Quote from: Semmel on 04/11/2017 09:12 pmQuote from: AncientU on 04/10/2017 10:26 amIf you've noticed, EM has been mentioning financial matters (like not going bankrupt or $1B for reusability development) quite a bit lately. GS also mentioned 'hundreds of millions' in development costs. What I think happened is that the AMOS failure and price tag for rebuild of LC-40 precipitated a 'chat' between GS and EM where a few lines were drawn (by GS). EM is not chipping in a billion per year, so the business (it IS a business) needs to become viable. Lots of F9/FH launches, including getting the ConnX up and producing major revenue, is required for that business to pay for the next big thing which is ITS... there isn't money for ITS first.Thats a quite well observed point. Thank you for the perspective. SpaceX is not yet close to emergency mode but the AMOS failure shifted the short term priorities around a lot. Unless they get donated a ton of money, SpaceX will not be able to fast-roll ITS.And so will the next one
Quote from: AncientU on 04/10/2017 10:26 amIf you've noticed, EM has been mentioning financial matters (like not going bankrupt or $1B for reusability development) quite a bit lately. GS also mentioned 'hundreds of millions' in development costs. What I think happened is that the AMOS failure and price tag for rebuild of LC-40 precipitated a 'chat' between GS and EM where a few lines were drawn (by GS). EM is not chipping in a billion per year, so the business (it IS a business) needs to become viable. Lots of F9/FH launches, including getting the ConnX up and producing major revenue, is required for that business to pay for the next big thing which is ITS... there isn't money for ITS first.Thats a quite well observed point. Thank you for the perspective. SpaceX is not yet close to emergency mode but the AMOS failure shifted the short term priorities around a lot. Unless they get donated a ton of money, SpaceX will not be able to fast-roll ITS.
If you've noticed, EM has been mentioning financial matters (like not going bankrupt or $1B for reusability development) quite a bit lately. GS also mentioned 'hundreds of millions' in development costs. What I think happened is that the AMOS failure and price tag for rebuild of LC-40 precipitated a 'chat' between GS and EM where a few lines were drawn (by GS). EM is not chipping in a billion per year, so the business (it IS a business) needs to become viable. Lots of F9/FH launches, including getting the ConnX up and producing major revenue, is required for that business to pay for the next big thing which is ITS... there isn't money for ITS first.
We don't know how much ITS is going to cost to operate. We don't even know how much most current rockets cost to operate. There's no way to say definitively if it will be competitive or not, at this point.But... if SpaceX hits their cost goals for ITS (a big if), it will be cheaper per launch than ANY other currently operational orbital rocket. The point isn't that it could obsolete every rocket that could ever exist, only that it will obsolete every currently operational rocket (and all the ones that are likely to be operational in the next 5-10 years).
Quote from: envy887 on 08/15/2017 11:00 pmWe don't know how much ITS is going to cost to operate. We don't even know how much most current rockets cost to operate. There's no way to say definitively if it will be competitive or not, at this point.But... if SpaceX hits their cost goals for ITS (a big if), it will be cheaper per launch than ANY other currently operational orbital rocket. The point isn't that it could obsolete every rocket that could ever exist, only that it will obsolete every currently operational rocket (and all the ones that are likely to be operational in the next 5-10 years).Uh, you actually mean "cheapest per kg", not "per launch", right? Surely you do not seriously claim single launch of ITS will be cheaper than few milion $ (cheapest orbital rocket avaliable)?
ITSy is ~75% the size of ITS, so $6-20 million for one orbital launch.
Quote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:33 pm ITSy is ~75% the size of ITS, so $6-20 million for one orbital launch. Where do you base this your "75% the size" number?
All of this was back of envelope so let me know if you get different results.
also, i should have looked a couple slides further in the ITS presentation:
Quote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:53 pmalso, i should have looked a couple slides further in the ITS presentation:To quote the figure of merit from the presentation: propellant costs are assumed to be $168/mt, or almost an order of magnitude less than the lower bound of your assumption.That said, The Space Review quotes methane costs of $1.35 per kg, or $1,350/mt. Of course, would have to do the calculations for a blended LOX/methane price. For the sake of argument, let's assume LOX is free, and with a 4:1 mixture ratio, we would divide the $1,350 by 5, for a blended rate of $270/mt.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2893/1Long story short, with LOX/methane, your propellant costs per flight are minimal, even with big rockets.
Quote from: hkultala on 08/16/2017 03:40 pmQuote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:33 pm ITSy is ~75% the size of ITS, so $6-20 million for one orbital launch. Where do you base this your "75% the size" number?The only number we have is 9 meter diameter tank, so 75%.
Quote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:53 pmQuote from: hkultala on 08/16/2017 03:40 pmQuote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:33 pm ITSy is ~75% the size of ITS, so $6-20 million for one orbital launch. Where do you base this your "75% the size" number?The only number we have is 9 meter diameter tank, so 75%. 75% diameter does not mean 75% volume, or 75% mass. It means much less.
Quote from: hkultala on 08/16/2017 05:45 pmQuote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:53 pmQuote from: hkultala on 08/16/2017 03:40 pmQuote from: RoboGoofers on 08/16/2017 03:33 pm ITSy is ~75% the size of ITS, so $6-20 million for one orbital launch. Where do you base this your "75% the size" number?The only number we have is 9 meter diameter tank, so 75%. 75% diameter does not mean 75% volume, or 75% mass. It means much less.Yeah, If it's scaled down 75% in all dimensions, then 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 = 0.422The final ITSy will probably be somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3rd the original size depending upon how long the decide to make it.
Yes 40% of capability but only 60% of price such that $/kg is higher on ITSy than ITS. In fact 50% greater than ITS.
Quote from: oldAtlas_Eguy on 08/16/2017 06:56 pmYes 40% of capability but only 60% of price such that $/kg is higher on ITSy than ITS. In fact 50% greater than ITS.yeah i know, the 75% is a bad scaling factor. Might as well use the full ITS numbers since spaceX provided them. ITSy might only be a one-off testbed, after all.
Quote from: Mader Levap on 08/15/2017 11:53 pmUh, you actually mean "cheapest per kg", not "per launch", right? Surely you do not seriously claim single launch of ITS will be cheaper than few milion $ (cheapest orbital rocket avaliable)?It's not impossible. If a rocket is fully reusable for ten flights and costs 300 million dollars, it has an amortized cost of $30 million per launch.
Uh, you actually mean "cheapest per kg", not "per launch", right? Surely you do not seriously claim single launch of ITS will be cheaper than few milion $ (cheapest orbital rocket avaliable)?
If it flies twenty times, the amortized cost is $15 million per launch. For sufficiently high flight numbers and sufficiently low refurbishment costs (a lofty and very difficult goal, to be sure), a big and expensive but fully reusable rocket could have a lower cost of operation than a small, inexpensive, and expendable or semi-expendable booster.
sure, why not? Throwing away aerospace hardware is expensive. Fuel is cheap.
The cheapest operational orbital commercial launch is the PSLV at about $20M a pop. None of the smallsat launchers are operational yet.
Quote from: RotoSequence on 08/16/2017 12:26 amQuote from: Mader Levap on 08/15/2017 11:53 pmUh, you actually mean "cheapest per kg", not "per launch", right? Surely you do not seriously claim single launch of ITS will be cheaper than few milion $ (cheapest orbital rocket avaliable)?It's not impossible. If a rocket is fully reusable for ten flights and costs 300 million dollars, it has an amortized cost of $30 million per launch.You are ignoring other costs. Ground ops during launch, processing between launches, fuel and the like. If rockets became very cheap, those costs start to be significant.Quote from: RotoSequence on 08/16/2017 12:26 amIf it flies twenty times, the amortized cost is $15 million per launch. For sufficiently high flight numbers and sufficiently low refurbishment costs (a lofty and very difficult goal, to be sure), a big and expensive but fully reusable rocket could have a lower cost of operation than a small, inexpensive, and expendable or semi-expendable booster.But I DO agree expendables will be dead in water (actually, they already are).What I contest is notion that ITS will make any and all other rockets obsolete. "Any and all" includes reusables, you know.I don't have even to point in direction of Bezos' newest toy, just common sense that says there will be still many variants and types of rockets out there with or without ITS. I will repeat it ad nauseam: people do not use 18-wheelers for everything.People wil not use ITS or ITS-like rockets for everything either.Quote from: Robotbeat on 08/16/2017 12:31 amsure, why not? Throwing away aerospace hardware is expensive. Fuel is cheap.Do you seriously think cost of fuel is only cost here? Quote from: envy887 on 08/16/2017 01:17 amThe cheapest operational orbital commercial launch is the PSLV at about $20M a pop. None of the smallsat launchers are operational yet.AFAIK Dniepr and the like were for few mln $.