David Spain wrote on Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:56:49
-0400:

On 4/24/2018 5:54 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote:
JF Mezei wrote on Tue, 24 Apr 2018
16:36:20 -0400:

On 2018-04-24 14:21, David Spain wrote:

I am of the opinion that the existing F9 and F9H architectures will be
(crew-wise) underutilized.


Unless the space station life is extended beyond 2025, FH and Dragon2
may very well remain the workhorse for mnanned space in USA.


So Boeing is irrelevant in your mind?


Not to my mind. Which makes for even more infrequent flights to ISS by
SpaceX. Also doesn't require crewed F9H for any of these either.


Not to mine, either. That means each gets a couple of crew flights
per year for the next decade or so. I think Musk's latest remarks are
that he doesn't intend to 'man rate' Falcon Heavy because there is no
current mission that requires it.


And unless there is real funding for manned space programme beyond ISS,
nobody will see much business case to invest in manned space programme
from now on, unless you go for it on your own (aka: SpaceX with BFR to
Mars).


The issue here is that Bigelow seems to have jumped in bed with ULA.
If that extends to ferrying supplies and 'guests' to 'space hotels',
they might not let SpaceX vehicles dock.


Yes. That thought had crossed my mind as well. I hope not.


I would like to think that third parties might buy Bigelow modules,
which would be delivered on orbit with ULA boosters but it would then
be up to the owner to supply and crew the thing. Any sane operator
would want to keep operating costs as low as possible and that is NOT
ULA. Even Vulcan doesn't promise the sort of price point you'd need
to hit to compete with SpaceX.


Where the "international" thing may fall in place is if SpaceX gets
serius about mars and other countries want "in" on the project,
supplying modules for the Mars colony or any other "help" they can
provide to SpaceX.


Or just people who want to go to Mars. If there are enough, it would
make sense to launch from almost anywhere.


But unless a place like Australia could provide a huge cost and
logistics benefit to have SpaceX launch/land there, SpaceX might not be
so interested when you consider transportation logistics for modules
built in USA.



I addressed this elsewhere. A contract that would allow some assembly in
Australia, some would be shipped out from US. Eventually Australia might
be supplying some of their own parts.

Remember, BFR Spaceship can do point to point travel on Earth and land
anywhere there's a big enough piece of concrete.


True once that happens. But I am purposely leaving BFR (and Mars) out of
it. Trying to make a case for why someone might be interested in
existing F9(H) or Blue Origin hardware.

Getting back to F9 and Dragon V2 specifically. Propulsive landing and
landing gear were removed from Dragon V2 at NASA's behest. But if there
were another 3rd party customer that wanted that capability, it'd be a
way to get a customer to invest in and help pay for the testing needed
to make it a reality.


I'd like to see that. It wasn't just at NASA's behest. Proving it
safe and reliable was just too expensive for SpaceX to want to
undertake it when it wasn't needed.

[snipped]

I think all the inspection and such will occur at the launch site.
That makes locating the facility outside the US something of an ITAR
issue. I wouldn't expect Australia to be a problem, but you never
know...


Me either, that's why I used them as an example.



--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw