[crouton] Nathaniel Trost: I Blame Tom Swift Jr. and His Atomic Toothbrush

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Posted by Nathaniel Trost:
I Blame Tom Swift Jr. and His Atomic Toothbrush
http://crouton.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2006_04_09-2006_04_15.shtml#1145059651


   Yes, the last three weeks have been bereft of blogging. The first week
   was due to a severe case of the blahs. The second week was due to an
   abnormally hectic schedule getting an Alpha milestone out the door.
   The third week was slacking off due to habit.
   However, Iâm sitting on a three-day weekend with no pressing demands,
   so I have no excuse. The taxes were finished and filed last weekend. I
   owed, but got it very close on my estimated payments. For the first
   time ever I did an experiment and used a tax program (TurboTax) and
   e-filed. Up until this year I had still been doing everything by hand
   and mailing in the return. The big question to answer is whether or
   not enough time and hassle was saved to make the hundred bucks for
   software plus e-filing fees worthwhile. Now that Iâm done Iâll have to
   answer yes, it was worth it. The whole process only took me five or
   six hours, and that included wrangling all the receipts and records
   for my business expenses. My taxes are pretty simple, however.
   Schedule C aside, I still just take the standard deduction and donât
   have any out of the ordinary income or adjustments or credit
   eligibility. I anticipate doing my taxes the same way next year.
   The unexpected kick-ass event of the week occurred Wednesday when I
   was out at lunch. I was in the right place and at the right time to
   see a B-17 coming in for a landing at John Wayne Airport.
   It has now been three weeks since the maiden flight of the [1]SpaceX
   [2]Falcon 1 rocket. Sadly, the initial launch attempt was unsuccessful
   resulting in the loss of the vehicle and payload. While the
   investigation is still in progress, it looks likely that the failure
   was not because the rocket itself failed, but due to a technician
   leaving something disconnected, leading to a [3]fuel leak and fire
   that disabled the engine. Talk about frustrating and heartbreaking.
   Iâve been an unabashed fan rooting for SpaceX since I first heard
   about them a year or two ago. Space has always been a major interest
   of mine, and NASA did indeed eat the dream. It has been interesting
   watching the flack and criticism theyâve received. The brainchild and
   financier of the company, Elon Musk, definitely did serious
   professional recruiting to staff the company. While the proof is
   always in the pudding, and your credibility will always ultimately
   rest on successfully and reliably flying vehicles, I never understood
   or agreed with the skepticism about technical capability.
   One aspect where scorn and derision did seem appropriate, if not
   deserved, was in the area of timetables. The time span between Musk
   founding the company and the inaugural, unsuccessful flight was under
   four years. Iâm willing to bet the company has its first successful
   flight before it turns five. Thatâs really pretty incredible for
   starting and assembling a team from scratch, designing from a blank
   piece of paper and a capital outlay of under $100 million. It is
   something for SpaceX to be proud of, which makes it a bit perplexing
   why starting out they anticipated [4]launching 18-24 months from
   inception, which always seemed absurd and gave their critics
   ammunition with each delay. I can only surmise the attitude was
   something like âLets be optimistic and take the adage of âeverything
   takes longer than you think, everything is harder than it looksâ as it
   comesâ. That perhaps shouldnât have been communicated externally in
   the form of prospective initial launch dates.
   Following the launch failure, and the preceeding aborted launch
   attempts, SpaceX is coming under a lot of professional and armchair
   scrutiny in regards to their operations procedures. I canât help but
   wonder if in contrast to having stacked the deck with experience in
   designing and building a vehicle, they didnât build a deep enough pool
   of seasoned operations people to actually fly the vehicle. SpaceX is
   simultaneously very open and secretive. The latter is often due to
   regulatory (ITAR) concerns as much as proprietary information. Tidbits
   leaking out such as the steady growth of the launch checklist through
   multiple revisions and their teething troubles with the remote launch
   site at Kwajalein, the revelation that the fuel leak could have been
   detected from telemetry, and the technician error all point towards a
   long process ahead for SpaceX to nail down their operations
   procedures. Watching the debacle of the [5]CLV/[6]CEV makes me root
   for them all the harder.
   I have my own goals to see accomplished in the aerospace realm. Sadly,
   I still lack the very, very, very substantial amount of capital
   acquired to pursue them. Even sans NASA and Boeing/LockMart rocket
   science is still expensive stuff. I am, however, determined.

References

   1. http://www.spacex.com/
   2. http://www.spacex.com/falcon_overview.php
   3. http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060406_nss_falc1.html
   4. http://web.archive.org/web/20020928115507/http://www.spacex.com/
   5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Launch_Vehicle
   6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Exploration_Vehicle