[AR] Re: 500,000 tons per year to GEO (off topic)

  • From: Nathan Mogk <nm8911@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 15:43:34 -0700

The Falcon Heavy hasn't been flown yet, and changes in the final price of
the launcher to a factor of 2 would not be surprising. The pricing points
that Bill brought up are still valid. With a constant launch rate, the
manufacturing cost of a reusable vehicle will be much higher than a
disposable because of loss of learning curve benefits and fewer vehicles to
spread production overhead to, so for the limiting case of 1 launch per
vehicle, you lose quite a bit of cost performance. You have to increase
launch rates, which isn't a certain thing and as Bill pointed out, you have
to convince customers to fly on a used rocket, which also could be
difficult depending on the customer.

Accurate cost forecasting requires enough data to produce a trend, which
for future vehicles, especially radically different future vehicles, is
preciously hard to come by.


On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> List price for Falcon Heavy is already about a thousand dollars per pound,
> completely expendable ($120M for 53 tons). Gwynne recently said that a
> reusable Falcon 9 gets per-flight prices down to $5M-$7M. Even if
> reusability cuts payload in half (it shouldn't be that bad), that's on the
> order of a couple hundred bucks a pound.
>
>
> On 2014-04-02 14:31, Bill Claybaugh wrote:
>
>> If you are going to make ridiculous assertions, please provide the
>> math to prove them.  Even SpaceX says rocket back will not get below
>> $1000 per pound, and that takes hundreds of launches per reusable
>> stage.
>>
>> If you are not going to provide proof of your silly claims, please
>> stop making them.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Apr 2, 2014, at 14:00, marsbeyond@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>>  It uses only 30% of PAYLOAD. Listen to Gwynne Shotwell's most recent
>>> interview on "The Space Show" very carefully. For what purpose would you
>>> ever fly it up range? Just land on a barge or land downrange. Actually $80
>>> per pound is doable.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On Apr 2, 2014, at 12:53 PM, Bill Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Please.
>>>>
>>>> Landing the first stage downrange uses 15% of the payload; flying it
>>>> back up range cost 30% of payload.  Even if refurbishing and relaunch were
>>>> free, propulsive fly back will take four launches just to cost the same as
>>>> expending. Since they are not free, it is more likely to take something
>>>> between 12-24 launches for this system to cost exactly the same as the
>>>> expendable version.
>>>>
>>>> This also means that production rates will drop and so those cost will
>>>> go up.
>>>>
>>>> And then there's the customers who want to know why they should fly on
>>>> a used rocket....
>>>>
>>>> $100 per pound is not achievable with this system.
>>>>
>>>> Bill
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 2, 2014, at 10:49, marsbeyond@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  Kieth,
>>>>>
>>>>> When is Skylon supposed to fly? In less than two years, SpaceX will be
>>>>> using propulsive recovery to re-use the first stage, second stage, and
>>>>> capsule, and their cost to LEO will drop to $100 a pound!
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>
>>>>> On Apr 2, 2014, at 9:27 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  http://theenergycollective.com/keith-henson/362181/
>>>>>> dollar-gallon-gasoline
>>>>>>
>>>>>> $350 million committed so far to the Skylon engines.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Keith
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. arocket
  3. Archive
  4. 04-2014