SpaceX--Spacecraft, rockets, and Mars

[Altherion]

9 minutes ago, felice said:

Oh, and it also compares the costs unfavourably to the Apollo project, which is like complaining about a 747 costing more to make than a Spitfire.

Not exactly. The sad thing about the US space program is that the Saturn V rocket at the heart of the Apollo project is still by far the most powerful rocket humanity has every made -- even though it has been half a century since its first launch in 1967. The SLS will come close to it, but, depending on how one counts the payload, even SLS Block 2 either does not reach it or does not significantly exceed it. Block 1B definitely does not reach it and that's not coming until 2022. The one and only system projected to go way beyond the Saturn V is SpaceX's ITS.

31 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

If SLS is just a Spitfire compared to the Apollo program being a 747, then why does the Spitfire cost half the amount of the 747?

It doesn't. The costs being compared are at very different stages of completion. The Apollo cost is the value computed years after the end of the program (i.e. it includes multiple launches, landings, etc.). The $43B for the SLS is the projected cost up to the first flight in 2021 (i.e. it is only the development). Also, given that this is still years in the future, it is probably underestimated.

[felice]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Yes, that's exactly what they should be doing -- but not build us an SLS.  Provide us with a service of flights to get X many tons of payload to Moon or Mars.

That's an ideological position, not a scientific one.

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

The same article points out the commercial crew and cargo programs seeing only 14% of the budget going to NASA overhead, while costing vastly less in gross numbers.  NASA's own analysis of what it would take to build the Falcon 9 rocket would take spending 20-25 times the amount SpaceX spent.

There's nothing about gross numbers in the article, and nothing inherently good about budget going to contractor overhead instead of NASA overhead. If NASA is being inefficient, then that's a problem that needs to be addressed, but the article doesn't make any case for that.

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

If SLS is just a Spitfire compared to the Apollo program being a 747

Other way round. Though a better comparison would Spitfire vs F-15. I'm assuming the SLS is significantly more advanced than the Saturn V.

[Altherion]

12 minutes ago, felice said:

I'm assuming the SLS is significantly more advanced than the Saturn V.

It is not. There are arguments about what counts as payload and if you take the side that favors the SLS, its final Block 2 form comes out slightly ahead. However, this is an edge on the order of 130 vs. 122 -- it's not of a different class.

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, felice said:

That's an ideological position, not a scientific one.

Neither your statement nor mine was about science.  It's about engineering and management decisions, which can be examined for logic, efficiency, cost in real numbers and to opportunity, and likelihood of obtaining the goal.

 

Quote

There's nothing about gross numbers in the article, and nothing inherently good about budget going to contractor overhead instead of NASA overhead. If NASA is being inefficient, then that's a problem that needs to be addressed, but the article doesn't make any case for that.

 

"the report estimates the agency will have spent $43 billion before that first flight, essentially a reprise of the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon."

"the Apollo program cost between $100 billion and $110 billion in 2010 dollars."

The Apollo program also built a lunar lander, an ascent vehicle, a service module, a return capsule, spacesuits, and a deep space network.  SLS/Orion is a fraction of the work.

The article was clearly saying this is a problem.

[felice]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

It is not. There are arguments about what counts as payload

Surely payload isn't the only factor in determining which is more advanced? Would you say the Falcon 9 is much less advanced than the Saturn V and SLS because it has a much lower maximum payload?

6 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

"the report estimates the agency will have spent $43 billion before that first flight, essentially a reprise of the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon."

But that has nothing to do with the percentages. No costs are given for the SpaceX, Boeing, and Orbital ATK programs, so 14% has no meaning. You could reduce NASA's share of the Orion costs to 14% by paying the contractors 8 times as much for the same work, but that obviously wouldn't be a good thing. And writing off development as "overhead" is ridiculous.

The Apollo program had spent $60-$65 billion in 2010 dollars by the end of 1967 (60% of the total budget), a year before the launch of Apollo 8. If the SLS is only spending $43 billion to reach the same point, it's not doing too badly.

I'm not saying the report's recommendations are necessarily wrong, but this is a bad article, biased and failing to make any real case for the recommendations.

[Altherion]

13 hours ago, felice said:

Surely payload isn't the only factor in determining which is more advanced? Would you say the Falcon 9 is much less advanced than the Saturn V and SLS because it has a much lower maximum payload?

It's not the only factor, but it is one of the most important ones. Here are the factors I can think of:

1) Reliability: how likely it is that the rocket performs as intended and delivers the payload safe and sound to its destination. It's difficult to compare to something that is only in the development stages, but you can't really beat Saturn V on this because it never failed to the point of losing a crew or a payload.

2) Payload weight: how much stuff the rocket can bring to space. The Saturn V has been the unchallenged champion here for half a century and it probably will be for at least another half a decade and possibly more.

3) Cost: how much work and material (summarized in financial terms) it takes to launch. This is the point where the Falcon 9 and other SpaceX rockets are intended to have an edge: if the rocket can be reused with only modest refurbishment costs, then it is superior despite the lower payload because you can increase the frequency of launches with roughly the same result. However, the SLS is no different from the Saturn V in this respect: it costs about the same and it cannot be reused.

Incidentally, SpaceX has completed the static fire test for the first reused Falcon on Monday and if everything is satisfactory, they may launch it as early as this Thursday.

[Loge]

The thing about the SLS is that it costs a lot of money to develop and won't see any meaningful use (because the budget isn't there). But that's not NASA's fault. They're just doing as they are told by Congress. The argument in the report seems to be that if they outsourced R&D  to contractors, those contractors might find other uses for the stuff they develop. But that would just be more subsidies to the aerospace industry, which is what that report is really calling for. 

[Liffguard]

19 hours ago, Altherion said:

1) Reliability: how likely it is that the rocket performs as intended and delivers the payload safe and sound to its destination. It's difficult to compare to something that is only in the development stages, but you can't really beat Saturn V on this because it never failed to the point of losing a crew or a payload.

 

To be fair the Saturn V only flew what, thirteen times? Sure it never failed but that's not a great sample size. And it's not like the Apollo programme as a whole was particularly safe.

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Liffguard said:

To be fair the Saturn V only flew what, thirteen times? Sure it never failed but that's not a great sample size.

It's a medium-sized sample, but you have to keep in mind that this was something completely new. It was literally 5 times more powerful than anything that came before with the corresponding increases in size and to some extent also complexity. It's pretty amazing that it worked as well as it did.

[SpaceChampion]

16 hours ago, Loge said:

The argument in the report seems to be that if they outsourced R&D  to contractors, those contractors might find other uses for the stuff they develop. But that would just be more subsidies to the aerospace industry, which is what that report is really calling for. 

Not at all.  That's the cost-plus system.  The argument is to go with the same fixed-cost price that SpaceX, Orbital and Boeing have been operating under for their commercial cargo and commercial crew contracts where you only pay for results and milestones.

 

The launch window for the SES-10 mission with the previously flown F9 booster opens on Thursday March 30th at 6:27 PM EDT and will be live streamed on SpaceX.com.

[Altherion]

Did anyone watch this? As I write this, the second stage still needs to get into the proper orbit, but the first one (the one that was reused) did its job properly and landed on the drone ship again. It was pretty awesome.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

16 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Did anyone watch this? As I write this, the second stage still needs to get into the proper orbit, but the first one (the one that was reused) did its job properly and landed on the drone ship again. It was pretty awesome.

No, I missed it but NPR posted an update.  How much money does it save to be able to re-use stages?

[Altherion]

8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No, I missed it but NPR posted an update.  How much money does it save to be able to re-use stages?

I've heard various rumors that this specific launch was roughly 30% cheaper than usual. However, keep in mind that the first time something is done is typically a whole lot more expensive than doing it once the equivalent of an assembly line has been set up. If they keep doing this, the cost should go down by an order of magnitude or more as it does in the airplane analogy that they keep using (i.e. imagine the cost of air travel if you had to discard the plane and build a new one after every one-way flight).

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I've heard various rumors that this specific launch was roughly 30% cheaper than usual. However, keep in mind that the first time something is done is typically a whole lot more expensive than doing it once the equivalent of an assembly line has been set up. If they keep doing this, the cost should go down by an order of magnitude or more as it does in the airplane analogy that they keep using (i.e. imagine the cost of air travel if you had to discard the plane and build a new one after every one-way flight).

So, from $92,000,000 per launch to 9,200,000 per launch?  That's quite a step down even if it is still steep.

[SpaceChampion]

Replay of the hosted livestream:

 

The price offered to SES was in the range of 30% cheaper than a new booster, but cost is much less.  SpaceX still needs to make enough profit to amortize development costs, so while it could be priced lower, it won't for a while.  SES will do 3 launches with SpaceX this year, 2 of which would be on previously flown boosters at the 30% lower cost.  About ~$43 million price for the flight-proven hardware.

The first stage is about 75% of the cost of the whole rocket.  About only $200-300K is fuel .  Profit on the ~$61.2M price is thought by SpaceX observers to be about 50%, so cost is about $30M.  So the first stage costs about $22.5M, the second stage about $7.5M.  So total cost about $30M can be reduce to let say $9M for a flight-proven system.  Don't take those as fact, it's just good guesses.  So reusability actually seems to keep the profit similar to a new booster, about ~$33M compared to ~$30M-ish.  They could afford to reduce the profit more if flight rates increase substantially.

Could they get down to $15 million a launch or less, and still make 33% profit?  I think so.

Note also that today was an attempt (haven't heard yet if it was successful) of another first that probably saves a few million, that of recovery of the payload fairing, which would have a GPS transceiver attached to it and a parachute to bring it down for a splash landing.  We might hear tomorrow.

Third achievement was first use of the Optimis Prime bot to grab ahold of the landed Falcom booster on deck of the drone ship.  :-)

Reflight of a Dragon capsule is another milestone for later this year.

[SpaceChampion]

59 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, from $92,000,000 per launch to 9,200,000 per launch?  That's quite a step down even if it is still steep.

I think the $92M price is for the Falcon Heavy which is yet to launch, but that's price not SpaceX's cost. 

Yes, I think $9M for a reused F9 is the correct number, but that's the cost to SpaceX, much less than the price they're charging customers.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I think the $92M price is for the Falcon Heavy which is yet to launch, but that's price not cost. 

Yes, I think $9M for a reused F9 is the correct number, but that's the cost to SpaceX, much less than the price they're charging customers.

Again, cool.  Is the debate earlier whether NASA can or should compete with private space launches?  Can NASA not move to a regulatory role for private efforts?

[SpaceChampion]

Oh, forgot to add -- since Falcon Heavy would use reused boosters too (at least the two side boosters, it is still not clear if the centre booster might be substantially different from the F9 such that they can't use a F9 for it) and the upper stage is the same as for F9, then the cost to SpaceX for a FH could be as low as $9M for that too.  Certainly even if they have to manufacture a new center booster, it's reusable too, so subsequent reflight could be that low.  Well, plus whatever the extra cost of the additional fuel is.

36 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Again, cool.  Is the debate earlier whether NASA can or should compete with private space launches?  Can NASA not move to a regulatory role for private efforts?

Yes and no.  No one specifically said it, but that's the between the lines read -- NASA shouldn't be in the business of competing with private industry.  No on the regulatory role question.  FAA is the regulator for the industry. 

NASA makes a good technology pioneer, and Obama tried to set them on that path in 2010 but his budget request was rejected by Congress, and instead they created the SLS project, and Orion crew capsule un-cancelled.  The Obama plan for NASA made a lot of sense -- even Newt Gingrich praised it -- develop technology that would needed for future exploration, revisit the rocket question later -- presumably later being after SpaceX and others have succeeded delivering crew to ISS (which in 2010 was thought to be 2017).  The needed tech like fuel depots would have made super-heavy-lift rockets like SLS unnecessary, allowing private industry to do the launch work.

Orion can only support a crew of 4 for three weeks of life support.  So it never was sufficient for Mars.  Instead of building habitation module to get a crew the whole way to Mars without asphyxiating, SLS ate up all the money.  Instead of building a lander to land on Moon or Mars, SLS ate all the money.  Instead of building surface habitation, crew rovers, nuclear or solar power for Moon or Mars bases, SLS ate all the money.  Now once they finally build SLS, it has nothing to launch, except the Orion capsule, which is insufficent for anything except a swing around the Moon or that asteroid mission that was just cancelled.  If NASA had gone down the better path of building fuel depots (as even Lockheed and Boeing wanted) then a combination of Delta 4, Atlas 5, and Falcon 9 rockets could have launched everything needed for planetary exploration missions much sooner.  As it is with SLS, it's flight rate at best would be one launch per year.  At worst might be one launch every TWO years.

There is no known payload that would require a 130-ton mass launcher.  Everything would be less than that and could be assembled once in space or once landed on Moon or Mars.  So the 130-ton requirement seems politically driven to feed money to ATK.

Honestly, I don't think even Lockheed wanted SLS.  ATK certainly did though.  And instead of building it with the solid rocket boosters it already had, the arbitrary 130-ton payload mass specification for SLS required development of a new 5-segement solid boosters to lift it, so ATK has certainly been happy developing that rather than flying anywhere.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, from $92,000,000 per launch to 9,200,000 per launch?  That's quite a step down even if it is still steep.

The Falcon 9 cost is $62M, but yes, if they can get to the assembly line point, it can come down into high-end Kickstarter territory. However, keep in mind that this will take a while. First, they need to make all of it reusable, not just the first stage. Second, it has to be reusable with a minimum of refurbishment. To go back to the airplane analogy, you don't want to spend 4 months refurbishing and testing your plane after each flight (hence Musk's tweet about reflight in 24 hours). And finally, there will need to be some competition: Musk wants to use this to finance his Mars plans so he's going to charge the price that optimizes his profits which, in the current situation, almost certainly includes a rather high profit margin.

10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is the debate earlier whether NASA can or should compete with private space launches?  Can NASA not move to a regulatory role for private efforts?

To some extent, but not quite: it's mostly about the SLS which is a rather strange system which costs a lot of money and has no obvious goals. NASA will probably keep launching simply because at this point it is a Congressional jobs program more than it is anything else. The same is true of Arianespace which will be supported by the EU even if it is no longer competitive. However, if SpaceX can get this going, everyone else (e.g. the United Launch Alliance) is going to get pushed out of a lot of launches. Of course, there will be some -- if your payload is worth $3B, you probably don't mind paying $300M to be extra sure that it gets there safe and sound -- but not many. Obviously, it remains to be seen how reliable this technology is and how much it really costs to refurbish, but there must a lot of worried aerospace executives right now...

[SpaceChampion]

Post-Launch Press Briefing with Musk

At 12min: Successfully landed the payload fairing.  It has a parachute and small thruster system.  It's a $6 million savings when they reuse it.

At 18min: Falcon Heavy cores being manufactured, first demo launch will be on SpaceX's dime.  Expect launch in the late summer.  (I thought he said mid-summer, corrected this to late).

At 20min: Spent about $1 billion on pursuing reusability, on their own dime, since no one was paying for it.  It'll take them a while to amortize that.

At 24min: Won't see Optimis Prime for a few months.

At 25min: The Interplanetary Transport System includes the propellant manufacturing capability on Mars as part of the system.  Will publish an update to the design on SpaceX's website at some point.

At 27min: (I think this means my calculations upthread were on target) Have to pay off reusability development costs so price has to be as much as the cost savings.  ie. profit would be ~$30 million per flight regardless if it's a $62M or $43M flight.

At 30min: Regarding refurbishment, just some paint where it's bubbled and replacing the thermal shield.  The grid fins take the most wear so they're upgrading to titanium alloy fins which will allow them to come in at a higher angle and therefore hotter.  Sounds like they don't really have much refurbishment at all.  They're going to apply more sensors I think he said earlier, so the rocket itself will tell them if it's ready to fly again.

At 39min: Sounds like this landed booster will stay at the Cape as a monument to the achievement.  Other landed boosters will stay at the Cape too but because they'll be flying a lot.

At 43min: Musk says the BFR part of ITS (ie. the lower stage) should be able to achieve a flight rate of once per HOUR. 

At 47min: Falcon Heavy will fly from pad 39A but not until they have pad 40 back in service so if FH blows up they don't want to be without a pad on the east coast.