Author Topic: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism  (Read 87290 times)

Offline TripleSeven

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #380 on: 08/24/2018 04:23 pm »

ULA is dying already

Not true and I always cringe when I see such comments. They are doing just fine and - because I speak with a lot of customers - some put reliability over a discount (somewhat mitigated by the difference in insurance costs) and launch date availability.

Now, the path is good for SpaceX as they can push the competitive angle a lot more by launching a lot more and not suffering any failures. Also, there is a lull in orders for the main sats these companies launch, so launch date availability will get better for SpaceX.

Per any relevance to this thread in any way, BFR launching ULA style satellites is a LONG way away and irrelevant in the near term.

interesting...maybe we can find a thread to talk about that...I would be curious as to your perspective but I agree its off topic I was just answering... 

Offline speedevil

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #381 on: 08/24/2018 07:47 pm »
Per any relevance to this thread in any way, BFR launching ULA style satellites is a LONG way away and irrelevant in the near term.
I am skeptical of your skepticism.

At 6 a year, they may be at 150 successes or so by the time BFR kicks in.
If BFS manages to get a credible test program, and most critically, doesn't crash too much past the early stages, it has a _lot_ of work possible in launching the starlink constellation - which has to be up by May 2023. (I do not think they will wait for this).

A test program, even without any aggressive early P2P attempts would add a dozen or few more, as would Mars in 2022, and early shifts of payload over count too, meaning a conservative estimate of their goals might be pretty close to 150 flights by the time ULA hits that mark.

And of course, it will be competing against a new launch vehicle, for which the statistical claims are weaker.
Contracts of course are signed earlier, and designs locked in even earlier - but actively being able to compete for designs launched in 2026 or so might be a real possibility.

(Assuming 'near term' here means 'flying on the next generation of launchers'.)

Political concerns may of course prevent this active competition, unless BO has gotten flying by then.
Of course, while they may be aiming for of the order of 150 flights by 2023, betting on timescales for new rockets hasn't been a good plan in the past.
ULA is far from dying, but they're on the back foot, and relying on SpaceX dropping the ball.

Offline TripleSeven

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #382 on: 08/24/2018 07:58 pm »
Per any relevance to this thread in any way, BFR launching ULA style satellites is a LONG way away and irrelevant in the near term.
I am skeptical of your skepticism.

At 6 a year, they may be at 150 successes or so by the time BFR kicks in.
If BFS manages to get a credible test program, and most critically, doesn't crash too much past the early stages, it has a _lot_ of work possible in launching the starlink constellation - which has to be up by May 2023. (I do not think they will wait for this).

A test program, even without any aggressive early P2P attempts would add a dozen or few more, as would Mars in 2022, and early shifts of payload over count too, meaning a conservative estimate of their goals might be pretty close to 150 flights by the time ULA hits that mark.

And of course, it will be competing against a new launch vehicle, for which the statistical claims are weaker.
Contracts of course are signed earlier, and designs locked in even earlier - but actively being able to compete for designs launched in 2026 or so might be a real possibility.

(Assuming 'near term' here means 'flying on the next generation of launchers'.)

Political concerns may of course prevent this active competition, unless BO has gotten flying by then.
Of course, while they may be aiming for of the order of 150 flights by 2023, betting on timescales for new rockets hasn't been a good plan in the past.
ULA is far from dying, but they're on the back foot, and relying on SpaceX dropping the ball.

well trying to be nice here and stay on thread...ULA is dying because 1) Boeing the heavy lifter is losing interest 2) SpaceX has ended ULA's dominance.....and 3) BO is coming and they are Boeing's "horse" here.

Offline meekGee

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #383 on: 08/24/2018 08:29 pm »
... and Atlas is being replaced with a new booster with new engines and no track record, and only vague plans of partial reusability - in BFRish time frames.

It might kinda survive on the premise of USG minimal launch rate, but A) that's not guaranteed anymore, and B) do we really call this being alive?



-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down
« Last Edit: 08/24/2018 08:30 pm by meekGee »
ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Offline TripleSeven

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #384 on: 08/24/2018 08:37 pm »


you dont know what Boeing is going to do...if I had to guess...they will buy BO at some point...
« Last Edit: 08/24/2018 08:42 pm by TripleSeven »

Offline RotoSequence

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #385 on: 08/24/2018 09:04 pm »
SpaceX isn't immune from the launch industry's historical trend of losing a vehicle or two (or three) early in its life from unexpected interactions and overlooked components in its systems. If they don't lose those vehicles during the testing and performance evaluation stage, they're not testing them aggressively enough to avoid it when they're flying payloads on a non-experimental basis for paying customers.  :-\

Offline Bynaus

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #386 on: 08/24/2018 09:05 pm »
JB will not sell.
More of my thoughts: www.final-frontier.ch (in German)

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #387 on: 08/24/2018 09:25 pm »
you dont know what Boeing is going to do...if I had to guess...they will buy BO at some point...

Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, can provide Blue Origin $1B per year without taking a hit on his wealth, and started Blue Origin 18 years ago because he had a personal need he wanted to fulfill.

So why would Jeff Bezos sell Blue Origin to an entity that isn't fully committed to reusable rockets?  ???
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline TripleSeven

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #388 on: 08/24/2018 09:29 pm »
you dont know what Boeing is going to do...if I had to guess...they will buy BO at some point...

Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, can provide Blue Origin $1B per year without taking a hit on his wealth, and started Blue Origin 18 years ago because he had a personal need he wanted to fulfill.

So why would Jeff Bezos sell Blue Origin to an entity that isn't fully committed to reusable rockets?  ???

Because he knows Boeing is...watch...see how it turns out :) I've made my prediction...

Offline Lar

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #389 on: 08/24/2018 09:38 pm »
Whether Boeing buys Blue (they don't like the acronym BO for good reason, let's respect that), the particulars of ULA's competitive strategy, whether Blue buys ULA, etc...

Off topic.
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline Slarty1080

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #390 on: 08/24/2018 10:32 pm »
Yes off topic. BTW BO is a private company so buying it might be difficult unless Jeff Bezos agrees to sell his baby.
My optimistic hope is that it will become cool to really think about things... rather than just doing reactive bullsh*t based on no knowledge (Brian Cox)

Offline RonM

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #391 on: 08/24/2018 11:34 pm »
you dont know what Boeing is going to do...if I had to guess...they will buy BO at some point...

Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, can provide Blue Origin $1B per year without taking a hit on his wealth, and started Blue Origin 18 years ago because he had a personal need he wanted to fulfill.

So why would Jeff Bezos sell Blue Origin to an entity that isn't fully committed to reusable rockets?  ???

Because he knows Boeing is...watch...see how it turns out :) I've made my prediction...

Sorry, Boeing dude, that doesn't make sense. How about we go back to discussing the SpaceX BFR and stop talking about Boeing and Blue.

Offline Lar

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Re: BFR and a bit of (hopefully) helpful scepticism
« Reply #392 on: 08/25/2018 12:18 am »
We're done for now.
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

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