I am surprised...

On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:32:46 -0500, Damon Hill
wrote:

...that there haven't been more comments about Falcon 1. Where are all
the people saying "It's not as easy as SpaceX make out..." etc?

Yeah, ain't it nice? All the whiners and doomsayers have crawled
back into their holes since they've got nothing to complain about.

My only complaint was that SpaceX and its mafia was trumpeting the
company and how it was going to change the world before they'd done
anything but put satellites into the Pacific Ocean at very high
velocity.

Now that they've actually accomplished something...
CONGRATULATIONS, SPACEX!

Success first, _then_ boasting and tweaking the big guys, please.

Brian

On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:53:03 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:

...that there haven't been more comments about Falcon 1. Where are all the
people saying "It's not as easy as SpaceX make out..." etc?

Well, it was a Sunday night...

Brian

On Sep 29, 1:53 am, "Alan Erskine" wrote:
...that there haven't been more comments about Falcon 1. Where are all the
people saying "It's not as easy as SpaceX make out..." etc?

Not bad getting that inert and otherwise useless 364 pound solid of
aluminum payload into LEO.

Might we interpret that there's still some degree of uncertainty
associated with SpaceX?

I wonder what sort of damage encountering such a solid item of
aluminum might do to our shuttles, or any other craft or satellite?

~ BG

Obviously you wouldn't have complained about their having put Christ
on a stick. Some kind of yes guy you are.

How about if it took 4 shuttle tries at fixing Hubble, because the
previous three having exploded or otherwise malfunctioned due to
sloppy and/or incompetent R&D? (all at years of delays and of course
public expense none the less)

~ BG


Damon Hill wrote:
"Alan Erskine" wrote in
:

...that there haven't been more comments about Falcon 1. Where are all
the people saying "It's not as easy as SpaceX make out..." etc?

Yeah, ain't it nice? All the whiners and doomsayers have crawled
back into their holes since they've got nothing to complain about.

Don't worry, next failure and they'll be back in force.

SpaceX will become a major player when their Falcon 9 starts
delivering major payloads, taking business away from the
existing players. Or more hopefully, starts expanding the
market.

We'll see; Falcon 9 and especially Dragon are going to be
major hurdles. But they've broken barriers both real and
perceived by overcoming their own startup and flying hardware
through the last of the design flaws and sheer bad luck.
The field is littered with the bones of the many startups
who literally never got off the ground.

--Damon

"Jochem Huhmann" wrote in message
...
On the other hand the "we have to save weight at all costs" mantra is
what makes payloads often cost so much. If you can get much more payload
for the same cost this may help you to build the payload much cheaper.
Seems not to be the usual mindset of those building payloads, though ;-)

That might be because of the cost of launch more than anything else.
Chicken and egg again, but I think the _major_ reduction in costs - imagine
a plane flight that costs $80 instead of $240, but you get the exact same
flight - it's the major reason people go for the 'budget' carrier - People
might do the same thing with SpaceX.

Brian Thorn wrote:
Now that they've actually accomplished something...
CONGRATULATIONS, SPACEX!

Success first, _then_ boasting and tweaking the big guys, please.


What they need now is another 3-4 straight successful Falcon 1 launches
so that their potential customers start trusting the booster (not to
mention the insurance companies). They have a mighty uphill battle to
match the reliability record of the Soyuz or Delta II, but they have the
ability to exploit a niche market for lightweight satellite launch that
really doesn't have that much competition in the world market.
What is their competition for Falcon 1? Pegasus?
There's the Russian Light Cosmos launcher, but I don't know if that's
even in production anymore.
With ever-increasing abilities in micro-technology for satellites, their
Falcon 1 could actually turn a profit for them.
I think Falcon 9 is asking for trouble though... it's probably going to
take a lot of money to make it work reliably, and when you hit that
payload weight you have just run into a lot of other rockets that have
the same capabilities that are already proven and in service.
The Russians or Chinese could kill you in the launch price and still
turn a hefty profit due to their far lower labor costs.
Falcon 9 only works in a financial sense when it only goes up against
other US boosters; that's great for military launches, but international
commercial launches are a whole other ball of wax.

Pat

It was 29 Sep 2008, when BradGuth commented:


Obviously you wouldn't have complained about their having put Christ
on a stick. Some kind of yes guy you are.

What you missed the memo on "mentioning the Nazis?"

You're not just a troll, you're an Incompetent troll. You're not even
good at it.

PLONK!

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