Red Dragon confirmed!!

[Rakaydos]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

If they were dropping 20 Dragon 2s on Mars, that's at least twice the number of Dragon 2s they are going to be flying for NASA. They would be better off designing a whole new purpose-built mass-produced disposable lander bus for 20 Mars missions rather than modifying a reusable crew taxi that is only going to fly half a dozen times.

If we are presuming the MAV is delivered by SLS , then NASA would be footing the bill for presupply.

The question for SpaceX then would be if spaceX would save more with an R+D program for a dedicated mars lander and mass produce that, or simply mass produce their "proven" (after 2018) Red Dragon design.

In general, it seems R&D is expensive. If Red Dragon is "good enough", they might stick with it instead of going back to the drawing board.

[sevenperforce]

10 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

The question for SpaceX then would be if spaceX would save more with an R+D program for a dedicated mars lander and mass produce that, or simply mass produce their "proven" (after 2018) Red Dragon design.

In general, it seems R&D is expensive. If Red Dragon is "good enough", they might stick with it instead of going back to the drawing board.

This is the part that I keep coming back to. Development of a dedicated lander is NOT cheap...not even close.

If you're starting from scratch? Sure, in theory it is cheaper to develop, build, and test a dedicated Mars lander alone than it is to develop, build, and test a multiplanetary lander capable of dropping payloads on any terrestrial world. No question about it. But if your Earth lander that you ALREADY developed with NASA's money happens to be overengineered enough that it can serve as a passable Martian lander or a moon lander with only moderate modifications, then it is almost certain that those modifications will be vastly cheaper than developing a purpose-built lander for each target world. 

If SpaceX can do a Mars mission or a moon landing or any other shot by modifying the lander they already have, it makes a lot of sense to prefer that approach over the development of a completely new spacecraft. Would a new spacecraft be more mass-efficient? Probably. Does a 15% mass-efficiency increase justify a 400% increase in development cost? I doubt it. 

[kunok]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Does a 15% mass-efficiency increase

The problem is that it will be a lot more than just a 15%, and it has lot of bigger problems than the pure mass fraction.

If they are really that devoted to do mars missions what is the problem in making a dedicated bus? Why even make the earth lander and not directly the mars bus, if the important thing is the final purpose?

Edited May 11, 2016 by kunok
english grammar hates me, and is reciprocal

[sevenperforce]

12 minutes ago, kunok said:

The problem is that it will be a lot more than just a 15%...

So?

If the Falcon Heavy is going to be required to begin with, then why worry about trying to minimize launch mass? It's not like they are going to save money on fuel or something.

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, CptRichardson said:

Why would it cost '500 million'? We already have SpaceX's figures for the worst-case launch of a FH, and it's less than a sixth of that. Do you REALLY think the capsule itself would make up the balance? Please, they'll be mass-producing that, too.

They will be "mass-producing" 6 Dragon 2s. Maybe even less if they get to reuse them.

 

[kunok]

8 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

So?

If you obvious the rest of the sentence, there is no point in talking.

10 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

If the Falcon Heavy is going to be required to begin with, then why worry about trying to minimize launch mass? It's not like they are going to save money on fuel or something.

Maybe with a mars bus only the standard falcon is need for example?, or you can put a bigger payload?, or you can put a shape with is useful for scientific instrument or to deliver cargo to an unpressurized environment?

Is a leo manned capsule, is useful to send pressurized cargo to the interior of a leo manned station, because it shares lots of requirements, in the same way ruskies are being doing for years with the soyuz/ progress. But landing in an (almost)atmosphereless world? It doesn't share more requirements than the retrorockets landing system, and is very overpowered for anything that isn't earth or venus, is designed to be an abort system in a planet with a atmosphere with fully g and 1 bar of pressure.

[Rakaydos]

2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

They will be "mass-producing" 6 Dragon 2s. Maybe even less if they get to reuse them.

 

If SpaceX demostrates mars landing capability with Drag2, any mars mission of 2 tons or less will be designed around a disposable Drag2.

It wont get any benifits from reuse, but they wont have to rebult the tools to build the tools every time.

[CptRichardson]

18 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

They will be "mass-producing" 6 Dragon 2s. Maybe even less if they get to reuse them.

 

 

And why? SpaceX would need more for operations in LEO for things such as moving around LEO for operations, landing science packages, sending common probe systems to other planets and the moon, etc.  The MCT capsule is actually going to be likely too big for normal ops, and they'll need the more granular capabilities of a D2 for doing putzing around the local area and handling tasks such as delivering supplies, smaller shipments of personnel, and shuttling back and forth around the inevitable space stations and orbital construction yards needed for their mars colony project.

[Nibb31]

27 minutes ago, CptRichardson said:

 

And why? SpaceX would need more for operations in LEO for things such as moving around LEO for operations, landing science packages, sending common probe systems to other planets and the moon, etc.  

SpaceX isn't a space program with unlimited funds. Their business model is to sell launch services to customers who pay for them. There is only one customer buying Dragon 2 flights, and it's NASA. They have committed to 6 to 10 manned Dragon flights, and that's it. After that, the ISS is splashed and there are no destinations for Dragon in LEO (unless Bigelow finds some magical customers too).

That isn't going to change soon. Even if SpaceX offers rides to Mars, they still need to find customers who are willing to pay to send stuff to Mars.

Quote

The MCT capsule is actually going to be likely too big for normal ops, and they'll need the more granular capabilities of a D2 for doing putzing around the local area and handling tasks such as delivering supplies, smaller shipments of personnel, and shuttling back and forth around the inevitable space stations and orbital construction yards needed for their mars colony project.

The MCT is vaporware at this point, and there is no business model for a Mars colony. The rest is pure speculation.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

On May 11, 2016 at 7:50 AM, PB666 said:

They dont have a basement that big, lol. Your argument is reductio ad absurdum and is self invalidating. 

To get even to the point we can consider market saturation too limiting factirs need to be considered, 1 the backlog of unlaunched contacts with rtf payloads, and the lag between price reduction and market response.

The cost to the buyer is not only the launch price, but also vehicle wear waiting, the cost of money waiting, and the lack of an ability to spend time and resources in other places while waiting. While this may seem to support you case if their net profit increases because of recycling then they can afford to extend their facikities a lower the turnaround time lower the costs tonthe buyer. It the risk to the buyer and the price to the buyer decrease more buyers will enetr the market. 

Not really. You need to look at the context. Our conversation was originally the claim that the prices might drop low enough that they create new markets such that the current, limited number of customers would expand and allow for substantially more commercial launches. My point was that a small reduction of 20% is not transformative... I'm frankly unsure that a 90% reduction is that transformative---again, how many cubesats do we need? 

I have no doubt that there can be an increase in demand with lower prices, I merely argue it will be incremental. We've already looked at the available commercial launches, and there are not that many in the first place, so even a large % increase is not huge.

Someone in that back and forth said they launch twice as many this year, then twice as many the next, and so forth. I don't see that as plausible. I wish it was, but it's not. John Jack also ended a reply something like "---then Mars." Mars has no possible business model, it can only be done as a hobby. The nice thing about SpaceX is that by getting other people to buy a rocket that is not destroyed, SpaceX ends up with "free" rockets lying around. Red Dragon could be the nth flight of their all-up commercial crew test vehicle, for example (strip out the stuff that is not needed to reduce mass, and go). Then he gets RD for the price of propellant, an upper stage, and perhaps a FH core (unless he lands one, then he has a free FH, too). Mars is a hobby, and a cool hobby indeed, but it's not a business.

[fredinno]

On 2016-05-11 at 2:46 AM, SargeRho said:

Redundancy. If you drop 20 Dragon 2s, and of those, 2-3 resculpt Mars a little, you still have most of your cargo. If your single cargo ship decides to lithobrake, you're screwed.

How are you supposed to land 20 Dragon 2s in succession on a km wide landing spot?

That's never been done before, and trying to land them next to each other is a logistical nightmare.

It might not be AS bad for the 1st few missions, but once you start base-building....

You're going to run out of places to land in a km wide area, FAST.

On 2016-05-11 at 7:11 AM, 78stonewobble said:

1. So... guesswork?

2. So... List prise isn't all there is to it?

3. The price is still set on the promise of as much reuse as possible. Sure, spacex can burn money on an individual launch... but they cannot do that indefinately, sooner or later the price will catch up, if reuse doesn't work out as planned.

4. The cores might have been reused before... but throwing them away before end of life, is less profit. Also again... The reuse comes at the price of less payload. The graphics on nibb31's graphic are entirely misleading in that regard.

5. So...  what you're saying is... it's gonna cost more than the list price in nibb31's graphic?

And apart from the guesswork... what is the final price on sending red dragon to mars?

6. "If they can manage the projected 10 launches before refurbishment...", not to mention as of yet incalculable cost and effort in maintenance other than complete refurbishment.

 

1. He just forgot to give the source. Here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

2. Not really, in some cases.

Most specifically, one off payloads needing modifications and R+D (Red Dragon)

4. The graphics show the GTO payload, which is correct for reusable FHs.

They also show LEO numbers, which are not correct w/o reuse. They're only shown for bragging rights, since noone will ever need that much payload.

5. No one knows. An educated guess shows $500 Million, or discovery-class.

On 2016-05-11 at 7:42 AM, Nibb31 said:

If they were dropping 20 Dragon 2s on Mars, that's at least twice the number of Dragon 2s they are going to be flying for NASA. They would be better off designing a whole new purpose-built mass-produced disposable lander bus for 20 Mars missions rather than modifying a reusable crew taxi that is only going to fly half a dozen times.

I think that guy was using the "mass production" argument.\

The problem is that a Dragon 2 is too small to be useful for a Martian, so a larger cargo module is the only good way to go here.

On 2016-05-11 at 9:02 AM, CptRichardson said:

Why would it cost '500 million'? We already have SpaceX's figures for the worst-case launch of a FH, and it's less than a sixth of that. Do you REALLY think the capsule itself would make up the balance? Please, they'll be mass-producing that, too. A SpaceX mission to drop a RD on mars would probably be $120 million-ish at most, possibly down to only half of that if they get re-use properly working.

Not they won't be mass producing ANY Dragon V2s, since they are supposed to be reused (and are used only a total of about a dozen times).

And a $90 Million F9H + $160 Million Dragon V2 means a minimum cost of $250 Million.

Add another $250 Million for R+D costs (for the stronger chutes needed and more powerful antennas, for example), and you get the $500 Million dollar cost mark.

A interplanetary mission costing only $500 Million is actually on the cheap end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_V2

23 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

If we are presuming the MAV is delivered by SLS , then NASA would be footing the bill for presupply.

The question for SpaceX then would be if spaceX would save more with an R+D program for a dedicated mars lander and mass produce that, or simply mass produce their "proven" (after 2018) Red Dragon design.

In general, it seems R&D is expensive. If Red Dragon is "good enough", they might stick with it instead of going back to the drawing board.

 

23 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

This is the part that I keep coming back to. Development of a dedicated lander is NOT cheap...not even close.

If you're starting from scratch? Sure, in theory it is cheaper to develop, build, and test a dedicated Mars lander alone than it is to develop, build, and test a multiplanetary lander capable of dropping payloads on any terrestrial world. No question about it. But if your Earth lander that you ALREADY developed with NASA's money happens to be overengineered enough that it can serve as a passable Martian lander or a moon lander with only moderate modifications, then it is almost certain that those modifications will be vastly cheaper than developing a purpose-built lander for each target world. 

If SpaceX can do a Mars mission or a moon landing or any other shot by modifying the lander they already have, it makes a lot of sense to prefer that approach over the development of a completely new spacecraft. Would a new spacecraft be more mass-efficient? Probably. Does a 15% mass-efficiency increase justify a 400% increase in development cost? I doubt it. 

You can modify a car to become a plane.

It's cheaper, and better to develop and build your own dedicated plane.

R+D costs don't disappear because your spacecraft/rocket is derived off something else. Look at the Ares 1 disaster. Technically "derived" off Shuttle SRBs, in practice, it was probably better to build a new 5m diameter rocket.

And I doubt a Martian would EVER want to live in a 10m3 volume, stretched out over 20+ capsules.

You need a dedicated HAB module, which can then be emptied out to become a storage/ resupply module.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_V2

 

You can also modify a Shuttle to become a Mars lander. Would you?

Edited May 12, 2016 by fredinno

[fredinno]

21 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

So?

If the Falcon Heavy is going to be required to begin with, then why worry about trying to minimize launch mass? It's not like they are going to save money on fuel or something.

Because it's the difference between a extra rocket launched and no extra rocket. BTW, cost per launch is more important for a Mars Colony, which is what SpaceX wants.

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

SpaceX isn't a space program with unlimited funds. Their business model is to sell launch services to customers who pay for them. There is only one customer buying Dragon 2 flights, and it's NASA. They have committed to 6 to 10 manned Dragon flights, and that's it. After that, the ISS is splashed and there are no destinations for Dragon in LEO (unless Bigelow finds some magical customers too).

That isn't going to change soon. Even if SpaceX offers rides to Mars, they still need to find customers who are willing to pay to send stuff to Mars.

The MCT is vaporware at this point, and there is no business model for a Mars colony. The rest is pure speculation.

There's DragonLab. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lack of a long-term market is a big concern for Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada- at least the divisions working on the capsules.

NASA might launch a BIOS-esque program for space capsules, just to maintain the capability to send humans to LEO if required, and keep the capsules in production.

Cygnus has a huge advantage in long term viability, since it's possible to expand the pressurized module to a Lunar Space Station/deep space HAB/resupply module, something that NASA needs for going pretty much anywhere outside of the moon (and even then, it's highly desirable.)

[Rakaydos]

33 minutes ago, fredinno said:

How are you supposed to land 20 Dragon 2s in succession on a km wide landing spot?

That's never been done before, and trying to land them next to each other is a logistical nightmare.

It might not be AS bad for the 1st few missions, but once you start base-building....

You're going to run out of places to land in a km wide area, FAST.

Keep in mind, this is the company that hit a football field sized target with a statue of libery sized rocket, from space, on the first try, with locked-up maneuvering fins. (it exploded because it landed almost sideways, but they still hit the target)

assuming for a moment that 100 yards = 100m (close enough for ballpark estimate), and you need as much safty room to land a dragon on mars as a falcon core on earth, (which is blatabtly over-compensating) thats still a 10x10 grid of Dragons in a single square KM

 

 

 

Quote

You can modify a car to become a plane.

It's cheaper, and better to develop and build your own dedicated plane.

A car doesnt fly. A Dragon is already designed to land using a technique that works on low-air bodies.

You dont take a refrigerator truck to go grocery shopping, or a city bus to take the kids to school. You use the car you have, install car seats,  pull out/fold away the back seat to fit that awkward piece of furnature you bought, and tie the christmas tree to the roofracks.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Rakaydos

[Nibb31]

14 minutes ago, fredinno said:

There's DragonLab. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lack of a long-term market is a big concern for Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada- at least the divisions working on the capsules.

DragonLab has been a commercial offering for over 5 years now. No customers have shown any interest yet, not even NASA. It's quite possible that RedDragon might follow the same path.

 

[Rakaydos]

22 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

DragonLab has been a commercial offering for over 5 years now. No customers have shown any interest yet, not even NASA. It's quite possible that RedDragon might follow the same path.

 

I would expect that a lander dragonlab would be more interesting than simply an orbital one. but hey, anything's better than zero.

[Nibb31]

13 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

I would expect that a lander dragonlab would be more interesting than simply an orbital one. but hey, anything's better than zero.

DragonLab was supposed to be a cheap way for corporations to experiment with microgravity R&D, and maybe even small scale manufacturing. It might also have been a way to refurbish those CRS Dragons that are piling up in a warehouse. You could probably fly it for less than $100 million (NASA pays $133 million for each CRS mission). The problem is that industry simply doesn't seem to be interested in those space-manufacturing applications after all.

[fredinno]

On 5/12/2016 at 9:59 AM, Rakaydos said:

Keep in mind, this is the company that hit a football field sized target with a statue of libery sized rocket, from space, on the first try, with locked-up maneuvering fins. (it exploded because it landed almost sideways, but they still hit the target)

 

Yeah, it exploded because it landed sideways. Try that on the higher speed of a Mars Landing, and the Dragon will probably be ruined.

On 5/12/2016 at 9:59 AM, Rakaydos said:

 

assuming for a moment that 100 yards = 100m (close enough for ballpark estimate), and you need as much safty room to land a dragon on mars as a falcon core on earth, (which is blatabtly over-compensating) thats still a 10x10 grid of Dragons in a single square KM

Not all land on Mars is flat. A good scientific or resource location may be too hilly to land 100s of Dragons.

On 5/12/2016 at 9:59 AM, Rakaydos said:

A car doesnt fly. A Dragon is already designed to land using a technique that works on low-air bodies.

You dont take a refrigerator truck to go grocery shopping, or a city bus to take the kids to school. You use the car you have, install car seats,  pull out/fold away the back seat to fit that awkward piece of furnature you bought, and tie the christmas tree to the roofracks.

And you don't resupply a grocery store with a compact car.

On 5/12/2016 at 10:03 AM, Nibb31 said:

DragonLab has been a commercial offering for over 5 years now. No customers have shown any interest yet, not even NASA. It's quite possible that RedDragon might follow the same path.

 

Source? They still have missions manifested for 2016 and 2018..

[Rakaydos]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Yeah, it exploded because it landed sideways. Try that on the higher speed of a Mars Landing, and the Dragon will probably be ruined.

Not all land on Mars is flat. A good scientific or resource location may be too hilly to land 100s of Dragons.

Good thing they dont land boosters sideways anymore. And a Dragon capsule is smaller, more responsive, and has a more stable center ov gravity. I dont think landing them in proximity from one another is going to be terribly difficult.

 

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Good thing they dont land boosters sideways anymore. And a Dragon capsule is smaller, more responsive, and has a more stable center ov gravity. I dont think landing them in proximity from one another is going to be terribly difficult.

 

The Falcons also landed with far less speed.

[PB666]

7 hours ago, fredinno said:

Not all land on Mars is flat. A good scientific or resource location may be too hilly to land 100s of Dragons.

Never stopped us from doing it in KSP. How to land on  hilly slope , drop an atomic bomb, therefore notching out the slope. Land, let the other guy get out first. lol. 

7 hours ago, fredinno said:

And you don't resupply a grocery store with a compact car. 

Actually I went to a island small town in Japan, where they don't allow cars or trucks, almost everything is brought in on back or via golf cart like vehicles across a pedestrian causeway, when we crossed there were workers carrying items on their backs. 

[Rakaydos]

43 minutes ago, fredinno said:

The Falcons also landed with far less speed.

Are they?

Best estimate is that Dragon v2 carries 400-500m/s of DV, so the landing attempt cant be any harder than that, after aerobreaking.

Plugging the falcon 9 dry stats into Wolfram alpha give a terminal velocity of 410 m/s.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Terminal+velocity+3.349+m^2&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22h%22}+-%3E%226000+ft%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22H%22}+-%3E%2210000+ft%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22rho%22}+-%3E%221.29+kg%2Fm^3%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22m%22}+-%3E%2228000+kg%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22Cd%22}+-%3E%221%22&rawformassumption={%22MC%22,%22%22}-%3E{%22Formula%22}

Edited May 14, 2016 by Rakaydos

[PB666]

52 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Are they?

Best estimate is that Dragon v2 carries 400-500m/s of DV, so the landing attempt cant be any harder than that, after aerobreaking.

Plugging the falcon 9 dry stats into Wolfram alpha give a terminal velocity of 410 m/s.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Terminal+velocity+3.349+m^2&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22h%22}+-%3E%226000+ft%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22H%22}+-%3E%2210000+ft%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22rho%22}+-%3E%221.29+kg%2Fm^3%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22m%22}+-%3E%2228000+kg%22&rawformassumption={%22F%22,+%22TimeToFall%22,+%22Cd%22}+-%3E%221%22&rawformassumption={%22MC%22,%22%22}-%3E{%22Formula%22}

Are you also consider the effects of the drag planes and the increase of COD because the bells are heading into the wind?

[Rakaydos]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Are you also consider the effects of the drag planes and the increase of COD because the bells are heading into the wind?

Nope- All I got is what you see in that link.

[Rakaydos]

So appaently there's more information about the Red Dragon misssion, but it;'s behind a paywall.

http://m.aviationweek.com/space/nasa-outlines-mars-red-dragon-deal-spacex

From the L2 forum discussion, there's some talk about landing in an already explored area, possibly using an in-place rover to get additional information on the "L" in "EDL"

 

Also interesting quotes:
 

Quote

In return, the Hawthorne, California-based company founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk will be able to: use the Deep Space Network for tracking and communications on the “Red Dragon” mission; touch down on the surface of Mars using landing-site data collected by NASA spacecraft; apply technical advice from NASA experts to a range of mission issues; and learn how to abide by international planetary-protection protocols.

 

 

Quote

The EDL data NASA wants will be relayed back to Earth via NASA’s Mars orbiters, in real time as much as possible in case the landing ends badly. Details are still being worked out in regular meetings between company and agency engineers, but higher-bandwidth data recorded and relayed after a successful landing could include video of plume interactions with the atmosphere and the surface collected by onboard cameras and perhaps even one of the rovers.

 

 

Quote

SpaceX will decide what the payload will be, but NASA has already developed a list of instruments and other gear it would like to send to Mars, if the company can accommodate them in the 2018 window or later. Among them are Mars-weather sensors, instruments to analyze atmospheric dust, and experimental in situ resource utilization gear.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Rakaydos

[CptRichardson]

On 5/12/2016 at 11:25 AM, fredinno said:

 

Not they won't be mass producing ANY Dragon V2s, since they are supposed to be reused (and are used only a total of about a dozen times).

And a $90 Million F9H + $160 Million Dragon V2 means a minimum cost of $250 Million.

Add another $250 Million for R+D costs (for the stronger chutes needed and more powerful antennas, for example), and you get the $500 Million dollar cost mark.

A interplanetary mission costing only $500 Million is actually on the cheap end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_V2

 

Why would they need to research stronger chutes? They've made it abundantly clear that they're propulsively landing, have a manner and method by which they intend to do it, and have demonstrated all the required components to make it work. They don't need R&D for 'more powerful antennas', as the easy thing to do would be to use the Deep Space Network (the thing explicitly designed to make it easier for probes with weaker antennas to be designed).

As for the D2, once more, why do you think that these insane costs are going to be the case when SpaceX has demonstrated that they are more than capable of lowering them (by outright orders of magnitude). I've already pointed out how silly it is to propose that the D2 will be a limited production craft when there will be clear and necessary need for a much larger stable of them for future commercial activity. I've pointed out to you multiple times that the current price (PROJECTED, no less) for a FH launch is going to drop rapidly once SpaceX starts relaunching rockets (starting this month no less). I've pointed out to you multiple times that that price tag is vastly excessive for the likely real price point of a D2 by simple fact that they're going to be in a much larger production stable.

 

You're inanely pessimistic about a company that has actually demonstrated themselves as better than NASA at launching things, continually proclaiming them unable to do the things that they've already demonstrated IRL in action. If it weren't for an outside party screwing them over last year, we'd already have their first relaunch now. Your worst case scenario is at most $250 million, easily affordable and repeatable given the ever-increasing launch tempo building up a cash reserve. I make no bones about the fact that their schedule has slipped in the past, but the fact of the matter is that they've managed to either achieve everything they've set out to do so far, or outright make it obsolete in a few cases. Why do you insist on underestimating the company and swearing they'll never last even while they are beating every last one of their competitors upside the head like Jebidiah Kerman and the controls of any vehicle? How many times does it take before you realize that they're more than capable of doing it?

 

Land a rocket? Done.

Land on a barge? Done.

Cut launch costs to a tenth of previous? Done, going even further down.

Land from GTO? Done.

Relaunch? Twelve days to done.

FH? Being done right now.

And as for the MCT being 'vaporware', that's the latest in a pile of falsehoods, inanities, and pessimism. Musk wants to go to mars. More importantly, everyone else would rather like having a lift to LEO rating of 'yes' grade rocket for setting up proper orbital infrastructure, and we already know of at least two companies who will pay SpaceX for building it no matter what. 

 

Just, stop. SpaceX will do it. They might be a year or two late, but they have a consistent track record of 'Yes, yes we will'.