Thoughts on Virgin galactic and spaceshiptwo

[Mazon Del]

*sigh* Reusability only makes sense if there is a huge demand. That demand does not exist at the current price point and with no destination to go to.

Reusability does help reduce overhead at the cost of initial expense. It doesn't need a huge demand to justify its existence, if the cost of refurbishing a used rocket safely costs a third of the cost of a new rocket, even if the refurb had to sit there for a year before use, it still lowers the cost for the next guy to use it, so maybe some projects that couldn't afford a brand new rocket are allowed to exist.

[Nibb31]

The production cost of the rocket isn't the biggest cost factor in launch prices. The biggest cost factor is the industry is manpower. Even if you reuse the rocket, you still have to pay the highly qualified personnel that does the logistics, payload integration, handling, testing, launching, R&D, administration, maintenance, etc... You still have to pay for the facilities, infrastructure, the consumables. You save on the production cost, but you have an extra handling and refurbishing cost and the actual unit cost of each rocket goes up because your factory produces less of them.

There is a point where the curves intersect and above a certain launch volume, you will get savings. However, that doesn't happen at current launch rates and you're not looking at a huge operational cost reduction.

So maybe you save two thirds of the cost of the reusable first stage, but even if the cost of the rocket represents a whopping one third of a hypothetical $90 million price tag to launch a Dragon V2, you've only saved $20 million, with a ticket price per passenger of $10 million. That's not a huge game changer that's going to open up the space tourism skies to the masses.

[NERVAfan]

Obviously Branson agrees with you. I don't. I guess only time will tell.

I agree.

Companies like Novespace or Zero-G sell parabolic flights for a couple of thousand dollars. The experience is pretty similar to what Virgin is going to offer, with a few hours of flight and a couple of minutes of weightlessness. The main difference is that they don't get you bragging rights for reaching the Karman line.

And that hardly anyone except for really serious space fans knows they exist (well, unless they watched that one Mythbusters episode...). I think that's a bigger barrier.

No, it depends on what the insurance companies and investment funds would do. I'm pretty sure Virgin would be sued to death (especially as their self-certification process is only going to be 5 flights), and the press will destroy them.

Depends on how ironclad the VG contracts are, and whether the survivors saw a point in suing. People die climbing Everest and the commercial Everest expeditions haven't been shut down. Current FAA regulations are "informed consent"; if that remains true, I think the industry could survive.

The press by itself is only a factor if it convinces people not to fly.

(I do think VG is setting itself up for trouble by claiming to be so safe, though. They should be clearer that it is in fact dangerous, and I don't think that would really discourage many people from going.)

*sigh* Reusability only makes sense if there is a huge demand. That demand does not exist at the current price point and with no destination to go to.

It wouldn't be driven just by tourism demand - the same launch vehicle (either F9R or Skylon, or both) would be used for comsats, NASA missions, etc.

And why are you assuming no destination?

I don't expect orbital space tourism to start that soon, and I think Bigelow is planning to launch their first BA330s pretty soon after the Commercial Crew vehicles start flying. Those inflatables look more spacious than an ISS module -- I think a Dragon v2 trip to a Bigelow station would be a lot more comfortable than a Soyuz trip to ISS, and people pay like $50+ million for that.

Also, if SpaceX does get that reusability working and the costs down, they could probably do flights around the Moon for much cheaper than it now costs to go to ISS. Dragonv2's heat shield is supposed to be good enough for a lunar reentry.

- - - Updated - - -

Obviously Branson agrees with you. I don't. I guess only time will tell.

I agree.

Companies like Novespace or Zero-G sell parabolic flights for a couple of thousand dollars. The experience is pretty similar to what Virgin is going to offer, with a few hours of flight and a couple of minutes of weightlessness. The main difference is that they don't get you bragging rights for reaching the Karman line.

And that hardly anyone except for really serious space fans knows they exist (well, unless they watched that one Mythbusters episode...). I think that's a bigger barrier.

No, it depends on what the insurance companies and investment funds would do. I'm pretty sure Virgin would be sued to death (especially as their self-certification process is only going to be 5 flights), and the press will destroy them.

Depends on how ironclad the VG contracts are, and whether the survivors saw a point in suing. People die climbing Everest and the commercial Everest expeditions haven't been shut down. Current FAA regulations are "informed consent"; if that remains true, I think the industry could survive.

The press by itself is only a factor if it convinces people not to fly.

(I do think VG is setting itself up for trouble by claiming to be so safe, though. They should be clearer that it is in fact dangerous, and I don't think that would really discourage many people from going.)

*sigh* Reusability only makes sense if there is a huge demand. That demand does not exist at the current price point and with no destination to go to.

It wouldn't be driven just by tourism demand - the same launch vehicle (either F9R or Skylon, or both) would be used for comsats, NASA missions, etc.

And why are you assuming no destination?

I don't expect orbital space tourism to start that soon, and I think Bigelow is planning to launch their first BA330s pretty soon after the Commercial Crew vehicles start flying. Those inflatables look more spacious than an ISS module -- I think a Dragon v2 trip to a Bigelow station would be a lot more comfortable than a Soyuz trip to ISS, and people pay like $50+ million for that.

Also, if SpaceX does get that reusability working and the costs down, they could probably do flights around the Moon for much cheaper than it now costs to go to ISS. Dragonv2's heat shield is supposed to be good enough for a lunar reentry.

[CptRichardson]

I'd actually give a damn about them if they had managed to get something launched since 2006.

But they haven't, and I'm increasingly coming to doubt that they will launch something again.

[Lukaszenko]

I don't think there is a shortage of people who want to go to space. Hell, even my girlfriend wants to go to space. Perhaps the question is "how bad do you want it", but nevertheless, it's literally an out-of-this-world experience and I doubt there will be a shortage of people lining up for it.

Parabolic weightless flights are nice, but they're not space. They give you weightlessness, but they don't show you the black sky, the curvature of the earth, the sense of nothingness-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things, and the snapshot of all of human and earth history within your field of view (or at least close to it). These are life-changing experiences that you can't get anywhere else. Telling people that you went to space will undoubtedly drop some panties, but that's certainly not the first reason people want to do it.