JF Mezei wrote on Thu, 17 May 2018
17:58:21 -0400:

On 2018-05-17 17:23, Fred J. McCall wrote:

If that report is true and SpaceX can achieve the kind of launch rates
they're talking about (60+ launches per year), they are going to own
the space launch business.


Would it be correct to state that at this stage, the only people willing
to require/pay for a "new" stage would be government (NASA/military) and
this would essentially be a form of subsidy to SpaceX ?


Probably not and definitely not.


I could see some limits initially with customers wanting either new or
1st re-use, and a discount for using stages reused more than twice, but
eventually that dicount going away as confidence in multiple uses grows?


But even you don't agree with what you see, judging from your first
paragraph. Pick one: Only government or 'customers'.


In terms of market, I can see military insisting on paying more for
other supplier in order to maintain at least 2 launch providers. (and to
help its lobby buddies such as Boeing etc).


You can apparently see lots of things. That doesn't make them true.
Your first vision is likely. Your parenthetical remark is bull****.
Private companies lobby for their own interests and are frequently at
odds with the military (which is why they need to lobby).


It would not be safe to allow SpaceX to become a monopoly because their
tech has revolutionized and dropped proces to a point where nobody else
can compete.


How do you propose to prevent that?


I bet there will be lots of pressure on Boeing and others to develop
re-usable ASAP.


It won't matter. They're already working in that direction (see long
range plans for Vulcan, for example, where they want to go the Russian
route of dropping engines off the vehicle so they can be recovered and
reused), but it's not going to be able to compete on cost. ULA is
talking about making it cost competitive with current Falcon Heavy
costs, but those should drop if Falcon 9 drops as the Block 5 cores
start being used for Falcon Heavy. So even if they achieve their
desired price point (which I consider dubious), they're still going to
lose.


--
"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