SpaceX - Why Not RS-27A?

The Apprentice wrote:
"Ed Kyle" wrote in news:1127005005.543235.112470
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

I figure Merlin has to be costing close to $2 million
each. If so, SpaceX could afford to pay $4.5 million
for each RS-27. If Rocketdyne can't build 'em for
that, than SpaceX would have to raise its launch price.
That would still seem easier than trying to design,
develop, integrate, test, and fly a nine-engine
machine using an iffy, unproven engine.

Perhaps... but there are also advantages to doing everything in-house.
Having to get the vehicle engineers to work with the Rocketdyne engineers
is another failure mode. There are other factors to consider besides
the usual metrics of mass fraction, etc.

Rocketdyne is notoriously difficult to work with -- they do everything by
the letter of the contract, and they see themselves as a premium product
with premium pricing. They bring in the team of lawyers for the
smallest items, regardless of how it impacts schedule or success of the
program. I suspect this is the evolved response to being NASA's #1
contractor for so long... they're used to NASA people constantly asking
for free favors, and they learned it doesn't get them anything except
more requests for free favors, so it conditioned them to play hardball.
And if NASA doesn't like it, they can go take their chances with one of
the "other" contractors.

RS-68 is the wrong engine on the wrong stage. Use
of a high-energy fuel engine on a booster stage was
a serious misapplication of technology to begin with.
MDAC made this offense to common sense worse by
creating a dog of a high-energy engine. Boeing is
now stuck with a rocket that can not, over time,
compete with Atlas V, because it will always be
heavier and will thus cost more to build and
transport and test and launch.

That's perfect application of textbook rocket economics theory, and has
nothing to do with how real decisions are made or what the real costs
are. In the real world there are a lot of other factors that go into
the economics besides the dry weight of the stages. The sad fact is we
have very little in terms of historical data on real costs and our cost
models are just conventional wisdom relabeled as "cost models" to make it
sound scientific. I ran across a Griffin presentation the other day...
he pointed out the costs per pound for cars, boats, and airplanes, then
concluded it was all a function of production rate -- absurdly crude
analysis... this guy has around half a dozen engineering degrees and his
presentation was something a grade-schooler could have put together from
a Google search -- and that is no exaggeration. That's how little we
really know, or have bothered to figure out.

And there are factors besides economics driving government decisions.
The AF and Congress know they were fooled by the RD-180 sales pitch. I
suspect the real application for RS-84 was as a drop-in replacement for
RD-180 -- the thrusts were the same, and Rocketdyne didn't do anything
besides hand-waving when it came to reusability. Just take the customer
requirements, call them goals, say they're driving the design... somehow.

NASA has let the country down by not fostering
high-thrust hyrdrocarbon engine development. The
agency let its big development test stands at
Marshall stand empty and quite for decades. Now
the country has an empty space in its propulsion
capabilities, which is why the only big engine
tested at Marshall in recent years was built in
Moscow. U.S. astronauts will now have to risk
flying on an SRB Stick launcher because there is no
other option. The Agency figured out 45 years ago
that the optimum combination was kerosene for booster
stages and hydrogen for upper stages - yet it failed
to keep high-thrust kerosene booster engine technology
alive.

Once we went with Shuttle, there was no point in further hydrocarbon
investment... what was the application supposed to be? Between the
early 70's and 1986 there was a one-size-fits-all solution. Putting
aside the debate over the wisdom of that (keep in mind that was not just
a NASA decision), obviously once Shuttle is the chosen solution, the only
acceptable investments would be for Shuttle upgrades. You could use
kerosene on a liquid flyback booster, but frankly, prior to 1986, the
economics couldn't justify the investment, and after 1986, the economics
were even worse. Everyone can see how far Boeing's LFBB pitch got.

I'm with you regarding SpaceX. I will be thrilled
if the company succeeds, but I'm having trouble
seeing how it is going to succeed. Even if it
makes its hardware work, it doesn't seem to have
a realistic pricing strategy. I'm also wary of the
make-a-buck history of Mr. Musk. There is an old
ploy in the transportation business. Look back at
all of the paper railroads that were created to
parallel existing lines. These companies were
often sold off for profit to the parallel competitor
before the line was completed.

Nice observation. Certainly his pricing could be interpreted as a big
bluff to make the big-boys fear what his entering the market will do.

Jeez, conspiracies everywhere... come on, so much of their business
plan is in the open, and it's obvious a lot of detailed thought and
analysis went into their business model. His modus operandi is to
respond to specific criticism of their plans--witness his defense of
the 9-engine scheme reliability in their most recent update. If he was
working a parallel launch pump&dump scheme on his own company, he
wouldn't even bother to reply to that type of criticism, because each
response opens up new lines of attack.


Anyway, there are a lot easier ways for Musk to continue to increase
his loot pile if that was his only objective. I think it far more
likely he actually believes what he says about lowering the costs of
spaceflight.

Tom