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SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#71

Post by hugh3 »

JshWright wrote: post #63
hugh3 wrote: post #35

There's only one thing I don't like about this, and that's the name. Falcon Heavy? Doesn't sound cool. SpaceX has done an excellent job of coming up with cool-sounding names for everything they do, second only to US muscle car manufacturers of the 1960s. Falcon! Merlin! Draco! They even skipped straight from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 because the numbers in between just don't sound nearly as cool. But "heavy"? Sure, it's d…

Skipped the boring numbers? Count the number of engines on first stage of the Falcon 1... now count the number of engines on the first stage of the Falcon 9...

Aww, you spoiled my illusions.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#72

Post by hugh3 »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #61
hugh3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting thing I read Elon Musk saying the other day is that it's definitely not fuel -- the cost of fuelling a Falcon 9 is actually only about the same as the cost of fuelling a Boeing 747. The problem is that the cost of building a Falcon 9 is still similar to the cost of building a 747, and you throw it away after one flight. So if you could recover and re-use the booster rocket then you'd be looking at a s…

> So if you could recover and re-use the booster rocket then you'd be looking at a serious cost reduction. This was the logic behind the space shuttle. But unfortunately, they have to survive to high stresses that inspecting and repairing them between launches costs more than building a simpler disposable launch vehicles. I honestly believe that as long as we will be using rockets, the best cost savings will not come…

I honestly believe that as long as we will be using rockets, the best cost savings will not come from reuse, but from increasing the launch volumes to the point where launch vehicles stop being hand-built boutique items and start being mass-produced commodities.

I'm not sure that economies of scale can get you that far when you're talking something as complicated as a rocket. How many jet engines does Rolls Royce make every year? Rolls-Royce and GE make many hundreds (thousands?) of jet engines per year, but they still cost a crapload of money each.

You might be right, maybe fully-recoverable rockets aren't possible. On the other hand, being personally unqualified to judge, if I've got some random piscinymous internet commenter telling me that it's not possible on one hand, and Elon Musk telling me that it is possible on the other, I'm more inclined to believe the dude who owns a rocket company.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#73

Post by hugh3 »

StavrosK wrote: post #26
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. https://twitter.com/spacexer/status/55291286919454720 > Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are designed to meet all published NASA standards to carry crew. (disclaimer: you must weigh less than 53 metric tons)

> (disclaimer: you must weigh less than 53 metric tons) Damnit!

If you're going to get modded down anyway, you should have gone with a "your mom" joke here instead.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#74

Post by hugh3 »

StavrosK wrote: post #26
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. https://twitter.com/spacexer/status/55291286919454720 > Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are designed to meet all published NASA standards to carry crew. (disclaimer: you must weigh less than 53 metric tons)

> (disclaimer: you must weigh less than 53 metric tons) Damnit!

If you're going to get modded down anyway, you should have gone with a "your mom" joke here instead.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#75

Post by hugh3 »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #36
ugh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they did lift a real and functional Dragon capsule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon#Maiden_flight

Yup! If it had been a country doing it instead of SpaceX they probably would have already put a human into orbit in a Dragon capsule.

Is there any legal restriction preventing them from putting a person in their next test flight?

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#76

Post by biotech »

jasongullickson wrote: post #29

Elon Musk seems to be someone who really knows how to do cool things with the spoils of a successful software company. Are there any other good examples of people like this that have taken one big win and parlayed it into investing in seriously futuristic technology?

It's interesting how common this is in New Space:

Jeff Bezos - From Amazon.com to Blue Origin

Richard Branson - From Virgin Records to Virgin Galactic

Robert Bigelow - From Budget Suites to Bigelow Aerospace

Elon Musk - From PayPal to SpaceX

I'm hoping that this is just the beginning of a trend of successful businesspeople investing in humanities' future in space.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#77

Post by robryan »

modoc wrote: post #49
bradleyland wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. Space X can quote a price on their website, but if I want to know what "Infrastructure Monitoring Tool XYZ" costs, I have to call and talk to some retired used car salesman. I now have hope for our future.

I started a company that sells to enterprise customers and we thought we could differentiate ourselves by making our pricing public, simple, and affordable. It was VERY easy for anyone to figure out how much we'd charge them without having to call. There were no hidden fees, nothing tricky or weird. This has proven to be a mistake for two main reasons: Firstly, everyone expects huge discounts (since all their other e…

So you just massively increase your price for the same value, put a call for discounts or whatever, offer them the original price and they will be happy to have got such a good deal. Weird how these things work..

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#78

Post by robryan »

iwwr wrote: post #42
burgerbrain wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The build rocket ships, who cares about their website?

This is HN, we care about the website almost as much as the product itself.

Not in this case, would rather they spend the time money making the rockets than the website.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#79

Post by po »

modoc wrote: post #49
bradleyland wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. Space X can quote a price on their website, but if I want to know what "Infrastructure Monitoring Tool XYZ" costs, I have to call and talk to some retired used car salesman. I now have hope for our future.

I started a company that sells to enterprise customers and we thought we could differentiate ourselves by making our pricing public, simple, and affordable. It was VERY easy for anyone to figure out how much we'd charge them without having to call. There were no hidden fees, nothing tricky or weird. This has proven to be a mistake for two main reasons: Firstly, everyone expects huge discounts (since all their other e…

Thirdly, they want free steak dinners and tickets to ball games on company time while a salesman reassures them that they're buying the best option.

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy announced: 53 metric tons to low earth orbit

#80

Post by Unseelie »

JshWright wrote: post #63
hugh3 wrote: post #35

There's only one thing I don't like about this, and that's the name. Falcon Heavy? Doesn't sound cool. SpaceX has done an excellent job of coming up with cool-sounding names for everything they do, second only to US muscle car manufacturers of the 1960s. Falcon! Merlin! Draco! They even skipped straight from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 because the numbers in between just don't sound nearly as cool. But "heavy"? Sure, it's d…

Skipped the boring numbers? Count the number of engines on first stage of the Falcon 1... now count the number of engines on the first stage of the Falcon 9...

Is it our fault that their engineers decided 8 engines just wasn't a cool enough number of engines?
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