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

  • From: Bill Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 20:13:51 -0700

Sorry, I only pay attention to what they are telling customers.

Bill

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 2, 2014, at 16:17, Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Bill said SpaceX says rocket back won't get below a thousand dollars a pound. 
> I was simply pointing out that isn't true. The argument isn't about what it 
> will cost, but what SpaceX says it will cost.
> 
> On 2014-04-02 15:43, Nathan Mogk wrote:
>> 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
>>> [1]
>>> $350 million committed so far to the Skylon engines.
>>> Keith
>> Links:
>> ------
>> [1] http://theenergycollective.com/keith-henson/362181/dollar-gallon-gasoline
>

Other related posts:

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