[AR] Re: fatigue life (was Re: Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update...)
- From: Edward Wright <edward.v.wright@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 06:35:57 -0600
On Jan 10, 2016, at 4:12 AM, Alexander Ponomarenko <contact@xxxxxxx> wrote:
But it might take years and even decades for RLV to demonstrate the real
ability to fly safely on the same vehicle many times
If it takes that long, the vehicle is not very reusable -- by definition.
this means the
same story with RLV: either perform a long and expensive flight-test
program, or push the cost/risk to customers.
Why would a vehicle that's cheap to fly be expensive to flight test?
The aviation industry has done it for decades. They don't push risk to
customers by asking them to fly on a plane that blows up 1% of the time.
On the other hand, the ELV are designed to serve for decades, and each
flight increases the reliability and confidence in success next time.
This is not the case for RLV, especially after first decades of the
declared service life.
Yes, RLVs will eventually mature, just as airliners did. Once they get to
5-nines reliability, it might be hard to go any further. I don't see how that's
worse than blowing up your rockets 1% of the time, decade after decade.
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