NASA's New Deep-Space J-2X Rocket Motor is Ready For More Tests

Washington is already close to 16 Trillion Dollars in debt and rising like a bullet, now congess wants their deep-space rocket. This will end like the superconducting super collider or the previous constellation project. Big disappointment for yet another massive cancelled project that wasted billions of tax payers money and created a whole generation of angry physisist, scientist or engineers.

No wonder many are trying their luck in the private sector. I can still here the physisist going on and on about the cancelled SSC every time the LHC comes up. The ssc was way to expansive because it went FAR beyond the LHC. Spacex could build a heavy lift rocket for a fraction of the cost. But they won't allow it and we all know this NASA project is greatly underfunded. Even popsci reported multiple times on how Congress forced NASA to begin and build this on a joke of a budget. A few years down the line...wait and see! And who will pay for the mistake. You know who.

Is it a novel novel or a novel nozzle?

Greenmatrix, when it comes to cost issues, I've never been impressed with either SpaceX or the public sector. I mean, SpaceX calls $54 million per launch of their Falcon 9 rocket "cost effective". That's, what, $5000 a kilogram or something? That's nuts!!!

I personally think we need to go back to the "big dumb rockets" philosophy that we played with in the late fifties and early sixties when the Army was fantasizing about putting big bases on the moon and von Braun wanted to send enormous flotillas to Mars (oh how our dreams have fallen). So you saw projects like the "Sea Dragon" (look it up) which were capable of launch costs as low as $60 per kilogram (in 1962 dollars). They did this by using a gigantic LOW TECH rocket.

After all, if you go back and look at the Falcon 9, only 0.3% of the launch cost is fuel. If instead of using a $50+ million piece of incredibly exotic high tech (yet throwaway) piece of technology, you just use a big metal tube with a giant engine, your cost drops to NOTHING.

For example, TRW was building the a similar engine to the one the Falcon 9 uses, but in the 60s under the "big dumb boosters" way of thinking, they didn't have scientist-engineers build the engine in a lab. They walked down the street to the industrial welding place and paid them $8000 (eight thousand dollars) to build the engine, and then had a commercial tank builder do the fuel tanks, also for nothing.

There is no reason at all that rocketry has to be expensive. We *PROVED THAT* in the sixties, but all those inexpensive programs got cut. No politician wants to lobby for a cost-effective program. Everyone needs to funnel enormous amounts of money into the people/corporations who put them in power... And the private sector isn't a whole lot better, since they're in it for the money and will do everything they can to make it expensive.

Here is some quick reading on the subject: http://www.optipoint.com/far/far8.htm

@Zentastic... Hey Shannon! It is rather amazing what we achieved with so much less just 60 years ago. What was "high tech" then is something a baby would play with now, yet the object is still the same, Want to hurl a rock a few hundred feet, trebuchet still comes to mind, not some million dollar robotic rock chucker, I can't see why (besides where all the money REALLY goes) why costs are so damn high. When I read this article I couldn't help but thinking about the aerospike engine and why that was scrapped, it worked, and pretty well for the most part, a few more years of good design and research would do it well. I still think LIM launched drone "trucks" is the way to go for 90% of our launches.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

@Zentastic & green matrix

NASA's budget is small in regards to other agencies. NASA could dump their money in a shredder and it wouldn't dent the national debt. It's like yelling at a homeless person for not picking a crusty nickel up off the ground. THEY COULD USE IT!!1! But in the grand scheme of things, did it change anything?

What part of SpaceX's rig is throw away? There are some stages that are lost, but it's not like they line them with gold and iPads. What you need to keep in mind is these are still niche industries. Space able rocket engines are built in 12, maybe 20 places in the whole planet maybe? Like 5 of those are here. This is all custom equipment. There is no mass production to drive down cost. 1 off or small runs cost lots of money. Add on top of that the tolerances space tech demands and the cost rises more. Once there are as many REAL space companies building and flying as there are auto businesses then the cost will begin to drop through cooperation and standardization. Using a big dumb rocket is not a step forward, it's a gamble.

Wow. What a beautiful, brilliantly designed, intricate and interesting child of the mind of creative and imaginative people dedicated to their art.
It is by far the most impressive Bic lighter we’ve made so far.

@johnt, if not gold iPads, they're clearly lining them with something valuable if it costs them $54 million dollars beyond the cost of fuel every time they launch.

Yes, rocketry is a niche industry, but like I said, TRW had "the local welding shop" build their test rig engine. Cost was $8000. That's not on paper theory from some internet nut. It actually happened. Guys in dirty overalls in a greasy machine shop, not guys in white lab coats in a sterile laboratory. It can be done on the cheap. That's not up for debate, and we proved it a half century ago.

Looks great! I just hope people are still interested in this stuff as much as they were 50 years ago.

I like engines. I like this engine. I hope it helps in space exploration of anykind.

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!