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

On Feb 12, 5:08*pm, David Spain wrote:

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.

The issue is that ISS cargo is on a Dragon is volume constrained and
the vehicle will fly with a payload mass much less than its
capability.

On Feb 12, 9:58�pm, Me wrote:
On Feb 12, 5:08�pm, David Spain wrote:

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.

The issue is that ISS cargo is on a Dragon is volume constrained and
the vehicle will fly with a payload mass much less than its
capability.

last I heard the cost of shuttle program is about 5 billion per year,
or about 1 billion er flight assuming 5 flights per year.

so where did the 400m cost estimate come from?

Brian Thorn writes:

Knowing SpaceX, the first one will go kablooey during first stage and
then Musk will proclaim it a success...

And if it goes kablooey on the pad, well, Musk can claim that the launch pad
contaminant removal experiment needed for the 2nd Falcon 9 test a complete
success!!

It's all in how you frame it, right?

;-)

Dave

Pat Flannery writes:

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. ;-)

That's why they are being issued slightly different space helmuts designed to
distribute the force of impact, as modeled by the Secretary of State and her
daughter on a recent visit to Baikonaur:

http://tinyurl.com/ygslftb

;-)

Dave

Brian Thorn wrote:
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.

I'm keen to see how exactly it works on the first test also, and frankly
don't think it has a better than 50-50 chance of getting into orbit.
One big difference between this and Falcon-1 is that it's going to be
nowhere near as cheap to lose three Falcon-9's on test launches as it
was the earlier rocket, and if it does have trouble being made workable,
you can see the company going bankrupt before they can get it operational.
Looking at their launch manifest, you can tell that without the NASA
COTS contract it's very doubtful that Falcon-9 would have ever existed,
as there is no great demand for it outside of ISS resupply.

Pat

David Spain wrote:
That's why they are being issued slightly different space helmuts designed to
distribute the force of impact, as modeled by the Secretary of State and her
daughter on a recent visit to Baikonaur:

http://tinyurl.com/ygslftb

Compact MOOSE: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm
You tie a little parachute to your feet to keep you head-down during
reentry. ;-)

Pat

Pat Flannery writes:

David Spain wrote:
That's why they are being issued slightly different space helmuts designed to
distribute the force of impact, as modeled by the Secretary of State and her
daughter on a recent visit to Baikonaur:

http://tinyurl.com/ygslftb

Compact MOOSE: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm
You tie a little parachute to your feet to keep you head-down during
reentry. ;-)

You know, when Sir Richard gets around to orbital SpaceShipThree, maybe he'll
make an offer to GE for MOOSE, for the ultimate sky dive experience....

And you all pooh pooh the tourism experience.... hmph!

:-)

Dave

Me writes:
The issue is that ISS cargo is on a Dragon is volume constrained and
the vehicle will fly with a payload mass much less than its
capability.

That is unfortunate.

To be fairer to the shuttle, you probably wouldn't fly that 3rd MPLM
with reduced capacity just to achieve 20 tons, you'd fly it full to
optimize launch cost, sooo to redo my calculation:

8.85 tons per MPLM x 3 flights = 26.55 tons @ $600 million per flight
yields $1.8B / 26.55T = $67.796M/ton which is better than Falcon9/Dragon
at the current contract pricing, but not 4x better.

Perhaps the plan is for the cost to come down over time?

Let's hope...

?

Dave

" writes:
last I heard the cost of shuttle program is about 5 billion per year,
or about 1 billion er flight assuming 5 flights per year.

so where did the 400m cost estimate come from?

$600M, from Mr. 'G'.

At $1B per flight x 3 flights for 26.55 tons we're at:

$3B / 26.55T = ~$113M/ton.

Dave

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
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.

True, it's a new launch system and one never knows what the unexpected has
in store for the first few launches of a new system. That said, if the
first launch goes well, we would expect the second launch to be more or less
on time.

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.

At least SpaceX is building and flying vehicles which are within their means
financially. If they didn't do some things differently, they wouldn't be
cheaper than other existing launch vehicles, now would they? Different
obviously comes with risks, but SpaceX does appear to be slowly plodding
along the path they've set out for themselves.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon