In article ,
says...

On 2018-04-24 14:21, David Spain wrote:

I am of the opinion that the existing F9 and F9H architectures will be
(crew-wise) underutilized.


Unless the space station life is extended beyond 2025, FH and Dragon2
may very well remain the workhorse for mnanned space in USA.

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.

And unless there is real funding for manned space programme beyond ISS,
nobody will see much business case to invest in manned space programme
from now on, unless you go for it on your own (aka: SpaceX with BFR to
Mars).

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

Where the "international" thing may fall in place is if SpaceX gets
serius about mars and other countries want "in" on the project,
supplying modules for the Mars colony or any other "help" they can
provide to SpaceX.

That's BFR/BFS not Dragon 2.

But unless a place like Australia could provide a huge cost and
logistics benefit to have SpaceX launch/land there, SpaceX might not be
so interested when you consider transportation logistics for modules
built in USA.

WTF are you trying to say here? SpaceX isn't bloody likely to launch
from anywhere but the US. As a US Company, they have to follow US
launch rules anyway. Shipping to Australia adds costs. Launching from
Australia adds costs. There is no upside here.

In the case of a LEO assembly/refueling spot to later go to Mars, would
launching from 12°S (northern Australia) offer significant performance
advantage over 28°N (Canaveral)?

A little, but not much. Certainly not enough to wipe out the added
costs of launching from somewhere Falcon and Dragon can't be driven
there by semi-truck, which is how they're transported today. That's why
Falcon is so tall and skinny. Any wider and transportation costs from
the factory to Texas test site to the launch site increases
significantly.

Jeff
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