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SpaceX pricing
SpaceX has revealed a bit more about pricing for Falcon Heavy. They've
also announced another barge for the east coast. When used with a Falcon Heavy, this will allow two booster barge recovery and expendable core stage flights. This will result in only a 10% performance "hit" compared to fully expendable mode, but a huge cost savings. These are the Falcon Heavy numbers I saw on Twitter last night: Fully Expendable $150 million Booster Recovery Only $95 million Booster and Core Recovery $90 million Also, Troy Bruno got a bit miffed on Twitter that Musk tweeted that Fully Expendable was $250 million cheaper than the "nearest competition". Troy tweeted back that Delta IV Heavy only costs about $350 million. So, if we do the math, it's only a bit more than 2x as expensive as Fully Expendable instead of Musk claiming it was a bit more than 3x as expensive as Fully Expendable. I'm not sure how that really helps ULA's message here, but I'm not paid the "big bucks" like Tory Bruno is. The fact is that Booster Recovery Only is getting close to 1/4 the cost of Delta IV Heavy with only a 10% performance hit. I think that is proof positive that reuse actually reduces costs to the customer. Thanks, Jeff -- All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone. These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends, employer, or any organization that I am a member of. |
#2
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SpaceX pricing
Jeff Findley wrote:
These are the Falcon Heavy numbers I saw on Twitter last night: Fully Expendable $150 million Booster Recovery Only $95 million Booster and Core Recovery $90 million Only $5 million reduction for core recovery! That suggests a rather low expected success rate. -- Mvh./Regards, Niels Jørgen Kruse, Vanløse, Denmark |
#3
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SpaceX pricing
Jeff Findley wrote:
SpaceX has revealed a bit more about pricing for Falcon Heavy. They've also announced another barge for the east coast. When used with a Falcon Heavy, this will allow two booster barge recovery and expendable core stage flights. This will result in only a 10% performance "hit" compared to fully expendable mode, but a huge cost savings. These are the Falcon Heavy numbers I saw on Twitter last night: Fully Expendable $150 million Booster Recovery Only $95 million Booster and Core Recovery $90 million Also, Troy Bruno got a bit miffed on Twitter that Musk tweeted that Fully Expendable was $250 million cheaper than the "nearest competition". Troy tweeted back that Delta IV Heavy only costs about $350 million. So, if we do the math, it's only a bit more than 2x as expensive as Fully Expendable instead of Musk claiming it was a bit more than 3x as expensive as Fully Expendable. I'm not sure how that really helps ULA's message here, but I'm not paid the "big bucks" like Tory Bruno is. How much Delta IV Heavy costs depends on which cost numbers you use. ULA charges USAF around $450 million per launch, but part of that is the fixed cost of 'maintaining launch readiness'. A commercial launch costs around the $350 million number given, but gets a lot of the 'fixed costs' free based on USAF funding. Since SpaceX includes the fixed costs in their commercial launch price, the USAF cost per launch should be used and Musk's statement is the most nearly correct. -- "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 |
#4
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SpaceX pricing
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
... Jeff Findley wrote: SpaceX has revealed a bit more about pricing for Falcon Heavy. They've also announced another barge for the east coast. When used with a Falcon Heavy, this will allow two booster barge recovery and expendable core stage flights. This will result in only a 10% performance "hit" compared to fully expendable mode, but a huge cost savings. These are the Falcon Heavy numbers I saw on Twitter last night: Fully Expendable $150 million Booster Recovery Only $95 million Booster and Core Recovery $90 million Also, Troy Bruno got a bit miffed on Twitter that Musk tweeted that Fully Expendable was $250 million cheaper than the "nearest competition". Troy tweeted back that Delta IV Heavy only costs about $350 million. So, if we do the math, it's only a bit more than 2x as expensive as Fully Expendable instead of Musk claiming it was a bit more than 3x as expensive as Fully Expendable. I'm not sure how that really helps ULA's message here, but I'm not paid the "big bucks" like Tory Bruno is. How much Delta IV Heavy costs depends on which cost numbers you use. ULA charges USAF around $450 million per launch, but part of that is the fixed cost of 'maintaining launch readiness'. A commercial launch costs around the $350 million number given, but gets a lot of the 'fixed costs' free based on USAF funding. Since SpaceX includes the fixed costs in their commercial launch price, the USAF cost per launch should be used and Musk's statement is the most nearly correct. Agreed because by Bruno's logic, if NASA had commercialized the shuttle and only charged the marginal cost, it would have been fairly cheap. Anything can be cheap when someone else is paying for it. -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
#5
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#6
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SpaceX pricing
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
... In article , says... Agreed because by Bruno's logic, if NASA had commercialized the shuttle and only charged the marginal cost, it would have been fairly cheap. Anything can be cheap when someone else is paying for it. The space shuttle program did just that, sold commercial launches to satellite companies for far less than the actual cost. Now that the program is over we know the true cost ($1.45 billion per launch). NASA never charged the true cost of a flight to its commercial customers. On one hand you're correct. On the other, arguably, NASA never fully commercialized the shuttle. 25 flights, and for of them "test flights" wasn't really enough for them to get into the commercial business like they might have. Yes, I know a fair number of the early flights were basically "strictly commercial' but, I think had NASA gone full-blown "commercial" they might have done things differently. For example, they might have actually had more reason to work on things like turn-around time. A shuttle flying 2x as often suddenly spreads the fixed cost around a bit. But, as we both know, that never happened. Of course, the Challenger disaster put an end to that practice and actually made it illegal for NASA to sell commercial launches anymore. That was the start of opening up the commercial markets in the US. Unfortunately the USAF decided it wanted control and the original EELV was born, leaving us with ULA. In other words, the USAF "intervention" for national security reasons prolonged the practice of the US Government subsidizing the US launch industry, keeping the real costs high and actually hurting the US launch industry in the long run. I'll admit, I initially, naively thought the decision to not allow commercial flights was a mistake. Now looking back, I think it was the right move. Of course as you say, the original EELV wasn't much of an improvement. And heck for a while the Titan IV made the shuttle look good One hope I have now is that Falcon Heavy flies enough to convince Congress to put the nail in the coffin for SLS and redirect that money elsewhere. Jeff -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
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SpaceX pricing
On 2/15/2018 9:12 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
One hope I have now is that Falcon Heavy flies enough to convince Congress to put the nail in the coffin for SLS and redirect that money elsewhere. Won't happen due to FH. It just won't fly enough nor the "right" type of missions to make Congress wake up and smell the coffee. Even though I agree it should... OTOH BFR/BFS, once it starts to fly, will definitely be the tombstone for SLS. Musk says it will definitely end FH and likely F9 or stop further production of F9's until they are all expended. But Musk time doesn't jibe well with real time, so we'll see... There are a ton of fixed costs (mainly time, some money, and big time infrastructure) for BFR/BFS development that I think Elon is discounting right now... But maybe he's much further along on the curve than I believe he is? We'll see... As per cost vis-a-vis ULA, I read an article on Ars Technica from Eric Berger where there is a contract with ULA that will expire soon that will cause fixed costs of D-IVH to rise well above that $350 million figure. (Don't have time to look up the link now, Google it yourself). ULA knows that it *has* to get its Vulcan rocket flying ASAP. It will be interesting to see how well it can compete with F9 and F9H when reuse of Vulcan AT BEST will require some reassembly (re-mating used methalox BE-9(?) engines with core tanks EVERY SINGLE TIME), vs inspection and resetting of landing legs and not even bothering with a paint job for the F9. Dave |
#8
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SpaceX pricing
"David Spain" wrote in message news
On 2/15/2018 9:12 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote: One hope I have now is that Falcon Heavy flies enough to convince Congress to put the nail in the coffin for SLS and redirect that money elsewhere. Won't happen due to FH. It just won't fly enough nor the "right" type of missions to make Congress wake up and smell the coffee. Even though I agree it should... You're probably right. OTOH BFR/BFS, once it starts to fly, will definitely be the tombstone for SLS. Musk says it will definitely end FH and likely F9 or stop further production of F9's until they are all expended. Yeah.. "once". Like most SpaceX timelines, I don't really believe the current one. But Musk time doesn't jibe well with real time, so we'll see... There are a ton of fixed costs (mainly time, some money, and big time infrastructure) for BFR/BFS development that I think Elon is discounting right now... But maybe he's much further along on the curve than I believe he is? We'll see... Nah, I'd add 2-3 years and most likely to his schedule ;'-) As per cost vis-a-vis ULA, I read an article on Ars Technica from Eric Berger where there is a contract with ULA that will expire soon that will cause fixed costs of D-IVH to rise well above that $350 million figure. (Don't have time to look up the link now, Google it yourself). ULA knows that it *has* to get its Vulcan rocket flying ASAP. It will be interesting to see how well it can compete with F9 and F9H when reuse of Vulcan AT BEST will require some reassembly (re-mating used methalox BE-9(?) engines with core tanks EVERY SINGLE TIME), vs inspection and resetting of landing legs and not even bothering with a paint job for the F9. Dave I just can't see how Vulcan will compete. To me it seems like they completely missed the point. Sure, the engines are the most complex and expensive part and you need those back. But it's the whole damn system that needs to be cost effective. That's what Musk is approaching. It's like saying, "well the engines on a 737 are expensive, we'll keep those and replace the hull every time. I suspect Musk is a couple of years, at most, of landing a F9, bringing it back to the launch pad, do a minimal check out, refueling and relaunching in less than a week. I just can't see Vulcan doing this. 1 Vulcan seems to me to take all the worst parts of the shuttle program and redo them. -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
#9
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SpaceX pricing
"David Spain" wrote in message news
On 2/15/2018 9:12 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote: One hope I have now is that Falcon Heavy flies enough to convince Congress to put the nail in the coffin for SLS and redirect that money elsewhere. Won't happen due to FH. It just won't fly enough nor the "right" type of missions to make Congress wake up and smell the coffee. Even though I agree it should... OTOH BFR/BFS, once it starts to fly, will definitely be the tombstone for SLS. Musk says it will definitely end FH and likely F9 or stop further production of F9's until they are all expended. But Musk time doesn't jibe well with real time, so we'll see... There are a ton of fixed costs (mainly time, some money, and big time infrastructure) for BFR/BFS development that I think Elon is discounting right now... But maybe he's much further along on the curve than I believe he is? We'll see... As per cost vis-a-vis ULA, I read an article on Ars Technica from Eric Berger where there is a contract with ULA that will expire soon that will cause fixed costs of D-IVH to rise well above that $350 million figure. (Don't have time to look up the link now, Google it yourself). ULA knows that it *has* to get its Vulcan rocket flying ASAP. It will be interesting to see how well it can compete with F9 and F9H when reuse of Vulcan AT BEST will require some reassembly (re-mating used methalox BE-9(?) engines with core tanks EVERY SINGLE TIME), vs inspection and resetting of landing legs and not even bothering with a paint job for the F9. Dave Oh and one more thing to consider. Falcon Heavy is flying NOW. Vulcan at best won't fly until 2020. If I was a customer I know which one I'd be looking at. My guess, Vulcan will fly a few DOD flights and then fade into the background. -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
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SpaceX pricing
"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote:
One hope I have now is that Falcon Heavy flies enough to convince Congress to put the nail in the coffin for SLS and redirect that money elsewhere. I would agree, but I'm afraid Congress is not that smart. I think you could probably use Falcon Heavy for any SLS Block 1 missions. If we really need the capability of SLS Block 2 and BFR doesn't pan out quickly enough, they could always build the Falcon Super Heavy with four side boosters that Musk has talked about. -- "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 |
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