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1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

What's the source?

I literally provided the link, then the quote.

So we know that the lower limit of savings is that a reused booster is "substantially under half" the cost of a new F9 booster. That's not Block 5, BTW (they used to have to replace the grid fins most of the time as I recall).

 

Edited by tater
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Aww. This pushes it to after school starts. :(

But at the same time, this means that the Mk1 should be structurally complete by mid September. But judging by how space things go, probably October... And that's without all the avionics and small bits they have to add. It takes a lot of effort to outfit a hull for flight. We might see a flight this year though.

But, we have some new info too. He said specifically moving body fins AND landing gear, which means that they will likely be separate systems. And he specified "moving body" fins.

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They said some significant changes. Someone on NSF rendered an image where the fuselage of Starship is the cylinder that it ism but then there are bulged strakes down the side reminiscent of the X-15 that contain landing legs, and a canard at the front.

 

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This whole process reminds me about how airplanes used to be designed. Prototypes would be built and then tweaked and then changed, and so forth.

These days all these tweakings and changings almost always happen inside computers, and the goal is that there are no "prototypes" ever built.

But there are pluses and minuses to both approaches. SpaceX is clearly more comfortable with prototyping without having a "frozen" design configuration.

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16 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

But there are pluses and minuses to both approaches. SpaceX is clearly more comfortable with prototyping without having a "frozen" design configuration.

There is a video posted up the thread with a NASA engineer who worked with SpaxceX on COTS. He said they'd get a 51% consensus on some idea, they start making stuff and testing. They'd decide something wasn;t gonna work, they'd move on, or they'd do a test that lead them in another direction, and they'd make a new consensus, and move on.

I have to assume that on the orbital EDL stuff they actually have data from many Falcon 9 Stage 2 entries. They need not have altered S2 past instumenting it, it already has telemetry capability.

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7 minutes ago, tater said:

There is a video posted up the thread with a NASA engineer who worked with SpaxceX on COTS. He said they'd get a 51% consensus on some idea, they start making stuff and testing. They'd decide something wasn;t gonna work, they'd move on, or they'd do a test that lead them in another direction, and they'd make a new consensus, and move on.

It's almost like they're doing things the way Von Braun and Company did things...

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2 minutes ago, tater said:

There is a video posted up the thread with a NASA engineer who worked with SpaxceX on COTS. He said they'd get a 51% consensus on some idea, they start making stuff and testing. They'd decide something wasn;t gonna work, they'd move on, or they'd do a test that lead them in another direction, and they'd make a new consensus, and move on.

Yeah, I watched that. Like I said, there are pluses and minuses with that approach. It probably results in a quicker development cycle most of the time, but it can also result in extra costs. Or perhaps lower costs. It depends.

The main problem, though, is probably in design integration. In a complicated product like an aerospace vehicle, every time one part changes design it can affect lots of other parts. You can end up in a constant frenzy of mutual interference with each other's work.

1 minute ago, Nothalogh said:

It's almost like they're doing things the way Von Braun and Company did things...

...when they had infinite money but very limited time.

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13 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, pros and cons to both approaches (iteration vs gelling design early).

Iteration when transparent is more fun to watch, that's for sure.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of iteration going on in any aerospace design. The question is how much of it is done before v. after the first parts start to get cut and assembled.

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39 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of iteration going on in any aerospace design. The question is how much of it is done before v. after the first parts start to get cut and assembled.

Yeah, this is true. I think for the (for lack of a better term) "old space" contractors, they have loads of great ideas, but management is not going to pull the trigger on making anything without a contract. To be fair, those companies are also PUBLIC and have shareholders to answer to. This has been true for ages... look at the concepts that "old" contractors like Boeing, Douglas, etc have come up with in the past (a fave of mine, Boeing LEO).

53 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

Which seems to point to Falcon being HIGHLY profitable

SpaceX is good at figuring out ow to do things cheap, particularly for dev work. It's like these sketchy looking Starship Orbital Prototypes, made outside. They just need to be good enough to accomplish the testing they need to accomplish, no better. I'd expect that eventually they get made in a more traditional way, and end up fa cleaner looking---but no need right now, when they are likely to RUD anyway.

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1 minute ago, tater said:

Yeah, this is true. I think for the (for lack of a better term) "old space" contractors, they have loads of great ideas, but management is not going to pull the trigger on making anything without a contract. To be fair, those companies are also PUBLIC and have shareholders to answer to. This has been true for ages... look at the concepts that "old" contractors like Boeing, Douglas, etc have come up with in the past (a fave of mine, Boeing LEO).

The problem is that those companies, from about the 1980's onward, realized that a more profitable business model was to be found in servicing Development Programs.

Make oodles of money whether it all gets cancelled in the end or not, in fact develop with the cancellation in mind, rinse and repeat.

 

But since SpaceX is the end customer for their development research, malicious money harvesting  is not a viable strategy, and thus they must actually work with the end goal as the only driving principle.

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Yeah, but look at the new AF contract. SpaceX is perfectly happy to point out that their vehicles are the only ones competing that actually exist---they're the "old" vehicle in that regime (vs Vulcan and NG)---they're happy to accept the contract as it gets decided in their favor, vs delaying to let NG have a chance, for example.

They all play the game.

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6 hours ago, tater said:

I literally provided the link, then the quote.

So we know that the lower limit of savings is that a reused booster is "substantially under half" the cost of a new F9 booster. That's not Block 5, BTW (they used to have to replace the grid fins most of the time as I recall).

 

I see news reports, but no data behind them.

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7 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I see news reports, but no data behind them.

The CEO of the company said that the very first refurbishment of a F9 booster reflown cost substantially less than half the cost of a new booster.

That's as good as you're gonna get, they're a business. The figure is not even slightly surprising, I'd not have been surprised had she said it was less than 10%, it was clearly the same rocket, and the only refurb really possible was new grid fins, and any engine swaps, and SpaceX engines are not 30 million each.

Edited by tater
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2 hours ago, tater said:

The CEO of the company said that the very first refurbishment of a F9 booster reflown cost substantially less than half the cost of a new booster.

What does CEO of Tesla (of the same owner) say about its profitability?

"We lose money, billion per year!" or "It's fine!" ?

Also that juridical story about Tesla shares buying out in twitter.

Why not just publish real numbers about SpaceX instead of sweet words? How could it harm?

Edited by kerbiloid
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11 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Why not just publish real numbers about SpaceX instead of sweet words? How could it harm?

Why would they?

Who would give competition their detailed costs if they don't have to? Is it worth their while to entertain some space nerds on internet forums?

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6 minutes ago, tater said:

Why would they?

Who would give competition their detailed costs if they don't have to? Is it worth their while to entertain some space nerds on internet forums?

So, no any real numbers about real Falcon self-sustainability.

While everything required for the 1st stage reusability was available decades ago but was always rejected by not less experienced engineers and managers, probably for economical reasons.

Edited by kerbiloid
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Just now, kerbiloid said:

So, no any real numbers about real Falcon self-sustainability.

They're a business, and they keep doing it. You don't lose money on each product, but make it up in volume, lol. Their investors see real data. I'm confident that reuse is a good idea (because it's self-evidently true that it is).

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10 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Tesla loses ~billion/year, but still is doing its business.

One thing you'll notice about all of Musk's side ventures, is that they all tie in to the end goal of SpaceX.

They all are developing various pieces of technology that SpaceXwill need in the future.

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