of solar energy arrays to power Earth from space. And finally this leads to microwave beamed energy propulsion and the holy grail; cheap lift and a ticket to a space colony.

Again, where is the market to support that sort of launch schedule? It does not exist. And it will not exist in any of our lifetimes. Which is why the propaganda from New Space proponents comparing “commercial” space to commercial aviation is just that … propaganda.

Moreover, as Joe points out, SpaceX has had a problem getting just a handful of its rockets off the ground. Musk is long on hype, but short on performance.

Is it any wonder the USAF does not want to depend on SpaceX to launch its vital payloads? Yet, Musk is suing his ‘competitors’ because he isn’t getting a share of that taxpayer-funded ‘market.’

Elon Musk reminds me, in a way, of Howard Hughes. Note this Wikipedia entry about the Hughes XF-11 …

“On the urgent recommendation of Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who led a team surveying several reconnaissance aircraft proposals in September 1943, General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, chief of the U.S. Army Air Forces, ordered 100 F-11s for delivery beginning in 1944. In this, Arnold overrode the strenuous objections of the USAAF Materiel Command, which held that Hughes did not have the industrial capacity or proven track record to deliver on his promises. (Materiel Command did succeed in mandating that the F-11 be made of aluminum, unlike its wooden D-2 predecessor.) Arnold made the decision ‘much against my better judgment and the advice of my staff’ after consultations with the White House. The order was cancelled on 29 May 1945, but Hughes was allowed to complete and deliver the two prototypes.”

Note the part about no proven “track record to deliver on his promises.” Doesn’t that describe SpaceX and Elon Musk?

Mind you, my father worked for Hughes Aircraft for many years, and I know two gentlemen from Avro Canada (now in their 90s) who worked directly with Howard Hughes. They both will tell you that Hughes was “a genius.” But they also acknowledge how difficult he was to work for because of his eccentric personality. Which is why the USAAF shied away from using Hughes as a major supplier early on. Of course, under Pat Hyland’s guidance starting in the mid-50s, Hughes Aircraft became tremendously successful producing missiles, helicopters, radar systems, communication satellites and spacecraft such as the Surveyor series.

SpaceX needs to prove itself. Perhaps they need a ‘Pat Hyland’ at the helm — someone with a proven record of engineering leadership in the field. A successful track record is a lot more meaningful than unfulfilled promises and overblown hype, especially in the aerospace industry. Public relations consultants and corporate lobbyists are no substitute for actual results.

Depends on what it is you’re putting into orbit.

Such an HLV would be a good match for the Cislunar Next concept.

“A spaceship is always the best space station and a shielded rotating space station in lunar orbit only requires a nuclear engine to become a spaceship. ”

I know this is stating the obvious, but you also need sufficient propellant as well to give you enough of a delta-V budget to accomplish your mission.
That’s why you still have to watch just how much your habitat masses, regardless of where it is you get your propellant from.

Musk is seriously overselling himself in these matters.

Too bad people fall for this act.

I think you’ve found a correlation between SpaceX’s claims verse their performance.