SpaceX for Real?

Random thought - to what degree are development costs constrained by
launch cost, and how does it scale? BRBR

They definitely do not scale 1:1 - that is, it's cheaper to develop Falcon than
Atlas V, but not by the ratio of payload mass, since there are overhead
expenses that apply regardless of size, and range costs are smaller for a small
vehicle, but nothing close to scale.

That said, I have followed Musk's efforts pretty closely, and I don't see any
reason a $100M extimate for total development costs is too low if you're doing
it smart. As Musk put it once, "we're just reinventing the Redstone."
Development costs would have been lower, except the company opted to build some
things like the turbopump that could have been bought off the shelf so they
could design for lower production costs and also be in control of their costs.
They feel Orbital is hostage to ATK in particular, since there's only once
source for the Pegasus motors and Orbital has to pay whatever ATK wants.

Matt Bille
)
OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR

Well, this is a very superficial analysis of the market for a small
launch vehicle, especially one built in the USA.

However, I should first state that I have no clue whether the SpaceX
vehicle will actually work, how many launch failures it will suffer in
the near term, etc. Having said that, assuming the sufficient amount
of technical competence and luck, here are the markets for SpaceX:

1) US government civil. NASA provides most of the 2.7 Pegasus launches
per year. I suspect that these will eventually transition to SpaceX,
once the procurement people are comfortable with the notion that they
might get a job with SpaceX at the end of their career, rather than
Orbital.

2) US Government military. Already a customer. Low launch prices would
probably provoke many more launches.

3) US commercial. At $8 million a launch, there may be some
potential customers out there.

4) Foreign government. Maybe good for 1 launch a year, those countries
not sufficient comfortable with Eurockot, or for whom the $4 million
difference between SpaceX and Eurockot matters.

5) Foreign companies. Same as for foreign governments.

One last note: cheaper launchers create new markets.

(ed kyle) wrote in message . com...
(MattWriter) wrote in message ...
Maybe it is not about money. Or, maybe, it is about creating
a company to sell to your undercut competition later for a
big profit. BRBR

I can't see that here. This isn't PayPal: there's no mass market. Musk says
he thinks he can sell 4-5 launches/year once the government believes he's for
real and the vehicle is flight proven. Also, $6M is without range costs, so
expect a creep to near $7M, still way lower than any other US provider.


I like what SpaceX is trying to do and I wish the company
well, but Mr. Musk has picked a tough nut to crack. His
first hurdle is the past 35 years of small-launcher history.
Scout only flew an average of about two times per year for
25 years before its 1995 finale. Pegasus has flown an average
of about 2.7 flights per year since 1990 and less than twice
per year since 2000. This includes both government and
commercial missions.

If all goes well and SpaceX doesn't trip itself up with a
series of launch failures, the company will have to all but
put Pegasus and Taurus out of business to get to the 2-3/year
rate, then will still have to compete with the likes of
low-cost Minotaur for some government business. On the
commercial side, there is Eurockot, which offers a more
powerful launch vehicle than Falcon for probably about the
same amount of money, yet still has only won about 1-2
launches per year.

- Ed Kyle

Andrew Gray wrote in message ...
In article , Al Jackson wrote:
(ed kyle) wrote in message . com...
We'll know soon enough.


- Ed Kyle

Reading their website and other press on SpaceX ,
they say launch cost will be 6 million.
That would be interesting, and maybe can be done.
But the only mention I see for development cost is
100 million, that really seems low, even using off-the-shelf
stuff , I find this hard to believe.

Random thought - to what degree are development costs constrained by
launch cost, and how does it scale?

I mean, you'd rationally expect Pegasus to have lower development costs
than, say, Delta IV. But is there a relationship? Interesting thought.

(It no doubt depends on testing regimens - I'd hate to see the
development cost of one of the EELVs if they'd used a V2-scale
test-firing program) Might go and dig up some numbers here...

Beal Aerospace stopped development at 200 million, Kistler was 600
million in debt when they filled chapter 11.
I don't know what the development costs of Pegasus were.
It will be interesting even if SpaceX can be done for 200 million in
development cost.

Its more than just size that matters. Atlas and Deltas use LH2
propellant, which in itself entails costs that SpaceX can ignore for
now.



(MattWriter) wrote in message ...
Random thought - to what degree are development costs constrained by
launch cost, and how does it scale? BRBR

They definitely do not scale 1:1 - that is, it's cheaper to develop Falcon than
Atlas V, but not by the ratio of payload mass, since there are overhead
expenses that apply regardless of size, and range costs are smaller for a small
vehicle, but nothing close to scale.

That said, I have followed Musk's efforts pretty closely, and I don't see any
reason a $100M extimate for total development costs is too low if you're doing
it smart. As Musk put it once, "we're just reinventing the Redstone."
Development costs would have been lower, except the company opted to build some
things like the turbopump that could have been bought off the shelf so they
could design for lower production costs and also be in control of their costs.
They feel Orbital is hostage to ATK in particular, since there's only once
source for the Pegasus motors and Orbital has to pay whatever ATK wants.

Matt Bille
)
OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR

(Stephen Kohls) wrote in message . com...
(ed kyle) wrote in message . com...

If all goes well and SpaceX doesn't trip itself up with a
series of launch failures, the company will have to all but
put Pegasus and Taurus out of business to get to the 2-3/year
rate, then will still have to compete with the likes of
low-cost Minotaur for some government business. On the
commercial side, there is Eurockot, which offers a more
powerful launch vehicle than Falcon for probably about the
same amount of money, yet still has only won about 1-2
launches per year.

- Ed Kyle

In one of his updates, Elon stated that one of the initial customers
was only purchasing a launch because SpaceX had such a low price.
(i.e. They would not have launched anything otherwise)

If this kind of market elasticity truly exists, there will be more
opportunities than past results would indictate.

-S

The problem is that these payloads and their missions
typically cost several times more than the launch - and
this is true even for $22 million Pegasus. A satellite is
not just a piece of hardware that must be manufactured, it
is a multi-year program that must be funded. NASA's
low-cost Small Explorer missions have total costs that
typically exceed $65 million, including launch.

- Ed Kyle

(Explorer8939) wrote in message . com...
....
.... Low launch prices would
probably provoke many more launches.
....

Such missions are typically the multi-year programs that
cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. The
launch cost might account for 1/4th of the mission cost.
a cheaper launch might free up some funding, but not
enough to provoke many more launches.

....
One last note: cheaper launchers create new markets.
....

This seems like it should be true. However, the commercial
launch market has shrunk during the past few years despite
declining launch prices.

- Ed Kyle

On 30 Nov 2003 08:51:31 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

One last note: cheaper launchers create new markets.
....

This seems like it should be true. However, the commercial
launch market has shrunk during the past few years despite
declining launch prices.

It's almost certainly true, but not in this region of the price-demand
elasticity curve. Prices would have to come down at least an order of
magnitude, and perhaps more, before the effect would show up.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

In article ,
Al Jackson wrote:
I mean, you'd rationally expect Pegasus to have lower development costs
than, say, Delta IV. But is there a relationship? Interesting thought...

Beal Aerospace stopped development at 200 million, Kistler was 600
million in debt when they filled chapter 11.
I don't know what the development costs of Pegasus were.

Originally quoted at about $50M, if I recall correctly, although I think
they overran that a bit in the end. Mind you, they were exploiting
existing solid-motor expertise at Hercules.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

In article ,
ed kyle wrote:
In one of his updates, Elon stated that one of the initial customers
was only purchasing a launch because SpaceX had such a low price.
(i.e. They would not have launched anything otherwise)

The problem is that these payloads and their missions
typically cost several times more than the launch...

That doesn't mean there's no market for small cheap launchers -- it just
means that the customers still have to have money, and the bulk of the
market is going to be people who could never afford a Pegasus.

MOST, at ~C$6M (~US$4M), did cost several times its ~$1M launch. But a
Pegasus launch was completely beyond the project's resources.

NASA's low-cost Small Explorer missions have total costs that
typically exceed $65 million, including launch.

Only NASA would call a $65M LEO program "low cost".
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 18:39:15 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Only NASA would call a $65M LEO program "low cost".

On the other hand, I find it amusing that there's so much shock and
awe that it will cost NASA over two hundred million to implement fixes
to Shuttle before flying again, as though that's a large number in the
context of the Shuttle program. It's less than the average cost of a
single flight.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers: