Author Topic: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)  (Read 842759 times)

Offline cro-magnon gramps

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #420 on: 03/29/2012 05:42 am »
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184/

at 40:20 minutes into the video, the commentator says that Musk invested 100 million of his own money into SpaceX and raised another 800 million in venture capital; that's 0.9 billion as of post Falcon 9 / Dragon Launch and recovery; no citing information, so take with whatever grain of salt you desire for flavour  :D

Cheers

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Offline simonbp

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #421 on: 03/29/2012 06:01 am »
Which is why they survived and Kistler did not. Kistler had arguably a better design, but SpaceX (and not just Musk) had the business acumen to raise enough capital to actually implement their design. And that's what matters for *commercial* spaceflight.

Online Comga

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #422 on: 03/29/2012 06:25 am »
Which is why they survived and Kistler did not. Kistler had arguably a better design, but SpaceX (and not just Musk) had the business acumen to raise enough capital to actually implement their design. And that's what matters for *commercial* spaceflight.

That is so "incomplete" at best.
NASA funds, the bulk of the "$800M", cannot be characterized as venture capital.
SpaceX modified their plan to bring in NASA as their anchor customer.
Kistler contracted out everything. SpaceX builds almost everything in house.
SpaceX has had incremental progress. Kistler had a pretty much all-or-nothing system.
"Better" is your opinoon, and one that is probably not widely shared around here. Falcon 9R is "better" and the CGI video is wonderful, but I don't expect to see any part flying for years.
And implimenting a design is not the key to commercial space. Getting a revenue stream that exceeds your cost is.
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline beancounter

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #423 on: 03/29/2012 08:12 am »
Which is why they survived and Kistler did not. Kistler had arguably a better design, but SpaceX (and not just Musk) had the business acumen to raise enough capital to actually implement their design. And that's what matters for *commercial* spaceflight.

That is so "incomplete" at best.
NASA funds, the bulk of the "$800M", cannot be characterized as venture capital.
SpaceX modified their plan to bring in NASA as their anchor customer.
Kistler contracted out everything. SpaceX builds almost everything in house.
SpaceX has had incremental progress. Kistler had a pretty much all-or-nothing system.
"Better" is your opinoon, and one that is probably not widely shared around here. Falcon 9R is "better" and the CGI video is wonderful, but I don't expect to see any part flying for years.
And implimenting a design is not the key to commercial space. Getting a revenue stream that exceeds your cost is.

Sorry, clarification, how much in your opinion has been NASA funds?  "Bulk?"
SpaceX also has a flight manifest that extends for a number of years and includes around 50% non-NASA so how does that translate to an 'anchor' customer. 
Would I be correct in assuming that you believe that without the NASA contracts, SpaceX would not have attracted those other launches?  Cost had nothing to do with it? 
Just a few questions.
Beancounter from DownUnder

Offline go4mars

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #424 on: 03/29/2012 11:47 am »
It's incorrect. 

Elon and Founder's fund and employees (and maybe a couple other small quiet guys) own the equity.  The graph they show includes $278M NASA in 2006 (revenue and not equity), $492M in 2008 (I'm pretty sure that's just projected revenue and not realized so it shouldn't even be in there), and $75 million from NASA in 2011 (clearly just plain wrong to assume that is equity). 

What does count? 

The extra $100M from Musk in 2006, the $20M from Founder's fund near the end of 2007, and "private investments" of $50.2M (I don't recall seeing this news released and don't know who it is).       But that's $170.2 million of investments.  The rest is revenue or projected revenue. 
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Offline Blackjax

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #425 on: 03/29/2012 02:58 pm »
Ok, so say I win the Mega Millions lotto and get the 500 million dollar prize. Wonder what SpaceX could accomplish with a 100 million dollar donation to manned Dragon?

I'd be more interested with what Bigelow would do with a spare $100M. 

OK, maybe it would end up as nothing more than mess of really cool scale models, but isn't the thinking that we already have too many LV/spacecraft candidates, but not enough places to go?


I'm inclined to agree, between SpaceX and Blue Origin, there finally seems to be a concerted effort to bring down launch costs.  SNC and Stratolauncher might also contribute to addressing this as well, and even ULA via its partnership with XCOR is showing flickers of recognition that reducing costs might be the key to the future. 

Now we need to address the issue of both the non-human payload market as well as the question of where you fly humans to in the interests of growing that market.  It needs to be started soon to be ready to coincide with the increasing availability of lower cost launch options.  It doesn't matter if you have the potential for low cost launch if you don't have enough volume of stuff to fly to actually achieve it.  Most scenarios where costs come down substantially require that there is a lot of stuff which needs to fly, and that won't just magically appear, there needs to be a feedback loop to make it ramp up.

The next major project I'd like to see some billionaire announce is the development of a cycler for cislunar space that more or less permanently runs back and forth between the earth and moon and can accept rendezvous & delivery of people/supplies from the various CCDev vehicles.  A partnership between Bigelow, Paragon, and Boeing (for electric propulsion) seems like it would have most of the preexisting technological capability to do this, it just needs someone to step up and fund it.

I think there is probably an early market for tourists to a LEO Bigelow station in addition to the market for sovereign clients and commercial human tended research, but I think that ultimately these markets are separate and will need to diverge as time goes on.  The cycler (and later lunar tourism options) would cater to the tourism angle and the LEO stations would cater more to the other HSF markets as things progress.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #426 on: 03/29/2012 03:12 pm »

The next major project I'd like to see some billionaire announce is the development of a cycler for cislunar space that more or less permanently runs back and forth between the earth and moon

Why?  Why set up a transportation system for destination that has no business case.

And LEO market isn't going to be low cost as you think?

Markets costs moving towards ULA's vs Spacex's
« Last Edit: 03/29/2012 03:14 pm by Jim »

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #427 on: 03/29/2012 03:14 pm »

I think there is probably an early market for tourists to a LEO Bigelow station in addition to the market for sovereign clients and commercial human tended research,

Really? Bigelow doesn't think so anymore.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #428 on: 03/29/2012 03:21 pm »
ULA via its partnership with XCOR is showing flickers of recognition that reducing costs might be the key to the future. 


Huh?  ULA has always recognized reducing costs (combined launch teams, combined factory, fairing version reduction iinitiatives, etc).  The XCOR partnership is one of many initiatives and not in the forefront.  It is just ULA looking for another supplier and not some ground breaking event.

Offline Antares

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #429 on: 03/29/2012 03:29 pm »
If there are specific tasks that should be funded, and it can be justified as something that definately removes risk from the schedule slipping even farther to the right, list them out. Put the list in front of the appropriations committee's now.

Have you been listening to the hearings?  Congress can't stand commercial.  Better said, Congress's donors can't stand commercial.
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Offline Antares

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #430 on: 03/29/2012 03:38 pm »
Kistler had arguably a better design

The Kistler design was full of unobtainium.  It was a bunch of usual suspect, former NASA and contractor managers.  That was the only reason it survived as long as it did.

Sorry, clarification, how much in your opinion has been NASA funds?  "Bulk?"
SpaceX also has a flight manifest that extends for a number of years and includes around 50% non-NASA so how does that translate to an 'anchor' customer. 
Would I be correct in assuming that you believe that without the NASA contracts, SpaceX would not have attracted those other launches?  Cost had nothing to do with it? 
Just a few questions.

I for one believe precisely that.  Without NASA, SpaceX is either nothing or, actually, MORE viable.  Until being rerouted by COTS, SpaceX would have gone the Falcon 1-Falcon 5-Falcon 9 route and really could have revolutionized space launch.  NASA's siren call led SpaceX into space capsule development.  I firmly believe that the rhetoric would be far less and the results far greater, but everyone believes their estimate of an alternate reality is the accurate one.
If I like something on NSF, it's probably because I know it to be accurate.  Every once in a while, it's just something I agree with.  Facts generally receive the former.

Offline Lurker Steve

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #431 on: 03/29/2012 04:12 pm »
If there are specific tasks that should be funded, and it can be justified as something that definately removes risk from the schedule slipping even farther to the right, list them out. Put the list in front of the appropriations committee's now.

Have you been listening to the hearings?  Congress can't stand commercial.  Better said, Congress's donors can't stand commercial.

I have been listening to the hearings. KBH is my hero, and I wish she was my senator instead of Dick Durbin.

Remember when Congress added more money to COTS for risk-reduction ? We added milestones, but neither company has launched anything since then. It's their job to have some oversight on how the taxpayers money is being spent. That's why they would prefer more standard FAR contracts, and an earlier down-select to fewer companies. NASA is just asking for an open checkbook on Commerical, which isn't going to happen.

In the end, NASA is required to grade and select only 1 proposal, right ? Doesn't this mean there can only really be a single provider of crewed access to the ISS ?

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #432 on: 03/29/2012 04:18 pm »
If there are specific tasks that should be funded, and it can be justified as something that definately removes risk from the schedule slipping even farther to the right, list them out. Put the list in front of the appropriations committee's now.

Have you been listening to the hearings?  Congress can't stand commercial.  Better said, Congress's donors can't stand commercial.

I have been listening to the hearings. KBH is my hero, and I wish she was my senator instead of Dick Durbin.

Remember when Congress added more money to COTS for risk-reduction ? We added milestones, but neither company has launched anything since then. It's their job to have some oversight on how the taxpayers money is being spent. That's why they would prefer more standard FAR contracts, and an earlier down-select to fewer companies. NASA is just asking for an open checkbook on Commerical, which isn't going to happen.

In the end, NASA is required to grade and select only 1 proposal, right ? Doesn't this mean there can only really be a single provider of crewed access to the ISS ?

No, there is to be two providers. 
There is insight into how the money is spent with SAA's.  The FAR doesn't guarantee it.

KBH is wrong and is a prime example of what is wrong with congress (pork before what is right)
« Last Edit: 03/29/2012 04:19 pm by Jim »

Offline peter-b

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #433 on: 03/29/2012 04:22 pm »
We added milestones, but neither company has launched anything since then.

That's a complete non-sequitur: the extra milestones had nothing to do with flight hardware or launches. More to the point, they were completed on time.

There's a fine line between oversight and overmanagement.
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Offline mmeijeri

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #434 on: 03/29/2012 04:22 pm »
It is just ULA looking for another supplier and not some ground breaking event.

I'd qualify that a bit and note that while it's not ground-breaking for ULA, it is for XCOR and New Space, just like the recent XCOR funding round. Baby steps.
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Offline Prober

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #435 on: 03/29/2012 05:57 pm »
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/03/26/at-home-with-elon-musk-the-soon-to-be-bachelor-billionaire/

A little bit in there on SpaceX. I hope that the launch goes well on April 30th. Seems like there is a lot of press interest in the venture.

I wonder if a paying customer would be able to take Dragon for a spin around the earth without a launch escape system?

No time to read atm, but the sound of the link isn't good. "the-soon-to-be-bachelor-billionaire"
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Offline manboy

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #436 on: 03/29/2012 07:48 pm »
If there are specific tasks that should be funded, and it can be justified as something that definately removes risk from the schedule slipping even farther to the right, list them out. Put the list in front of the appropriations committee's now.

Have you been listening to the hearings?  Congress can't stand commercial.  Better said, Congress's donors can't stand commercial.
It's their job to have some oversight on how the taxpayers money is being spent. That's why they would prefer more standard FAR contracts, and an earlier down-select to fewer companies. NASA is just asking for an open checkbook on Commerical, which isn't going to happen.

In the end, NASA is required to grade and select only 1 proposal, right ? Doesn't this mean there can only really be a single provider of crewed access to the ISS ?
You realize they didn't do FAR contracts for CCiCap because congressional funding was roughly half of what was requested? More then two providers are wanted until certification because things could go wrong as with Rocketplane Kistler and it keeps them in competition with one another.
« Last Edit: 03/29/2012 09:39 pm by manboy »
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Offline starsilk

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #437 on: 03/29/2012 10:22 pm »
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/03/26/at-home-with-elon-musk-the-soon-to-be-bachelor-billionaire/

A little bit in there on SpaceX. I hope that the launch goes well on April 30th. Seems like there is a lot of press interest in the venture.

I wonder if a paying customer would be able to take Dragon for a spin around the earth without a launch escape system?

No time to read atm, but the sound of the link isn't good. "the-soon-to-be-bachelor-billionaire"


given the first nasty divorce, with a 'post-nup' agreement that caused a lot of legal argument... what's the betting this short term marriage had an iron clad pre-nup written by expensive lawyers?

not terribly relevant to SpaceX, other than that it clearly has personal impact (and a presumably small monetary impact) on the CEO/CTO.

Offline Confusador

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #438 on: 03/30/2012 01:02 am »
not terribly relevant to SpaceX, other than that it clearly has personal impact (and a presumably small monetary impact) on the CEO/CTO.
Given that in the first case he was worth ~300 million and he's now worth in excess of 1 billion, I would say there wouldn't be any monetary impact on SpaceX at all.  Especially as they're moving into more revenue generating activities.

Offline beancounter

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #439 on: 03/30/2012 01:24 am »
Kistler had arguably a better design

The Kistler design was full of unobtainium.  It was a bunch of usual suspect, former NASA and contractor managers.  That was the only reason it survived as long as it did.

Sorry, clarification, how much in your opinion has been NASA funds?  "Bulk?"
SpaceX also has a flight manifest that extends for a number of years and includes around 50% non-NASA so how does that translate to an 'anchor' customer. 
Would I be correct in assuming that you believe that without the NASA contracts, SpaceX would not have attracted those other launches?  Cost had nothing to do with it? 
Just a few questions.

I for one believe precisely that.  Without NASA, SpaceX is either nothing or, actually, MORE viable.  Until being rerouted by COTS, SpaceX would have gone the Falcon 1-Falcon 5-Falcon 9 route and really could have revolutionized space launch.  NASA's siren call led SpaceX into space capsule development.  I firmly believe that the rhetoric would be far less and the results far greater, but everyone believes their estimate of an alternate reality is the accurate one.

Yes I've thought that for a while. 

However, Musk does have his sights set on interplanetary travel and needs a capsule.  Getting NASA to pay for some of it's development and obtaining presumably some expertise or insight would possibly be seen as strategic.
Beancounter from DownUnder

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