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Six times the fun for twice the price. . .



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 10th 03, 02:08 AM
Tom Merkle
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?

Tom Merkle
  #2  
Old December 10th 03, 02:27 AM
Andrew Gray
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

In article , Tom Merkle wrote:
I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


Simplest explanation - launch costs (x per launch) and flight costs (y
per engine)

FI - $6m - $x+$y
FV - $12m - $x+$6y

12 - 6 = x - x + 6y - y
6 = 5y

so an engine costs $1.2m & therefore launch costs are $4.8m

(where "engine" = "hardware associated with an engine, inc. a share of
the rest of the rocket, assumed proportional" and "launch costs" =
upfront costs per launch, relatively constant regardless of what it is)

This is blatantly not the case, but it explains how it might work.
Nothing insane, just maths :-)

(There'll be economies of scale in the tankage and structure on the
first stage, I suspect, and possibly production efficiencies on a
much greater engine-production run.)

--
-Andrew Gray

  #3  
Old December 10th 03, 03:06 AM
George William Herbert
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

Tom Merkle wrote:
I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


That matches well with my low cost vehicle modeling.

Their numbers are higher than mine, but they're further
down the development road and also using inherently more
expensive technologies.

Once you are building low cost rockets, bigger low cost
rockets aren't that much more expensive to build or set up
or fire off...


-george william herbert


  #4  
Old December 10th 03, 03:20 AM
George William Herbert
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

Andrew Gray wrote:
Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


Simplest explanation - launch costs (x per launch) and flight costs (y
per engine)

FI - $6m - $x+$y
FV - $12m - $x+$6y


Except that there is a second stage and second stage motor
on the FI, and additionally stage costs exclusive of motor
costs really should be treated independently from motor count...

So it's really more like:
FI @ $6M = $x (overhead) + $y (big motor) + $z (small motor)
+ $a (first stage) + $b (second stage)
+ $p1 (profit)
FV @ $12M = $x (overhead) + 5*$y (big motor)
+ $c (first stage) + $a (second stage, equal to first stage on FI)
+ $p2 (profit)

Overhead should really be broken down into things like the rocket
assembly and pad costs, launch costs, the guidance system, the shroud...
But this is just rough guesswork.

One thing which I don't have a clue about is what profit level
per launch, and what accounting system, Elon Musk is using.
It's hard to assign per launch costs to a lot of things like
keeping the development staff around and working on stuff.
We know roughly what his staffing levels are, but not what
his cost breakdowns are.


-george william herbert


  #5  
Old December 10th 03, 03:49 AM
Rand Simberg
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

On 9 Dec 2003 17:08:32 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Tom Merkle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


Obviously, engines are not a major cost component.
  #7  
Old December 10th 03, 10:54 AM
Tom Merkle
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


Simplest explanation - launch costs (x per launch) and flight costs (y
per engine)

FI - $6m - $x+$y
FV - $12m - $x+$6y

12 - 6 = x - x + 6y - y
6 = 5y

so an engine costs $1.2m & therefore launch costs are $4.8m

(where "engine" = "hardware associated with an engine, inc. a share of
the rest of the rocket, assumed proportional" and "launch costs" =
upfront costs per launch, relatively constant regardless of what it is)

This is blatantly not the case, but it explains how it might work.
Nothing insane, just maths :-)


Ok. This assumes that the majority of systems used on the booster
stage will be interchangeable with the upper stage. Musk also claims
that the upper stage would be another Falcon I, meaning that he's
costing the upperstage for the Falcon V alone at the same cost as a
complete 5-engine booster stage. Possible, but again, unlikely. If you
further assume that this is reusable as Musk claims, it's going to
change your recovery systems--its a much bigger, heavier stage to
recover.

I'm not saying it's mathmatically impossible for this to be accurate,
I'm saying it doesn't appear to be likely.

(There'll be economies of scale in the tankage and structure on the
first stage, I suspect, and possibly production efficiencies on a
much greater engine-production run.)


I'll buy that for a cheaper per-pound-to-orbit cost than Falcon I. I
find it difficult to believe such a large cost jump can be made in one
step, though, unless SpaceX has taken extraordinary care and testing
to ensure that the guidance, navigation, and fuel management for
Falcon I are already forward-compatible enough to make development
costs on the Falcon V booster very very low. That would take an
extreme amount of either forsight or engineering luck.
Either way, I'll stand by until the first Falcon clears the tower.

Tom Merkle
  #8  
Old December 10th 03, 11:09 AM
Tom Merkle
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Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message ...
On 9 Dec 2003 17:08:32 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Tom Merkle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


Obviously, engines are not a major cost component.


Obviously not. So why does Falcon I have such a comparatively high
$/lb cost then? if the Falcon I is $6 mil per and Falcon V is $12 mil
per, that says to me the lower stage and staging technology is only
another $6 mil, which also says to me that actual individual engine
system cost must be much less than 1/5 the cost of the rest of the
vehicle, unless Musk plans to gush red until well into the Falcon V
operational phase.
(maybe he really does have enough money to launch the Falcon I as a
test platform for Falcon V, at way below actual cost until he can
finally start to break even with Falcon V. If so, he must have the
biggest balls around in financing.)

Tom Merkle
  #9  
Old December 10th 03, 01:43 PM
Dholmes
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Posts: n/a
Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .


"Tom Merkle" wrote in message
om...
I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?

Tom Merkle


Fixed costs are the expensive part.

The next best example is the Delta Heavy - 3 rockets but less then twice the
cost.
A Delta or Atlas using five engines as a fist stage and one as a second
stage would probably cost less then 3 times as much as a base rocket.


You see much the same effect as you add solids to existing rockets.



  #10  
Old December 10th 03, 02:11 PM
Kaido Kert
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Posts: n/a
Default Six times the fun for twice the price. . .


"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..
In article , Tom Merkle

wrote:
I wonder how Elon Musk slipped this one under the radar. According to
this article:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/70/1

Elon Musk says the follow on to Falcon I will be a vehicle called
Falcon 5, which will essentially use 5 clustered Merlin engines
(Falcon I uses 1) in a Saturn-V like configuration, with an additional
Merlin on the upper stage. Musk claims this configuration will cost
approximately $12 mil to launch. That compared to the Falcon 1 at $6
mil. By my reckoning, that means Musk anticipates launching Falcon 5,
which has 6 Merlins on it, and presumably some other complex design
differences too, for only twice the price of Falcon I.

Does anybody see any way this makes any kind of sense?


Simplest explanation - launch costs (x per launch) and flight costs (y
per engine)

FI - $6m - $x+$y
FV - $12m - $x+$6y

12 - 6 = x - x + 6y - y
6 = 5y

so an engine costs $1.2m & therefore launch costs are $4.8m

(where "engine" = "hardware associated with an engine, inc. a share of
the rest of the rocket, assumed proportional" and "launch costs" =
upfront costs per launch, relatively constant regardless of what it is)

This is blatantly not the case, but it explains how it might work.
Nothing insane, just maths :-)


Couple of quotes from spaceX.com monthly updates:
---------------------------------------
We received preliminary approval for our flight termination system design
and have placed parts orders with key vendors. This is one of the most
expensive sub-systems on the vehicle, since we have to use a lot of
pre-qualified hardware (qualifying new hardware can take up to three years).
This and the avionics system stay almost constant independent of launch
vehicle size, so it is really impossible to optimize a small launch vehicle
on cost per unit mass to orbit
-----------------------------------------
Most of our propulsion efforts in May were focused on the Merlin turbo-pump
testing at our facility near McGregor, Texas. This is the most expensive and
mechanically challenging component on the rocket and typically where launch
vehicle developments have experienced the most difficulty.
-----------------------------------------
Environmental work continues at our Vandenberg launchpad (3-West for those
that know the base) and will hopefully be done in the next few months with
the help of the 30th Space Wing. The paperwork associated with this process
is surprisingly large and time consuming, particularly given that Falcon is
much smaller than vehicles that have been based off this pad before and is
completely non-toxic.


It'd be very interesting to see approximate cost breakdown by different
components of this particular launch vehicle, including operations costs of
one launch.

-kert




 




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