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#1
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Continuing drop in prices?
I've seen at least one report that if their predictions for Block 5
hold up when they tear down their first one, SpaceX is planning to drop the cost of a Falcon 9 launch from the current $62 million to $50 million. I assume that's for customers who are willing to accept a used rocket until they've got enough of those users so that building the occasional new rocket for a user who insists on that isn't a big deal. If that report is true and SpaceX can achieve the kind of launch rates they're talking about (60+ launches per year), they are going to own the space launch business. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
#2
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Continuing drop in prices?
JF Mezei wrote on Thu, 17 May 2018
17:58:21 -0400: On 2018-05-17 17:23, Fred J. McCall wrote: If that report is true and SpaceX can achieve the kind of launch rates they're talking about (60+ launches per year), they are going to own the space launch business. Would it be correct to state that at this stage, the only people willing to require/pay for a "new" stage would be government (NASA/military) and this would essentially be a form of subsidy to SpaceX ? Probably not and definitely not. I could see some limits initially with customers wanting either new or 1st re-use, and a discount for using stages reused more than twice, but eventually that dicount going away as confidence in multiple uses grows? But even you don't agree with what you see, judging from your first paragraph. Pick one: Only government or 'customers'. In terms of market, I can see military insisting on paying more for other supplier in order to maintain at least 2 launch providers. (and to help its lobby buddies such as Boeing etc). You can apparently see lots of things. That doesn't make them true. Your first vision is likely. Your parenthetical remark is bull****. Private companies lobby for their own interests and are frequently at odds with the military (which is why they need to lobby). It would not be safe to allow SpaceX to become a monopoly because their tech has revolutionized and dropped proces to a point where nobody else can compete. How do you propose to prevent that? I bet there will be lots of pressure on Boeing and others to develop re-usable ASAP. It won't matter. They're already working in that direction (see long range plans for Vulcan, for example, where they want to go the Russian route of dropping engines off the vehicle so they can be recovered and reused), but it's not going to be able to compete on cost. ULA is talking about making it cost competitive with current Falcon Heavy costs, but those should drop if Falcon 9 drops as the Block 5 cores start being used for Falcon Heavy. So even if they achieve their desired price point (which I consider dubious), they're still going to lose. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
#3
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#4
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#5
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Continuing drop in prices?
Jeff Findley wrote on Fri, 18 May 2018
06:24:22 -0400: In article , says... It would not be safe to allow SpaceX to become a monopoly because their tech has revolutionized and dropped proces to a point where nobody else can compete. How do you propose to prevent that? You don't. You let the market sort it out. But Mayfly's point is that it would not be safe to let the market sort it out if that would result in a near monopoly by SpaceX. So I want to know what he proposes to do. SpaceX has proven that reuse is not only possible but economical so others will no doubt follow. It just won't be the typical government contractors like ULA or Orbital ATK who are so set in their ways they simply can't attempt something so "out of the box". It's just not in their corporate DNA anymore to truly innovate. ULA's future is tied to Vulcan, which is originally expendable. In the long run they want to make it 'partly reusable' by dropping the engines and recovering them for reuse. IMHO, Blue Origin has the most likely shot at recreating a similar level of reuse with their New Glenn launch vehicle. Blue Origin also likely doesn't give a damn about paying off their development costs given that Jeff Bezos is the one giving them $1 billion a year in funding just by selling a tiny bit of his Amazon stock each year. Perhaps, but even Bezos can only sustain that sort of drain for so long. There's an Elon Musk quote that applies. "If you want to make a small fortune in the space launch business, start with a large fortune." -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
#6
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Continuing drop in prices?
On 5/17/2018 5:23 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote: If that report is true and
SpaceX can achieve the kind of launch rates they're talking about (60+ launches per year), they are going to ow the space launch business. Come to Crazy Elon's Rocket Emporium. Where the prices are INSANE! Dave |
#7
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Continuing drop in prices?
On May/18/2018 at 1:55 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote :
Jeff Findley wrote on Fri, 18 May 2018 06:24:22 -0400: IMHO, Blue Origin has the most likely shot at recreating a similar level of reuse with their New Glenn launch vehicle. Blue Origin also likely doesn't give a damn about paying off their development costs given that Jeff Bezos is the one giving them $1 billion a year in funding just by selling a tiny bit of his Amazon stock each year. Perhaps, but even Bezos can only sustain that sort of drain for so long. Bezos can sustain that sort of drain for as long as he lives. Even if human lifespan is increased. Alain Fournier |
#8
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Continuing drop in prices?
JF Mezei wrote on Sat, 19 May 2018
00:26:09 -0400: On 2018-05-18 06:24, Jeff Findley wrote: follow. It just won't be the typical government contractors like ULA or Orbital ATK who are so set in their ways they simply can't attempt something so "out of the box". It's just not in their corporate DNA anymore to truly innovate. I wouldn't write the big guys off yet. Of course you wouldn't. As long as customers were buying their expensive disposable rockets, they were making lots of money. Why invest in new tech that would reduce profits? Because it lets you increase profits. That sort of short sighted thinking cost them a big chunk of the airliner market. Boeing Commecrcial had periods of stagnation where it didn't see a need to respond to McD/Lockheed and later to Airbus, but periods where Boeing responded with major new products (747 in response to DC-10 and L1011, the 767 in response to A300, and the 777 in response to Airbus A330/340, and later the 787 in response to the 330 stealing 767 customers. Yes, but intermittent stupidity in one part of the business (which is what that was) may be a good indicator of how the rest of the business will think. I think ULA dismissed SpaceX as a fad that wouldn't succeed. By the time SpaceX proved it could do it (probably in 2017, so recent), the big guys woke up to the fact that they are WAY late. More like 2014. Their advantage is they can continue to lobby their way with lucrative military contracts for a number of years during which they develop a competitor to SpaceX. One advantage of being late is that you know what you have to beat. If SpaceX can r-use a rocket on average 3 times, then Boeing doing it 4 times will beat SpaceX. That's going to have to be a pretty large number of years. Their future (Vulcan) will never be more than 'partially reusable'. And an organization like ULA is going to need a much bigger advantage than that to approach SpaceX prices because their internal costs are so much higher. (I know the spec s say 10, but we don't know what the average re=use rate will be before at least a year or two). Well, it will be hard to reuse one ten times in the next year or two just because of constraints of launch rates. Consider a Boeing rocket that has more fuel, which means for difficult missions, it can still come back and land, whereas SpaceX has to ditch the stage for such missions. Consider magic pixie dust for fuel and unicorns for the first stage. Or, Boeing could get out of commercial launches and leave the bsuiness to SPaceX and Blue Origin, and just keep ultra secret military launches where price is not an issue. Except price for military launches IS an issue and SpaceX is already certified for such launches. The other variable to cosnider is lauinch availability. If SpaceX gets a contract to launch 300 satellites in a year, it may not have any spare capacity for otherc ontracts which wil have to go to someone else. (exagerating rates here, but when one can launch starts to matter when a launch is much delayed). If there are signs that SpaceX will get any particular number of launches (even your numbers) they will build to that capacity. Your position seems to be that ULA can survive on crumbs and niche contracts. That's just insane. -- "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar territory." --G. Behn |
#9
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#10
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Continuing drop in prices?
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