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On 2018-04-24 07:10, Jeff Findley wrote:

They do, to pressurize the kerosene and LOX tanks for the Merlin engine.
Adding another gas would complicate pad operations (only a bit, but
still).


Wouldn't that require running additional piping up the launch tower and
new connection points on the rocket to load the gas into the tanks,
along with the pipe unhooking hardware at launch time?

Is that considered "major" or a no brainer type of work?

It's not so much the pad modifications, which are a one time cost.
Anything that complicates operations increases cost over time. SpaceX
is very cost conscious when it comes to operations. That's why they had
lower prices even before they started to recover and reuse first stages.

I saw a Tweet yesterday which said that Mr. Steven came back with both
fairing halves. Nothing official from SpaceX as of yet, but that's no
small bit of change either. Those things are several millions of
dollars of hardware and every other provider just disposes of them on
every single flight. A million here, a million there, and pretty soon
you're talking real money.

Jeff
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