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As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
More to the point, what would the engine and booster factories do if they had 12 months off each year because all the payloads would fly on cheaper reusable rockets? If the jobs are doing something inefficient, they're going away anyway.
Cheaper flights would open up new markets which would increase demand. They didn't build a few passenger jets and call it a day, and the same would be true of cheap access to space.
In the long run most likely, but in the short term that might not be the case.
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This problem will also bite the US launch industry. Hard. Once SpaceX has proven they can do safe crewed flights and Blue Origin goes beyond testing flights, why is there a reason to pay the huge ULA markup any more? ULA, as well as Airbus, has a problem: they're constantly being meddled with by politicians without any idea what they're doing and decide stuff that's totally unreasonable from an economical point but h…
ULA has 100% mission success. The Atlas family has 100% mission sucess since 1957. The ULA markup is justified for a high value mission. BO and spaceX have big shoes to fill when it comea to building industry and insurer trust. The Amos 8 failure was an expensive lesson for spacex.
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Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#54This was an interesting article on an area I'd long meant to read about but never had, and there is some great history there. However, I got a very real feeling of "skating to where the puck is not where it is going" sense the farther I read. In particular, the article spends a certain amount of time on the under-development Ariane 6 series and Vega-C. But the comparisons were all to the existing Falcon 9. I wish Mr Berger had asked them at all about the BFR and the implications of a functional high performance methalox engine, because I think that has the potential to be a much bigger leap forward then seems to be generally discussed yet. Methane doesn't give quite the thrust of kerosene or the ISP of hydrogen, but from an economic and chemical-rockets-in-space perspective its got a lot going for it, not all of it immediately obvious. It doesn't coke at rocket temperatures, yet another bonus for more reusability. My understanding is that it's much easier to store then LH2 and the conditions are a closer match for LOX which potentially simplifies a number of steps. It can potentially be harvested or synthesized elsewhere in the solar system more easily. And even the cost factor shouldn't be ignored once the context is reusability, RP-1 isn't actually cheap (it's highly refined, I saw estimates north of $16/gallon). Fuel may be the least expensive part of an expendable rocket to the point it's not generally worried about, but for a reusable rocket a couple of million dollars extra per launch is real additional margin over time.
I'm certainly no expert by any means, but organizations like ArianeGroup comparing under development rockets to existing ones feels as though really sums up some of the issues with Old Space in a nutshell. It seems like they're thinking in terms of building a rocket where that one design might then be used essentially unchanged for 30-50 years despite there being clear theoretical improvements to be had. But that's not how the fully private enterprises seem likely to operate. SpaceX put a fair amount of effort into the Falcon Heavy for example, and it was spectacular. Except now apparently they've decided that it's effectively already obsolete, that BFR is going better then expected which mean FH will serve as a limited use minor stopgap and then be scrapped as a design. Even now I don't know if that sort of aggressiveness has really gotten into the consciousness of older style organizations yet.
I guess if they're comfortable with basically becoming a jobs program and massively subsidized strategic fallback for the EU that is in fact potentially sustainable a long time. Polities can have different levels of very long term priorities that are different from the faster pace of industry, there's nothing wrong with that. But it's a position that has risks too if the gap opens up too far, because it takes a very long time to make up that ground (if ever).
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The planned Ariane 6 is cost uncompetitive with the Falcon 9 This isn't really true. Ariane 6 is expected to cost €75 million for 5 tonnes to GTO and €90 million for 11.5 tonnes. Falcon 9 costs $50 million for 5.5 tonnes to GTO (reusable) and $62 million for 8.3 tonnes (expendable). Because Ariane uses a "dual-berth" conops, it (generally) flies two payloads per launch, whereas Falcon 9's excess capacity is usually…
> Ariane 6 is expected to cost €75 million for 5 tonnes to GTO and €90 million for 11.5 tonnes. Falcon 9 costs $50 million for 5.5 tonnes to GTO (reusable) and $62 million for 8.3 tonnes (expendable) Why would someone pay €75 million to launch 5 tonnes to GTO on the Ariane 6 when they can spend $62 million and get an extra 3.3 tonnes of capacity on the Falcon 9? Based on your numbers, Falcon 9 is $9 million and $7.5…
Historically speaking, generally because the money lost by SpaceX not being able to launch on anything close to schedule costs them more than the few percent they could save. (Remember, there's a whole bunch of cost in building the satellite too.)
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#56It's hard not to make the connection between this example of a clueless self entitled tantrum and the naked resentment towards a US rival by a euro bigwig complete with the instinct to seek government subsidizes and assistance against said US rival with the scrutiny US technology companies are receiving in the region.
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#57> Truthfully, if Europe ever did develop a reusable rocket, one that could fly all the missions in a year, this would be unhelpful politically. What would the engine and booster factories sprinkled across Europe do if they built one rocket and then had 11 months off? The member states value the jobs too much. It feels incredibly short-term to me. How many jobs will be created by opening up spaceflight at 1/100 the co…
> How many jobs will be created by opening up spaceflight at 1/100 the cost? The old jobs were under your directive. The new jobs are not.
How many jobs would be created by having only 2% of the population in agriculture instead of >50% in the 19th century?
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#58> Even, so, Charmeau rejects comparisons to SpaceX, because he maintains that the company is heavily subsidized by the US government. Isn't ESA subsidized by the member governments? I'd understand if the criticism was coming from a private entity and they'd be complaining about SpaceX getting preferential treatment, but coming from a state sponsored agency it seems odd.
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Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#59> Even, so, Charmeau rejects comparisons to SpaceX, because he maintains that the company is heavily subsidized by the US government. Isn't ESA subsidized by the member governments? I'd understand if the criticism was coming from a private entity and they'd be complaining about SpaceX getting preferential treatment, but coming from a state sponsored agency it seems odd.
ESA has much less money than NASA and the DoD, and is free to chose a launcher from another country as well.
Are the European space companies subsidized by ESA and the other European space agencies? Yes. Is it much different from the subsidies in the US? Not really. Is the US space market bigger than the European market? Definitely!
Re: As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist
#60What I love about space is it is a great example of peaceful competition between nations. We need more of that.