A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » Policy
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

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



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #31  
Old February 15th 10, 04:50 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,012
Default As usual, gaetanomarano is wrong


"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
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.


At first glance, there definitely appears to be a glut of launch providers.
The EELV's in the US, in particular, have had much less demand than
expected, resulting in more government "support" to keep them both going.

That said, there might just be a market for a cheaper launch vehicle in the
same class as the EELV's. Unfortunately, that market will not appear until
Falcon-9 "proves" itself to potential customers. Having the government
purchase the initial flights is exactly the sort of thing that this
potentially lower cost commercial market needs to get a kick start.

Note that this sort of thing has historical precedent. The US Government
paid for air mail delivery for the US Post Office back in the day when
aircraft were definitely unreliable and generally considered unproven for
routine commercial use.

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


  #32  
Old February 15th 10, 11:17 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Dr J R Stockton[_60_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4
Default As usual, gaetanomarano is wrong

In sci.space.policy message
, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:37:39, Brian Thorn
posted:
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,


Perhaps an asterisk at the top was not noticed. SpaceX lists as Target
Date the date at which the hardware arrives at the launch site.

IIRC, the Inaugural Flight beat its currently-listed target date of
2009, albeit only by a gnat's-whisker. But perhaps the list refers to
the final arrival.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & 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.
  #33  
Old February 15th 10, 11:47 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Brian Thorn[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,266
Default As usual, gaetanomarano is wrong

On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:50:02 -0500, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:


"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
hdakotatelephone...
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.


At first glance, there definitely appears to be a glut of launch providers.
The EELV's in the US, in particular, have had much less demand than
expected, resulting in more government "support" to keep them both going.


That might be chicken vs. egg situation, though. The EELV program was
designed to field *one* launcher, not two. Even though they are now
operated by one firm (ULA) they are still operating *two* large,
Ariane V-class launch vehicles, with at least twice the overhead and
infrastructure of Ariane or SeaLaunch. Even with strong government
support (U.S. DoD/NRO/NASA dwarfs ESA government "support" for Ariane)
this is still hideously expensive. And hideously expensive means EELV
is uncompetitive in the world market (even so, Atlas V still gets a
customer now and then). What would EELV's prospects be today if only
one EELV were in service?

Brian
  #34  
Old February 16th 10, 03:45 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,465
Default As usual, gaetanomarano is wrong

Dr J R Stockton wrote:

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


Perhaps an asterisk at the top was not noticed. SpaceX lists as Target
Date the date at which the hardware arrives at the launch site.
IIRC, the Inaugural Flight beat its currently-listed target date of
2009, albeit only by a gnat's-whisker. But perhaps the list refers to
the final arrival.


I get the sneaking suspicion that the asterisked part was added after a
several-month schedule slip was noticed, to make it look like they were
still on their originally announced timeline.
Whatever, their launch manifest looks pretty ambitious for a untested
booster, and they seem to be counting on everything going right with the
booster from flight one forwards.

Pat
  #35  
Old February 16th 10, 07:08 AM posted to sci.space.policy
BradGuth
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 21,544
Default COTS-CRS price-per-ton-to-ISS is OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER thanShuttle

On Feb 11, 7:57*am, gaetanomarano wrote:
---
Shuttle: launch cost $600M, payload 24 tons max (+7 astronauts) = $25M
per ton to ISS
---
Falcon/Dragon: COTS+CRS funds to SpaceX $2.1 Bn / 20 tons (and ZERO
astronauts) = $105M per ton to the ISS
---
so, the "cheap" Falcon/Dragon price-per-ton-to-ISS is OVER FOUR TIMES
HIGHER than the "expensive" Shuttle!!!
---
also, send seven astronauts with a Soyuz (instead of a Shuttle) will
cost $51M per seat x 7 = $357M
---


The actual all-inclusive shuttle cost per tonne parked in LEO is
perhaps twice that $600M, or $50M/tonne.

~ BG
  #36  
Old February 16th 10, 04:23 PM posted to sci.space.policy
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,516
Default COTS-CRS price-per-ton-to-ISS is OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER thanShuttle


The actual all-inclusive shuttle cost per tonne parked in LEO is
perhaps twice that $600M, or $50M/tonne.

�~ BG



shuttle program cost over 5 billion per year. assume 5 flights per
year, over a billion per flight.

thats pricey
  #37  
Old February 20th 10, 02:34 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Craig Bingman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 12
Default COTS-CRS price-per-ton-to-ISS is OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER than Shuttle

In article ,
David Spain wrote:
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.


That is an assertion, which may or may not be accurate.

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?


I certainly doubt that the cost per shuttle launch would come down
any farther... Since it is early days for Falcon, maybe the price
will go down over time.

As far as the strengths and weaknesses of the two vehicles for ISS supply:

If you are doing actual science (especially life science experiments) on ISS,
then it could be quite advantageous to have smaller quantities of materials
delivered to the ISS more frequently. The lower per flight price for a Falcon flight
might become a more significant factor than the per kilogram cost of delivering
bulk, indefinitely storable cargo to ISS.

--
--


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
More funds for COTS-D Pat Flannery Policy 0 May 1st 09 06:27 PM
What if(on higher life in higher dimension) G=EMC^2 Glazier[_1_] Misc 8 February 5th 09 05:56 PM
Not quite COTS Allen Thomson Policy 3 September 22nd 08 06:27 PM
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Three Times Higher Than Expected kT Policy 44 June 8th 07 03:06 AM
Six times the fun for twice the price. . . Tom Merkle Policy 45 December 14th 03 03:02 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:35 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.