COTS-CRS price-per-ton-to-ISS is OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER thanShuttle

Me writes:

To be an apples to apple comparison. The shuttle payload capability
(24 tons ) is not the correct number to use. It is the carrying
capability of an MPLM, which is around 5 tons.

So shuttle cost is 120 million per ton

Charlie this makes good sense to me.

And can we safely put aside the one time development costs
and just focus on launch costs? It seems to me you can't
take the long term view of one without also amortizing the
cost and taking the long term view of the other.

According to Wikipedia, the SpaceX projection for Falcon 9
(medium) is 21,000 lb (10.5 tons) to low Earth orbit priced
at $27 million per flight, yielding a figure of ~$1,286/lb
or slightly over $2.5 million per ton.

Now their projections may be off, but I doubt they are off
by a factor of 48x.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 -and-

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=18

Dave

gaetanomarano writes:

so, from EVERY point of view, the Shuttle price-per-ton is 40% to 80%
LESS than the COTS+CRS price!!!

Unless Falcon 9 comes in at less than 48x its projected performance,
this is provably false. The SpaceX figures contradict your claims.

Dave

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:49:03 -0800 (PST), Me
wrote:


To be an apples to apple comparison. The shuttle payload capability
(24 tons ) is not the correct number to use. It is the carrying
capability of an MPLM, which is around 5 tons.

According to the STS-128 press kit...

The space shuttle payload will include the Leonardo Multi-Purpose
Logistics Module (MPLM) and the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment
Support Structure Carrier (LMC). The total payload weight, not
counting the middeck, is 31,694 pounds. The expected return weight is
19,053 pounds.

....and...

Leonardo
Payload Mass (launch): 27,510 lbs
Payload Mass (return): 16,268 lbs
Empty Weight: 9,810 lbs

Brian

On Feb 12, 12:21*am, David Spain wrote:
gaetanomarano writes:
so, from EVERY point of view, the Shuttle price-per-ton is 40% to 80%
LESS than the COTS+CRS price!!!

Unless Falcon 9 comes in at less than 48x its projected performance,
this is provably false. The SpaceX figures contradict your claims.

Dave

Spacex has a specific contract for 20 tons at 1.6 billion. The number
of flights is up to spacex

On Feb 12, 1:07*am, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:49:03 -0800 (PST), Me

wrote:
To be an apples to apple comparison. *The shuttle payload capability
(24 tons ) is not the correct number to use. *It is the carrying
capability of an MPLM, which is around 5 tons.

According to the STS-128 press kit...

The space shuttle payload will include the Leonardo Multi-Purpose
Logistics Module (MPLM) and the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment
Support Structure Carrier (LMC). The total payload weight, not
counting the middeck, is 31,694 pounds. The expected return weight is
19,053 pounds.

...and...

Leonardo
Payload Mass (launch): 27,510 lbs
Payload Mass (return): 16,268 lbs
Empty Weight: 9,810 lbs


I did a wrong conversion with tonnes and ton

Me wrote:
also, send seven astronauts with a Soyuz (instead of a Shuttle) will
cost $51M per seat x 7 = $357M
---

You calculations are wrong.

The CRS cargo weight is what is deliver to the ISS. The cargo is in
the form of bags. That is how Spacex gets paid, not cargo to orbit
which would include the weight of the Dragon.

To be an apples to apple comparison. The shuttle payload capability
(24 tons ) is not the correct number to use. It is the carrying
capability of an MPLM, which is around 5 tons.

So shuttle cost is 120 million per ton

I want to see squeezing seven astronauts into one Soyuz; four people are
going to be taking a one-way trip into space in the orbital module, and
they had better hope that they don't have a launch abort, or they are
going straight into the ground with the launch shroud when the reentry
module separates from it after the escape motors fire. ;-)

Pat

Me wrote:


I don't know how many are in work at this moment. Spacex does not get
all the money up front. It is per a payment milestone per mission.

The SpaceX launch manifest shows three COTS Falcon-9/Dragon tests for
this year for NASA after the first test flight, two ISS resupply flights
in 2011, two more in 2012, three more in 2013, another three in 2014,
and two more in 2015: http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php
This will no doubt get modified if ISS is extended to 2020.

Pat

On Feb 12, 6:19*am, David Spain wrote:
Me writes:
To be an apples to apple comparison. *The shuttle payload capability
(24 tons ) is not the correct number to use. *It is the carrying
capability of an MPLM, which is around 5 tons.

So shuttle cost is 120 million per ton

Charlie this makes good sense to me.

And can we safely put aside the one time development costs
and just focus on launch costs? It seems to me you can't
take the long term view of one without also amortizing the
cost and taking the long term view of the other.

According to Wikipedia, the SpaceX projection for Falcon 9
(medium) is 21,000 lb (10.5 tons) to low Earth orbit priced
at $27 million per flight, yielding a figure of ~$1,286/lb
or slightly over $2.5 million per ton.

Now their projections may be off, but I doubt they are off
by a factor of 48x.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9* -and-

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=18

Dave

1. according to wikipedia, the price of each Falcon-9 fight
(excludinge the Dragon's price) is $44-49.5 million:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9

2. the 10.5 tons figure is for a DUMB PAYLOAD (a payload just inserted
in its orbit like a satellite) while the CRS, Shuttle, ATV, HTV and
Progess, carry a SMART PAYLOAD that's a cargo MOVED from it insertion
orbit to the ISS then moved again with the ISS trash to a lower orbit
to burn in the atmosphere

3. a "SMART" payload to the ISS needs a VEHICLE made with a
pressurized module, docking port, service module, propellants,
engines, solar arrays, etc. ALL of them have a MASS you must cut from
the GROSS lift-off payload if the Falcon-9

4. the price-per-ton of the Falcon/Dragon duo, don't come from these
basic hardware data, but from a simple division between the total
money that SpaceX has received or will receive for the COTS program
and the CRS service ($2.1 billion) and the max mass of SMART CARGO
carried to the ISS with the Dragon (a total of 20 tons in 12 flights)
and the result of this (simple) operation is: $105M per ton of SMART
CARGO carried to the ISS

..

One word of caution, we should always be aware the difference between
cost and price. They are not the same thing. SpaceX surely knows their
costs, but like any good commercial concern, keeps that largely to them-
selves, as consumers what we know for sure is their price.

It gets tricky when comparing to shuttle because the shuttle is not a
commercial enterprise, but a taxpayer subsidized transportation system
like Amtrak would be if it charged no fares.

Thus there is no equivalent to 'price' for the shuttle only taxpayer
cost. So we start off somewhat with an apples to oranges comparison,
but if we assume that in both cases what G means by 'price' in this
case is cost to the taxpayer (because NASA is funding them in both cases)
then we have a starting basis for comparison.

gaetanomarano writes:

1. according to wikipedia, the price of each Falcon-9 fight
(excludinge the Dragon's price) is $44-49.5 million:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9

The referenece for this in Wikipedia is from the Falcon 9 Users' Guide
published he

http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php

These figures are updated an effective through 12/31/09, the numbers I used
were from 2005 and obsolete. Since we're past the 12/31/09 date, I'm unsure
what it currently is, but we'll go with the 09 numbers for this post.

2. the 10.5 tons figure is for a DUMB PAYLOAD (a payload just inserted
in its orbit like a satellite) while the CRS, Shuttle, ATV, HTV and
Progess, carry a SMART PAYLOAD that's a cargo MOVED from it insertion
orbit to the ISS then moved again with the ISS trash to a lower orbit
to burn in the atmosphere

Well the number varies a bit depending upon polar orbit vs a lower inclination
orbit, with polar being more expensive because of the reduced payload mass.
Assuming ISS can be serviced from a non-polar orbit launched from the Cape
we get a "DUMB" payload mass of 10,450 kg from Falcon 9 (medium).

3. a "SMART" payload to the ISS needs a VEHICLE made with a
pressurized module, docking port, service module, propellants,
engines, solar arrays, etc. ALL of them have a MASS you must cut from
the GROSS lift-off payload if the Falcon-9

True. At this site:
http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php

We get the payload up-mass to LEO on Dragon at 6,000 kg (13,228 lbs or
6.614 tons).

4. the price-per-ton of the Falcon/Dragon duo, don't come from these
basic hardware data, but from a simple division between the total
money that SpaceX has received or will receive for the COTS program
and the CRS service ($2.1 billion) and the max mass of SMART CARGO
carried to the ISS with the Dragon (a total of 20 tons in 12 flights)
and the result of this (simple) operation is: $105M per ton of SMART
CARGO carried to the ISS


Several things don't add up here.

1. According to http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php I quote:

"In December 2008, NASA announced the selection of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch
vehicle and Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station
(ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires. The $1.6 billion contract represents a
minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for a
cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion."

You are adding additional money NASA may have granted for SpaceX for COTS
but it was not for CRS. As we mentioned earlier if you are going to
include fixed development costs for SpaceX you should do the same for
Shuttle and in terms of the value of the dollars at the later time it was
spent in order to account for inflation.

If you want to add in the fixed costs, you should do so with the shuttle
as well, including all of the testing and all the initial shuttle flights
that fell under the 'test' category. That's the performance equivalent of
what NASA bought with its COTS contract with SpaceX.

I would prefer to ignore the fixed costs, because they will not be incurred by
NASA going forward, but the recurring costs will remain. So I will go with the
1.6 billion CRS contract figure which does not include the fixed COTS costs
but are a reasonable comparison considering the fixed shuttle costs are not
accounted for in your $600 million per flight figure either.

SpaceX claims this yields a minimum of 12 flights but doesn't say how much
cargo delivered to LEO that represents. But if we go with the 6.614 tons
on Dragon per flight ("SMART" payload as you call it) that would ordinarily
yield:

12 x 6.614 = 79.368 tons delivered to LEO.

Now Charlie Murphy says the contract is $1.6 billion for 20 tons delivered to
LEO, with the number of flights to be determined by SpaceX. In that case, if
we hold SpaceX to their word of 12 flights (the higher the number of flights
required to reach the target goal, the more it would favor the shuttle, so
I'll weigh this as much as I can in favor of the shuttle for the sake of
this discussion) this would obviously de-rate the payload capacity of Dragon.
Because at 12 flights to get to 20 tons, were delivering, on average per-flight,
1 2/3rd tons or slightly over 3,300 lbs on the Dragon per flight, substantially
below what SpaceX claims Dragon can do. This may be unfair to SpaceX, and in
fact SpaceX may be launching Dragons that are heavier than the average and
some lighter than the average, but it's the best I can do with the information
at hand, and remember, I'm weighting this as heavily in favor of the shuttle
as I can.

So, based solely on $1.6 billion for 20 tons to LEO you get $80M/ton and that
is clearly not a factor of four greater than shuttle. In fact it is LESS that
what you'd spend to do the SAME with shuttle.

With the shuttle (based on Brian Thorn's STS-128 press kit figure of Payload
Mass (weight?) at launch of 27,510 lbs - 9,810 lbs empty) = 17,700 lbs or
8.85 tons to LEO on an MPLM. To get 20 tons you need 3 flights (last flight
not fully loaded), at $600 million per flight that's $1.8 billion for 20
tons at $90M/ton.

?

Dave

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:01:52 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

The SpaceX launch manifest shows three COTS Falcon-9/Dragon tests for
this year for NASA after the first test flight,

Raise your hand if you think SpaceX will get off four Falcon 9s this
year. Anyone? Hello? No, I don't think so either.

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.

Brian