Can’t wait for docking to ISS. Good luck Dragon.

As for those who think the Falcon 9‘s nine engines make it overly complicated wonder what they reckon of the Russian manned moon shot design which had something like 30!

Well, Falcon Heavy is going to be 3 Falcon 9 cores strapped together for a total of 27 engines which isn’t far behind

Seriouly, N1 (the failed soviet moon rocket) is frequently brought up by critics of Falcon 9 and Heavy as an example that a large number of engines spells D-O-O-M.
Needless to say, from an engineering standpoint this is complete nonsense.

Today’s aerospace engineers have incredibly powerful design tools like finite element analysis and CFD at hand, things that people (especially in the Soviet Union) could only dream off back then, and of course control hardware and -software is similarly orders of magnitude more advanced today.

As for those who think the Falcon 9‘s nine engines make it overly complicated, wonder what they reckon of the Russian manned moon shot design which had something like 30!

PS. Yep – The Soviet N1 rocket design had :

“30 NK-15 engines arranged in two rings, the main ring of 24 at the outer edge of the booster, the inner of 6 at about half diameter.”

Source : Wikipedia as of now. (Click my name here for the relevant wiki-link.)

Thinking of the Apollo 13 engine loss issue – I wonder if the Falcon 9 had lost one engine , would it still have been capable fo making it to LEO and /or the ISS?

According to SpaceX, Falcon 9 can complete its mission with an engine failure “at any point during the launch”. I think I’ve read somewhere that (above a certain altitude) they can even make it with 2 engines out, because if one of the outer engines fails they also shut down the opposite one to maintain symmetrical thrust.

People often criticize Falcon 9′s nine-engine design as overly complicated, but redundancy does have its perks. Not to mention enormous cost savings achieved through commonality with the upper stage and Falcon 1.

But what I find SO weird right now is funding for COTS etc is getting cut, cut all the time. Ooh maybe only one commercial vehicle now.. etc. The funding is now way less (half? a third?) of a single shuttle launch.

Re the CNN coverage (IMForeman@15) my guess (as a Brit – I don’t know) is given enough congressional pork for the status quo as was, SpaceX or anyone else could land a battleship on Mars for 10 cents and get criticized anyway by any news corporation you can name.

Sorry heavy cold, cynical mood..

Thanks Tedd and Ferris!

From Wikipedia

The first attempt to launch the 6A mission (second attempt for Gemini spacecraft No. 6) was on December 12, 1965 at 9:54 a.m. EST.[3] All went well right up to ignition—in fact the engines did ignite, but then a plug fell out of the bottom of the rocket, starting the onboard computer. This was not meant to happen until the rocket had actually lifted off, and the onboard computer detected that there was no upwards motion, causing it to abort the launch.

Anyway, that is the mission in question