11–20 of 78 posts
This blows my mind and I have naive questions. How can the materials withstand such forces? Is a piece inside replaced (he said without taking it apart)? Is ablation a factor at all?
OK I get that booster reuse cuts down costs, but the fact is the 2nd stage is still not reused, which limits the economic benefits needed to open new markets. We get a 50% reduction in costs, instead of the 95% reduction in costs. You can get a 50% reduction in costs just by going to India for launch.. Is SpaceX going for 2nd stage reuse at all? That's going to be a lot harder than booster stage reuse, since you're r…
> It is worth recalling that SpaceX only flew a "used" booster for the first time in March 2017. It's amazing this happened just a little over a year ago.
OK I get that booster reuse cuts down costs, but the fact is the 2nd stage is still not reused, which limits the economic benefits needed to open new markets. We get a 50% reduction in costs, instead of the 95% reduction in costs. You can get a 50% reduction in costs just by going to India for launch.. Is SpaceX going for 2nd stage reuse at all? That's going to be a lot harder than booster stage reuse, since you're r…
> It is worth recalling that SpaceX only flew a "used" booster for the first time in March 2017. It's amazing this happened just a little over a year ago.
It was a epoch defining change. It does feel like a ton of time ago, and everyone in the industry (most notably ULA, Arianespace and the Chinese) are trying to figure out what they do now that the SpaceX steamroller is in full force.
This blows my mind and I have naive questions. How can the materials withstand such forces? Is a piece inside replaced (he said without taking it apart)? Is ablation a factor at all?
There is heat coating on the new rest of the rocket.
This blows my mind and I have naive questions. How can the materials withstand such forces? Is a piece inside replaced (he said without taking it apart)? Is ablation a factor at all?
OK I get that booster reuse cuts down costs, but the fact is the 2nd stage is still not reused, which limits the economic benefits needed to open new markets. We get a 50% reduction in costs, instead of the 95% reduction in costs. You can get a 50% reduction in costs just by going to India for launch.. Is SpaceX going for 2nd stage reuse at all? That's going to be a lot harder than booster stage reuse, since you're r…
By going to a much larger class of rocket, those concessions for re-use become a smaller fraction of the total stage 2 mass.
OK I get that booster reuse cuts down costs, but the fact is the 2nd stage is still not reused, which limits the economic benefits needed to open new markets. We get a 50% reduction in costs, instead of the 95% reduction in costs. You can get a 50% reduction in costs just by going to India for launch.. Is SpaceX going for 2nd stage reuse at all? That's going to be a lot harder than booster stage reuse, since you're r…
The first stage represents about 75% of the cost of the vehicle, not 50%. This represents the actual cost of the metal on the launchpad, but not the services around the rocket, including launch control costs, etc. You can't take a rocket to India and you can't manufacturer that rocket in India (Skilset, US based corporation, ITAR) so you can't achieve your savings that way. Even Russia - which is using a very old tri…
Out of curiosity -- can they _fly_ a rocket to India (maybe have a booster return to India instead of a drone ship ? Too far/out of the way ?
That may not help much since stage 2 would still have to be shipped around, which is probably not cost effective, and there might be other regulations that make it infeasible to launch anywhere but in the USA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first stage represents about 75% of the cost of the vehicle, not 50%. This represents the actual cost of the metal on the launchpad, but not the services around the rocket, including launch control costs, etc. You can't take a rocket to India and you can't manufacturer that rocket in India (Skilset, US based corporation, ITAR) so you can't achieve your savings that way. Even Russia - which is using a very old tri…
"You can't take a rocket to India and you can't manufacturer that rocket in India (Skilset, US based corporation, ITAR) so you can't achieve your savings that way." Out of curiosity -- can they _fly_ a rocket to India (maybe have a booster return to India instead of a drone ship ? Too far/out of the way ? That may not help much since stage 2 would still have to be shipped around, which is probably not cost effective,…
With Falcon, no way. The boosters land out at sea, but nowhere near that far out ;-)