JF Mezei wrote on Wed, 25 Apr 2018
14:05:29 -0400:

On 2018-04-25 07:27, Jeff Findley wrote:

This makes no sense to me. ISS is the reason Dragon 2 and Starliner
were both built and will be flying within a year two with crew. Not
extending ISS beyond 2025 spells uncertainty for both Dragon 2 and
Starliner.

I was refering to any new developments. Dragon and Starliner's
development costs are being paid by NASA and the flights to ISS till
2025. After that, those vehicles remain "available" if needed, but
there wouldn't be any justification to build anything new since
restarting Dragon or Starliner production would cost much less than
designing from new.


Yes and no. I've seen significant 'obsolescence programs that had to
redesign missiles because you just couldn't get the old parts anymore.


Depends if they have a destination. A Bigelow Aerospace inflatable
space station could be a possible destination.

And who pays for it? Do you have long term supply of space tourists
willing to pay $20m each?


Who pays for it? Whoever wants to. Whose ass did you pull that $20
million number out of? I think you're a little high (about 2x). And
that's using Falcon 9/Dragon.

That's BFR/BFS not Dragon 2.

WTF are you trying to say here? SpaceX isn't bloody likely to launch
from anywhere but the US.

Someone had mentioned international launches and specified Australia.
Hence my question on whether launching from northern australia would
give enough advantage to offset the logistics/costs of transportation.


I don't think there are any big differences in logistics/costs of
transportation. They're building BFR at the Port of LA. They're
going to have a long sea voyage, regardless of where they launch from.


With regards to SpaceX being a US company, what law prevents it from
launching from another country? It can form SpaceX(Australia) subsidiary
to launch from Australia if it wanted to.


It could, but then it would be transferring rocket technology to a
foreign entity. Look up 'ITAR'.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson