LIVE: SpaceX Falcon 1 Launch 5 (RazakSat) - July 13/14

[mlorrey]

If my memory serves me correctly I believe Elon stated that he would probably never see profitability from the Falcon 1.  Setting aside the obvious discussion on accounting methods I would venture to say the "1" is almost profit free at the current price they offer or priced with a margin but not expecting the volume needed to put to rest the large r & d budget incured when they were putting the company together.  I would bet against an earlier comment that it is a "loss leader" such as some stores provide to get customers in the door though that is certainly a possibility.

I will be not so sure. They have almost total control over production cost 90% items build in house. And if they will able to recover 1 stage, they will be almost no limit lower cost. They could learn how change to survive better in ocean and how to refurbish faster.

BTW: What happened with recovery of the first stage on this mission, wasn't that going to be attempted?

Personally I dont see why someone doesn't develop a one-man capsule to fly on Falcon 1. I imagine the USAF would go nuts for one man orbital fighters/satellite inspectors.

Here's a basic schematic of the idea:

[dunderwood]

Personally I dont see why someone doesn't develop a one-man capsule to fly on Falcon 1. I imagine the USAF would go nuts for one man orbital fighters/satellite inspectors.

Orbital fighter?  What exactly are you going to fight?  Satellite inspector?  How much maneuvering fuel does that capsule contain?

Any capsule on F1 would be have to be Mercury style or smaller.  Little bit of attitude control, and some retros.  I don't think you have the mass to put up a lifting body reentry vehicle.

[Jim]

Here's a basic schematic of the idea:

A.  The launch costs are more than 8 million
B.  The F1 would have trouble with the wings
3.  Your cost numbers have no basis in reality, even going by Musk's proposed Dragonlab numbers

[NUAETIUS]

Personally I dont see why someone doesn't develop a one-man capsule to fly on Falcon 1. I imagine the USAF would go nuts for one man orbital fighters/satellite inspectors.

Here's a basic schematic of the idea:

You are WAY underestimating the weight of the vehicle you drew.  Facon 1 can carry 950 lbs into orbit.  TPS, Pressure vessel, fuel, wings, engines, and a person are not going to fit in 950 lbs easily.

To put this in perspective

Falcon 1 could put this motorcycle with a 10 year old girl wearing a bathing suit into orbit.  Now for this to work you have to make a capsule of the same mass as this motorcycle, and find a 100 lb person to fly it, and die if any component of the vehicle doesn't work perfectly.  Good luck

[Antares]

It seems strangely out-of-character for them not to make more of a noise about their first successful full mission.

By the way it their second successfully launch not first one, as you mention.

No, they didn't operate the payload separation system on the first mission, which was otherwise successful but therefore not "full".

If I follow your logic of successfully mission,
Apollo 7,8,9,10 were not successful full missions because they didn't land on the Moon? Are you kidding me?
In my opinion full successfully mission if I achieve my objectives. falcon I flight 1,2,3 were not successfully missions, they plan to achieve orbit.But flight 4 and 5 was it.

There is a difference between a fully successful mission and a successful full mission, depending on what the operational purpose of full missions is after flight tests are over.  Apollo 7-10 were not successful full moon-landing missions, but they weren't meant to be.  Similar with Falcon 1.4.  It met all of its stated objectives, but it did not separate a spacecraft, which with a post-sep CCAM I would define as making a full mission when the intent of the operational system is satellite launches.

[Patchouli]

Personally I dont see why someone doesn't develop a one-man capsule to fly on Falcon 1. I imagine the USAF would go nuts for one man orbital fighters/satellite inspectors.

Here's a basic schematic of the idea:

You are WAY underestimating the weight of the vehicle you drew.  Facon 1 can carry 950 lbs into orbit.  TPS, Pressure vessel, fuel, wings, engines, and a person are not going to fit in 950 lbs easily.

Actually it would be possible for someone could ride a falcon 1 up but it would be dangerous.
You'd be limited to the 3 to 9 hour life support duration of the space suit and a reentry system with little redundancy.
Think of it as the ultimate parachute high jump.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/paracone.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/geleraft.htm

[edkyle99]

Personally I dont see why someone doesn't develop a one-man capsule to fly on Falcon 1. I imagine the USAF would go nuts for one man orbital fighters/satellite inspectors.

Falcon 1 can lift, supposely, 470 kg to a LEO when launched straight east from Kwajalein.  It has only demonstrated something like 180 kg to date.  It would only be able to lift perhaps 290 kg to the sun sync orbit used by most spy satellites.  Either way, not enough mass for a manned spacecraft.  The Mercury capsule weighed something like 1.4 tonnes, not including the escape rocket.  It was only able to stay in orbit for one day, and could not change its orbit.     

 - Ed Kyle

[kkattula]

Falcon 1e, which all future Falcon 1 launches will be, will supposedly lift over 1,000 kg.

Somewhere there is a thread discussing whether a modern day Mercury could mass less than 1,000 kg.  I think it could.  LAS might be a bit tricky.

[edkyle99]

Falcon 1e, which all future Falcon 1 launches will be, will supposedly lift over 1,000 kg.

Somewhere there is a thread discussing whether a modern day Mercury could mass less than 1,000 kg.  I think it could.  LAS might be a bit tricky.

Maybe 1 tonne to the 9 deg orbit, but Falcon 1e would still only be doing something like 600 to 650 kg maybe to a polar orbit.  Even assuming 1 tonne, such a spacecraft isn't going to be able to change its orbit significantly, which it would have to do to "inspect" satellites as was suggested in the original post - unless the inspections were planned to be quick flybys, in which case a human pilot would be useless.

Falcon 1 might be able to lift people on suborbital shots.  Multi-million dollar 15 minute joyrides.  (Not from Kwajalein though.)

 - Ed Kyle

[Ben the Space Brit]

Falcon 1 might be able to lift people on suborbital shots.  Multi-million dollar 15 minute joyrides.  (Not from Kwajalein though.)

You know that there are people who would pay for it.

I'll hang around for Dragon to be proven and the seat price to go down a tad though.

[MKremer]

Falcon 1 might be able to lift people on suborbital shots.  Multi-million dollar 15 minute joyrides.  (Not from Kwajalein though.)

You know that there are people who would pay for it.

Sure. They could market it as "Relive the experiences of the first Mercury astronauts!"
(complete with waiting in choppy seas for recovery  )

[William Barton]

Falcon 1e, which all future Falcon 1 launches will be, will supposedly lift over 1,000 kg.

Somewhere there is a thread discussing whether a modern day Mercury could mass less than 1,000 kg.  I think it could.  LAS might be a bit tricky.

Maybe if you burned the LAS for added delta-V after SECO and sep, it would at least pay for its own mass?

[William Barton]

Falcon 1 might be able to lift people on suborbital shots.  Multi-million dollar 15 minute joyrides.  (Not from Kwajalein though.)

You know that there are people who would pay for it.

I'll hang around for Dragon to be proven and the seat price to go down a tad though.

With any luck at all, seat prices will come down to my range while I'm still younger than Methuselah!

[mmeijeri]

Maybe if you burned the LAS for added delta-V after SECO and sep, it would at least pay for its own mass?

Now there's an interesting suggestion! I don't know if it would work, but it's certainly an original idea. It might turn out not to be a good idea of course...

[MKremer]

Maybe if you burned the LAS for added delta-V after SECO and sep, it would at least pay for its own mass?

Now there's an interesting suggestion! I don't know if it would work, but it's certainly an original idea. It might turn out not to be a good idea of course...

Adds additional complexity (and increases LOM/LOC risk numbers). KISS is to eject the LAS as soon as possible after ignition of the final stage to orbit, and add the LAS's mass into the boost calculations. (and if there's not enough confidence in that orbital stage to do it that way, it's time to redesign)

[Jim]

Maybe if you burned the LAS for added delta-V after SECO and sep, it would at least pay for its own mass?

Now there's an interesting suggestion! I don't know if it would work, but it's certainly an original idea. It might turn out not to be a good idea of course...

Old idea

[mlorrey]

Here's a basic schematic of the idea:

A.  The launch costs are more than 8 million
B.  The F1 would have trouble with the wings
3.  Your cost numbers have no basis in reality, even going by Musk's proposed Dragonlab numbers

A. All the news reports say its an 8 million dollar launch cost. This 2003 article on spacex.com quotes $6 million: https://spacex.com/media.php?page=6. Spaceref quotes $6.7 million: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18353  DailyKos says $8 million: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753329/-Yesterday-began-the-dawn-of-a-new-era-in-space-exploration
B. Falcon might have trouble with the wings, thats for some simulator and wind tunnel time to determine. Its not that hard to design a vehicle to develop zero lift at zero angle of attack. The design as is keeps the wings clear of the upper stage.
C. Richard Garriot just paid $35 million for a ride on Soyuz, so the competitors numbers are accurate. The soyuz ride price tends to vary with the Ruble/Dollar exchange rate, which is highly dependent on oil prices. earlier this year or last, russia had upped the price to $47 mil but dropped it down recently. They are still charging NASA $47 million a seat for soyuz rides to ISS.

Given my quote on the cost of the F1 launch costs, plus some added costs to handle a manned payload (50% markup is significant), and avoiding the design stupidities of the Shuttle, the costs are reasonable. Even allowing for a budget to develop the pod at over $100 million using SpaceX manufacturing techniques and amortizing those costs over 40 flights per pod.

[Jim]

B. Falcon might have trouble with the wings, thats for some simulator and wind tunnel time to determine. Its not that hard to design a vehicle to develop zero lift at zero angle of attack. The design as is keeps the wings clear of the upper stage.
C. Richard Garriot just paid $35 million for a ride on Soyuz,

b.  The issue is that a zero AOA flight is impossible and then there are gusts

C.  The numbers  I refer to that have no basis in reality is your per unit cost of the spacecraft. 

You haven't done anything except powerpoint concepts.  When have you bent metal on a real spacecraft?

[iamlucky13]

Falcon 1e, which all future Falcon 1 launches will be, will supposedly lift over 1,000 kg.

Somewhere there is a thread discussing whether a modern day Mercury could mass less than 1,000 kg.  I think it could.  LAS might be a bit tricky.

Wikipedia lists the masses of Mercury-Atlas 6 at 1935 kg at liftoff (includes LAS?) and 1354 kg in orbit. Mercury capsules had no OMS...just a basic RCS and a set of solid-fueled retro rockets.

I'd bet you could, for enough risk acceptance, make a spacecraft light enough for an F-1e, but I certainly wouldn't ride it.

[Chris Bergin]

Lets keep this on topic or I may as well lock it, thanks.