"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Brian Thorn wrote:
Knowing SpaceX, the first one will go kablooey during first stage and
then Musk will proclaim it a success because they just wanted to clear
the tower without the SpaceX decals peeling off the nosecone. And
SpaceX fanboys will chastise the rest of us for disagreeing.

I'm keen to see how exactly it works on the first test also, and frankly
don't think it has a better than 50-50 chance of getting into orbit.
One big difference between this and Falcon-1 is that it's going to be
nowhere near as cheap to lose three Falcon-9's on test launches as it was
the earlier rocket, and if it does have trouble being made workable, you
can see the company going bankrupt before they can get it operational.
Looking at their launch manifest, you can tell that without the NASA COTS
contract it's very doubtful that Falcon-9 would have ever existed, as
there is no great demand for it outside of ISS resupply.

At first glance, there definitely appears to be a glut of launch providers.
The EELV's in the US, in particular, have had much less demand than
expected, resulting in more government "support" to keep them both going.

That said, there might just be a market for a cheaper launch vehicle in the
same class as the EELV's. Unfortunately, that market will not appear until
Falcon-9 "proves" itself to potential customers. Having the government
purchase the initial flights is exactly the sort of thing that this
potentially lower cost commercial market needs to get a kick start.

Note that this sort of thing has historical precedent. The US Government
paid for air mail delivery for the US Post Office back in the day when
aircraft were definitely unreliable and generally considered unproven for
routine commercial use.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon