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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
"Alan Erskine" wrote in message
ond.com... On 26/05/2012 8:04 AM, Jeff Findley wrote: In , says... In igpond.com, says... On 26/05/2012 5:33 AM, bob haller wrote: was the breakthru just a awesome idea? or breakthus in materials engines etc that made it possible? It was not possible to do this 20 years ago. It was a combination of ideas, ability, timing, maturity (of systems, burorcracies and politics) as well as the need for all this to be happening. I approached the question from a technology point of view. As far as the tech goes, what was missing 20 years ago? Given the proper focus on low cost access to space, what tech was missing from Falcon 9 or even Dragon? I think achieving what Falcon 9 and Dragon has done is more a function of the organization and management keeping low cost as its focus. Quote from today's press conference (covered on NASA TV): Q: What was different about working with a private corporation compared to a government agency? A: Approach with ESA and JAXA: we provided them with requirements and expected the governments to work with contractors to ensure they met the build to requirements. SpaceX approach didn't involve a government entity. Engineers would speak to engineers to explain why we do things the way we do. SpaceX would tell us how they would accomplish the same objectives. Still doesn't explain Boeing and LockMart. Boeing and LockMart are enormous behemoths with ditto overheads which need billions in revenue just to screw in a lightbulb. Since the government is cutting back on spending they've become lobsided and haven't brought their costs in line with revenue fast enough. Hasn't anyone noticed that Boeing still haven't given a cost estimate for the development and production of CST-100? It's because it will be in the several billion range with a per launch cost of probably $300- $400 million a pop, not too far from Shuttle's $500 million per flight. SpaceX is nearly done with the development of a man-rated Dragon / Falcon9 and it's already proven itself remarkably well with both 3 out of 3 for Falcon 9 launches and the successful berthing of Dragon to ISS. All this for less than $800 million in development costs! Also, I'm impressed at the rate SpaceX is evolving its hardware. The Falcon 9 and before it the Falcon 1 have gone though continuous upgrading and the company is churning out new ideas a yearly basis, like Falcon Heavy. I'm very interested if they'll succeed in building a reusable booster stage and Dragon capsule. I believe that the U.S. government should really give SpaceX the opportunity to develop a Saturn V class launcher (tentatively named Falcon XX). It's a bet, but one that can be justified with the current trackrecord. It's either that or muddling forward with the $20 billion Senate Launch System, which is basically a rehashed Shuttle but which is taking more than a decade to develop. |
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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
On 28/05/2012 6:20 AM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Boeing and LockMart are enormous behemoths with ditto overheads which need billions in revenue just to screw in a lightbulb. Since the government is cutting back on spending they've become lobsided and haven't brought their costs in line with revenue fast enough. Coward |
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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
In sci.space.policy message
, Sun, 27 May 2012 22:20:05, Nomen Nescio posted: I believe that the U.S. government should really give SpaceX the opportunity to develop a Saturn V class launcher (tentatively named Falcon XX). It's a bet, but one that can be justified with the current trackrecord. It's either that or muddling forward with the $20 billion Senate Launch System, which is basically a rehashed Shuttle but which is taking more than a decade to develop. No. They've needed to deal with the USG, for obvious reasons, in developing Dragon for ISS supply, and they will need to do so for ISS crew. They do not seem to have had so much, publicly, to deal with the USG in respect of Falcon 9 Heavy - I guess that they can see a market for what it can do - big black USG sats, maybe modules for ISS, Bigelow hotels. Let them get on with XX, using money earned with F9 - then, when ready, they can offer an XX launch for less than the cost of yet another year's development of SLS. Of course, they must prove sufficient range safety to the USG; the sensible way to do that would be to launch from Kourou, far away from any significant numbers of US voters. Or from SHAR. -- (c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME. Web http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms and links; Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc. No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News. |
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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
I love these backward looking questions. Their answer is always simple: No. The justification for such a simple answer is self-evident. Dragon did not exist twenty years earlier for many reasons, technical and non-technical. Dave |
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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
In article , nospam@
127.0.0.1 says... Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner? I love these backward looking questions. Their answer is always simple: No. The justification for such a simple answer is self-evident. Dragon did not exist twenty years earlier for many reasons, technical and non-technical. True, but it's useful to look back and ask *why* it couldn't, or didn't, happen. The big issues could have been economic, technical, regulatory, and etc. Identifying the big roadblocks can help to shape future space policy, which is what this group is all about. Jeff -- " Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. " - tinker |
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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
Jeff Findley writes:
True, but it's useful to look back and ask *why* it couldn't, or didn't, happen. The big issues could have been economic, technical, regulatory, and etc. Identifying the big roadblocks can help to shape future space policy, which is what this group is all about. I think with Falcon 9 and Dragon just the heavier alloys, no composites and heavier avionics of the 70's could easily have led to a net payload reduction deep enough to not bother with building that thing at all exactly the same way. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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Could Dragon have been built 20 years sooner?
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