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SES-10 Mission

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Re: SES-10 Mission

#321

Post by Robotbeat »

nickik wrote: post #279
Tepix wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a monopoly on reusable orbit-class rockets (for now).

Fortunately the market is about putting stuff into orbit, not about putting stuff into orbit with reusable rocket. ULA also has monopoly in Hydolox rockets. That however is not relevant and its not a useful use of the word monopoly.

You're missing the point. It's perfectly relevant to point out that SpaceX is now able to charge much more for reuse than the marginal cost, effectively being able to charge monopoly rent for being the only player on the field with a reuse capability. Of course, it's not a total monopoly on launch period, but that's missing the point. A 30% reduction in price doesn't represent the ultimate lowest cost of reuse because currently there's no competition for reuse.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#322

Post by Robotbeat »

robbiep wrote: post #144
jacquesm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you'd have to compare their first thirty launches with these to compare. Anyway, notice has been served today I think, now let's see what it leads to. For comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thor_and_Delta_launche... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... Of course the beginnings of what is now ULA were much more innovativ…

> It probably won't be the last SpaceX failure either because they plan on making fairly big changes soon and those will come with new failure modes My understanding is that they are now producing and flying Block 5 Falcon 9's which means no more changes to the hardware. Falcon heavy is obviously a different kettle of fish but the chat around SpaceX on Reddit has been that things are settling/reaching maturity with F…

There are Block 5s in the pipeline, but they have not flown yet and will only fly at the end of this year.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#323

Post by adrianN »

jacobush wrote: post #308
hyperpallium wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child, I thought it was weird that spaceships didn't land... supported by science fiction covers showing them landing. e.g. Tintin https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/The_Adventure... I mean, a regular ship doesn't discard part of itself to set sail... as a child, I didn't understand the need for multi-stage rockets.

That image is totally iconic for me. Rocket equation be damned, I still think there should be SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) ships.

Either move to a smaller planet, or invest heavily in nuclear propulsion.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#324

Post by falsedan »

ncallaway wrote: post #316
falsedan wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems silly to not include recovery costs, refurbishment, testing, transport to launch, etc. Those significantly eat into the '99%' savings. I estimate those costs would be $20-25MM; still, a big savings on a brand-new rocket each time!

Apologies if I wasn't clear. When I said the "extreme case" I meant some kind of future scenario where rocket launches operate similarly to commercial aircraft flights (doing launching and landing to fixed infrastructure, minimal refurbishment and operations between flights, hundreds of launches per core, etc). So, the '99%' savings wasn't intended to be anything approximating where we are now, but more like the limi…

Oh yeah, I agree with you. Just wanted to point out what's stopping SpaceX from hitting that level.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#325

Post by Robotbeat »

jccooper wrote: post #234
jacquesm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos's Blue Origin is on track to have a very similar system in a few years That's on paper, not anything they've flown has come close to what SpaceX is demonstrating as a matter of some routine now. (1) never been to orbit (2) never been to orbit and then back down to a landing (3) 6 flights vs 33 (4) payload At this point in time Blue Origin to me looks like a slightly more serious version of Armadillo Aerospace…

It's easy to confuse Blue Origin with other companies with paper plans, but they're the real deal. Besides having demonstrated clear competence with New Shepard (with an LH2 engine no less), the orbital version is well underway. They've leased the pad, are currently building the factory, and are testing the engine. And Bezos definitely has the money. They may not be flying the New Glenn yet, but they will.

Yeah. Blue Origin is probably at least 4 years behind, but Bezos has more money than God and Blue Origin's approach is technically sound, so yeah. I don't think SpaceX will indefinitely be the only reusable launch provider, and I don't think anyone would want that anyway.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#326

Post by Robotbeat »

kilroy123 wrote: post #224
vtange wrote: post #4

Does SpaceX have any real competitors in the private sector? Would be a bummer if people decided they were a monopoly of some sort and demanded a break up.

The Russians are doing more private launches with Soyuz and the Indians are also likely to do the same.

From what I can tell, that's not true. Last year, SpaceX did 5 commercial launches (i.e. non-government) with Falcon 9 while Soyuz only did 2 or 3 (depending on how you count "commercial").

Re: SES-10 Mission

#327

Post by Robotbeat »

nickik wrote: post #147
InclinedPlane wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arianespace is their biggest competitor, they are the de facto rulers of the commercial launch market, with SpaceX hot on their heels. The Ariane 5 launches twin payloads about 7 times a year, for a total of about 14 total spacecraft launches per year. SpaceX is about at a similar cadence but has yet to hit the overall schedule and mission reliability figures that Arianespace has achieved so it's still a bit of a rac…

They will not do Vertical Integration, neither will Blue Origin. It looks like ULA Vulcan will survive on a few specialized launches. Arian will still have non competitive flight that SpaceX can not take away. They will probably survive.

SpaceX will be doing vertical integration on pad 39a for national security launches.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#328

Post by Robotbeat »

jacquesm wrote: post #157
hackuser wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does SpaceX have any real competitors in the private sector? They do, such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, and others I can't think of off the top of my head. However, Musk appears to have a major advantage: At least two major investment banks [0][1][2] and many other observers and investors [3][4] believe a major advantage Musk has over competitors is his relationship with President Trump. They…

Blue Origin does not currently belong in the list of competitors. They are (not yet) in the same class (and may never be).

Blue Origin doesn't count /yet/, but they almost certainly WILL. Bezos is the second richest person in the entire world, and the only thing he really cares to use that wealth for is space.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#329

Post by marktangotango »

ncallaway wrote: post #238
kilroy123 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't think they'll _have_ the chance to enjoy the margins. There will likely be a lot more competition in the future. The Chinese, Russians, Indians, blue origin, vector space systems, and United Launch Alliance finally getting their shit together, trying to do a redesign to better compete.

Certainly in the long term they won't be able to enjoy their margins. However, they are already one of the lowest cost launch providers available at the moment. Others have work to do just to catch up with SpaceX today. And _nobody_ is just around the corner on reusability. I don't know of any other provider that will have a reusable launch in the next 3 years. Even then, those other providers will just be dipping th…

The stakes are colossal too. Ultimately we're talking about owning transport infrastructure for the solar system. I think Bezos see's it this way too. Musk is all about settling gravity wells, while Bezo's is about O'Neil type space colonies. Interesting dichotomy.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#330

Post by Cerium »

jacquesm wrote: post #126
beamatronic wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of it comes from the fact that (almost) every literate human being can communicate (almost) instantly around the planet with (almost) every other literate human being, and the fact that with machine translation, language is less of a barrier all the time.

Illiterate people can too using Skype and such. Instant planetwide communication between any party of humans sharing a common language is now pretty much a given.

Totally agree on this. I can video and audio chat with my grandma since apps like WeChat are designed for illiterate usage. Photos of participants, easy audio button, inline small videos.
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