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#31
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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. -- -- |
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