SpaceX: Making Commercial Spaceflight a RealitySpringer Science & Business Media, 2013 M06 15 - 206 páginas This first account of commercial spaceflight’s most successful venture describes the extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement that have placed SpaceX at the forefront of the launch industry and made it the most likely candidate for transporting humans to Mars. Since its inception in 2002, SpaceX has sought to change the space launch paradigm by developing a family of launch vehicles that will ultimately reduce the cost and increase the reliability of space access tenfold. Coupled with the newly emerging market for governmental, private, and commercial space transport, this new model will re-ignite humanity's efforts to explore and develop space. Formed in 2002 by Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal and the Zip2 Corporation, SpaceX has already developed two state-of-the-art new launch vehicles, established an impressive launch manifest, and been awarded COTS funding by NASA to demonstrate delivery and return of cargo to the ISS. This book describes how simplicity, low-cost, and reliability can go hand in hand, as promoted in the philosophy of SpaceX. It explains how, by eliminating the traditional layers of internal management and external sub-contractors and keeping the vast majority of manufacturing in house, SpaceX reduces its costs while accelerating decision making and delivery, controls quality, and ensures constant liaison between the design and manufacturing teams. |
Contenido
2 The engine of competition | 17 |
The workhorses of commercial space flight | 32 |
4 Rise of the Falcon | 51 |
Life after the Space Shuttle | 64 |
Picking up where NASA left off | 85 |
7 The space taxi race | 111 |
8 Red Dragon | 141 |
The route to commercializing low Earth orbit | 150 |
Appendix I | 169 |
Appendix II | 174 |
Appendix III | 177 |
Appendix IV | 179 |
Appendix V | 185 |
Index | 204 |
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