In article . com,
says...

On 2017-10-30 18:01, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Over 20% of all boosters flown this year were 're-used boosters'.
That's a pretty high flight rate for the first year of the capability
being production.

3 first flights, which likely got a lot more tender loving care than
would normally happen in production when your refurb procedures are
established and becomes routine.

They've proven it can be done. They haven't proven they can launch 15
times per year with reflown stages.

When I argued that had not yet proven with high reflight rate, one of
the cheerleaders reponded that they had done 15 flights this year and
that was proof of high rates. But only 3 of those are reflight.

I see, so you're picking on the "only three" reflight number and
ignoring the success of the 12 flights of "new" first stages?

By the way, only three of those 15 flights this year have "expended" the
first stage, so they've gotten quite good at recovering stages. Two of
those are retired/likely retired since they've already been reflown.
Everything prior to Block 4 will only be reflown once. I believe this
will be true for Block 4 as well in order to "make room" for reflying
the Block 5 stages when they start flying.

At any rate, there is now a huge backlog of boosters to refurbish and
refly. 2018 and 2019 should have a much higher portion of "previously
flown" stages than 2017.

and will also probably refly only once. Block 5 hardware is the final
design and will refly 10 times with only inspections and up to 100
times with refurbishment.

Perfect example of cheerleading. Has any Block 5 flown yet ? has any
been reflown? How many times has a block 5 been reflown?

Nope, they've just stared flying Block 4 this year (four flights so far,
all four boosters recovered):

B1039[25] v1.2/B4 14 August 2017 F9-039 Dragon CRS-12
Success Success In storage
B1040 v1.2/B4 7 September 2017 F9-041 Boeing X-37B OTV-5
Success Success In storage
B1041[26] v1.2/B4 9 October 2017 F9-042 Iridium NEXT 21?30
Success Success Recovered
B1042[26] v1.2/B4 30 October 2017 F9-044 Koreasat 5A
Success Success Recovered

So you make assertions the same way people predicted the Shuttle would
turn around quickly and make dozens and dozens of flights per years.

The shuttle never flew 15 times in one year (even counting new and
reflown). Even for the shuttle orbiters, there was a "first flight".
Same for the SRB casings. That particular piece of hardware didn't
wasn't "reused" until the second time it flew.

You are using goals and turning them into accomplished deeds when none
of those have actually happened yet.

The goal is to put payloads into orbit. SpaceX is currently doing that
with a mix of new and reflown Falcon 9 first stages. In 2017 Falcon 9
has launched more payloads than any other launch vehicle has in 2017. I
guess that's not "accomplished" enough for you?

Just because peoople have high confidence in SpaceX achieving a large
part of their goals doesn't mean they have already achieved them. And
that is my argument.

Bull****. In 2017 they have been kicking ass and taking names in the
launch industry. The facts prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Could they have another "bad day"? Yes, but the numbers for 2017 are
already quite telling, and the year isn't done yet.

Jeff
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