Space Launches, Landings, and Destinations - SpaceX Thread #3

[Free Northman Reborn]

Ah, the sweet taste of victory.  Musk found not guilty.
 

And that $190m claim was indeed absurd.

[Altherion]

In other news, Boeing and the ULA are currently scheduled to fly their Starliner test two weeks from today. The Russians are annoyed because between this and the Crew Dragon, the US will stop subsidizing their program to the tune of $70M per seat. However, as they point out with an amusing comic panel, the Starliner will still be using the Russian RD-180 engine.

[rotting sea cow]

Latest Starlink Plans Unveiled By Elon Musk And SpaceX Could Create An Astronomical Emergency

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/11/elon-musk-spacex-unveil-latest-starlink-plans-creating-an-astronomical-emergency/?fbclid=IwAR1SpMAKDx51Iijm6fDTHvpp-OBg41YQuitHl19tGuhI81g2ua4tFiFPDNk#29b5cc97287e

 

[rotting sea cow]

On 11/22/2019 at 3:20 AM, Altherion said:

It depends on the person. Much as I like what SpaceX and Tesla are doing, I would not want to work for either one of them or any other Musk venture. However, my point was that this has been his mode of operation for nearly two decades and everyone who works there or applied for a job there knows it and can deal with it. People who don't like unrealistic deadlines or can't handle severe stress are simply in the wrong place.

Even is that mean to get rid of crucial talent? People need to be careful. There are things that very few people are expert of. I don't think Elon Musk would dare to boss around someone like von Braun.

On 11/22/2019 at 3:20 AM, Altherion said:

Falcon 9 is not fully reusable (like Starship is intended to be). Even if they can reuse the fairing, the second stage is always lost. Crew Dragon is getting to the point where NASA will allow it to be used, but again, Starship is better in every way.

I fully agree that Starship is conceptually better. It is a revolutionary system! Nobody even planing anything remotely similar. So why to try to hurry up? They are things that need time to be understood. This thing is an order of magnitude more complex than Crew Dragon. SpaceX will learn painfully that.

Regarding the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. SpaceX has invested many billions and many years of development. It is time to reap the benefits

On 11/22/2019 at 3:20 AM, Altherion said:

It is true that China is not currently at the same level as SpaceX, but if they choose to use this as a means of investing into high-tech engineering, they could catch up. I'm not saying that this will necessarily happen, but given that the amount of resources at the disposal of SpaceX is quite small compared to most other entities that build large spacecraft, it's a bad idea for SpaceX to rest on its laurels.

People are fretting to much about China in that respect. China has the higher number of launches but they barely participate in the market. The chinese government and companies will continue to use chinese rockets regardless what SpaceX does or the prices it offers. Same with the Russians, Europeans, Indians, etc.

Finally, the hypothetical threat of China in space is not responsibility of SpaceX to deal. That is the American government job. If they think that they need SpaceX technologies, then they should pay for them.

[rotting sea cow]

On 12/7/2019 at 4:23 AM, Altherion said:

In other news, Boeing and the ULA are currently scheduled to fly their Starliner test two weeks from today. The Russians are annoyed because between this and the Crew Dragon, the US will stop subsidizing their program to the tune of $70M per seat. However, as they point out with an amusing comic panel, the Starliner will still be using the Russian RD-180 engine.

is 70 millions too cheap or too expensive? I hear that ULA will charge more than that, but I want your opinion.

 

[SpaceChampion]

13 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

is 70 millions too cheap or too expensive? I hear that ULA will charge more than that, but I want your opinion.

 

Per seat, that's more expensive than the current option with SpaceX but not Starliner (when they get running).  NASA seems to be locked into a cycle of underfunding their home-grown commercial launcher / capsule combos in order to pay the Russians for another set of Soyuz seats.  I've seen some articles says the cost for Soyuz is $86 million per seat, but I can't tell you what the true, current price is now.

Dragon -- about $52 million per seat.

Starliner -- about $90 million per seat.  Even that number might not take into all costs which ULA / Boeing gets NASA to pay for.  I've seen it as low as $58 million, but Boeing and ULA always go overbudget.  It's suppose to be a fixed-price contract, but they somehow managed to get more money anyway.  Probably with the help with the Senator from Alabama.

When SpaceX is involved with NASA missions, it cost more than when without their oversight.  NASA has a zero-tolerance for risk mindset, and that's expensive to accommodate.

Private commercial customers on Dragon will probably have a per seat cost of 20 or 30 million.  For instance, Bigelow Aerospace bought 4 seats and plans to sell them about $52 million each to customers wanting to stay on their private space station module for a month.  So SpaceX is charging Bigelow substantially less.

 

[Altherion]

16 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Even is that mean to get rid of crucial talent? People need to be careful. There are things that very few people are expert of. I don't think Elon Musk would dare to boss around someone like von Braun.

One of the interesting thing about modern times is that, despite a much larger number of educated people, there isn't really anyone like von Braun or von Neumann or any of the other geniuses fro the mid-20th century -- people who are obviously head and shoulders above their contemporaries. I suspect if Musk had somebody like that on his payroll, he'd be more careful, but given that the people he has are competent, but ultimately replaceable, his strategy makes sense.

16 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Finally, the hypothetical threat of China in space is not responsibility of SpaceX to deal.

SpaceX doesn't care about China being in space, they care about China selling cheaper access to space which would cut into the revenue of SpaceX. I agree with you that it's not likely in the near future, but it can't be ruled out altogether.

16 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

is 70 millions too cheap or too expensive? I hear that ULA will charge more than that, but I want your opinion.

Well that's the hilarious part. $70M per seat is expensive -- that's surely much more than it is costing the Russians, but they figured that as long as we have no other options, they might as well name an exorbitant price. However, corrupt as the Russian space agency appears to be, they have no idea how to truly milk the US government: you are correct, Boeing will charge $90M per seat and possibly more than that if they can sneak in any more charges. The US aerospace sector is obscenely wasteful even compared to its Russian counterpart (where money is almost certainly being funneled somewhere it's not supposed to go).

[rotting sea cow]

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

Well that's the hilarious part. $70M per seat is expensive -- that's surely much more than it is costing the Russians, but they figured that as long as we have no other options, they might as well name an exorbitant price.

 

10 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Per seat, that's more expensive than the current option with SpaceX but not Starliner (when they get running).  NASA seems to be locked into a cycle of underfunding their home-grown commercial launcher / capsule combos in order to pay the Russians for another set of Soyuz seats.  I've seen some articles says the cost for Soyuz is $86 million per seat, but I can't tell you what the true, current price is now.

But why do you consider that expensive?

1. The launch price of the Soyuz rocket is about $ 50 millions. This should include the fabrication and operative costs plus some revenue. Very likely this price should increase by the inclusion of extra quality checks and additional ground support. Just compare the number of people around a manned vs unmanned flight.

2. It is very unlikely that the Soyuz spacecraft has a price less than that. Most payloads that rockets launch cost several times the launch price. I wouldn't be surprised if it costs at least twice as much.

3. The seat price also includes things like training and transport of astronauts, recovery teams in alert in case of any accident and similar teams to retrieve the astronauts after they land, including medical checks and transport.

All these things add. But last but not least.

4.1 Why sell cheap an unique capability?

4.2 Why sell cheap an unique capability to a country that permanently antagonize you?

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

they have no idea how to truly milk the US government:

Indeed. Given all above, the price seems to be quite cheap.

[rotting sea cow]

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

SpaceX doesn't care about China being in space, they care about China selling cheaper access to space which would cut into the revenue of SpaceX. I agree with you that it's not likely in the near future, but it can't be ruled out altogether.

This is the same argument that I heard long ago about China defence sector modernization. Everyone was screaming in panic that China will flood the world with cheap weapons. They haven't

As you see, US and Russia account for more than half of the exports. Germany and France both export more than China.

They certainly have the capability to produce lots of weapons and sell them cheap. Obviously they consciously haven't done so. It's the same with their nuclear weapon stock. They consciously keep it at a level similar to France or UK to avoid major political problems. Still your president is trying to tie the renegotiation of the START treaty to inclusion of China in it. I believe it's a dangerous move as China may well demand to increase their capability at the same level of Russia-USA.

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

Some broad, uninformed statements on this thread.

[maarsen]

11 hours ago, Altherion said:

One of the interesting thing about modern times is that, despite a much larger number of educated people, there isn't really anyone like von Braun or von Neumann or any of the other geniuses fro the mid-20th century -- people who are obviously head and shoulders above their contemporaries. I suspect if Musk had somebody like that on his payroll, he'd be more careful, but given that the people he has are competent, but ultimately replaceable, his strategy makes sense.

SpaceX doesn't care about China being in space, they care about China selling cheaper access to space which would cut into the revenue of SpaceX. I agree with you that it's not likely in the near future, but it can't be ruled out altogether.

Well that's the hilarious part. $70M per seat is expensive -- that's surely much more than it is costing the Russians, but they figured that as long as we have no other options, they might as well name an exorbitant price. However, corrupt as the Russian space agency appears to be, they have no idea how to truly milk the US government: you are correct, Boeing will charge $90M per seat and possibly more than that if they can sneak in any more charges. The US aerospace sector is obscenely wasteful even compared to its Russian counterpart (where money is almost certainly being funneled somewhere it's not supposed to go).

I have to take exception with your claim about the lack of genius today. Look up Terence Tao for one. It takes much more to stand out now in a more crowded field.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1000 years from now Elon Musk will be recorded in history as the man who made humanity a multi-planetary species. His efforts at Tesla will fade into insignificance, but freeing us from this rock will be his lasting achievement.

Musk City as the capital of Mars will probably be the Martian equivalent of Washington DC to commemorate his contribution. He will be remembered long after von Braun’s name has been forgotten.

[Spockydog]

On 12/13/2019 at 12:49 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Some broad, uninformed statements on this thread.

 Ditto the UK Politics thread. 

[maarsen]

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

1000 years from now Elon Musk will be recorded in history as the man who made humanity a multi-planetary species. His efforts at Tesla will fade into insignificance, but freeing us from this rock will be his lasting achievement.

Musk City as the capital of Mars will probably be the Martian equivalent of Washington DC to commemorate his contribution. He will be remembered long after von Braun’s name has been forgotten.

With chemical rockets??? Musk would have better luck using the John Carter method of getting to Mars.  The fuel used as a proportion of the payload goes up in an exponential curve. The mathematics of space travel are not brushed aside by wishful thinking. Comment like this are why people don't take you seriously on this board.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

With chemical rockets??? Musk would have better luck using the John Carter method of getting to Mars.  The fuel used as a proportion of the payload goes up in an exponential curve. The mathematics of space travel are not brushed aside by wishful thinking. Comment like this are why people don't take you seriously on this board.

Useful tip: Know your subject before launching what you think is an ironclad attack. Maybe spend a bit of time researching what is taking place in this sphere and then try again. It will avoid unnecessary embarrassment.

As a summary, to save you some time, SpaceX has already dropped the cost to launch a kg to orbit from the industry standard $10,000/kg for a typical launch to around $2000/kg on a Falcon 9.  Falcon Heavy beats even that - getting as low as $1500/kg.

Starship, even conservatively speaking, is designed to bring that down to around $100-$200/kg. To understand the implication of this - that is cheaper than the cost/kg that a science fiction style Space Elevator is able to achieve.

At those launch costs, orbital refuelling becomes a trivial cost, enabling a fuel rich mission architecture. Where a 1 ton payload has been the maximum Nasa has been able to land on Mars - at the cost of billions of dollars, 100 ton payloads become the norm in SpaceX’s fuel rich system design. At a fraction of the previous cost.

Fuel is significantly less than 1% of the cost of a space mission. It is throwing away the rocket that makes it so expensive. That is the paradigm shift that SpaceX has achieved, and continuous to drive at a pace of innovation that hasn’t been seen in the field of rocketry since the 1960’s.

As I said, do yourself a favour and educate yourself on this topic.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Useful tip: Know your subject before launching what you think is an ironclad attack. Maybe spend a bit of time researching what is taking place in this sphere and then try again. It will avoid unnecessary embarrassment.

As a summary, to save you some time, SpaceX has already dropped the cost to launch a kg to orbit from the industry standard $10,000/kg for a typical launch to around $2000/kg on a Falcon 9.  Falcon Heavy beats even that - getting as low as $1500/kg.

Starship, even conservatively speaking, is designed to bring that down to around $100-$200/kg. To understand the implication of this - that is cheaper than the cost/kg that a science fiction style Space Elevator is able to achieve.

At those launch costs, orbital refuelling becomes a trivial cost, enabling a fuel rich mission architecture. Where a 1 ton payload has been the maximum Nasa has been able to land on Mars - at the cost of billions of dollars, 100 ton payloads become the norm in SpaceX’s fuel rich system design. At a fraction of the previous cost.

Fuel is significantly less than 1% of the cost of a space mission. It is throwing away the rocket that makes it so expensive. That is the paradigm shift that SpaceX has achieved, and continuous to drive at a pace of innovation that hasn’t been seen in the field of rocketry since the 1960’s.

As I said, do yourself a favour and educate yourself on this topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

Once you understand this I will stop laughing at you.

[Free Northman Reborn]

3 minutes ago, maarsen said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

Once you understand this I will stop laughing at you.

Sigh. You simply don’t understand this topic. The whole point of orbital refuelling is to mitigate the tyranny of the rocket equation.

Keep laughing, then. But stop wasting my time and do it elsewhere.  I tried to point you in the right direction, but you clearly aren’t interested.

[Altherion]

On 12/13/2019 at 5:31 AM, rotting sea cow said:

But why do you consider that expensive?

Because the Russians themselves do not budget this much per seat (the $70M is per seat, not per launch). They're definitely charging the US quite a bit extra and they've been pretty open about this. The funny part is that despite the antagonism between Russia and the US, their idea of ripping us off still doesn't measure up to what the US aerospace industry does as a matter of routine.

On 12/13/2019 at 8:59 AM, maarsen said:

I have to take exception with your claim about the lack of genius today. Look up Terence Tao for one. It takes much more to stand out now in a more crowded field.

Take any mathematician of today and compare to, say, John von Neumann. As long as there is a crowded field, people like Musk can select from it based on other criteria (e.g. tolerance from long hours and Musk's management style).

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Because the Russians themselves do not budget this much per seat (the $70M is per seat, not per launch). They're definitely charging the US quite a bit extra and they've been pretty open about this. The funny part is that despite the antagonism between Russia and the US, their idea of ripping us off still doesn't measure up to what the US aerospace industry does as a matter of routine.

Take any mathematician of today and compare to, say, John von Neumann. As long as there is a crowded field, people like Musk can select from it based on other criteria (e.g. tolerance from long hours and Musk's management style).

Or maybe they buy into and share his vision, which far exceeds that of the old profit driven dinosaurs like ULA, Boeing and LM.

[rotting sea cow]

On 12/14/2019 at 5:52 PM, Altherion said:

Because the Russians themselves do not budget this much per seat (the $70M is per seat, not per launch).

See above. You have to divide the full price of the launch, rocket, spacecraft, training and operations between three seats, where the launch price (not the cost!) is already 50 millions.

On 12/14/2019 at 5:52 PM, Altherion said:

They're definitely charging the US quite a bit extra and they've been pretty open about this.

Again, given all above, I don't think the price is terribly unfair

Now, are they charging their own cosmonauts the same price? Hell no! I even hear that for the military, rockets launches are for free (or nearly for free). But giving the way the aerospace industry is organized in Russia, with lots of state companies, subsidized ones, corruption and negligence, actual costs are very difficult to gauge.

And as you state below, the American industry doesn't do much better

On 12/14/2019 at 5:52 PM, Altherion said:

The funny part is that despite the antagonism between Russia and the US, their idea of ripping us off still doesn't measure up to what the US aerospace industry does as a matter of routine.

Indeed.

But this is one of the things that gives SpaceX a particular advantage. They have done a simply thing that many other industries have done but it's uncommon in the aerospace industry: Vertical Integration. Take for example these two rockets with very similar capabilities. Atlas V vs Falcon 9

The main engine of the Atlas V is Russian, the solid boosters are from Rocketdyne (another company), the central and upper stages are from ULA but use different technologies (kerolox and hydrolox respectively). The fairing is Swiss. All these involved partners certainly have spare capacity that still need to keep if they want to be competitive and thus are likely to charge more for their products. They also need more specialized teams to deal with the integration.

Compare this to the Falcon 9. First and second stage have the same diameter and likely manufactured using the same machinery. They use same fuel and very similar engines. Likely one team is involved hear. They produce their own fairings and have been pushing to own their own launch facilities.

All of this means that SpaceX knows the cost structure of space launches better than anyone in the world and they can do optimization that other competitors cannot do.