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New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

abc.net.au

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Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#91

Post by Retric »

lulmerchant wrote: post #66
lostlogin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disinterested with a touch of virulent hatred for them.

There's an element in New Zealand that has a blindly hysterical anti-nuclear stance. Then there are others who understand that nuclear energy is one of the cleanest and safest forms of energy, and that refusing to admit American naval vessels into our waters is just a pointless diplomatic affront to our strongest ally. There's an excellent reason to not have nuclear energy in New Zealand, which is that we don't need…

Nuclear power is currently extremely expensive, and only operates in countries that provide massive subsidies. Even excluding cleanup, waste storage, security, and insurance. The difficulty in terms of peaking power make it a poor fit for lower cost, but intermittent renewables.

In theory it could be fairly cheap, but no country has pulled it off. France for example provided over 2 billion euros / year in direct subsides along side many indirect subsidies.

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#92

Post by JshWright »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #8

It's interesting seeing the difference between the publicity that SpaceX gets, and the publicity of other rocket companies like RocketLab get. It shows how effective the PR machine for SpaceX is. RocketLabs launch is pretty significant, considering it's the first orbital launch of a rocket designed and built in a small nation. This has barely hit the news. I guess part of the reason is that it's not in the USA, and t…

> New Zealand isn't capable of putting nuclear warheads on top of one, unlike North Korea.

North Korea couldn't put a warhead on top of this one either. The nominal payload of the Electron is 150kg. While there are nuclear warheads that small (the W80 is in that range), it's very unlikely North Korea has achieved anything close to that level of miniaturization.

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#93

Post by twtw »

sspiff wrote: post #77

> "Instead of paying hundreds of millions for a very big satellite in geostationary orbit, we now have new constellations of smaller — what we call nano satellites — in low earth orbit at much lower cost," he said. So, what about earth orbit congestion/pollution caused by these "nano satellites"? Tracking a few thousand big objects is easier than tracking a few million small objects, I would suspect. And if the cheap…

At least for the planet labs Dove satellites, the orbits are low enough that they decay within a year or two.

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#94

Post by jessriedel »

jessriedel wrote: post #76
manicdee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX simply doesn’t have the launch cadence to be anywhere near as useful to certain markets as Rocketlabs will be. Specifically, RL is ideal for a series of small satellites launched at a regular cadence to perform e.g. atmospheric studies. For this niche, booking ride shares requires booking a seat years in advance through a launch broker and then accepting whatever delays eventuate for the entire payload. If a c…

The timescale point is fine, but it doesn't support the suggestion that RL will go beyond niche (which private road vehicles obviously do). The reason is that the overwhelming limiting factor on launching more satellites is cost, not slow pace. Do you know of projections for RL future market share? I conjecture less than 5% of total satellite launch market.

For comparison, SpaceX now as about half of the global satellite launch market.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-SpaceXs-market-share

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#95

Post by t-brown »

juanmirocks wrote: post #85
toomanybeersies wrote: post #8

It's interesting seeing the difference between the publicity that SpaceX gets, and the publicity of other rocket companies like RocketLab get. It shows how effective the PR machine for SpaceX is. RocketLabs launch is pretty significant, considering it's the first orbital launch of a rocket designed and built in a small nation. This has barely hit the news. I guess part of the reason is that it's not in the USA, and t…

This is this company's first launch and as such the company is not known for the general public. Moreover, no Elon Musk-like legend has showed up for RocketLab yet. Therefore, it is pretty comprehensible that this launch has received less coverage.

It was their second launch with the Electron. Wired (https://www.wired.com/story/rocket-lab-still-testing/), has an article about them.

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#96

Post by mikeash »

zik wrote: post #37
mikeash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t generally make the news for doing things others have done before you. Don’t get me wrong, this company is cool and their success is super exciting, but I see no reason for them to get any press coverage outside of specialty media. SpaceX was pretty quiet too when they were first starting out, and when they’re all over the news now it’s generally because they’re doing something new. I doubt nukes have anythi…

RocketLab's doing incredibly innovative things. They're using an entirely new kind of rocket engine power cycle. This is the first new power cycle invented since the Full Flow Staged Combustion Cycle in the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_pump-fed_engine They're using entirely 3d printed rocket engines and also full carbon composite rocket bodies - another first for a rocket of this scale. Where it come…

A new combustion cycle and new construction techniques are really cool, but nothing I’d expect average people to care about, thus nothing I’d expect to be reported on outside of specialty media.

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#97

Post by vorg »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #57
mikeash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t generally make the news for doing things others have done before you. Don’t get me wrong, this company is cool and their success is super exciting, but I see no reason for them to get any press coverage outside of specialty media. SpaceX was pretty quiet too when they were first starting out, and when they’re all over the news now it’s generally because they’re doing something new. I doubt nukes have anythi…

It's a new country launching a rocket though. That seems like reasonably big news to me. Not front page, stop the press news, but still news.

Technically, New Zealand's a "country", but to call it a "new country" is pushing it. It's a cultural appendage to the U.K. and the U.S. West Coast, with a bit of Hong Kong thrown in. It's the unitary state that never joined Australia in 1901, being listed in the Australian Constitution as one of its 7 candidate states. It would have joined the Australian Federation if refrigerated shipping hadn't have been invented a year before, meaning they could ship their meat products to London instead of relying on a guaranteed open market at Sydney. Meat and other primary production is NZ's main industry, what with the banks and most other large corps being owned by their larger Australian counterparts. The only other industry in NZ of note is "Human Arrivals", which not only includes Tourism and International Education but also Immigration (despite being on the country's capital rather than current account). Of course, New Zealanders refer to Australia as "the 52nd state", so calling Australia a "new country" is also pushing it.

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#98

Post by lostlogin »

lulmerchant wrote: post #73
fv3y wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance has nothing to do with nuclear power. The reason we don't allow American warships into our waters is because we disapprove of nuclear weapons , whether powered by or as a payload.

>New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance has nothing to do with nuclear power. This is absolutely false. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/nuclear-free-new-zealand/... >Labour campaigned against nuclear propulsion and weapons >Labour announced its decision to ban ships that were either nuclear-powered or -armed. >party activists were unwilling to draw distinctions between nuclear propulsion and nuclear weapons. The mood o…

Lange’s Oxford Union speech defending NZs rejection of nuclear weapons is worth watching if you haven’t heard it before. The second link provides some background and the transcript.

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/sound/oxford-union-debate

https://publicaddress.net/great-new-zealand-argument/nuclear...

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#99

Post by jessriedel »

anovikov wrote: post #51
jessriedel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only really useful if you want to put a tiny satellite in an unusual orbit. For frequently trafficked orbits, you can just hitch a ride on a larger launch. Could be a successful business niche, but it doesn’t seem likely to revolutionize anything.

If you want a rideshare launch you have to wait, usually for years. And these guys can launch quickly, and still usually be cheaper or same price as rideshares. Non quite good for nanosats/cubesats, but fine for microsats.

Cheaper? Do you have a source on the claim that the per-kg launch cost of a rideshare is really an order of magnitude larger than the primary payload?

Re: New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket

#100

Post by snrplfth »

vorg wrote: post #97
toomanybeersies wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a new country launching a rocket though. That seems like reasonably big news to me. Not front page, stop the press news, but still news.

Technically, New Zealand's a "country", but to call it a "new country" is pushing it. It's a cultural appendage to the U.K. and the U.S. West Coast, with a bit of Hong Kong thrown in. It's the unitary state that never joined Australia in 1901, being listed in the Australian Constitution as one of its 7 candidate states. It would have joined the Australian Federation if refrigerated shipping hadn't have been invented…

I'm pretty sure that toomanybeersies means new country as in, "a country from which an orbital rocket has never been launched before", rather than "a country which is new".

Edit: Also, as far as I can tell, agriculture including meats is only 8% of New Zealand's economy. Hardly the "main industry". Like most high-income industrialized economies, most of the economy is in services.

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