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" Since SpaceX's very beginnings, they have talked about recovering and reusing at least the first stages of their rockets. "
Henry Spencer
About
Beginnings
First
Related Quotes:
" Sure, there were hopes that Constellation's systems could later be adapted to support more ambitious goals. But Apollo had those hopes, too. It didn't work in 1970, and it wasn't going to work in 2020. "
Henry Spencer
Work
Goals
Support
" SpaceX does seem to have had a run of bad luck, with its first three launches all failing. "
Henry Spencer
Bad Luck
First
Three
" The Orion capsule uses an escape system quite like that of the Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s and 70s: an 'escape tower' containing a solid-fuel rocket that will pull it up and away from Ares I in a pinch. "
Henry Spencer
Up
Rocket
Space
" NASA has never had a problem finding capable people to be astronauts. NASA's problem was, and still is, finding ways to cut the list of capable applicants down to a manageable length. "
Henry Spencer
People
Down
Finding
" Whether solid rockets are more or less likely to fail than liquid-fuel rockets is debatable. More serious, though, is that when they do fail, it's usually violent and spectacular. "
Henry Spencer
Serious
Spectacular
Fail
" Developing expendable rockets is always going to be painful and expensive. Throwing the whole rocket away on each attempt not only costs a lot, it also hampers figuring out just what went wrong because you don't get the rocket back for inspection. "
Henry Spencer
Always
Going
Painful
" Liquid oxygen is one of the cheapest manufactured substances on Earth. In large quantities, it costs pennies per kilogram - cheaper than milk or beer. "
Henry Spencer
Cheaper
Than
Milk
" The Apollo programme of the 1960s had some weight problems, too; in particular, the lunar lander needed some fairly drastic weight-reduction work. "
Henry Spencer
Apollo
Work
Weight
" Reusable rockets promise much easier testing because you should usually get them back, and you can debug as you go rather than having to get everything perfect the first time. "
Henry Spencer
You
Space
Perfect
" The original specifications for Apollo navigation called for the ability to fly a complete mission, including a lunar landing, with no help from Earth - none, not even voice communications. "
Henry Spencer
Earth
Apollo
Voice
" Technically and financially, it might still make sense to give up on Ares I and simply write off the money spent on it, but politically, that's probably impossible. "
Henry Spencer
Money
Impossible
Off
" Solid-fuel rockets can't easily be shut down on command. "
Henry Spencer
Command
Shut
Down
" The key virtue of orbital assembly is that it eliminates the tight connection between the size of the expedition and the size of the rockets used to launch it. "
Henry Spencer
Virtue
Launch
Connection
" If your goal is to change the world, you can't start by doing things the same old way because it sells better. "
Henry Spencer
Start
Change The World
World
" The Moon may not be quite as appealing as Mars, but it's still a complex and poorly understood world, with many questions still unanswered. "
Henry Spencer
Moon
World
Questions
" Spaceflight, especially in the Mercury spacecraft, clearly wasn't going to be much like flying an airplane. "
Henry Spencer
Flying
Much
Like
" Testing a parachute drop of a heavy object is not simple. "
Henry Spencer
Simple
Parachute
Heavy
" Supplying fuel for a Mars expedition from the lunar surface is often suggested, but it's hard to make it pay off - Moon bases are expensive, and just buying more rockets to launch fuel from Earth is relatively cheap. "
Henry Spencer
Space
Moon
Cheap
" Speaking of photography, while the Apollo 8 crew shot hundreds of photos, there was one that got everybody's attention: a blue-and-white Earth rising over a gray moonscape. "
Henry Spencer
Earth
Gray
Attention
" Rocket engines generally are simpler than jet engines, not more complicated. "
Henry Spencer
Complicated
Than
Rocket
" Historically, the U.S.'s big launchers fly seldom enough that their costs are dominated by annual upkeep of facilities and staff, not by the actual cost of each launch. The expensive part is maintaining the launch capability, not actually conducting launches. "
Henry Spencer
Big
Cost
Costs
" Sometimes a malfunctioning test setup actually gives the tested system a chance to show what it can do in an unrehearsed emergency. During a test of an Apollo escape system in the 1960s, the escape system successfully got the capsule clear of a malfunctioning test rocket. "
Henry Spencer
Test
Chance
Escape
" One of the headaches of high-tech test programmes is having to debug the test arrangements before you can start debugging the things you're trying to test. "
Henry Spencer
Test
Start
Before
" It's true that Apollo 10's lander was overweight. Late in the craft's development, it became clear that its ballooning weight was endangering the whole mission. "
Henry Spencer
True
Development
Craft
" As plans for the first lunar landing started to be made, nobody had really thought about who would be out first. "
Henry Spencer
Nobody
Plans
First
" Foul-ups in testing are not uncommon, especially when the test setup is being tried for the first time. "
Henry Spencer
First Time
Test
Testing
" The communications delays between Earth and Mars can be half an hour or more, so the people on the ground can't participate minute by minute in Mars surface activities. "
Henry Spencer
More
People
Earth
" Is manned space exploration important? Yes - not least because it simply works much better than sending robots. "
Henry Spencer
Important
Space
Exploration
" Trying to build a spaceship by making an aeroplane fly faster and higher is like trying to build an aeroplane by making locomotives faster and lighter - with a lot of effort, perhaps you could get something that more or less works, but it really isn't the right way to proceed. "
Henry Spencer
Way
Fly
Trying
" My one concern is that when money gets tight, it's easy to cut R&D funding that isn't tied to a specific project - look at what's happened to NASA's aviation research. "
Henry Spencer
Money
Easy
Look