Author Topic: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion  (Read 1385926 times)

Offline mmeijeri

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #920 on: 02/17/2010 10:07 pm »
Elrond?  :o
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Online Lampyridae

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #921 on: 02/17/2010 10:09 pm »
A bunch of NSFers decided that he was "Elrond" Musk, the king of the spaceflight elves. Or something like that.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #922 on: 02/17/2010 10:11 pm »
Elrond?  :o
Yup, that's his name, now. ;) (Elrond, if you're reading this, understand it's all in jest! :) ) (EDIT: After doing a quick search, I think cixelsyD was actually the one who coined it on 7/29/09, so you can blame him.)

EDIT: I also send my condolences to the families of those on the plane.

Not everyone working for SpaceX is an aerospace engineer. I'm sure the average salary is much less than $250,000.

BTW, SpaceX has reportedly been "cash-flow positive" for a while now, taking in payments from many different sources, including COTS milestones, etc.
« Last Edit: 02/17/2010 10:22 pm by Robotbeat »
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Online Lampyridae

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #923 on: 02/17/2010 10:14 pm »
Well, there's rent, materials, plant & equipment as well, so the excess goes towards that. I assume that Elrond himself does not draw a salary from SpaceX. Lots of very high value stuff. But they produce 80% (by value) of what they need in-house, so I figure there's at the very minimum a 10% savings that way.

Some very sad news for Tesla motors, I see. My condolences to the families and Tesla.
« Last Edit: 02/17/2010 10:16 pm by Lampyridae »

Offline vt_hokie

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #924 on: 02/17/2010 10:18 pm »
Not everyone working for SpaceX is an aerospace engineer. I'm sure the average salary is much less than $250,000.


Even if they were, how many aerospace engineers make $250,000?  (I never even got close to $100k, though admittedly that was largely my fault by not pursuing other opportunities when I had 'em and getting comfortable in a low level job.) 

Offline strangequark

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #925 on: 02/17/2010 10:32 pm »


Even if they were, how many aerospace engineers make $250,000?  (I never even got close to $100k, though admittedly that was largely my fault by not pursuing other opportunities when I had 'em and getting comfortable in a low level job.) 

Including the cost of benefits, SS, medicare, unemployment insurance, etc to the company, many more than you might think.

Offline edkyle99

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #926 on: 02/17/2010 11:34 pm »
Why can't you get past that?  It was the first build of their first rocket design and it broke, end of story.  ....  What's the big deal, other than grasping for something to criticize?

I don't understand this attitude.  Is it better not to see it? 

I don't want to criticize.  I'm rooting for SpaceX.  Just show the video already! 

 - Ed Kyle

As you wrote before... It happened years ago. Why the sudden zeal for openness right now? 
If I was more snide I might suspect that it has something to with recent NASA changes.

Nope.  I'm just interested in failure analysis.  Without data, there is only guesswork.

SpaceX has an opportunity to "control the story", so to speak, by controlling the timing of the video release.  If it doesn't, one of its competitors might find a way to leak a video of the event. 

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 02/18/2010 02:54 am by edkyle99 »

Offline notsorandom

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #927 on: 02/18/2010 04:20 am »
Is there a video of the crash? The island was evacuated at the time so no hand held cameras. Many of the shots I have seen are from cameras with a stationary aim point. It would be very hard to guess where a failed rocket was going to land so a stationary camera would be useless unless it fell in the view of one of these cameras. The Falcon 1 is the only rocket launched from Omelek Island so the US government doesn't likely have any tracking assets there. The radar and other tracking assets are located over 30km away on Roi-Namur. This would mean that at ground level Omelek would be well below the horizon from Roi-Namur. I don't know if this is where the SpaceX employees evacuated to. If they were closer they could have a better view. Its speculation on my part based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the launch site but it could be that the crash was not recored by a near by camera.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #928 on: 02/18/2010 06:33 am »
There is a video.

Offline clb22

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #929 on: 02/18/2010 08:17 am »
Multiply the average aerospace engineer's annual salary by 900 and you'll start to get a picture of what he's paying. Elrond (or whoever does the purchasing decisions) is a canny penny pincher though, using scrapyard parts wherever he can, just like the Astronaut Farmer.

SpaceX has been cashflow positive, though, according to accounting rules (milestones, contracts etc). I wonder if he's had to use credit for this, or if it just comes out of his pockets?

and

Not everyone working for SpaceX is an aerospace engineer. I'm sure the average salary is much less than $250,000.

BTW, SpaceX has reportedly been "cash-flow positive" for a while now, taking in payments from many different sources, including COTS milestones, etc.

Ok, the funding situation for SpaceX, their running costs and the "cash-flow positive" statement comes up periodically. Let's analyse that whole thing once and for all:

1. "Cash-flow positive" just means there is more money (really, physical payments) coming in than going out (through salaries, investment into infrastructure, transportation, parts etc.). If a company is cash-flow negative it means it will go illiquid (and then likely into bankruptcy) after a while. You can get 100 million in bonds or credits or hybrid capital, and burn 99 million of which in a year without any results and still be "cash-flow positive". All that being said, SpaceX being "cash-flow positive" just means they aren't facing bankruptcy in the near term.

2. What really is important is whether SpaceX is a sustainable business and that in the future it may sustain itself through operations (income from operations). Right now it doesn't do so, right now (for the last 8 years) it's revenues are made up of the following sources:
 - equity capital: Musk's 100 million initial investment, Founding Father's 20 million, another 60 million from various sources in 2008/2009 and probably some more unnamed investors that provide risk capital
 - debt capital: The same investors that provide equity capital may just have provided money against bonds + they might have some credit facilities, but that's actually a bit unlikely (banks provide credit to companies that have sustained operating income, not really to start-ups)
 [- for anyone who is interested, SpaceX had to do filings with the SEC for various securities (preferred stock, equity common etc.) to a bunch of investors in 2002 (10 million), 2005 (50 million), in 2007 (30 million - 1 investor), 2008 (follow-up filing) and a Rule D (exempt) filing in 2009 - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?CIK=0001181412&action=getcompany - those filings by far do not represent all capital they raised, only actions that required filings with the SEC]
 - NASA COTS program (total of 280 million) (which by the way requires SpaceX to chip in between 300-400 million of its own money for F9/Dragon development)
 - F1 completed mission (one mission) - a few million
 - Other government research grants (e.g. for F1)
 - Potentially, reservation fees and early milestone payments for payloads that are going to be flown in the nearer future (up to 2011)

3. We could try to estimate the annual costs that SpaceX is running at by looking at a competitor in the same line of business. OSC's business is structured into 3 parts, Launch Vehicles, Satellites and Space Systems and Advanced Space Programs. In 2008, OSC had combined revenues 1.16bn USD and combined income from operations of 84.3 million USD. The Launch Vehicles segment is the closest in operations to SpaceX's operations and had revenues of 454 million and 33.6 million in income from operations, which means that segment had expenses of about 420 million from operations in 2008 (of course OSC has a lot of military contracts that provide good money), not just orbital space launches (Taurus etc.). The problem of course is, OSC is contracting out and buying a lot of things that are part of costs. SpaceX is doing most things in-house. Anyway, we could still estimate that the absolute maximum of SpaceX costs per year at 900 employees is somewhere between 200 and 250 million.

4. Now let's see whether they can be a profitable business. Their CRS contracts provide them with 130 million+ per launch of a F9/Dragon. Disregarding launch costs and manufacturing costs, 2 launches per year already covers their current annual costs. Covering their costs from the comsat market is a bit more tricky. Assuming that Falcon 9 turns out to be reliable and assuming current market prices (with a 20% discount to attract payloads away from Ariane 5 etc.), SpaceX requires about 4 launches to cover its current annual costs.
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Offline HMXHMX

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #930 on: 02/18/2010 11:27 am »
Multiply the average aerospace engineer's annual salary by 900 and you'll start to get a picture of what he's paying. Elrond (or whoever does the purchasing decisions) is a canny penny pincher though, using scrapyard parts wherever he can, just like the Astronaut Farmer.

SpaceX has been cashflow positive, though, according to accounting rules (milestones, contracts etc). I wonder if he's had to use credit for this, or if it just comes out of his pockets?

and

Not everyone working for SpaceX is an aerospace engineer. I'm sure the average salary is much less than $250,000.

BTW, SpaceX has reportedly been "cash-flow positive" for a while now, taking in payments from many different sources, including COTS milestones, etc.

Ok, the funding situation for SpaceX, their running costs and the "cash-flow positive" statement comes up periodically. Let's analyse that whole thing once and for all:

1. "Cash-flow positive" just means there is more money (really, physical payments) coming in than going out (through salaries, investment into infrastructure, transportation, parts etc.). If a company is cash-flow negative it means it will go illiquid (and then likely into bankruptcy) after a while. You can get 100 million in bonds or credits or hybrid capital, and burn 99 million of which in a year without any results and still be "cash-flow positive". All that being said, SpaceX being "cash-flow positive" just means they aren't facing bankruptcy in the near term.

2. What really is important is whether SpaceX is a sustainable business and that in the future it may sustain itself through operations (income from operations). Right now it doesn't do so, right now (for the last 8 years) it's revenues are made up of the following sources:
 - equity capital: Musk's 100 million initial investment, Founding Father's 20 million, another 60 million from various sources in 2008/2009 and probably some more unnamed investors that provide risk capital
 - debt capital: The same investors that provide equity capital may just have provided money against bonds + they might have some credit facilities, but that's actually a bit unlikely (banks provide credit to companies that have sustained operating income, not really to start-ups)
 [- for anyone who is interested, SpaceX had to do filings with the SEC for various securities (preferred stock, equity common etc.) to a bunch of investors in 2002 (10 million), 2005 (50 million), in 2007 (30 million - 1 investor), 2008 (follow-up filing) and a Rule D (exempt) filing in 2009 - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?CIK=0001181412&action=getcompany - those filings by far do not represent all capital they raised, only actions that required filings with the SEC]
 - NASA COTS program (total of 280 million) (which by the way requires SpaceX to chip in between 300-400 million of its own money for F9/Dragon development)
 - F1 completed mission (one mission) - a few million
 - Other government research grants (e.g. for F1)
 - Potentially, reservation fees and early milestone payments for payloads that are going to be flown in the nearer future (up to 2011)

3. We could try to estimate the annual costs that SpaceX is running at by looking at a competitor in the same line of business. OSC's business is structured into 3 parts, Launch Vehicles, Satellites and Space Systems and Advanced Space Programs. In 2008, OSC had combined revenues 1.16bn USD and combined income from operations of 84.3 million USD. The Launch Vehicles segment is the closest in operations to SpaceX's operations and had revenues of 454 million and 33.6 million in income from operations, which means that segment had expenses of about 420 million from operations in 2008 (of course OSC has a lot of military contracts that provide good money), not just orbital space launches (Taurus etc.). The problem of course is, OSC is contracting out and buying a lot of things that are part of costs. SpaceX is doing most things in-house. Anyway, we could still estimate that the absolute maximum of SpaceX costs per year at 900 employees is somewhere between 200 and 250 million.

4. Now let's see whether they can be a profitable business. Their CRS contracts provide them with 130 million+ per launch of a F9/Dragon. Disregarding launch costs and manufacturing costs, 2 launches per year already covers their current annual costs. Covering their costs from the comsat market is a bit more tricky. Assuming that Falcon 9 turns out to be reliable and assuming current market prices (with a 20% discount to attract payloads away from Ariane 5 etc.), SpaceX requires about 4 launches to cover its current annual costs.

Can anyone confirm that SpaceX was indeed required to "match" the COTS payments?  I don't think the SpaceX amounts have ever been discussed in public by either NASA or SpaceX, but I have heard the "matching" was more like $40M in toto.  I do know that other COTS bidders were proposing company contributions that were far less than one-to-one matching and NASA accepted them for purposes of negotiation prior to final downselect.

Presumably SpaceX is also receiving additional NASA revenue as progress payments for the three CRS missions already approved.

Offline clb22

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #931 on: 02/18/2010 11:59 am »
Can anyone confirm that SpaceX was indeed required to "match" the COTS payments?  I don't think the SpaceX amounts have ever been discussed in public by either NASA or SpaceX, but I have heard the "matching" was more like $40M in toto.  I do know that other COTS bidders were proposing company contributions that were far less than one-to-one matching and NASA accepted them for purposes of negotiation prior to final downselect.

Presumably SpaceX is also receiving additional NASA revenue as progress payments for the three CRS missions already approved.

Gwen Shotwell confirmed in a 2007 interview (http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2007/06/gwynne_shotwell.html) that SpaceX is required under the COTS agreement to come up with 60-70% of the total funds itself. So it would be more like USD400M, one "0" more. HOWEVER, Shotwell might have just referred to the 3 financing round milestones (each 10 million milestones), in which case your 40M would be correct. But in that case, Shotwell's comments would have been more than misleading.

I doubt NASA is already paying them on CRS flights before even a single COTS demo has been flown.
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Offline Nathan

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #932 on: 02/18/2010 12:06 pm »
Can anyone confirm that SpaceX was indeed required to "match" the COTS payments?  I don't think the SpaceX amounts have ever been discussed in public by either NASA or SpaceX, but I have heard the "matching" was more like $40M in toto.  I do know that other COTS bidders were proposing company contributions that were far less than one-to-one matching and NASA accepted them for purposes of negotiation prior to final downselect.

Presumably SpaceX is also receiving additional NASA revenue as progress payments for the three CRS missions already approved.

Gwen Shotwell confirmed in a 2007 interview (http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2007/06/gwynne_shotwell.html) that SpaceX is required under the COTS agreement to come up with 60-70% of the total funds itself. So it would be more like USD400M, one "0" more. HOWEVER, Shotwell might have just referred to the 3 financing round milestones (each 10 million milestones), in which case your 40M would be correct. But in that case, Shotwell's comments would have been more than misleading.

I doubt NASA is already paying them on CRS flights before even a single COTS demo has been flown.

Some of the actual COTS milestones involved gaining financing.
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Offline clb22

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #933 on: 02/18/2010 12:10 pm »
Can anyone confirm that SpaceX was indeed required to "match" the COTS payments?  I don't think the SpaceX amounts have ever been discussed in public by either NASA or SpaceX, but I have heard the "matching" was more like $40M in toto.  I do know that other COTS bidders were proposing company contributions that were far less than one-to-one matching and NASA accepted them for purposes of negotiation prior to final downselect.

Presumably SpaceX is also receiving additional NASA revenue as progress payments for the three CRS missions already approved.

Gwen Shotwell confirmed in a 2007 interview (http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2007/06/gwynne_shotwell.html) that SpaceX is required under the COTS agreement to come up with 60-70% of the total funds itself. So it would be more like USD400M, one "0" more. HOWEVER, Shotwell might have just referred to the 3 financing round milestones (each 10 million milestones), in which case your 40M would be correct. But in that case, Shotwell's comments would have been more than misleading.

I doubt NASA is already paying them on CRS flights before even a single COTS demo has been flown.

Some of the actual COTS milestones involved gaining financing.

That's what I meant. There are 3 Financing milestones, each financing milestone is worth an additional 10 million under the COTS contract, but those milestones don't specify the sum that is required. If Shotwell was just referring to those 3 milestones and 60-70% of what they are worth, we are in the 40M own funding ballpark, if Shotwell was talking about the whole COTS program of 280M, then we are in the 400M ballpark.
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Offline William Barton

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #934 on: 02/18/2010 12:22 pm »
I'm curious where the $250K "average salary" figure bandied about here comes from. Salary.com gives $81,828, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. Many doctors (GPs) don't make $250K a year.

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_EN04100017.html

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #935 on: 02/18/2010 12:27 pm »
I'm curious where the $250K "average salary" figure bandied about here comes from. Salary.com gives $81,828, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. Many doctors (GPs) don't make $250K a year.

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_EN04100017.html


The $250k is not just pay and pensions it will include raw materials, rent of buildings and property taxes.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #936 on: 02/18/2010 12:35 pm »

I doubt NASA is already paying them on CRS flights before even a single COTS demo has been flown.

Yes they are.  There are payment milestones for CRS mission planning.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #937 on: 02/18/2010 12:41 pm »
I'm curious where the $250K "average salary" figure bandied about here comes from. Salary.com gives $81,828, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. Many doctors (GPs) don't make $250K a year.


It isn't salary, it is MTS costs.

Salary, benefits,  admin, overhead, etc.  The cost of employing one engineer

Offline William Barton

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #938 on: 02/18/2010 01:13 pm »
I'm curious where the $250K "average salary" figure bandied about here comes from. Salary.com gives $81,828, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. Many doctors (GPs) don't make $250K a year.


It isn't salary, it is MTS costs.

Salary, benefits,  admin, overhead, etc.  The cost of employing one engineer

I'm inclined to question the reasoning without seeing actual figures. I have a substantial commericial backgound in payroll, HR, accounting, and banking operations. The only way you could appoximate that kind of 3x multiplier would be by cost accounting approximating the way you get the $2bln/flt cost for STS (i.e., by dividing the entire operational cost of the company, including profits to investors, by the employee roster). Salary + benefits + admin multiplier is typically more like 1.2x. Overhead has to be systematically broken down in order to apportion the cost of doing business in some way to employees. A great deal of overhead is charged off against corporate taxes, for example. Physical plant costs can be recovered, and usually are in, for example, a bankruptcy. Even unsecured debt is often resolved by turnover of seized hardware, etc. It's okay when you get "paid" with a server, less so when it's a couch.

Offline William Barton

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion
« Reply #939 on: 02/18/2010 01:20 pm »
I'm curious where the $250K "average salary" figure bandied about here comes from. Salary.com gives $81,828, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. Many doctors (GPs) don't make $250K a year.

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_EN04100017.html


The $250k is not just pay and pensions it will include raw materials, rent of buildings and property taxes.

Lampyridae's post said, "Multiply the average aerospace engineer's annual salary by 900." That's simply not the way business accounting is done. Raw materials, rent, and property taxes come off your corporate income tax, for example. We have a "bean counter" around here somewhere could probably do a better job talking about this stuff than I can (my corporate wouldview is rather backplane-driven). See my reply to Jim for some additional thoughts. In any case, I think we've established the average aerospace engineer's annual salary is a bit lower than has been bandied about here.

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