This definitely feels incredibly significant. The Soviet Union tried and failed 4 or 5 times to launch a rocket with this many engines, but now we're able to nail it on the first try aaaand land the boosters.

Well, but to be fair to the Soviets, they had to do it with really "stone age" electronics and technology and not knowing the many things we know today.

I am pretty sure that SpaceX was able to achieve what they did today also because they studied the Soviet N1 rocket and learned from what the engineers at that time had to figure out from scratch.

The other thing is that the N1 Moon rocket was a very different design - a single booster with many small engines, so incredibly difficult system to control, especially given the state of technology 50 years ago. Falcon Heavy is more similar to the successful Energia booster - core + strap on boosters - that was originally designed for the Russian shuttle. Or the Angara series.

You make it sound easy, but NASA's current heavy lift rocket has spent billions more than SpaceX and the project is still years away from test launch.

Delta IV heavy looks pretty similar to the Falcon Heavy approach. I would imagine there was some knowdgle transfer there.

That being said, SpaceX is taking a much more pragmatic and efficient approach to building rockets with far less bureaucracy. This is the epitome of private sector efficieny over government projects.

I recall reading SpaceX had to reinvent quite a few wheels because the existing private sector was far too expensive — everything from cryogenic pumps to sea recovery of lower stages.

The problem is lack of meaningful competition, rather than government vs. industry; governments can be very good when competing with other governments.

I don't see how that's much of a credit boost to the Soviet failures the parent is referencing. The Apollo program had the same constraints of lacking modern electronics and not knowing many of the things we know today.

The comparison was that N1 had a some 30 engines (Falcon Heavy has 27, given it's 3x Falcon 9's) and that was its downfall.

In comparison, the Saturn V used only 5, they were just that much bigger. It's widely regarded that the 5 vs 30 was the difference as to why Saturn V was successful and N1 was not, as the Soviets simply had to roll too many dice in a situation where a failure resulted in complete mission loss.

It's a lesson in system engineering, particularly around failure durability and parallel vs serial critical subsystems.

It's interesting that in Soviet rocket engine school engines count by pumps, so, e.g. RD-180 is one engine, one pump, two chambers. In American rocket engine school engines used to count by chambers.

In this sense R-7 is remarkable because it has a good overall success record (most launched rocket) and 32 chambers working at liftoff. Some of those chambers are rather small - about 3 metric tons of thrust, about as much as main chambers on British launcher Black Arrow - but still.

My feel/understanding is that chamber design is something that gets more difficult as it increases in size (obviously), but also by combining multiple smaller chambers you only suffer minimal downsides from a reliability perspective. After all, it's not like multiple smaller chambers result in heaps of extra moving parts, so a lot of the risk of duplicating components is gone.

You're right, though, the R-7 is a fantastic achievement not only for the chambers, but also considering how many engines and pumps it has. All those spinning, moving parts are another point of failure and they're all necessary for success.

Apollo program certainly did not work under the same type of constraints the Soviets had. Yes, the electronics was primitive compared to what we have today but Apollo didn't need to work around international embargoes for every screw and piece of wire.

If Soviets wanted something modern, they had to reinvent it from scratch - or steal it. They were fairly good at both. Whether it was a computer, transistors or entire designs. The results were usually very simple designs where little could go wrong and that didn't need complicated technology - which wasn't available. E.g. the Soyuz capsule vs. both the Apollo and Space Shuttle craft.

I lived in a former Soviet bloc country and I can tell you that getting even silly components like LEDs required superhuman efforts. The few that were made domestically ended up in industrial uses (or exported to USSR) and importing anything from abroad was almost impossible. We had a black & white TV full of tubes until late 80s at home - color solid state TVs didn't become available until 1988 or so (and sucked big time).

I was just assuming it was going to blow up.

It's definitely another inflection point. The Falcon 9 is 75% reusable by cost of components, the Falcon Heavy is 90% reusable. And it's capable of much, much more. That might open up the heavy lift launch market to a whole new gaggle of players and begin really expanding out what is done there. It'll certainly put a lot more missions on the table that weren't there before, like low cost outer planets space science probes.

Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).

> Also, something nobody has talked about yet. Falcon Heavy is capable of something no other US rocket is really able to do yet, launch new space station modules (or new space stations period).

I'm pretty sure one can launch space station modules on regular Falcon-9 as well. Russians launch some on Soyuz rocket.

Surely FH is more convenient for big stations.

> this seems likely to be one of the most important launches in modern rocketry history

SpaceX's Falcon project is the first major progress we've made in the field of human spaceflight since the Apollo program.

To be fair, I think the Space Shuttle was substantial progress as well. An evolutionary dead end maybe but still a lot was learned.

> the Space Shuttle was substantial progress

Marginal at best. The Space Shuttle lofted 833 astronauts at a cost of $209 billion [1]. In 2013, NASA was paying Russia $70 million per astronaut for a Soyuz lift [2]. That comes to $58 billion in 2013 dollars. That leaves $151+ billion, ignoring inflation, to justify everything else the Shuttle did. $150+ billion is 10x SpaceX's lifetime capital expenditures. (It's about what NASA expects it will cost to put humans on Mars.)

At first, the Space Shuttle (conceived as a shuttle to an American space station, the latter never built) was an expensive way to low-earth orbit. After the ISS, the Space Shuttle became an expensive way to the ISS. It pioneered virtually nothing and nowhere and was better at nothing than any other craft.

It was not worthless. But for the cost we could have achieved vastly more. Opportunity cost is real; the Space Shuttle set spaceflight back at least a generation.

It's not fun to trash these programs. But over time, I've realized it's necessary. We cannot correct failures we refuse to recognize. The Space Shuttle's dismal ROI was a motivating factor behind the Bush administration's support of COTS [3]. Without that programme, SpaceX wouldn't be what it is today.

[1] https://www.space.com/12376-nasa-space-shuttle-program-facts...

[2] https://www.space.com/20897-nasa-russia-astronaut-launches-2...

[3] https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-orbital-transportation-servi...

The Space Shuttle was remarkably well designed for orbital bombing missions, which is the only reason the Soviets felt compelled to build the Buran to reproduce its capabilities.

The ISS should count as major progress as well.

Should have, but didn't. At least not for manned spaceflight. We learned how to keep humans alive in space way back with the Gemini project. A long-duration orbital sojourn could have been had for the cost of the ISS. At the end of the day, I struggle to think of a single big thing we can do post-ISS that we couldn't without.

It may not make headlines, but the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price. For all its problems, that alone makes ISS worth it.

> the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price

The knowledge was valuable, but not priceless. The same data could have been gathered, many times over, with long-duration multi-member orbital missions. We could have probably gotten an interplanetary flight in, too. The staggering cost of the ISS crowded out a lot of good science.

There is no way we could have achieved a similar volume of data without ISS. With ISS we get six astronaut-years of data every single year, and it’s got at least another decade in it, barring political stupidity.

The argument could be made that we could have made do with less data, perhaps. But we could not have gathered this volume even once without ISS, let alone “many times”.

> There is no way we could have achieved a similar volume of data without ISS

NASA spent 72 billion 2010 dollars on the ISS [1]. (Total cost is over $150 billion.) From Expedition 1 in 2000 through Expedition 53 in September, the ISS played host to 25,290 crew days of human occupation [2]. That comes to $2.8 million per day for NASA or over $5.9 million more generally. (Remember: this does not include the cost of getting to nor from the ISS.)

The Apollo program cost $107 billion 2016 dollars [3], or $98 million 2010 dollars [4]. (This includes the cost of the Saturn I, Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles.) From Apollo 7 in 1968 through Apollo 17 in 1972, the Apollo program hosted 305 crew days of human spaceflight [5]. That comes to $3.2 million per day.

TL; DR We could have replicated the time spent on the ISS with a series of Apollo programs, using Apollo technology and Apollo-era costs, and had budget left over for a manned (probably non-landing) interplanetary mission [6].

The ISS is a boondoggle [7] on every measure except number of dollars funneled to defense contractors. It's not fun to trash these programs. (I grew up adoring the Space Shuttle and the ISs.) But over time, I've realized it's necessary. We cannot correct failures we refuse to recognize.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Co...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Space_St...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program

[4] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Mission_summary

[6] Keep in mind the degree to which I'm putting my thumb on the scale in the ISS's favor. We're counting the Apollo program's launch costs but not the Space Shuttles. We're including, in $2.8 million per day figure, everyone's crew member hours but only NASA's costs.

[7] I am not (yet) in favor of de-orbiting the ISS. Sunk costs are sunk. Looking forward, there is probably something useful to be done with the beast.

> We could have replicated the time spent on the ISS with a series of Apollo programs

I doubt an Apollo CSM [1] could support astronauts for a full year (although Mir could [2]). It has proven very handy to have a space station within reach of resupply missions and with enough space to house some gym equipment and a whole bunch of medical equipment. You might also have trouble finding people willing to spend much time beyond the Van Allen radiation belts [3] in an Apollo era space craft [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command/Service_Module

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_EO-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-18

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt

[4] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/stereo_astron...

I was not aware of this, do you have a link to any of that info?

Here’s an article summarizing the findings of the most headline-grabbing medical study of the ISS program, the Twins Study in which Scott Kelly spent a year in space while his brother Mark remained on Earth; both were subjected to exhaustive testing, and the article briefly covers each investigation. One that I found particularly interesting: Scott’s telomeres grew significantly longer while he was in space!

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-investigators-...

Most astronauts spend six months on the station, and obviously most of them don’t have a twin, but they all add data to our knowledge of how space affects humans. We have learned a lot about how to counter muscle atrophy, and we have a better understanding of how the eyes and bones are degraded by prolonged weightlessness.

NASA loves to talk about ways that space research has improved life on earth (just google it, they’ll shout it at you), but even if you could find a way to do all that other research without a crewed space station, you can’t accumulate six astronaut-years of human medical data in space every single year for decades on end unless you’ve got a place in space to put a bunch of humans for a really long time, over and over again.

To me, that is what makes ISS a human treasure. Someday we will build a more cost-effective replacement on the basis of the lessons we’ve learned, but for now it’s the best we’ve got, and it’s quite good.

Right off the top of my head the medical data from long term space exposure will be absolutely critical to any future journeys. And I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to perfecting long duration systems design, technology proofing, etc.

Actually, much of our medical data & tech proofing from really long term space exposure belongs to the Soviets/Russians and Mir, not the ISS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Te...

Hopefully the proof for this assertion is not simply that the majority of the ten longest spaceflights were conducted by the USSR/Russia, and rather the most impactful information was gathered from them.

Are you just disregarding the (pretty cost-effective) experiments that could be done in space because of the ISS?

It's not all about flashy missions like sending humans to Mars (for dubious scientific value as opposed to just sending robots).

On-orbit construction, how pressurized modules hold up after two decades of space travel, long-running experiments requiring in-person management, etc.

for the amount of money spent on getting it there and maintaining it, and because we are keeping it understaffed for safety reasons, we are getting very little return on it.

ish. I mean it's not the most powerful ever rocket - so in some ways they are still catching up to the Saturn V.