Red Dragon confirmed!!

[PB666]

8 hours ago, fredinno said:

By another 10-15%? Yeah, I calculated. Look in the comment section of this video, and see the comments made by "Ian Brandon Anderson.

I also found that SpaceX's fully 1st stage reuse is about as economical as SMART reuse, thanks to the fact that the former has a huge payload penalty, while the latter has a very marginal one.

 

 

 

http://www.silverbirdastronautics.com/cgi-bin/LVPcalc.pl

Saturn V was 59.8T to GTO, apparently, at $1.22 Billion per launch, or $20.4 Million per mT to GTO.

F9H is selling 8.0T to GTO, at $90 Million per launch, or $11.25 Million per mT to GTO.

F9H has about 0.55% the cost of Saturn V to GTO. Not bad.

Reuse is likely included in the latter number (FH isn't being sold yet, and SpaceX already has boosters they can use for reuse, so I see no reason for them NOT to )

Let's add SLS, just to hell with it.

SLS Block I is supposed to be $500 Million per launch, and send 32.9T to GTO.

SLS is $15.2T per mT to GTO.

 

Also, I find it funny people take SpaceX's promises of Mars Colonization so seriously.

I thought you guys knew better than not to take "promises" too seriously.

Considering Space is 99% promises...

 

 

•  

 

Posted 1 hour ago (edited) · Report post

 

 

 

 

 

Source?

I thought Falcon 1 never launched enough to get to do sea landings, since those were slated for a "v1.1" that never happened.

 

Or a Falcon Heavy core- reusing the core comes with enormous payload penalty, and is the primary reason behind the F9H's abysmal payload fraction.

 

Probably why nobody at ArianeSpace really considers reuse, or at Rocosmos, or even ULA (aside from reusing engines).

After all, they all had bad experiences with reuse before (sans ULA).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fly-back_booster

 

For once im in agreement with Freddino how can that be. All you need to do is to put a docking hub in reasonably stable LEO, an orbit that can say last 6 months, start launch 90 million dollar kerosine supply launches into LEO, in the last launch supply Oxygen and have a recycler already on the hub and feedback lines (some tech may be required to get interlocks on the lines. You can get, the docking port 2 kerosine and 2 L02, it aint that difficult to recycle O2 as long as you have a liquid/gas separator. You can then place your Mars mission on the 5th port and the last kero/O2 tank on the last port and its main engine, it literally be just a stage 2 with an extra tank. In this way you can boost the falcon 9 heavy from LEO to as you move from earth you drop 1 ox and 1 kero docks then another 1 ox and 1 kero and then you have more than enough to do a Mars insertion and mars return.

The cost here is 90x7 ~ < billion dollars. If SX can get there BC and CC synchronized they could literally be launching 2 rockets at once.

[fredinno]

3 hours ago, PB666 said:

For once im in agreement with Freddino how can that be. All you need to do is to put a docking hub in reasonably stable LEO, an orbit that can say last 6 months, start launch 90 million dollar kerosine supply launches into LEO, in the last launch supply Oxygen and have a recycler already on the hub and feedback lines (some tech may be required to get interlocks on the lines. You can get, the docking port 2 kerosine and 2 L02, it aint that difficult to recycle O2 as long as you have a liquid/gas separator. You can then place your Mars mission on the 5th port and the last kero/O2 tank on the last port and its main engine, it literally be just a stage 2 with an extra tank. In this way you can boost the falcon 9 heavy from LEO to as you move from earth you drop 1 ox and 1 kero docks then another 1 ox and 1 kero and then you have more than enough to do a Mars insertion and mars return.

The cost here is 90x7 ~ < billion dollars. If SX can get there BC and CC synchronized they could literally be launching 2 rockets at once.

Which part of my comment are you referring to? And can you be a bit more clear? Your first line seems contradictory.

3 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

As I explain in the past, there is a better economic strategic behind price reduction

 

...and that addresses Nibb...how??

[Bill Phil]

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

That wasn't Von Braun. He's often cited for the IPP/STS, but it was the NASA organization and Thomas Paine that made it. Von Braun only made the Mars Mission plans, and that was because he was told to by NASA (even though he thought the timeline for Mars landings was ridiculous- which it was.)

http://www.wired.com/2012/04/integrated-program-plan-maximum-rate-traffic-model-1970/

Von Braun was a part of a committee right after Apollo 11, which planned for many things.

He had been making Mars plans since the 40s. Heck, he wanted his 1969 plan to be done, since he wanted to have a Mars mission occur during his lifetime. 

[PB666]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Which part of my comment are you referring to? And can you be a bit more clear? Your first line seems contradictory.

You know your right, at least I was consistent up until this point, I disagree with you. lol.

Mars is hard, there's no doubt about it, but if SpaceX can keep cracking launches into orbit and landing on barges, gets easier. When you get close to 60 you'll find that arguing with success has little odds.

[fredinno]

On 2016-05-07 at 11:59 AM, Bill Phil said:

Von Braun was a part of a committee right after Apollo 11, which planned for many things.

He had been making Mars plans since the 40s. Heck, he wanted his 1969 plan to be done, since he wanted to have a Mars mission occur during his lifetime. 

"Want" and "expect" are 2 different things. We all want a manned Mars Landing in our lifetimes. Not all of us expect it to happen in our lifetimes.

On 2016-05-07 at 0:18 PM, PB666 said:

You know your right, at least I was consistent up until this point, I disagree with you. lol.

Mars is hard, there's no doubt about it, but if SpaceX can keep cracking launches into orbit and landing on barges, gets easier. When you get close to 60 you'll find that arguing with success has little odds.

I don't remember arguing that they COULD land stages- I would actually want the Falcon Heavy to use Dual Launch and forget about the RTLS pads altogether to save money, since RTLS will only be used once on a blue moon (especially if Falcon 5/1 is revived).

 

My argument was against the economics of actually reusing a stage vs the engines, the latter of which is actually more economical cost wise in some calculations.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

"Want" and "expect" are 2 different things. We all want a manned Mars Landing in our lifetimes. Not all of us expect it to happen in our lifetimes.

I don't remember arguing that they COULD land stages- I would actually want the Falcon Heavy to use Dual Launch and forget about the RTLS pads altogether to save money, since RTLS will only be used once on a blue moon (especially if Falcon 5/1 is revived).

 

My argument was against the economics of actually reusing a stage vs the engines, the latter of which is actually more economical cost wise in some calculations.

The only diseconomy that I can see is that they will have to build multiple OCISLY to land the heavy. They wont be using them all the time, only with heavy launches. According to them the fuel is cheap, so the variable cost is the second stage and payload, particularly germane if the payload. But of course if you are using boosters that feed a small portion of fuel to the core, then one of them can come back to land or both if they can manage it.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

The only diseconomy that I can see is that they will have to build multiple OCISLY to land the heavy. They wont be using them all the time, only with heavy launches. According to them the fuel is cheap, so the variable cost is the second stage and payload, particularly germane if the payload. But of course if you are using boosters that feed a small portion of fuel to the core, then one of them can come back to land or both if they can manage it.

"According to them the fuel is cheap"

I hear this logical fallacy all the time. Yes the fuel is cheap. But you know what isn't? Larger tanks, Bigger engines, and 7T to LEO payload penalties.

 

And crossfeed is not happening anytime soon- unless SpaceX is willing to spend a huge amount of R+D money on something they don't really need.

Edited May 9, 2016 by fredinno

[Rakaydos]

2 hours ago, fredinno said:

"According to them the fuel is cheap"

I hear this logical fallacy all the time. Yes the fuel is cheap. But you know what isn't? Larger tanks, Bigger engines, and 7T to LEO payload penalties.

Apparently is IS cheap, if you build it in-house, ship it by truck or company( instead of chartered) barge, and build enough of them.

[SmartS=true]

On 4/27/2016 at 0:49 PM, fredinno said:

Damn, I just posted a analysis of costs of this mission, but the forum ATE IT ALLL
 

Either way, https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/spacex-debut-red-dragon-2018-mars-mission/

However, NASA cannot fund any major scientific experiments. Red Dragon's 3-4T payload on Mars implies a 5 Billion> cost scientific payload.

Red Dragon itself, will cost far less (approx $300 Million total for Dragon, Falcon Heavy) Plus maybe $50 Million for development and hardening, for example, against the dust, or stronger and bigger supersonic chutes.

 

But in any case, Red Dragon lacks solar panels (and RTGs cost a fortune). Without a long development cycle to add a SM with Solar panels, or attaching solar cells to the sides of the Dragon (which would change its aerodynamic properties and add complexity), it's limited to maybe a few days of battery power (or possibly a few weeks of fuel cell power).

 

It's going to be little more than a publicity stunt.

NASA might fund basic instruments to launch on it, but it's going to be a at least $350 Million Mars stunt flight, right out of Elon's own pockets.

Dragon 2 has two hatches. Why not have solar panels come out of one of them?

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

Apparently is IS cheap, if you build it in-house, ship it by truck or company( instead of chartered) barge, and build enough of them.

Engines are the most expensive part of a rocket. And tanks aren't cheap either.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8xjOj-CEAAk5lx.jpg:large

Just because you build it in-house, doesn't mean it gets cheap. It gets cheaper due to removing the middle man, but you also take the brunt of the infrastructure and R+D costs of building bigger rockets.

27 minutes ago, SmartS=true said:

Dragon 2 has two hatches. Why not have solar panels come out of one of them?

That's what people proposed before, but the problem is that you also need science experiments to come out of the hatches, and a solar panel small enough to deploy from a hatch is almost certainly supporting a payload that can fit on a smaller, cheaper Pheonix-Based platform.

[Rakaydos]

5 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Engines are the most expensive part of a rocket. And tanks aren't cheap either.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8xjOj-CEAAk5lx.jpg:large

Just because you build it in-house, doesn't mean it gets cheap. It gets cheaper due to removing the middle man, but you also take the brunt of the infrastructure and R+D costs of building bigger rockets.

Good thing SpaceX is aiming to reuse engines AND tanks. Not just engines like ULA.

 

Edit: And for Red MArs specifically, they're probably going to use cores that have already paid for themselves- "Factory Certified Pre-flown cores" with the refurbishment cost included in the launch pricings, so SpaceX can throw them away for whatever.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Rakaydos

[78stonewobble]

On ‎07‎-‎05‎-‎2016 at 6:24 AM, fredinno said:

1. SpaceX says 30% saved from an expendable F9 FT. But since reuse comes with a significant performance cost (17T down to 10T), it's more like 10-15%.

2. Like Mars?

Time will tell if SpaceX can muster enough money to do that before Elon retires. They need a LOT.

 

3. The Saturn V wasn't going to last into the 80s, even if AAP happened- Congress didn't want to fund any more Moon Missions, and this was shown by NASA having a really hard time getting just 1 extra Saturn V from the one they got. After all, the Saturn V cost a good 1.22 BILLION per launch, accounting for inflation (and people say SLS is expensive at $500 Million per launch :P)

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

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB#Saturn_IB_vehicles_and_launches

The Saturn IB is unlikely to have lasted long too, its design was sub-optimal due to the "cluster's last stand" first stage configuration, not to mention NASA was moving to reuse at the time, meaning the 1st stage would have likely been modified for reuse (the fashion of reuse is up to speculation).

https://www.reddit.com/r/ula/comments/3nl5or/ula_strives_to_dramatically_reduce_atlas_v_price/

Also, the Saturn IB was also expensive, Atlas V 551, the variant most similar to the Saturn IB, is $214 Million, while the Saturn IB is $313 Million in cost- not to mention, the LEO Apollo CSM (its main payload) was too small for the rocket- while the CSM was 15-16 T, depending on how much propellant you want to carry, the Saturn IB could carry up to 21 T to LEO.

http://newworlds.colorado.edu/documents/ASMCS/nwo_appendix_K_launch.pdf

 

4. Also, F-1B was not "Big Dumb Booster".

Doing that requires a whole new engine, since Big Dumb Booster demands a Pressure-fed engine, making a potential "F-1C" pretty much a new design, like the J-2X wasn't really a J-2 due to the extensive amounts of modifications needed.

 

1. Well to be fair... there are no obvious numbers to calculate this from. As you can see in nibb31's picture... The prices are for fully reuseable launches, but the performance numbers, atleast in the case of the falcon heavy, are based on not reused rockets.

According to that picture... one must ask, why don't they simply use a falcon 9 to send red dragon? Since according to it... it should be capable of it.

2. Like eg. mars.. Tho it still depends on someone actually wanting to pay for a manned landing on mars. Ain't no buck rogers without bucks.

3. 710 million for the Saturn V vehicle itself... That's for 140 tonnes to LEO for a vehicle, which prise is based around 1960's technology and manufacturing.

Now, what does spacex'es numbers include?

Launch service, spacecraft processing, payload integration, tracking, data and telemetry, other launch support requirements and whatever else people can think of?

4. That is not what I said nor claimed... I said:

"I find myself wondering what we could have done with 40 years of refining the Saturn V production and usage, which might then have ended up as, basically a realization of the big dumb booster concept. Eg. the updating of the F-1A engine to the proposed F-1B supposedly reduced parts from over 5000 to under 100."

"Big dumb booster" in this context defined as:

"Big Dumb Booster (BDB) is a general class of launch vehicle based on the premise that it is cheaper to operate large rockets of simple design than it is to operate smaller, more complex ones regardless of the lower payload efficiency."

Mentioning the F-1B, as an example of the original technology made simpler and cheaper, with a lower payload efficiency to follow... I'm positing that, if we had worked 40 years seriously on the whole Saturn V or atleast applied 40 years of technological development, it could have evolved into something akin to the Big Dumb Booster concept.

 

 

PS and in general to the thread. Not at you :):

Let's go by the figures in Nibb31's graphic tho:

Saturn V: 140 tonnes to LEO = 710 million dollars (rocket only) or 1.221 (rocket and launch and all 2016 dollars offcourse).

 

Falcon 9 FT: 22.8 tonnes to LEO = 62 million dollars (list price).

Number of launches to deliver 140 tonnes to LEO = 6.14

Total cost of delivering 140 tonnes to LEO on Falcon FT with listprice: 380.7 million dollars.

If we go by the prices nasa are getting from dragon ISS deliveries: 816.6 million dollars.

If we go by the price for the DSCOVR mission: 595.6 million dollars.

 

Falcon Heavy: 54.4 tonnes to LEO for 90 million dollars:

Number of launches to deliver 140 tonnes to LEO = 2.57

Total cost of delivering 140 tonnes to LEO on Falcon Heavy with list price: 231.62 million dollars.

However... the 90 million price is based around actually only delivering 36 percent of the payload in Nibb31's graphic.

Number of launches needed to deliver 140 tonnes to LEO at circka 20 tonnes per launch: 7.15

Total cost of delivering 140 tonnes to LEO on Falcon Heavy with presumed reuseability: 643.38 million dollars.

 

Yes, spacex does seem cheaper even tho the numbers are somewhat "confusingly" presented, but it's not a revolution...

PPS: Personally and humbly I think we would have been closer to that revolution, if we had applied spacex's talent for innovation and energy on a decidedly non reuseable saturn v. Mass produced "big dumb booster". Again... subject to the fact that that also needs a market or be good enough to create a market.

[kunok]

8 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

and build enough of them.

Reuse goes against that don't you know? You can't say you will reuse components to be cheaper because you make less, and that the huge production of that components makes them cheap. SpaceX claims both, one of them probably is false. There isn't enough market to be both true and some of us really doubts that will be.

[sevenperforce]

4 hours ago, 78stonewobble said:

Personally and humbly I think we would have been closer to that revolution, if we had applied spacex's talent for innovation and energy on a decidedly non reuseable saturn v. Mass produced "big dumb booster". Again... subject to the fact that that also needs a market or be good enough to create a market.

Arguably, SpaceX has a major advantage over a BDB approach because they have more flexibility. Their rockets are already pretty cheap even at current economies of scale, so any reuse that isn't prohibitively expensive is basically a free lunch. A BDB approach requires full economies of scale from the get-go.

[PB666]

8 hours ago, fredinno said:

Engines are the most expensive part of a rocket. And tanks aren't cheap either.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8xjOj-CEAAk5lx.jpg:large

Just because you build it in-house, doesn't mean it gets cheap. It gets cheaper due to removing the middle man, but you also take the brunt of the infrastructure and R+D costs of building bigger rockets.

That's what people proposed before, but the problem is that you also need science experiments to come out of the hatches, and a solar panel small enough to deploy from a hatch is almost certainly supporting a payload that can fit on a smaller, cheaper Pheonix-Based platform.

You are in a very argumentative mood, hmmmmm, Engines are the most expensive, but if you recycle the launch engine they become capital equipment instead of variable cost. Capital equipment is depreciated over its lifetime, so if an engine has a 5 year life to expense it 1/5th per year. It does not seem to me that the Merlin 1D are that expensive, less so than a SSME. If you can do 2 flights per year thats 1/10th of an engine per flight. I don't think anyone knows right now how many launch/backburn/lands at 1D+ can perform at the moment. As far as I know tanks have an indefinitely long lifetime, the tanks we use for Liquid N2 reservoir are used for years and go through 1000s of cycles.

Given you are in this mood to hyperbolize the critiques . . . . . .

Let me cut to the chase, is there some existing launch system that you think blows Falcan9 (recyclable) out of the water in terms of economics? That is to say...... without having to take your payload too tim-buc-tu to launch it.

 

27 minutes ago, kunok said:

Reuse goes against that don't you know? You can't say you will reuse components to be cheaper because you make less, and that the huge production of that components makes them cheap. SpaceX claims both, one of them probably is false. There isn't enough market to be both true and some of us really doubts that will be.

Not if they can shift the supply curve downward . If a supply curve is flexible then rate of exchange increases as supply curve shifts down bringing more buyers to the point of purchase, the rate limiting step is launch pads and launch pad crews.

Edited May 9, 2016 by PB666

[kunok]

11 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Not if they can shift the supply curve downward . If a supply curve is flexible then rate of exchange increases as supply curve shifts down bringing more buyers to the point of purchase, the rate limiting step is launch pads and launch pad crews.

Launching cargo to space is a transport cost. It's a small part in the cost of the satellite. That's a market with more supply than demand, but people keep talking like there is more demand than supply.

[PB666]

2 minutes ago, kunok said:

Launching cargo to space is a transport cost. It's a small part in the cost of the satellite. That's a market with more supply than demand, but people keep talking like there is more demand than supply.

Not about supply, its about the supply curve, you could have twenty competitors in the market each with a NG under cost, you bring in a company that undercuts all of them and you create a new supply dynamic across the market.
Its just like the SouthWest effect, when southwest moves into a market all the competitors are forced to lower their rates.

[kunok]

10 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Not about supply, its about the supply curve, you could have twenty competitors in the market each with a NG under cost, you bring in a company that undercuts all of them and you create a new supply dynamic across the market.
Its just like the SouthWest effect, when southwest moves into a market all the competitors are forced to lower their rates.

I'm understanding you but you aren't understanding me. My english isn't as good as should be.

Using your example: the Southwest makes cheaper goods, but spaceX is making cheaper cargo services, if the goods are still expensive there won't be that change in the demand.

[sevenperforce]

9 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

For Red MArs specifically, they're probably going to use cores that have already paid for themselves- "Factory Certified Pre-flown cores" with the refurbishment cost included in the launch pricings, so SpaceX can throw them away for whatever.

Don't you mean Red Dragon?

Anyway Elon said they'd most likely be able to recover the side cores from the Mars mission but not the center core.

 

 

[78stonewobble]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Arguably, SpaceX has a major advantage over a BDB approach because they have more flexibility. Their rockets are already pretty cheap even at current economies of scale, so any reuse that isn't prohibitively expensive is basically a free lunch. A BDB approach requires full economies of scale from the get-go.

Flexibility how? The cheapness so far, seems, by far, mostly dependent on x number of launches per rocket part, so that part can earn itself back in.

So apparently the reuse require economies of scale as well, which is not really surprising.

Edited May 9, 2016 by 78stonewobble

[PB666]

55 minutes ago, kunok said:

I'm understanding you but you aren't understanding me. My english isn't as good as should be.

Using your example: the Southwest makes cheaper goods, but spaceX is making cheaper cargo services, if the goods are still expensive there won't be that change in the demand.

What if the goods are not that expensive, like providing an LEO fuel station for a Mars attempt. BTW we are in a circumstance right now where some companies are mass producing communication satellites so there is also some economies of scale on the payload side also. BUt if you are a satellite provider the other thing you want is reliability and capability. A few days after SpaceX landed on a barge, they got a military contract award. Time is money also, what good is a really expensive satellite if it takes 2 years to get a ride. In business if you can't get a positive return on the investment after 5 years, the investiment is generally seen as speculative and not worthy of financing, having to wait 2 years takes 40% off and the satellite manf time another 40% you are then down to recouping all your investment through service contracts in 1 year. If they can get the launch time down to months you extend that time alot.

There are a whole bunch of economic models that if SpaceX can perform quickly and reliably that an unprofitable space venture becomes profitable. This is particularly interesting for developing markets that cannot afford a full scale space program but say might want a specific GSO sat that beams programs to say to the communities that surround major metropolitan areas of brazil or another one to predict sea levels and weather patterns in the Solomon Islands, etc. SpaceX could branch into helping make payloads that are componentiallized to add simpler packages, in which case the dev cost on satellites go down.

 

[sevenperforce]

28 minutes ago, 78stonewobble said:

Flexibility how? The cheapness so far, seems, by far, mostly dependent on x number of launches per rocket part, so that part can earn itself back in.

So apparently the reuse require economies of scale as well, which is not really surprising.

Well, BDBs only become cheap if economies of scale drive them, but SpaceX is already cheaper than its competition, so LV inventory flexibility (on the production side now, and presumably on the reuse side shortly) enables them to ramp up in step with economies of scale, rather than requiring high economies of scale from the outset.

[kunok]

17 minutes ago, PB666 said:

like providing an LEO fuel station for a Mars attempt

The mars attempt is the good here and won't be cheap.

17 minutes ago, PB666 said:

BTW we are in a circumstance right now where some companies are mass producing communication satellites so there is also some economies of scale on the payload side also

Source? Because all project I have seen no one started to do anything and personally almost every one looks weird to me.

Edited May 9, 2016 by kunok

[78stonewobble]

20 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Well, BDBs only become cheap if economies of scale drive them, but SpaceX is already cheaper than its competition, so LV inventory flexibility (on the production side now, and presumably on the reuse side shortly) enables them to ramp up in step with economies of scale, rather than requiring high economies of scale from the outset.

Well... if you ignore the fact, that spacex is only significantly cheaper, if you assume economies of scale to be in effect, in regards to reuseability. An assumption for which there is, as of yet, no basis.

I'll bet it's not cheap to have those refurbishing workers standing around, if there is too far between launches. Nor if the reuseability turns out to be more expensive than planned.

Edited May 9, 2016 by 78stonewobble

[John JACK]

On 07.05.2016 at 8:59 AM, fredinno said:

Probably why nobody at ArianeSpace really considers reuse, or at Rocosmos, or even ULA (aside from reusing engines).

But they do. Only difference with SpaceX is that big old companies do big complex stuff. Like making total new boosters with "time proven" winged or parachute recovery. Not a big surprise, it comes with a huge payload penalty AND huge development cost. And at modern launch rates that cost will pay off approximately never. SpaceX at first made modern cheap booster, and only after that made it reusable with minor modifications. So they had economy of mass first, and economy of reuse second. Purpose made reusable boosters were just always overengineered, all that wings, parachutes, or breaking rocket in half is not needed.