On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: LegalLord, if you really care about economics you should spend all your posting time hating on the fat cats at ULA.
Oh, they do deserve plenty of criticism. They (LM+Boeing in whatever form) have sat on a government monopoly for decades and have just used legacy technologies all this time because there was no reason to innovate. But it's almost pointless to do so since the current climate basically villainizes them by default. Frankly it makes it so that it's more necessary to highlight when they actually do make progress than to spend time complaining about their historic monopolistic tendencies.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: But since you really just hate Elon Musk and SpaceX specifically you'll find a reason to hate no matter what they pull off.
Lol. Fuck no. I'm not enamored by him, I'll give you that much - I'm not going to speak in excited terms about a rocket launch or a very preliminary step towards "a greater goal." It's nice that he can hype it in a way that does get people excited; space PR does count for something. But I'm not going to ignore what I see: a hypester who is known for overpromising, who has multiple companies and performs the same shitty practices within all of them, and who will lose everything the moment people stop buying into the hype train because none of his companies are profitable.
The way I see it is something like this:
Musk promises a perpetual motion machine. Steps towards that goal: 1. Go to the store. 2. Build a generator. 3. Create net energy gain within a closed system using the generator.
He accomplishes (1) and (2) and people are like "OMG PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE INCOMING." No idiot, step 3 is where the real bottleneck is because (1) and (2) are very doable. Then he's going to sell energy from the generator created in (2) and say that it's going to create a beautiful economy of scale once it's a perpetual motion machine.
And this is basically what Musk offers in all cases. The perpetual motion machine in this case is perhaps twofold: Mars and a satellite internet business. Great dreams - not always feasible realities. Those great super goals are always a bit out of reach - in all three of his major enterprises of today. One of those folded into another already under bullshit arguments of a synergy that doesn't really exist.
I mean, for all my personal dislike of him, I do realize that space is important enough to put those aside if he really is on to something. My problem is that I don't really think he is. He delivered (2) and says that (3) is on the way. It's been on the way for a while now and there's always another (2.1) to (2.95729057289758903) that we can squeeze in there if we squint hard enough. The WSJ report on the internal finances of SpaceX doesn't paint a particularly great picture either. Nor does what I've heard from actual employees, current and past, about working there. While the assets of SpaceX are clearly worth something, I do take exception to people gushing with excitement over (2). And for reusable rockets, the steps look more like:
1. Land a first stage. 2. Reuse a rocket. 3. Make it economically feasible.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: Who cares if their announcements are way of target. Everybody knows that, and everybody adds a SpaceX delay factor on everything.
Time isn't as much of a factor as spouting bullshit. Which Musk does a lot of. "Hundred fold reduction in cost" is what matters.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: Even if their cost per flight is double their asking price they are still way way cheaper than the competition.
Are you sure about that number? They're cheaper, but not by THAT much. And commercial versus government payloads have entirely different standards that need to be met. I think even SpaceX started to raise costs significantly after their first AF contract.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: And even if it is all a scam like you claim, and they would have to be bailed out at some point it would still have saved the tax payer real money compared to $400m per launch at the old space giants.
If they lose the cargo that the AF has - which can be worth billions in certain cases - all that "savings" is for naught. And they were bailed out once by NASA, who wanted to see them succeed. Certainly they deserve praise for forcing the old space folk to actually get off their ass and innovate; no argument there. All the good ideas that ULA is now trotting out which they've kind of sidelined because it wasn't necessary in the past, that does show a specific deemphasis on innovation.
But let's put it into perspective. What SpaceX has made is a rocket that is moderate cost, moderate reliability, high hype. If they deliver on reusability cost savings on the scale they suggested then that will push them to "low cost." But in any case, they will probably get your cargo up there, and if you're a commercial customer who simply can't afford the ~$130m of an aerospace (Ariane/ULA) launch, you're better off just insuring your cargo and taking a somewhat smaller risk. The AF launches include those kinds of missions too, where they don't need the kind of expensive quality assurance that more reliable launchers pay out the ass for. A cheaper launch option is a good thing to have, and should be encouraged. The hype train pisses me off though.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: And that is just economics, which are frankly boring when we are talking about the final frontier.
Well I'm sorry if the logistics of actually making things happen on the "final frontier" don't excite you. Too bad that economics is probably the most important constraint of all. Doesn't matter how much cool shit you can dream up if no one is going to pay for R&D or production. With reusable rockets specifically, it isn't even the first rocket to be reused - with the last one suffering from precisely the ailment that most people who have actually worked on reusables are actually concerned with now. Economics.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: For 50 years NASA has been paralized by budget cuts and crippled by fear after Challenger and Discovery.
Well there's more than that. They (and the Old Spacers) have legacy commitments, senators to please, jobs to create, pensions that they have to pay, and so on. Some of those commitments can be shed, some can't. NASA is the only one that can really pursue long-term projects that are unlikely to turn a profit, though. In that sense the move towards privatization of space seems like an interesting, possibly effective decision - though we are still in catch-up mode until the private groups develop the capabilities that NASA used to have (like launching people into space at all), after which we will see if they can actually do better.
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: It took someone with the crazy idea to go to Mars, and the will and drive to actually make it happen, to finally bring new life into space exploration.
The Constellation program that Bush started and Obama cancelled, before anyone gave a rat's ass about SpaceX, had Mars as a goal...
On April 01 2017 19:15 zatic wrote: Maybe it's irrational, expensive, and risky. But so was Apollo. I'd rather have some irrationality than another 50 years of complacency.
Let's just hope the irrationality doesn't extend to the scientists and engineers who actually put the stuff together. They, of all people, should have a level head and not get overly excited by hype.
You know, all of that I can agree with, and it's probably very close to my own opinion.
You just never seem to post like that until put on the spot. So your regular contributions here come off as pure hating.
In my view it's just cheap and easy to be the guy pointing at the problems. Yes, they are there, and I see them too. I just care more about the accomplishments. And they are there, too. And I certainly don't care about fantasy timelines no one, probably not even Elon himself, believe in.
I've written longer posts on what I don't really like about SpaceX and why I'm particularly skeptical of them. It's sort of been a while but I do talk about the issues in depth once in a while.
I dunno how you would say "great reuse, but economics are what really matters" without coming off as a party pooper though. That sort of just looks that way by default.
When I once raised some concerns about the plausibility of solar-powered recharge stations for electric cars, I wasn't trying to shut down the industry or punish Elon Musk, I was just trying to understand how technically feasible the plan was, and it didn't seem particular feasible with the available information. Shortly after my post on these forums about that topic, I was attacked from multiple sides by other users about how terrible of a person I was, and it made the posts raising concern about LegalLord's position look like a picnic by comparison.
There is some serious fanboyism about Musk's companies on TL. I do have a lot of respect for some of the things he's accomplished, but saying anything negative here is like taboo.
edit: I think this post from that time sums it up pretty well:
On June 01 2013 18:35 frogrubdown wrote: You guys might want to consider the possibility that Micronesia isn't a Bond villain attempting to increase the value of his arctic real estate by hastening the onset of global warming. Maybe he was just asking a question?
Oh god, 2013 was so much more of a Musk fanboy circus than it is right now. I remember questioning the viability of SpaceX at a time when they had yet to lose any rockets, because between the QA issues I could see, the people I talked to, and the fact that it was obvious they weren't making any money, the hype was clearly detached from reality. 2017 has seen those ambitions tempered by reality. And TL isn't even among the most rabid of pro-Musk groups. The fans here are much more level-headed than most.
Though, I think for fairness, it's a good idea to consider a few things that SpaceX actually did, that they deserve some credit for. The bidding war that the government hoped for to reduce prices? They kind of got that with SpaceX, which severely undercut their non-Russian competitors. The data I've seen suggests that the premium that ULA and the like must pay for their "quality assurance" services that get them such a spotless launch record is ~60% more than SpaceX costs; the rest is genuine inefficiency, pork, waste, etc. And for the moment, the vertical integration that SpaceX did seems to be a decent idea. They offer a rocket that is relatively reliable and relatively inexpensive that is a good mix for cheaper space-based cargo. Besides being a decent service in and of itself, their presence does force some structural price reductions from their Old Space competitors, and a manufacturing overhaul from their Russian ones.
SpaceX offers a good service. I don't think it's profitable but their pocketbook is their own problem. It's the hype and overselling of a much more meager product than what they claim, that really bugs me. And the well-meaning but misguided space fanboys that eat it all up as if just another launch company (of moderate quality) is hot shit.
On April 02 2017 00:52 micronesia wrote: There is some serious fanboyism about Musk's companies on TL. I do have a lot of respect for some of the things he's accomplished, but saying anything negative here is like taboo.
And that's exactly why LegalLord takes the positions he does. He doesn't really care that reusable rockets have a long way to go, he's just a contrarian who wants to show off how perceptive and smart he thinks he is.
Just look at how he posted this:
On April 01 2017 05:02 LegalLord wrote: In truth the indicator of success on reuse is if launch costs come down. Reuse of a rocket is not technically troublesome; economy is.
In response to this fanboy post:
On April 01 2017 04:43 ShoCkeyy wrote: Congrats to Musk to reaching a re-used rocket for once. Let's hope the outcome is even better!
Less than a day and two posts after posting this:
On March 31 2017 08:21 LegalLord wrote: At the end of the day - what matters is the economics of the reusability. We'll see if reuse actually decreases costs sooner or later. Yes indeedy.
Good job on the launch though. Took a few years worth of delays to make it happen.
We all know Elon Musk likes to make grandiose claims. It's a strategy that's created a lot of interest and funding and has benefited SpaceX, NASA and space exploration in general. SpaceX was already launching for 1/3 the price of ULA before reusability and that alone is a bigger accomlishment than LegalLord usually gives it credit for. SpaceX obviously isn't perfect, or even clearly better than ULA or other aeorspace startups in the long run, but they are driving innovation in what was a very stagnant field and that's something to be excited about. LegalLord and JJraynor's constant validation-seeking contrarianism just pollutes the thread.
I found this talk that - despite accusations of being biased by over-representation of Old Spacers (SX, Blue, etc., were invited but didn't attend), actually covered a lot of the important issues of reusability quite well. Dated July '16.
The US government and some of its major aerospace contractors have tried to tackle the problem of reusable rockets and spacecraft for several decades, from the DC-X to the space shuttle, with mixed success. Even after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on these technologies in development and flight costs, neither the government nor its traditional aerospace contractors have mastered the art of flying vehicles to space, recovering them, and turning them around for new missions quickly and at low cost.
During the last half year, however, both SpaceX and Blue Origin have begun to demonstrate these capabilities. Although much work remains to be done, Blue Origin has already flown a suborbital rocket four times, in relatively short order, with low turnaround costs. And SpaceX has recovered five orbital rockets at land and sea and expects to refly at least one of them later this year.
Monday evening in Salt Lake City, some aerospace industry officials sat down to discuss this new development. The panel at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics forum on propulsion had a provocative title, “Launch Vehicle Reusability: Holy Grail, Chasing Our Tail, or Somewhere in Between?"
Besides a lot of technical commentary, the talk draws attention to the fact that reusability can give you at best a ~30% cost reduction for orbital launches - a benchmark that has to be compared with the cost of just making a simpler, smaller rocket that doesn't have to be reused. Which, incidentally, seems like the more realistic number that SpaceX has actually settled on claiming they can reduce the price by. Also covers some of the directions in reusability that the Old Spacers actually are going in (bonus article for that). All in all a kind of interesting discussion.
Key Blue Origin officials have begun to drop hints about the imminent hot-fire test of the company's new rocket engine, the BE-4. Jeff Bezos recently said to expect a full-scale engine test "in the coming weeks." And last Wednesday the company's director of business development, Brett Alexander, said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel discussion the test "was coming soon."
For many people, a rocket engine is just a rocket engine. But Blue Origin's new engine is a big deal for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its 550,000 pounds of thrust at sea level, more powerful than a space shuttle main engine, which had 418,000 pounds of thrust. Beyond the brawn, however, there are other reasons to anticipate a successful test.
During a tour of his rocket factory in Kent, Washington, last year Bezos explained the philosophy behind the BE-4 engine. "In principle, rocket engines are simple, but that’s the last place rocket engines are ever simple," he said. Nonetheless, Blue Origin sought to make an engine that was not too complex, nor one that required ultra-premium materials. The designers didn't want to create a work of art that pushed the limits of engineering—rather, they wanted a reliable workhorse that could be flown again and again, perhaps as many as 100 times as the company pushes the boundaries of reusable spaceflight.
Blue Origin began developing the engine in 2012 for its own purposes, but in 2014 the rocket company United Launch Alliance came to them about a replacement engine for its next-generation rocket, Vulcan. The company, which launches the majority of US military payloads with its Altas V rocket, needed to move on from its use of the Russian RD-180 engine, as the national security community was no longer comfortable buying from Russia during a time of rising tensions.
The RD 180 is a very high-performance engine, operating at extreme temperatures and pressures. Higher pressures translate into marginally more performance but at a high cost of development time, money, and uncertain reusability. “Our strategy is, we like to choose a medium-performing version of a high-performance architecture," Bezos said. "The RD-180 is both—a high-performing version of a high-performance architecture. That’s a very challenging engine to develop, and it really complexifies everything. With a lower pressure, you can still get very high performance."
As a result of its design philosophy, Bezos said the BE-4 engine should cost about 30 to 40 percent less than the RD-180 engine. It should also, in theory, be more durable and capable of reuse without worrying about the failure of components due to the extreme pressures and temperatures inside an RD-180 engine, which is flown once and then discarded.
The BE-4 also uses a new kind of fuel for a first-stage engine, liquid methane. Whereas hydrogen has a higher specific impulse (which is good), it is difficult to work with and requires large and bulky tanks to store because it is not dense. In some ways, because of its ease of use and potential for harvest on worlds such as Mars, methane is the rocket fuel of the future. When Elon Musk sought to design his Raptor engines, for his rocket to transport humans to Mars, he settled on liquid methane-liquid oxygen fuel as well.
BE-4 is the biggest engine that uses methane to date - so this test firing is going to shed a lot of light on whether or not it's going to be viable to use methane as fuel.
By the way, I've looked but had kind of shitty luck: does anyone have any decent comments on the effectiveness of methalox vs. keralox? It's a comparison I've simple not seen to much of besides people from the 1990s saying "kerosene is better." Yet methane engines are becoming more common, and the only justification I've ever seen is that methane and oxygen have very similar boiling points so they're easier to store without worrying about thermal transfer.
On April 02 2017 02:43 LegalLord wrote: I found this talk that - despite accusations of being biased by over-representation of Old Spacers (SX, Blue, etc., were invited but didn't attend), actually covered a lot of the important issues of reusability quite well. Dated July '16.
The US government and some of its major aerospace contractors have tried to tackle the problem of reusable rockets and spacecraft for several decades, from the DC-X to the space shuttle, with mixed success. Even after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on these technologies in development and flight costs, neither the government nor its traditional aerospace contractors have mastered the art of flying vehicles to space, recovering them, and turning them around for new missions quickly and at low cost.
During the last half year, however, both SpaceX and Blue Origin have begun to demonstrate these capabilities. Although much work remains to be done, Blue Origin has already flown a suborbital rocket four times, in relatively short order, with low turnaround costs. And SpaceX has recovered five orbital rockets at land and sea and expects to refly at least one of them later this year.
Monday evening in Salt Lake City, some aerospace industry officials sat down to discuss this new development. The panel at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics forum on propulsion had a provocative title, “Launch Vehicle Reusability: Holy Grail, Chasing Our Tail, or Somewhere in Between?"
Besides a lot of technical commentary, the talk draws attention to the fact that reusability can give you at best a ~30% cost reduction for orbital launches - a benchmark that has to be compared with the cost of just making a simpler, smaller rocket that doesn't have to be reused. Which, incidentally, seems like the more realistic number that SpaceX has actually settled on claiming they can reduce the price by. Also covers some of the directions in reusability that the Old Spacers actually are going in (bonus article for that). All in all a kind of interesting discussion.
I'm going to try to be nice but that 30 % cost reduction quote is just bullshit from ignorant people. I know, I know panel of experts and all that.
Let's be realistic here. Take the cost of a rocket and divide that by 100. Then add the cost of the fuel for getting it into orbit. That's the cost we will eventually get to.
I'm not saying it's going to be Musk and SpaceX and I'm not saying it's going to be in the near future. But it took us as a species 66 years to get from flying our first airplane to landing on the moon. That's insane to think about.
Were going to build a rocket that's going to fly, land, refuel and then fly again the same day. Like everything else we do as a species it takes time to perfect but mostly it's just about someone actually doing it enough to figure out what works, what doesn't work and what we need to make it work. The more people actually flying reused rockets the faster we will get better efficiency. Just last launch they figured out that you need titanium fins because aluminium starts burning. That's improvement that would never have been made if they didn't do that flight.
And that's the difference between making a cheaper one shot rocket and a reusable one. If you want to do a cheap one shot rocket you want to be just above the edge of having it explode because of it being to cheap but still being 100 % reliable. But the road to getting there is difficult because your customers can't accept your rocket exploding at times because of you pushing the limit and your not recovering your stuff to evaluate the design.
But a reusable rocket you can fly again and disassemble to check the wear. If something holds up great on several separate occasions there's room for cutting costs, if something wears out there's room for improving quality. Eventually the quality get's better and better.
Even if SpaceX folded today someone would buy their landing tech and have their first stage of the process completed so net progress would have been made.
On April 02 2017 03:12 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: I'm going to try to be nice but that 30 % cost reduction quote is just bullshit from ignorant people. I know, I know panel of experts and all that.
Let's be realistic here. Take the cost of a rocket and divide that by 100. Then add the cost of the fuel for getting it into orbit. That's the cost we will eventually get to.
Like... the fuck? Panel of experts says that this is where we stand - and SpaceX's advertising numbers are quite in line with the panel's estimates. And given that those are advertising numbers rather than more informed economic estimates, that's only going to go down from there. Which shouldn't be a surprise because there's an important tradeoff with reusability and effectiveness.
The "factor of 100" is as bullshit here as it was when Musk said it. That's just not how the technology works because fuel is a pittance compared to what it actually costs to repair a rocket for reuse. Maybe one day there will be rockets that won't require any repair. But then again, maybe we'll design rockets that are fueled on the power of hope (reducing 90% of the weight on launch) or we'll get straight up spaceships. But if I want to live that fantasy, I should look at Star Wars or Star Trek instead of SpaceX.
On April 02 2017 03:12 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: I'm not saying it's going to be Musk and SpaceX and I'm not saying it's going to be in the near future. But it took us as a species 66 years to get from flying our first airplane to landing on the moon. That's insane to think about.
Were going to build a rocket that's going to fly, land, refuel and then fly again the same day. Like everything else we do as a species it takes time to perfect but mostly it's just about someone actually doing it enough to figure out what works, what doesn't work and what we need to make it work. The more people actually flying reused rockets the faster we will get better efficiency.
I'm not one for thinking in terms of dreamy "wow look at how sciency science is!" terms. Advancement isn't made by ignoring when someone is selling snake oil in the guise of science.
On April 02 2017 03:12 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Just last launch they figured out that you need titanium fins because aluminium starts burning. That's improvement that would never have been made if they didn't do that flight.
I mean, there's nothing stopping you from recovering the burned carcass of an expendable launch vehicle. You just don't have to go out there and turn that burnt-out carcass into another launch.
There are plenty of reusable launch vehicles - how many of them actually save money though? With current technology it seems that saving on the weight of whatever it takes to be able to recover parts of a rocket is more important than the ability to be able to repair a burnt carcass of a launch vehicle, or parts therein.
On April 02 2017 03:12 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: And that's the difference between making a cheaper one shot rocket and a reusable one. If you want to do a cheap one shot rocket you want to be just above the edge of having it explode because of it being to cheap but still being 100 % reliable. But the road to getting there is difficult because your customers can't accept your rocket exploding at times because of you pushing the limit and your not recovering your stuff to evaluate the design.
I mean, all of the rockets that have the best safety records happen to also be expendable. So... wat?
On April 02 2017 03:12 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: But a reusable rocket you can fly again and disassemble to check the wear. If something holds up great on several separate occasions there's room for cutting costs, if something wears out there's room for improving quality. Eventually the quality get's better and better.
Even if SpaceX folded today someone would buy their landing tech and have their first stage of the process completed so net progress would have been made.
Eventually, a reusable rocket that will be viable will probably be made. Old Spacers also think that they might be able to reuse rockets, even if they're not sure that it's actually worth it. Unfortunately, gravity is an asshole that requires us to launch these giant fuel guzzlers that burn everything in their path and consist of 90% fuel, just so that we can get into orbit. And repairing the damage done by burning one of those fuckers turns out to be more expensive than just designing a simple one that doesn't have to be repaired. Saves you a lot of trouble from having to deal with cyclic wear too, which gets worse and worse in each successive reuse. It'll be interesting to see if SpaceX thinks it will be able to double-reuse their engine at all.
And that's fine, it's good to acknowledge the difficulties of what we're actually doing. But fuck those hypesters who make absurd claims about "hundred fold cost savings" and find enough well-meaning but gullible fools thinking that that's anything other than a number pulled out of the ass.
But let's put it into perspective. What SpaceX has made is a rocket that is moderate cost, moderate reliability, high hype. If they deliver on reusability cost savings on the scale they suggested then that will push them to "low cost." But in any case, they will probably get your cargo up there, and if you're a commercial customer who simply can't afford the ~$130m of an aerospace (Ariane/ULA) launch, you're better off just insuring your cargo and taking a somewhat smaller risk. The AF launches include those kinds of missions too, where they don't need the kind of expensive quality assurance that more reliable launchers pay out the ass for. A cheaper launch option is a good thing to have, and should be encouraged. The hype train pisses me off though.
So what you're saying is that Arianespace and ULA are fine as long as SpaceX keeps losing payloads. Well, ULA never really competed successfully for commercial launches anyway, so I guess it's Arienespace that should be worried.
Of course it's tempting to believe that you can never build a highly reliable launcher at the prices SpaceX is offering. But Europe is betting the future of its (historically successful) launch industry on that.
But let's put it into perspective. What SpaceX has made is a rocket that is moderate cost, moderate reliability, high hype. If they deliver on reusability cost savings on the scale they suggested then that will push them to "low cost." But in any case, they will probably get your cargo up there, and if you're a commercial customer who simply can't afford the ~$130m of an aerospace (Ariane/ULA) launch, you're better off just insuring your cargo and taking a somewhat smaller risk. The AF launches include those kinds of missions too, where they don't need the kind of expensive quality assurance that more reliable launchers pay out the ass for. A cheaper launch option is a good thing to have, and should be encouraged. The hype train pisses me off though.
So what you're saying is that Arianespace and ULA are fine as long as SpaceX keeps losing payloads. Well, ULA never really competed successfully for commercial launches anyway, so I guess it's Arienespace that should be worried.
Of course it's tempting to believe that you can never build a highly reliable launcher at the prices SpaceX is offering. But Europe is betting the future of its (historically successful) launch industry on that.
But let's put it into perspective. What SpaceX has made is a rocket that is moderate cost, moderate reliability, high hype. If they deliver on reusability cost savings on the scale they suggested then that will push them to "low cost." But in any case, they will probably get your cargo up there, and if you're a commercial customer who simply can't afford the ~$130m of an aerospace (Ariane/ULA) launch, you're better off just insuring your cargo and taking a somewhat smaller risk. The AF launches include those kinds of missions too, where they don't need the kind of expensive quality assurance that more reliable launchers pay out the ass for. A cheaper launch option is a good thing to have, and should be encouraged. The hype train pisses me off though.
So what you're saying is that Arianespace and ULA are fine as long as SpaceX keeps losing payloads. Well, ULA never really competed successfully for commercial launches anyway, so I guess it's Arienespace that should be worried.
Of course it's tempting to believe that you can never build a highly reliable launcher at the prices SpaceX is offering. But Europe is betting the future of its (historically successful) launch industry on that.
What I'm saying is that the difference between a $60m, 90% successful and a $120-200m, 100% successful rocket is dependent on how valuable your payload is. If you have a $100m communications satellite for commercial purposes... you lose it, you can just claim the insurance, write off a small loss, and you come out ahead of if you went for the more expensive one. If your satellite is a billion dollars or if it's a matter of national security for it to be up there right now, then you'd best take the more expensive option.
That's the calculation on the customer side of commercial. They don't need to be 100% sure that their stuff will get up there, they just need to make a calculated business risk. It hurts the launcher much more when they lose a flight, because not only do they not get the money but also their entire fleet is now grounded until they figure out what went wrong. And if it's a government launch it's thrice as bad because they're going to drill your ass for a long, long time to figure out why the fuck you fucked up.
SpaceX hasn't built a "highly reliable" launcher at the prices they have. They've built a moderately reliable one. There's a market space for that but there's also a good reason why ULA rockets cost more for their higher QA. Making government inspectors happy is an expensive matter.
But let's put it into perspective. What SpaceX has made is a rocket that is moderate cost, moderate reliability, high hype. If they deliver on reusability cost savings on the scale they suggested then that will push them to "low cost." But in any case, they will probably get your cargo up there, and if you're a commercial customer who simply can't afford the ~$130m of an aerospace (Ariane/ULA) launch, you're better off just insuring your cargo and taking a somewhat smaller risk. The AF launches include those kinds of missions too, where they don't need the kind of expensive quality assurance that more reliable launchers pay out the ass for. A cheaper launch option is a good thing to have, and should be encouraged. The hype train pisses me off though.
So what you're saying is that Arianespace and ULA are fine as long as SpaceX keeps losing payloads. Well, ULA never really competed successfully for commercial launches anyway, so I guess it's Arienespace that should be worried.
Of course it's tempting to believe that you can never build a highly reliable launcher at the prices SpaceX is offering. But Europe is betting the future of its (historically successful) launch industry on that.
What I'm saying is that the difference between a $60m, 90% successful and a $120-200m, 100% successful rocket is dependent on how valuable your payload is. If you have a $100m communications satellite for commercial purposes... you lose it, you can just claim the insurance, write off a small loss, and you come out ahead of if you went for the more expensive one. If your satellite is a billion dollars or if it's a matter of national security for it to be up there right now, then you'd best take the more expensive option.
Right, but we can't assume that the 90% is set in stone. It's possible, likely even, that SpaceX will find it easier to improve reliability than competitors will to cut cost, at least on existing launchers. The 90% (or 94%) isn't a property of the rocket. It is a combination of the design, manufacturing, QA but also things like the launch process or even, as we've seen, a function of how the rocket is loaded with fuel.
But let's put it into perspective. What SpaceX has made is a rocket that is moderate cost, moderate reliability, high hype. If they deliver on reusability cost savings on the scale they suggested then that will push them to "low cost." But in any case, they will probably get your cargo up there, and if you're a commercial customer who simply can't afford the ~$130m of an aerospace (Ariane/ULA) launch, you're better off just insuring your cargo and taking a somewhat smaller risk. The AF launches include those kinds of missions too, where they don't need the kind of expensive quality assurance that more reliable launchers pay out the ass for. A cheaper launch option is a good thing to have, and should be encouraged. The hype train pisses me off though.
So what you're saying is that Arianespace and ULA are fine as long as SpaceX keeps losing payloads. Well, ULA never really competed successfully for commercial launches anyway, so I guess it's Arienespace that should be worried.
Of course it's tempting to believe that you can never build a highly reliable launcher at the prices SpaceX is offering. But Europe is betting the future of its (historically successful) launch industry on that.
What I'm saying is that the difference between a $60m, 90% successful and a $120-200m, 100% successful rocket is dependent on how valuable your payload is. If you have a $100m communications satellite for commercial purposes... you lose it, you can just claim the insurance, write off a small loss, and you come out ahead of if you went for the more expensive one. If your satellite is a billion dollars or if it's a matter of national security for it to be up there right now, then you'd best take the more expensive option.
Right, but we can't assume that the 90% is set in stone. It's possible, likely even, that SpaceX will find it easier to improve reliability than competitors will to cut cost, at least on existing launchers. The 90% (or 94%) isn't a property of the rocket. It is a combination of the design, manufacturing, QA but also things like the launch process or even, as we've seen, a function of how the rocket is loaded with fuel.
Well that percentage success rate can go both ways. Two years ago they had only one partial failure and no full failures on F9, riding high on a successful break-in into the AF launch industry. Now all those QA issues that I have mentioned for the past four years that I'm concerned about resulted in two full failures. It's never clear to what extent they're able to fix those issues. And of course, almost by necessity, a reused rocket is going to be less reliable because you simply can't make a rebuilt rocket as good as new without pretty much actually making a new rocket.
ULA has clearly seen the writing on the wall and started pursuing a rocket that they think they'll be able to offer for $90m. Which with a better reliability rate, is competitive with Falcon for commercial. Which is still a pretty small industry; is it still true that the majority of SpaceX money, if not contract count, comes from government money? With insurance costs being lower for the 100% rocket than the 90%, the prices start to look more like a "budget option" and "premium option" of reasonable price, which may often favor the latter. So SpaceX is not necessarily always going to be price competitive.
SpaceX could also reduce their costs further if reusability actually turns out to be economical, but I doubt even they will be able to figure that out very soon. Truth is that 1-2 failures on a reusable rocket is going to negate all the potential savings for the next few years. And maybe SpaceX will run low on hype and won't be able to go without making a profit for much longer at some point in the future. But also maybe they will be able to become reliable faster than their competitors will become affordable.
It could go any number of ways. I don't see any reason to strongly favor or disfavor SpaceX here.
Well that percentage success rate can go both ways.
Sure.
Two years ago they had only one partial failure and no full failures on F9, riding high on a successful break-in into the AF launch industry. Now all those QA issues that I have mentioned for the past four years that I'm concerned about resulted in two full failures.
The Amos-6 wasn't a QA issue. Their new LOX loading operation was inherrently flawed and was bound to lead to an accident eventually. I guess you could call CRS-7 a QA issue.
It's never clear to what extent they're able to fix those issues.
I think it's very clear that they fixed both of those issues. What isn't clear, is to what extent are they a result of trying to do things faster and cheaper and how many similar issues remain.
And of course, almost by necessity, a reused rocket is going to be less reliable because you simply can't make a rebuilt rocket as good as new without pretty much actually making a new rocket.
But you can rule out certain failure modes on subsequent launches as they would lead to a failure in earlier missions. I don't think it's true now, but eventually reused rockets should be safer than new ones, simply by process of natural selection.
ULA has clearly seen the writing on the wall and started pursuing a rocket that they think they'll be able to offer for $90m.
And they will have to go through the process of understanding all the possible failure modes of a new system. I guess we'll find out if their high success rate is more of a result of better QA and cautious engineering or just changing as few things as possible on a legacy system.
With insurance costs being lower for the 100% rocket than the 90%, the prices start to look more like a "budget option" and "premium option" of reasonable price, which may often favor the latter. So SpaceX is not necessarily always going to be price competitive.
If Falcon 9 is going to launch crew, they will pretty much have to have a premium option themselves. Technically, NASA requires below 1 in 300 probability of loss of crew for the whole mission, which would imply something like 1 in 1000 for the launch. Of course that's not going to happen (for SpaceX or Boeing) but it's clear they will need to treat these missions very differently. The question is whether they can use the free design review NASA provides to improve their uncrewed missions.
Truth is that 1-2 failures on a reusable rocket is going to negate all the potential savings for the next few years
One thing we agree on is that SpaceX can keep the same failure rate they had so far. They either need to stop changing things around (possible, since Block 5 is said to be the final iteration of Falcon 9) or figure out a way to experiment without compromising safety (I'm not sure this is possible).
And maybe SpaceX will run low on hype and won't be able to go without making a profit for much longer at some point in the future.
I think the whole "none of Musk's companies are making any profit" argument needs to die. If you are creating more assets than the money you're losing then that's as good as turning a profit. By that criterion SpaceX and Tesla are creating value for their owners (Solarcity probably wasn't) and it's reflected in their valuation/stock price. It's not because investors are being bamboozled by Musk's grandiose plans.
It could go any number of ways. I don't see any reason to strongly favor or disfavor SpaceX here.
7 years ago not seeing a strong reason that would have qualified as being on the hype train yourself.
If "creating assets" means "convincing new shareholders to give you more money than you lose from continuing operations" then yes, Musk is "creating assets." Otherwise he's running little more than an elaborate money laundering scheme. Though to be fair a few assets might be sold off for a fraction of what they cost to produce when the music ends.
This "Amazon strategy" idea that it's perfectly ok for any company to lose money forever because "it's in growth phase" needs to die. SpaceX is a pretty small company (IIRC ULA/Ariane are more of a favor to the government than a for-profit enterprise as well; they're pretty tiny compared to their parents' profiles) and isn't public, probably to avoid accountability for finances that could be just as disastrous as Tesla.
Idiotic hype trains need to go to hell. There are plenty of greater fools willing to waste money as long as there's enough feel-good hype to keep them going. And a man who is always "one step away from the profitable revolution" in perpetuity is not the spitting image of someone who is going to generate money for the shareholders. And I wouldn't care if not for the fact that every single one of his companies are sustained on a wave of beautiful government handouts.
On April 03 2017 01:43 LegalLord wrote: If "creating assets" means "convincing new shareholders to give you more money than you lose from continuing operations" then yes, Musk is "creating assets." Otherwise he's running little more than an elaborate money laundering scheme. Though to be fair a few assets might be sold off for a fraction of what they cost to produce when the music ends.
This "Amazon strategy" idea that it's perfectly ok for any company to lose money forever because "it's in growth phase" needs to die. SpaceX is a pretty small company (IIRC ULA/Ariane are more of a favor to the government than a for-profit enterprise as well; they're pretty tiny compared to their parents' profiles) and isn't public, probably to avoid accountability for finances that could be just as disastrous as Tesla.
Idiotic hype trains need to go to hell. There are plenty of greater fools willing to waste money as long as there's enough feel-good hype to keep them going. And a man who is always "one step away from the profitable revolution" in perpetuity is not the spitting image of someone who is going to generate money for the shareholders. And I wouldn't care if not for the fact that every single one of his companies are sustained on a wave of beautiful government handouts.
Says a keyboard warrior who doesn't help innovation. I might be a fanboy, but I only consider myself a fanboy because at least Musk was trying when no one else was. If it wasn't for SpaceX, ULA would still be eating shit, Boeing would still be with their thumb up their ass, and Blue Origin wouldn't exist. I don't know how you can say SpaceX or Tesla is cronylism even though you consider it a "hype" train, all of his companies have done well for themselves in driving innovation.
The investors backing it because they also have a dream, and I don't mind him receiving handouts from the government as long as we're seeing use out of it . I mean common, the guy might be a hype guy, but he's getting shit done, whether it takes longer than expected, at least it's getting done. When you say you came out with a 35K electric car that can pretty much travel across the country with no gas. Then I think you have a right to criticize, but you're criticizing Musk for actually doing something?
I understand why you criticize him for the government handouts, but I think almost any company that starts innovating, always goes to the government first.
Here's a great example of large tech companies, including Lockheed taking billions in handouts from the government, why don't you criticize them? I haven't really seen you criticize the "10" year lockheed for a small nuclear reactor that can run on planes.
Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, IBM (NYSE:IBM), General Electric, and Honeywell are the specific companies identified in the review. All told, these companies have collectively raked in $671 billion in federal contracts within the time frame.
Given the federal government's role as a significant benefactor to companies like these, it does have a cap of $763,000 in base pay for each CEO. However, in an epic fail, bonuses and stock options aren't included in that ceiling.
EPT
