Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, Hcube said:

I hope they aren't burning steps and that it's not a silly move after what BlueOrigin did. That could cost them a lot if the landing failed...

Well, the goal has all along been to come down on dry land so they have to try it eventually. And worst case, it'll be easier to pick up the pieces for the port mortem after a failed landing.  But given that they haven't had a successful barge landing yet, I do tend to think trying it in the immediate timeframe is at least partially in reaction to Blue Origin.

For the record, as I have previously explained, I am a huge skeptic of the economic viability of the whole SpaceX concept and seriously doubt it will reduce launch costs anywhere near as much as Musk claims.  But I would LOVE to be proven wrong, so I wish them every success.  Besides, there's no way to settle the argument until they get a booster back on the ground and see just how much it really costs, in time, money, and bureaucratic red tape, to refurbish it.  This is an argument I'm tired of having :).

1 hour ago, DarthVader said:

Per this article:http://www.americaspace.com/?p=89127 now the USAF is on board, now SpX just need the FAA to give approval.

Getting FAA approval for this landing is just the 1st of many bureaucratic hurdles.  Assuming it survives the landing and is in good enough shape to be refurbished, then the whole bureaucratic process will probably start all over again to get both launch and landing clearance for the rebuilt rocket.  And it will probably require several flawless reuses of the same rocket before things will ease up.

By "bureaucratic", I don't just mean the FAA, either.  For example, who is going to provide affordable insurance for SpaceX until they establish a record of routine success with refurbished rockets?  And I don't mean insuring the rocket itself, but liability insurance in case it comes down in a populated area.  I'm sure every lawyer in the region is already sharpening his knives in anticipation of just such an event.

Anyway, SpaceX still has a very long row to hoe, both technically and bureaucratically.  Even if they get permission for this landing, and even if it works.  If they pull it off, yay!  But even if they do, that's just 1 small step closer to their ultimate goal.  It will neither prove they can do it routinely nor validate their business model.  That's still years down the road at best.

 

[Streetwind]

While all of the above are fair points, I'm of the opinion that FAA approval is a mere formality at this point. One that must be worked through, sure, but not something in danger of rejection. SpaceX has planned this for years; they'll have talked to the FAA before, and know exactly what the FAA needs for an approval. The mere fact that SpaceX felt confident enough to submit an application at this point is a strong indicator that they have their stuff in order and that it will go through, in my opinion.

Of course, the timeline for this launch is apparently pretty tight, so let's hope that the red tape isn't simply too slow-moving

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, the goal has all along been to come down on dry land so they have to try it eventually. And worst case, it'll be easier to pick up the pieces for the port mortem after a failed landing.  But given that they haven't had a successful barge landing yet, I do tend to think trying it in the immediate timeframe is at least partially in reaction to Blue Origin.

For the record, as I have previously explained, I am a huge skeptic of the economic viability of the whole SpaceX concept and seriously doubt it will reduce launch costs anywhere near as much as Musk claims.  But I would LOVE to be proven wrong, so I wish them every success.  Besides, there's no way to settle the argument until they get a booster back on the ground and see just how much it really costs, in time, money, and bureaucratic red tape, to refurbish it.  This is an argument I'm tired of having :).

Getting FAA approval for this landing is just the 1st of many bureaucratic hurdles.  Assuming it survives the landing and is in good enough shape to be refurbished, then the whole bureaucratic process will probably start all over again to get both launch and landing clearance for the rebuilt rocket.  And it will probably require several flawless reuses of the same rocket before things will ease up.

By "bureaucratic", I don't just mean the FAA, either.  For example, who is going to provide affordable insurance for SpaceX until they establish a record of routine success with refurbished rockets?  And I don't mean insuring the rocket itself, but liability insurance in case it comes down in a populated area.  I'm sure every lawyer in the region is already sharpening his knives in anticipation of just such an event.

Anyway, SpaceX still has a very long row to hoe, both technically and bureaucratically.  Even if they get permission for this landing, and even if it works.  If they pull it off, yay!  But even if they do, that's just 1 small step closer to their ultimate goal.  It will neither prove they can do it routinely nor validate their business model.  That's still years down the road at best.

 

Yes they planned to land on land all the time, the barge was to don't have to crash on land and perhaps an test for future system like Falcon heavy core recovery.

FAA is probably a bit skeptical about an experimental landing who has an high chance for crashing, same is probably NASA who own the land where they will land. 

On the other hand I don't see much problems reusing an rocket. First the rocket with spin stabilized first stage who was launched not long ago and crashed was launched even if it had an known engine fail. Now if you are allowed to launch an rocket with an questionable solid stage fist stage launching an used rocket is no issue.
New shepard faces the exact same legal problems, no its not orbital but the second stage part is irrelevant here. 

[Kryten]

NASA doesn't own the landing area, the USAF does. You're confusing CCAFS and KSC.

[Frozen_Heart]

I personally reckon that they won't get the go ahead for it.

[Streetwind]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

FAA is probably a bit skeptical about an experimental landing who has an high chance for crashing, same is probably NASA who own the land where they will land. 

 

1 hour ago, Kryten said:

NASA doesn't own the landing area, the USAF does. You're confusing CCAFS and KSC.

In addition to what Kryten said:

SpaceX leases the land. In other words, the responsible party for any screwups that happen on the landing site is SpaceX. It's their risk to carry, and their problem to fix (and pay for) if it goes south. The Airforce doesn't care, so long as the plot is handed back to them in comparable condition at the end of the lease, and no damage happens to areas outside of the leased zone.

I mean, when you lease a car, the leasing company doesn't suddenly decide to tell you that you can't drive to work in the morning after it snowed during the night. Much rather, they let you do whatever the heck you want, and if you show up with a banged-up car afterwards, then well, you alone are responsible for the damages unless you can put the blame on someone else. And even then, the company doesn't care, they get reimbursed either way.

You guys are all making this a whole lot more complicated than this really is. If SpaceX feels confident enough to apply for permission now, they have already mitigated all relevant risks to the point where even a failure results in nothing but a PR setback (and even that risk will have been assessed and mitigated to the largest sane degree possible).

Edited December 3, 2015 by Streetwind

[magnemoe]

32 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

 

In addition to what Kryten said:

SpaceX leases the land. In other words, the responsible party for any screwups that happen on the landing site is SpaceX. It's their risk to carry, and their problem to fix (and pay for) if it goes south. The Airforce doesn't care, so long as the plot is handed back to them in comparable condition at the end of the lease, and no damage happens to areas outside of the leased zone.

I mean, when you lease a car, the leasing company doesn't suddenly decide to tell you that you can't drive to work in the morning after it snowed during the night. Much rather, they let you do whatever the heck you want, and if you show up with a banged-up car afterwards, then well, you alone are responsible for the damages unless you can put the blame on someone else. And even then, the company doesn't care, they get reimbursed either way.

You guys are all making this a whole lot more complicated than this really is. If SpaceX feels confident enough to apply for permission now, they have already mitigated all relevant risks to the point where even a failure results in nothing but a PR setback (and even that risk will have been assessed and mitigated to the largest sane degree possible).

I agree that this problem is blown up way past reasonable limits, air force is anyway better than NASA as the air force is more into stuff who hit the ground and explodes

Ground landing is also much easier as not only have you to get horizontal and vertical speed low enough to land but also land inside the landing zone. This is harder then the landing zone is just a bit larger than the rocket. 

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Streetwind said:

You guys are all making this a whole lot more complicated than this really is. If SpaceX feels confident enough to apply for permission now, they have already mitigated all relevant risks to the point where even a failure results in nothing but a PR setback (and even that risk will have been assessed and mitigated to the largest sane degree possible).

SpaceX has been confident enough in its own abilities already to try landing on a barge.  As @magnemoe said, hitting a small barge is harder than hitting a large cow pasture.  But look what's happened so far.  So the record at present indicates that SpaceX has a habit of being overly optimistic, which naturally produces caution in the folks who have to give them permission to do things and underwrite their ventures.

SpaceX has demonstrated, however, that they CAN hit a small barge (although they hit it too hard).  Given that the worst outcome of a landing attempt is coming down far off target in a populated area, this risk seems reasonably mitigated (although of course the wrong type of failure at the wrong time could still make that happen).  So perhaps the real reason for wanting to try a dirt landing this time is just to facilitate debris recovery :).

But I think you're totally incorrect in saying that a failure of any SpaceX landing is "nothing but a PR setback".  PR is what sells stuff so low PR means low sales.  As I have outlined before, SpaceX/s financial situation cannot be other than hugely leveraged and even if they suddenly start a long run of routine success in everything they do, it will be a very long time, if ever, before anything starts paying off.  In this situation, a few more failures will no doubt see a lot of that leverage disappear.  Then what?

[Rakaydos]

44 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

But I think you're totally incorrect in saying that a failure of any SpaceX landing is "nothing but a PR setback".  PR is what sells stuff so low PR means low sales.  As I have outlined before, SpaceX/s financial situation cannot be other than hugely leveraged and even if they suddenly start a long run of routine success in everything they do, it will be a very long time, if ever, before anything starts paying off.  In this situation, a few more failures will no doubt see a lot of that leverage disappear.  Then what?

Except that, for the people paying for SpaceX's services, those arnt failures. The mission each time is an unquaified success. Thats why SpaceX has a launch queue several years long. What spaceX does with their dispsanble boosters IS "just a PR setback"

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Except that, for the people paying for SpaceX's services, those arnt failures. The mission each time is an unquaified success. Thats why SpaceX has a launch queue several years long. What spaceX does with their dispsanble boosters IS "just a PR setback"

Hmmm, how much of an unqualified success was it when the SpaceX rocket blew up shortly after launch recently?  If that happens again any time soon, start watching SpaceX's list of POTENTIAL future launches suddenly get a lot smaller.

And even once the payload separates, the customer still has a direct interest in whether the boosters live or die.  This is because, at the bottom line, the customer must, in the end, pay the cost of the booster plus a profit margin for SpaceX to stay in business.  And SpaceX rockets are, to use a KSP term, "significantly over-engineered" for the actual paying part of their "pay-load".  That is, they have like 25% more dV than they would actually need if they were disposable rockets to put the same satellite in the same orbit because they have to carry that much non-paying "payload" all the way up and all the way down in the form of their landing system.

Thus, until SpaceX actually starts re-using rockets (if they ever do), and this proves to be significantly more cost-effective than using disposable rockets (which I doubt will happen but there's no telling just yet), SpaceX can only offer prices competitive with disposable launchers by taking a significant loss each time and then being sustained by government subsidies and/or Musk dipping into his own piggy bank.  Neither of these bailouts can continue indefinitely without some significant progress towards driving down the real launch costs incurred by SpaceX (as opposed to what it's charging its customers).  If that doesn't happen, then SpaceX launch prices will have to go up to reflect the true cost of the over-engineered rockets (even without trying to recoup the immense investment in the landing technology).  And if that happens, customers will start bailing on them.  And that will be the end of it all.

So yeah, if they crash many more, it will hurt more than just PR.

[Elthy]

5 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

And even once the payload separates, the customer still has a direct interest in whether the boosters live or die.  This is because, at the bottom line, the customer must, in the end, pay the cost of the booster plus a profit margin for SpaceX to stay in business.  And SpaceX rockets are, to use a KSP term, "significantly over-engineered" for the actual paying part of their "pay-load".  That is, they have like 25% more dV than they would actually need if they were disposable rockets to put the same satellite in the same orbit because they have to carry that much non-paying "payload" all the way up and all the way down in the form of their landing system.

Thus, until SpaceX actually starts re-using rockets (if they ever do), and this proves to be significantly more cost-effective than using disposable rockets (which I doubt will happen but there's no telling just yet), SpaceX can only offer prices competitive with disposable launchers by taking a significant loss each time and then being sustained by government subsidies and/or Musk dipping into his own piggy bank.  Neither of these bailouts can continue indefinitely without some significant progress towards driving down the real launch costs incurred by SpaceX (as opposed to what it's charging its customers).  If that doesn't happen, then SpaceX launch prices will have to go up to reflect the true cost of the over-engineered rockets (even without trying to recoup the immense investment in the landing technology).  And if that happens, customers will start bailing on them.  And that will be the end of it all.

Isnt SpaceX the cheapest provider for launches?

[Geschosskopf]

13 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Isnt SpaceX the cheapest provider for launches?

So what?  I'm just pointing out that SpaceX prices are artificially low thanks to massive influxes of money from sources other than satellite customers.  This extra money is coming in to support the development of its reusable rocket technology, but without some serious, concrete, repeatable success with that, this extra money will eventually dry up.  If that happens, then SpaceX won't be able to compete.

[Elthy]

I thought launching satellites is its main source of income, besides the contracts with NASA. Arent they just much more efficient than the other rocket companys in building cheap rockets?

[PB666]

30 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Isnt SpaceX the cheapest provider for launches?

They provide cheap home for barnacles.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-34941462?post_id=433569096811136_504819956352716

[Mazon Del]

Really the big question for the re-usability side, isn't the initial costs of the rocket and refurbishment, it's how much those costs will rise AFTER the inevitable explosion of the first time one of the reused rockets.

I could see the refurbishment certification program starting off relatively "lax" in that it rather resembles the initial rocket certification program we have now, but after that first explosion the FAA might decide that you need to xray scan any part that experiences any sort of load and look for microfractures, etc, etc. Suddenly ballooning the costs to the point where it isn't much more efficient.

[Rakaydos]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

So what?  I'm just pointing out that SpaceX prices are artificially low thanks to massive influxes of money from sources other than satellite customers.  This extra money is coming in to support the development of its reusable rocket technology, but without some serious, concrete, repeatable success with that, this extra money will eventually dry up.  If that happens, then SpaceX won't be able to compete.

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

I thought launching satellites is its main source of income, besides the contracts with NASA. Arent they just much more efficient than the other rocket companys in building cheap rockets?

Having a single factory and test stand instead of Space Centers scattered across the continental US, and sizing their rocket to be able to utilize existing freeway architecture instead of having to charter custom lift vehicals, saves SpaceX incredible amounts.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Rakaydos

[sojourner]

3 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

SpaceX can only offer prices competitive with disposable launchers by taking a significant loss each time and then being sustained by government subsidies and/or Musk dipping into his own piggy bank.

Gonna ask for a citation on this, because for years everything I've read is that even in expendable mode SpaceX makes a profit off of each successful launch of the F9. That has always been the beauty of their approach to re-usability. Even if it doesn't workout for the F9 they still have a profitable product.

[SeaDog]

16 minutes ago, sojourner said:

Gonna ask for a citation on this, because for years everything I've read is that even in expendable mode SpaceX makes a profit off of each successful launch of the F9. That has always been the beauty of their approach to re-usability. Even if it doesn't workout for the F9 they still have a profitable product.

Well, I wouldn't trust anyone either way on this. There's a good reason why spaceX is private, and one thing is that these things can be kept very secret. And depending on how your internal accounting is done, you can look at it in many ways. For example, it may be that the launch is profitable... But that the difference in launch capacity due to reusability attempt is bought by the development section of the company, which of course spaceX itself pays for, in the end it turns out to be a net loss. But launching the rocket was profitable.

So in the end no one knows for sure. I think spaceX needs to make reusability work. I think the rockets at best pay for themselves, but there's substantial infrastructure and development that's still at a loss. For that reason I think any price drop in launch costs will be moderate even when they start doing reusable first stages. SpaceX will put that money into more development. Further, I think space X will need more investors, and they need to really see space x doing revolutionary stuff.

[Geschosskopf]

3 hours ago, SeaDog said:

Well, I wouldn't trust anyone either way on this. There's a good reason why spaceX is private, and one thing is that these things can be kept very secret. And depending on how your internal accounting is done, you can look at it in many ways. For example, it may be that the launch is profitable... But that the difference in launch capacity due to reusability attempt is bought by the development section of the company, which of course spaceX itself pays for, in the end it turns out to be a net loss. But launching the rocket was profitable.

So in the end no one knows for sure. I think spaceX needs to make reusability work. I think the rockets at best pay for themselves, but there's substantial infrastructure and development that's still at a loss. For that reason I think any price drop in launch costs will be moderate even when they start doing reusable first stages. SpaceX will put that money into more development. Further, I think space X will need more investors, and they need to really see space x doing revolutionary stuff.

This.  The numbers don't add up.  SpaceX has a huge sunk cost in R&D for reuse, over and above what they would have spent just designing another disposable rocket.  So that's a bigger start-up cost than competitors before any customer money comes in at all.  And they've built a bigger, more complex, and thus more expensive rocket than is needed for the jobs it does because it has to carry extra fuel and landing gear, etc.  And technically, the rocket is way more expensive even than the sum of its parts because they have to spread the extra R&D cost over all those they build, to be able to build them at all.  IOW, the actual cost to build the Nth rocket = construction cost (parts and labor) + (R&D cost)/N.  So as long as SpaceX is unable to reuse its rockets, launching this rocket on a 1-way trip necessarily costs them more than launching a smaller, simpler, disposable rocket without the extra R&D burdern.  So if SpaceX is currently charging less than its smaller, simpler competitors to do the same jobs, it has to be losing mucho money on each launch.  It's getting less money from the customer while spending more on building the vehicle, not to mention paying off its extra R&D "debt".  So unless a large part of SpaceX's costs are being covered by governemnt grants and/or Musk is punping in money from his other ventures, I don't see any way SpaceX can be running at a profit.  And I bet it's only maintainng liquidity by robbing Peter (advance payments on contracts) to pay Paul (its sunk costs and higher construction and launch costs).

As to how well resusability will pan out (if it ever gets that far), that depends on how much more (including the R&D costs) a SpaceX rocket effectively costs than its competitors.  2 times as much?  5 times as much?  10 times?  Who knows?  Given that refurbishment and relaunching will still cost money, how much of the new construction costs will SpaceX save by reusing a rocket?  80%?  50%?  30%?  Again, who knows?  Pick any numbers you like in each category and that will tell you how many times an individual rocket has to fly before it breaks even on its development, initial construction, and cumulative refurb and relauch costs, compared to the alternative of making a bunch of smaller, cheaper rockets to do the same jobs.  It will actually be somewhat longer than that because the disposable rocket factory can take advantage of mass production and the learning curve to reduce unit costs as it goes along, things that reusability necessarily precludes SpaceX from doing.  So I wonder, how can there be any real, net profits before each reusable rocket in the fleet breaks even, plus does however many extra flights are necessary to make up for previous failures?

So I certainly wouldn't invest my own money in SpaceX right now.  I might do business with them in the short term, to take advantage of their lower prices, but I'd have back-up plans because I wouldn't expect the prices nor SpaceX itself to last very long.  Any multi-launch contract I signed with them would give me the option to bail out if SpaceX didn't start landing and reusing rockets muy pronto.  And perhaps threats of bailing by various customers is partially behind the decision for a ground landing now.

Like I say, I'm a big SpaceX skeptic.  But I'd really love it if they can pull it off.  Getting to oribt on the cheap is half the battle of getting off this rock.  So go SpaceX!  I just won't hold my breath while they try.

[Streetwind]

You're certainly making a lot of assumptions in your various posts that you can't prove, @Geschosskopf, but I suppose everyone's opinion is their own, so I'm not going to start arguing about it. Just be aware that not everything you've deducted for yourself actually lines up with what you can sometimes learn from spending a bit more time on research.

I do however have to disagree with your assertion that SpaceX depends on "government subsidies" to remain in business. It's an argument very popular among SpaceX critics, who form the simple mental chain of "SpaceX receives money from the government, therefore SpaceX receives subsidies" - and in doing so, demonstrate little other than their lack of understanding of what a subsidy actually is. If SpaceX receives money from the government as payment for services rendered, that is not a subsidy, but a contractual payment. Unless you want to go and say that SpaceX also receives "subsidies" from SES, from Orbcomm, from Intelsat and all its other commercial customers. The goverment can act as a normal commercial customer just fine, and does so all the time - in many sectors of industry and service, not just aerospace. At no point in any of those sectors is anyone talking about "subsidies". That's just limited to people trying to invent arguments to discredit certain providers.

A subsidy, by definition, is an amount of money paid by the government (or an amount of fees waived) to a non-government entity for nothing in return, in order to keep that entity afloat economically and prevent loss of employment, or as a gift to motivate certain behaviors. Now, SpaceX did receive subsidies in a few of its projects; for example, the company was granted a $15 million "incentive package", in the form of tax exemptions, from the state of Texas for choosing Boca Chica Beach as the location for their future private spaceport. That is the picture book definition of a subsidy. Of course, with that amounting to maybe a quarter of a single F9's cost, and with the payout being contingent on SpaceX first spending $100-$150 million in development and construction of said spaceport, that doesn't look much like the company would be able to keep itself afloat on that while operating at a loss, does it? Texas did this to ensure that SpaceX would choose them, not because they feel a particular need to artificially extend the company's life. Meanwhile, when NASA orders cargo launches to the ISS, then that's no different from NASA ordering a team of janitors for Kennedy Space Center. The janitors are not receiving "government subsidies"; they are receiving payment for services rendered to their customer. That the customer happens to be a government agency may be an interesting bit of trivia, but nothing that changes the contractual relationship between the two parties. Why should it be different for SpaceX?

[Hcube]

When is the launch ? 

[Kryten]

Currently tracking 15th December 2154-0054 local time (2:54-5-54 UTC).

[Nibb31]

• Government subsidies: Since its inception, SpaceX has relied on government contracts. The Merlin engine is based on a NASA reference design. Falcon 1 was funded by the DoD. Falcon 9 developmend was co-funded by NASA and private funds. Dragon was funded by NASA.

SpaceX is profitable today, only because of those contracts. If they had relied solely on private funding, they simply would not exist. However, all of that government funding was part of commercial contracts. Whether you count it as subsidizing or not depends on how you interpret things, and if the price paid was proportional to the benefit to the taxpayer. It can be argued both ways, so I won't take sides here. The fact is, without NASA and DoD contracts, there would no private space industry in general and no SpaceX in particular. The same is true for the European, Japanese, Russian, or Chinese space industry too.

• Reusability: Cheap spaceflight through reusability has been the holy grail of the aerospace industry since the end of Apollo. SpaceX wasn't the first to envision reusable rockets and won't be the last. The challenge never was technological. It has always been economical. Reusability only makes sense if you have high enough flight rates. Increasing flight rates does not depend solely on bringing costs down. It depends mainly on finding a purpose for those flights.

SpaceX has a high probability of finally achieving first stage recovery and reuse. That will be a great technological accomplishment, but let's remember that the goal isn't to recover or reuse stages, it is to bring costs down. Recovery and reuse do not automatically bring costs down, nor are they the only ways of bringing costs down. Ultimately, what will bring costs down is to increase flight rates in order to generate economies of scale.

Orbital launches are expensive because they employ lots of people to manufacture, test, handle, integrate, transport, and launch the rocket, but also to build payloads and ground stations, integration, fueling, handling, mission planning, mission control... There are also infrastructure costs, administrative overhead costs, facilities, power, IT, HR, training, legal, catering, etc...  The result is hundreds, if not thousands of highly qualified people, working in the aerospace industry. The biggest cost factor is not the first stage hardware, it's the payroll of a particularly expensive workforce. Recovering the first stage is not going to automatically reduce costs by 50% (or even 20%) unless it allows to fire 50% of the workforce. It only has the potential to save some of the manufacturing costs, the rest of the costs remain constant. 

SpaceX has invested in facilities that can mass-produce Falcon cores. This means that if reusability comes into full swing, those facilities will be underproducing and the cost of each stage will actually increase due to the lack of economies of scale, which might negate the whole reusability business model.

This is why the competitors of SpaceX (ULA, Airbus, etc.) are in "wait and see" mode. They have their plans to incorporate reusability into their business models if they need to, but they are mainly waiting to see how the market reacts to SpaceX and if SpaceX can actually make reusability profitable before they decide whether it makes economical sense to commit to it.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Nibb31

[B787_300]

As @Nibb31 pointed out SpaceX would not be here unless they had the Government Contracts.  The Gov allowed SpaceX to get their rockets made and tested.  Now they can use those rockets for Commercial launches and make money on them.  Yes Elon poured a LOT of his own money into SpaceX, but it was really the Gov that got SpaceX off the ground. It is likely that they are now in the Black with their current backlog and contracts though.

Their re-usability will depend on what needs to be done to the rocket after flight.  If it is like the shuttle and what they planned vs what happened after flight there will be no economical sense in reusing the rocket.  If they can truly do a quick visual inspection or other fast inspection and then fill up and go again then it makes a lot more sense for them to reuse it.  It all depends and there is really little use in speculating until it actually happens.

Edited December 4, 2015 by B787_300

[PB666]

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

• Government subsidies: Since its inception, SpaceX has relied on government contracts. The Merlin engine is based on a NASA reference design. Falcon 1 was funded by the DoD. Falcon 9 developmend was co-funded by NASA and private funds. Dragon was funded by NASA.

SpaceX is profitable today, only because of those contracts. If they had relied solely on private funding, they simply would not exist. However, all of that government funding was part of commercial contracts. Whether you count it as subsidizing or not depends on how you interpret things, and if the price paid was proportional to the benefit to the taxpayer. It can be argued both ways, so I won't take sides here. The fact is, without NASA and DoD contracts, there would no private space industry in general and no SpaceX in particular. The same is true for the European, Japanese, Russian, or Chinese space industry too.

• Reusability: Cheap spaceflight through reusability has been the holy grail of the aerospace industry since the end of Apollo. SpaceX wasn't the first to envision reusable rockets and won't be the last. The challenge never was technological. It has always been economical. Reusability only makes sense if you have high enough flight rates. Increasing flight rates does not depend solely on bringing costs down. It depends mainly on finding a purpose for those flights.

SpaceX has a high probability of finally achieving first stage recovery and reuse. That will be a great technological accomplishment, but let's remember that the goal isn't to recover or reuse stages, it is to bring costs down. Recovery and reuse do not automatically bring costs down, nor are they the only ways of bringing costs down. Ultimately, what will bring costs down is to increase flight rates in order to generate economies of scale.

Orbital launches are expensive because they employ lots of people to manufacture, test, handle, integrate, transport, and launch the rocket, but also to build payloads and ground stations, integration, fueling, handling, mission planning, mission control... There are also infrastructure costs, administrative overhead costs, facilities, power, IT, HR, training, legal, catering, etc...  The result is hundreds, if not thousands of highly qualified people, working in the aerospace industry. The biggest cost factor is not the first stage hardware, it's the payroll of a particularly expensive workforce. Recovering the first stage is not going to automatically reduce costs by 50% (or even 20%) unless it allows to fire 50% of the workforce. It only has the potential to save some of the manufacturing costs, the rest of the costs remain constant. 

SpaceX has invested in facilities that can mass-produce Falcon cores. This means that if reusability comes into full swing, those facilities will be underproducing and the cost of each stage will actually increase due to the lack of economies of scale, which might negate the whole reusability business model.

This is why the competitors of SpaceX (ULA, Airbus, etc.) are in "wait and see" mode. They have their plans to incorporate reusability into their business models if they need to, but they are mainly waiting to see how the market reacts to SpaceX and if SpaceX can actually make reusability profitable before they decide whether it makes economical sense to commit to it.

However great you think reusability is, once it is accomplished and repeated it will belong to competitors in a snap of the fingers and improved by competitors shortly thereafter, Musk has good common sense about energy conservation, but Besos has good ideas about economy. Remeber that musk wanted to send mice to mars even before his car companies wheels were rolling, not good in the economic sphere. 

The Indians, Iranians and Chinese wont give a hoot about patents they will reverse engineer the stuff, none of the big players want to be left behind. The russians also have a status quo they want to preserve they wouldn't want the privates to take the remaining profit out of the space program. Everyone has an impetus to copy if it is more economical, and that is what they will do. 

I should add that space industries have huge multiplyer effects because almost all the goods used to engineer and make rockets in the US are locally produced, its not killing the bidget tonsubsidize this, but the US must make sure the product is competitive for the reasons stated above. We can't just throw $ into a hole and expect the long term outcome to be good. These jobs are high salaried with a good taxable base and these people buy goods that support thier local economy. Just take a loknat the development around clear lake texas, they have even added a new port, and east texas has become the largest manufacturing center in the us, The government could be buying contracts with a dozen companies for the same platform profile and it would all be good for the economies in the short term. 

Boca chica is a practical desert, sure its green but mainly green on alot of loose sand, there is nothing there, but wait a decade or so. 

The question is not whether delivering stuff to space can be economically profitable, the question is whether space delivers back something that is profitable. Musk mousing up mars is a ego-shot, deliver a drone to a roid or comet or a martian moon and start doing some chemistry and delivering back to earth samples with that recoverable space vehicle. 

Edited December 4, 2015 by PB666