Spacex are stating $54m for 13150Kg to LEO, which is of course peanuts relative to Skylon's $1Bn price tag and $6m/flight service costs, including propellant at 2002 NASA prices (sorry I have no more recent reference).the currentbreak even point is 21 launches, where it's cheaper to buy a Skylon than buy another Spacex F9 ELV launch.
Further, this thread addresses the Advanced Concept of "Reusable Falcon vs Skylon." Discussions of existing expendible rockets are off topic except for supporting data they may offer.
Meanwhile, you missed the word "reusable":
Quote from: Hauerg on 01/11/2013 04:57 pmThere are 2 problems I see with the Skylon and similar RLV concepts: a) you have a BIG investment before flight #1b) if you lose one vehicle early on you might be out of business.Both issues are not a problem with the SpaceX approach.That's just plain wrong. Most of the cost of development is in the intellectual property, not the vehicle.
There are 2 problems I see with the Skylon and similar RLV concepts: a) you have a BIG investment before flight #1b) if you lose one vehicle early on you might be out of business.Both issues are not a problem with the SpaceX approach.
^I expect skylon to be "sponsored" by government money like spacex is.I couldn't care less about who succeeds, as long as I can afford a seat
Thanks for confirming my point: skylon has to spend ALL of its development money before the can start making money. For them it s everything or nothing at all. There is no expendable or partially reusable Skylon IIRC.
You go with F9(r) (or whatever it's called). Do you pay full cost for 1st launch because you pay for the the whole thing to be built? Do spacex lower the cost for multiple launches (ops and new 2nd stage at least to begin with)? How much (and will it vary by how many payloads you want up to their reuse limit). Can you get a cash back every time the 1st stage you bank rolled gets re-used by another customer? I'm not being whimsical. At least for the 1st launch 2 stages have to get built that are as big as the existing F9. As a customer I take a 50% payload size reduction. What's my incentive to do this?
Well, LAPCAT uses the same engine as Skylon so it could be seen as a partial implementation of Skylon.
I expect skylon to be "sponsored" by government money like spacex is.
I'm not aware of any charter transportation service that front loads the cost of the vehicle on the first customer and then reimburses them over time later. The provider sets a rate that they believe will amortize the vehicle and make a profit in its expected service life. Companies deal with unexpected losses with insurance or self-insurance and try to have a high enough success rate that the failures don't take the company down.
Even now with expendables the customer doesn't buy the vehicle, they buy launch services. It's still a charter transportation service, except with an expendable the vehicle has to be amortized on its first flight.Your incentive to use this is that that payload will be cheaper to launch with an F9R, and if that doesn't happen, the reusability concept will be a failure.
I think if LAPCAT were flying that would be a very important demonstration of the engine concept and would make it seem significantly less speculative.
However unlike existing systems it's likely the first systems will only be partially reusable and the reusable parts will have strictly limited lives. I'm unaware of any systems that match those features.
No there is no proof that sabre will work. And actually, F9R is closer to reality than Skylon.
Quote from: Jim on 01/12/2013 11:16 pmNo there is no proof that sabre will work. And actually, F9R is closer to reality than Skylon.To me, being closer to reality does not mean having more chance of success.
Huh? If it becomes reality, it is a success.Sabre has nothing flying, F9 does. Sabre may never reach orbit, much less refly