SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#61

Post by varjag » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #51

max76 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ISS isn't a big enough water market to merit this kind of activity. This might be viable if we had 100x more people in space.

also asteroids generally orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, the delta-v needed to take water mined from a main belt asteroid and bring it to LEO, then match it with the inclination of the ISS orbit at 51.6 degrees inclination is non-trivial.

Attempting to put an asteroid into LEO is perhaps the worst risk/reward ratio humanity ever conceived. No way it's going to happen.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#62

Post by avmich » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #56

gpm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure something like that? Without Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist (and in all likelyhood no comparable company would exist in its place), so all of it. Without everyone but Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist, so none of it.

A better spin on this question is probably along the lines of: Does SpaceX still need Elon? As a figure head, maybe. As a leader? More complicated, there's probably still some risky path-finding left but the biggest moon-shots are now out of the way and as long as it doesn't become a quarterly returns focused company anyone slightly bullish could probably do a good enough job.

> but the biggest moon-shots are now out of the way

You'd think so, but if Elon is correct in his words, some bigger moon-shots are still comping. BFR program could be interesting.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#63

Post by gpm » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #56

gpm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure something like that? Without Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist (and in all likelyhood no comparable company would exist in its place), so all of it. Without everyone but Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist, so none of it.

A better spin on this question is probably along the lines of: Does SpaceX still need Elon? As a figure head, maybe. As a leader? More complicated, there's probably still some risky path-finding left but the biggest moon-shots are now out of the way and as long as it doesn't become a quarterly returns focused company anyone slightly bullish could probably do a good enough job.

Does SpaceX still need Elon - compared to what - for what?

Does SpaceX still need Elon to control ownership of the company as opposed to selling to "average" investors in order to colonize mars? Almost certainly.

Does SpaceX still need Elon as the CEO as opposed to the "average" other CEO they could hire, to profitably launch satellites into space? Almost certainly not.

At least we reach theoretically answerable questions with this sort of construction, but I don't think we have enough information to answer any but the most obvious versions such as those above.

SpaceX's biggest moonshots, if they keep succeeding and Elon keeps leading, are yet to come.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#64

Post by nrb » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #56

gpm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure something like that? Without Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist (and in all likelyhood no comparable company would exist in its place), so all of it. Without everyone but Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist, so none of it.

A better spin on this question is probably along the lines of: Does SpaceX still need Elon? As a figure head, maybe. As a leader? More complicated, there's probably still some risky path-finding left but the biggest moon-shots are now out of the way and as long as it doesn't become a quarterly returns focused company anyone slightly bullish could probably do a good enough job.

SpaceX has accomplished only a few percent of their stated mission: "SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets"

There's still so much work to do.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#65

Post by gpm » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #50

kirrent wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're large or larger than a double decker bus. They're released well after first stage separation so they need to be as light as possible. Stupidly light. Despite being very large and very light, they need to be very resistant to vibration through hypersonic speeds and go through a huge range of temperatures. They need to separate reliably and equalize pressure during ascent. They look like a mere shell, but they'…

They also have a built in parachute deployment mechanism which can safely get them down to sea level.

I don't think it's fair to count that as part of the 6M cost that you are "saving", if you just did the typical thing and threw them away you wouldn't need parachutes.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#66

Post by JshWright » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #37

SteveGregory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, this was the first time that the fairings were recovered and are expected to be reused for a future launch: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1069679948103847939 The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch, or at least 10% of the physical rocket cost, so this could lead to significant savings for future launches.

> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

Carbon fiber and aluminum, mostly.

The reason for reuse isn't really the cost (though that's certainly part of it). The main driver is that they are going to become the production bottleneck if Falcon 9 reaches the flight cadence they are shooting for. The fairings are a big, unwieldy shape, and they take up a lot of room during the manufacturing process, so they can only make one at a time.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#67

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #51

max76 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ISS isn't a big enough water market to merit this kind of activity. This might be viable if we had 100x more people in space.

also asteroids generally orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, the delta-v needed to take water mined from a main belt asteroid and bring it to LEO, then match it with the inclination of the ISS orbit at 51.6 degrees inclination is non-trivial.

Are you thinking of comets? Asteroids are generally closish to the ecliptic. You'd normally want to find easy to reach asteroids rather than randomly choosing asteroids and there are a number you can get to for just 100 m/s beyond Earth escape, though it'll take a while at that speed.

The problem is that nearby asteroids tend to be dry since they're being warmed by the Sun as much as Earth is and lack Earth's gravity well, ozone layer, and magnetic field. You want to go to Jupiter's trojans or so, or maybe just Ceres if you're willing to deal with its gravity well and dig a bit. For Jupiter's orbit you're looking at 3,300 m/s plus escape. Still a lot less than getting to orbit and you can use an ion drive but hardly trivial.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#68

Post by SEJeff » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

mack1001 wrote: post #7

How much of this success is because of Elon?

A better question is, "How much of this success is because of Gwynne Shotwell?"

And the answer is: Most of it!

Tesla is lacking a leader equivalent to Gwynne, sadly (and I'm long 100 TSLA)

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#69

Post by SEJeff » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #66

cptskippy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fairings currently cost a total of $6MM for each launch WHAAAAA?! What are they made of? I thought the fairings were just the covers for the payload. What makes them so expensive?

Carbon fiber and aluminum, mostly. The reason for reuse isn't really the cost (though that's certainly part of it). The main driver is that they are going to become the production bottleneck if Falcon 9 reaches the flight cadence they are shooting for. The fairings are a big, unwieldy shape, and they take up a lot of room during the manufacturing process, so they can only make one at a time.

Elon described it in an interview once as this:

If you saw $6 million, falling from the sky, would you try to catch it? Each fairing is around $3 million, so they're trying to catch it. That gives them $6 million more per-customer they can discount the price should they need to get really competitive. It is really kind of insane that no one has tried this before.

Re: SpaceX Launches 19th Rocket in a Year, a Company Record

#70

Post by Symmetry » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

jankeymeulen wrote: post #22

joshmarlow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to asteroid mining and other industrial activities, once pricing comes down, I think entertainment could be a large market. Space tourism is one possibility, but tourists have to deal with getting sick going up. I think entertainment produced in space but sold on Earth could be big - particularly space sports! You could design sports that are just not possible to play on a planet.

People keep say astroid mining but I've yet to see a convincing business case...

There's no case for bringing asteroids to Earth in any reasonable time frame. But on the other hand bringing stuff up Earth's gravity well and even loose rubble could be useful if brought to Earth orbit.