Four things SpaceX can do in 2017

[DOCinCT]

Eric Berger offered up "Four things SpaceX can do in 2017 to Get It's Groove Back"
1. RTF in January
2. First re-flown core in 1st quarter
3. Falcon Heavy by mid-year
4. Dragon 2 by year end

I think 1,2 not a problem, FH maybe, 4 probably not

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/four-things-spacex-can-do-in-2017-to-get-its-groove-back/

[llanitedave]

Right.  As someone in the comments mentioned, the four things that they can do are exactly the four things that they're trying to do.  In that sense the article wasn't real helpful.

[rliebman]

i would add a fifth
have 100% success of the launch vehicle(s) to ensure qualification and certification for commercial crew

[Kabloona]

And here's one thing Eric Berger can do to get his groove back: stop calling the ASDS a "boat."

[Robotbeat]

And here's one thing Eric Berger can do to get his groove back: stop calling the ASDS a "boat."

...and stop being a Moon Firster. (Hi, Eric.)

[JasonAW3]

And here's one thing Eric Berger can do to get his groove back: stop calling the ASDS a "boat."

...and stop being a Moon Firster. (Hi, Eric.)

Aw, dude! Come on! It's right THERE!  Only 300,000 Kilometers away!  Easy peasey!

     Don't get me wrong, I want us on Mars too, but really, the tech we need to go to Mars is pretty much the same as what we need to go to the moon, only with less streamlining!

[Lee Jay]

I've got four of my own:

Return to flight.
Fly all missions safely.
Stop over-promising and under-delivering.
Focus on getting customer payloads to orbit rather than settling people on Mars.

[Lar]

I didn't really think SpaceX "lost their groove" but that's just me

[Robotbeat]

I've got four of my own:

Return to flight.
Fly all missions safely.
Stop over-promising and under-delivering.
Focus on getting customer payloads to orbit rather than settling people on Mars.

On the last one: why? We already have ULA, Ariane, etc. However, SpaceX is the only one really doing Mars.

I agree, however, that the best way to ensure settling people on Mars in the near future is for SpaceX to succeed in the near term getting Falcon 9 operating like the reliable workhorse she wants to be.

[RonM]

I've got four of my own:

Return to flight.
Fly all missions safely.
Stop over-promising and under-delivering.
Focus on getting customer payloads to orbit rather than settling people on Mars.

On the last one: why? We already have ULA, Ariane, etc. However, SpaceX is the only one really doing Mars.

I agree, however, that the best way to ensure settling people on Mars in the near future is for SpaceX to succeed in the near term getting Falcon 9 operating like the reliable workhorse she wants to be.

If SpaceX loses customers to their competition, SpaceX will not have the money to pay for their Mars plans or their communication satellite network. Getting F9 and FH flying with no more failures is critical for SpaceX to survive.

Once the Falcon series is launching reliably and at a good pace, everything else will fall into place.

[Robotbeat]

I've got four of my own:

Return to flight.
Fly all missions safely.
Stop over-promising and under-delivering.
Focus on getting customer payloads to orbit rather than settling people on Mars.

On the last one: why? We already have ULA, Ariane, etc. However, SpaceX is the only one really doing Mars.

I agree, however, that the best way to ensure settling people on Mars in the near future is for SpaceX to succeed in the near term getting Falcon 9 operating like the reliable workhorse she wants to be.

If SpaceX loses customers to their competition, SpaceX will not have the money to pay for their Mars plans or their communication satellite network. Getting F9 and FH flying with no more failures is critical for SpaceX to survive.

Once the Falcon series is launching reliably and at a good pace, everything else will fall into place.

Precisely. But I would never encourage SpaceX to lose sight of Mars.

I mean look at Beal Aerospace. Bunch of money, more than Musk had. But failed because the goal was to build heavy lift tickets to place comm sats in orbit.

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

[Lar]

I don't see you guys as disagreeing. Blocking and tackling[1] may not be exciting[2] but it wins NFL games[3].

1 - routine commercial launches
2 - except to many of us, I cheer each time
3 - and gets you to mars...

[Robotbeat]

Comm sats are the /means/, not the end. SpaceX will fail if and as soon as they forget that.

[Rocket Science]

Stop shooting themselves in the foot...

[Lee Jay]

I've got four of my own:

Return to flight.
Fly all missions safely.
Stop over-promising and under-delivering.
Focus on getting customer payloads to orbit rather than settling people on Mars.

On the last one: why?

So they can get everyone focused on doing their actual, paying job correctly.

[Robotbeat]

Mars is their job. Comm sats are just a means to that.

Of course SpaceX has to get Falcon 9 flying reliably and repeatedly. Mars has never consumed a majority of their resources, nowhere close. But they've never lost sight of Mars. As soon as they do, they'll have trouble retaining top talent and replacing it. They'll have to pay more and for less cream-of-the-crop.

I get we're all anxious about SpaceX due to 2 major accidents in 15 months and the standdowns. But if anything it was because they were focused on getting F9 to very high performance and also trying to burn down their manifest, NOT because of Mars!

So I don't see how changing their focus away from their current view would help. What WOULD help is to change from performance-optimization to reliability and repeatability. There is innovation to be had there, too. But this idea that they were too focused on Mars just isn't a thing.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

What WOULD help is to change from performance-optimization to reliability and repeatability. There is innovation to be had there, too.

I do wonder to what extent, if at all, SpaceX will change their approach following two failures. For example lock down the F9 design/configuration until a decent chunk of the launch manifest is cleared. We know there's a further F9 increment planned and I don't expect SpaceX will hold back on that, but should they?

I believe the changes we know about (more thrust and different leg design) are things that either carry little risk to the primary mission and/or should be easy enough to test on the ground. The changes may be focussed on reusability but aren't some customers already expecting/planning on it?

[Kansan52]

1. Fly
2. Fly
3. Fly
4. Fly

[llanitedave]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce. 


Every advantage SpaceX has gained so far is directly due to the fact that there are lots of people besides Musk who want to colonize Mars.  They follow Musk only because he leads them towards their own goals.  If he drops that vision, he might as well give up on the company.

[guckyfan]

Stop shooting themselves in the foot...

You are implying they do.

Same as "When did you stop beating your wife?"

[sdsds]

In 2017 SpaceX needs to show they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Walking: routine, reliable flight of F9
Chewing gum: fancy stuff like FH, Raptor tests, satellites, etc.

At. The. Same. Time.

[Lee Jay]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce. 


Every advantage SpaceX has gained so far is directly due to the fact that there are lots of people besides Musk who want to colonize Mars.  They follow Musk only because he leads them towards their own goals.  If he drops that vision, he might as well give up on the company.

It honestly never occurred to me that this could be the case.  If so, I feel sorry for them.  Inexpensive, safe flying cars have been a similar pipe dream for over 50 years, and they are a far easier nut to crack than the colonization of Mars on chemical rocketry.

I foresee much disappointment if this is the case.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I foresee much disappointment if this is the case.

Longer-term that may be true but there are a lot of stepping stones on the way, such as flying people to ISS, re-using first stages, Red Dragon etc etc. Plenty to keep people involved and committed for years to come.

Colonising Mars may be an ultimate goal but significantly increasing space activity through reduced costs and increased capabilities, which do seem more achievable, I'm sure would be welcomed and rewarding for Mars advocates too.

[Lee Jay]

I foresee much disappointment if this is the case.

Longer-term that may be true but there are a lot of stepping stones on the way, such as flying people to ISS, re-using first stages, Red Dragon etc etc. Plenty to keep people involved and committed for years to come.

Colonising Mars may be an ultimate goal but significantly increasing space activity through reduced costs and increased capabilities, which do seem more achievable, I'm sure would be welcomed and rewarding for Mars advocates too.

This part is what I can see, and what I always believed about them.  Maybe Mars is like the mechanical bunny at a dog track - they can chase it forever without ever catching it.

[Patchouli]

I get we're all anxious about SpaceX due to 2 major accidents in 15 months and the standdowns. But if anything it was because they were focused on getting F9 to very high performance and also trying to burn down their manifest, NOT because of Mars!

That's part of what got them in trouble concentrating on maximum performance vs getting the reliability and flight rates up.

[vapour_nudge]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce

Perhaps they're not fools but have been fooled.

[zubenelgenubi]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce

Perhaps they're not fools but have been fooled.

No disrespect intended regarding Elon or his employees, but this conversation reminds me of the following sage question:

Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?

[ZachF]

Priority #1, 2 and 3 should be no RUDs and getting a quick but steady launch cadence going.

[sdsds]

This is not a time in history when it makes any sense to describe people who are actually getting stuff done as "fools."

[Robotbeat]

I get we're all anxious about SpaceX due to 2 major accidents in 15 months and the standdowns. But if anything it was because they were focused on getting F9 to very high performance and also trying to burn down their manifest, NOT because of Mars!

That's part of what got them in trouble concentrating on maximum performance vs getting the reliability and flight rates up.

I believe that's what I said. (Although putting the payload on top during the static test seems to be a streamlining activity, i.e. Increasing flight rate, not a performance-related one... So there are pitfalls for just trying for flight rate).

[Robotbeat]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce

Perhaps they're not fools but have been fooled.

Musk, being fooled in turn by NASA and Zubrin.

"
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --Shaw

[mme]

They need to do 2 things in 2017:
1. Launch more than in 2016.
2. Not lose a customer payload.

Those two things will give customers the confidence to keep ordering new missions.

In 2018 they need to be delivering crew to the ISS.  I believe they will launch FH this year but I don't see it as a deal breaker.

A lot of people claiming they've chased performance too much.  The performance is required for reusability.  Also the failures don't appear to be from cutting the margins too slim so I don't really see how that assertion holds.

As for Mars as a goal, Gravity forbid people be motivated by a difficult long-shot at contributing something audacious.  I don't know if SpaceX will succeed but I'm glad they're trying.

[Lee Jay]

This is not a time in history when it makes any sense to describe people who are actually getting stuff done as "fools."

If they were getting stuff done, it wouldn't be a problem.

- Falcon 9 1.0 splashed Orbcomm-OG2 during one of its five flights, a 20% failure rate (you can count this as a half failure and do the percentage differently - like one in six - if you like).
- Falcon 9 1.1 splashed CRS-7 in one of its 16 flights, a 6.25% failure rate.
- Falcon 9 1.1 FT splashed AMOS-6 in one of its nine flights, an 11.1% failure rate.
- They demolished one of their pads.
- Their backlog of flights that are late is quite lengthy.
- They are not currently flying.
- They haven't reused much of anything that's been recovered.

This is the stuff that has to get fixed.

- Get flying again.
- Fly a minimum of 25 flights in a row without a failure.
- Get the pad fixed.
- Get at least 40 customer launches done in the next two years, preferably without a failure.
- Reuse at least a few first stages at least once to show the whole idea is at least doable.
- Fly FH demo, successfully.
- Fly crew safely to ISS, and back.

If they can do that, then maybe they can do a Mars flight of some sort in 2020 and I'll start to get excited about their BEO aspirations.  But that's a heck of a lot of hard work for them to work through first.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally and completely rooting for them, and I try to watch every single launch and recovery, start to finish.  I watch the replays when I can't.  But they need to show they can really do this really hard stuff really well if they're going to convince me they can do this really, really, really hard Mars stuff.

[Robotbeat]

Oh please. SpaceX has been getting things done by just about any honest measure.

[Robotbeat]

If SpaceX stops blowing anything up, that's a sure sign they've stopped really innovating.

[sdsds]

they need to show they can really do this really hard stuff really well if they're going to convince me they can do this really, really, really hard Mars stuff.

Basically we're on the same page; thanks for expressing it well!

Recognize though the other possibility. They have been "doing stuff" since the first F1 lift off. Difficult stuff. They have been doing it right at the edge of the envelope and yes, sometimes beyond the edge.

I assert they can succeed by continuing that pattern of doing unprecedented stuff right at the edge of the envelope. But only so long as they develop the (new for them) ability to also do the proven stuff with great reliability.

So I almost would phrase it as the reverse of what you said. The SpaceX culture has already demonstrated its ability to do really really difficult stuff, albeit with a mixed record of success. Now they need to demonstrate that same culture can do just normally difficult stuff with the reliability that requires.

[llanitedave]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce. 


Every advantage SpaceX has gained so far is directly due to the fact that there are lots of people besides Musk who want to colonize Mars.  They follow Musk only because he leads them towards their own goals.  If he drops that vision, he might as well give up on the company.

It honestly never occurred to me that this could be the case.  If so, I feel sorry for them.  Inexpensive, safe flying cars have been a similar pipe dream for over 50 years, and they are a far easier nut to crack than the colonization of Mars on chemical rocketry.

I foresee much disappointment if this is the case.

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

[llanitedave]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce

Perhaps they're not fools but have been fooled.

Perhaps they're neither fools nor fooled, but they're taking a long view, and seeing their aspirations actually making forward progress.

[whitelancer64]

This is not a time in history when it makes any sense to describe people who are actually getting stuff done as "fools."

If they were getting stuff done, it wouldn't be a problem.

- Falcon 9 1.0 splashed Orbcomm-OG2 during one of its five flights, a 20% failure rate (you can count this as a half failure and do the percentage differently - like one in six - if you like).
*snip*

This is the stuff that has to get fixed.

- Get flying again.
- Fly a minimum of 25 flights in a row without a failure.
- Get the pad fixed.
- Get at least 40 customer launches done in the next two years, preferably without a failure.
- Reuse at least a few first stages at least once to show the whole idea is at least doable.
- Fly FH demo, successfully.
- Fly crew safely to ISS, and back.
*snip*

To be clear - Orbcomm-OG2 wasn't "splashed" it was put in a lower-than intended orbit. It was operational for about 4 days and Orbcomm did get some good data from it.

-RTF is NET 10 days from now.
-Sounds good. Barring below-spec struts or unexpected materials interactions, should be doable.
-Core reuse is already slated for SES-10, February 2017. If that goes well I'd expect to see several other launches fly with reused cores next year.
-SLC-40 is already being worked on. Per reports floating around here, the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. I'm hoping we'll see '40 operational again by Autumn.
-See response 2.
-Check again late next year.
-Check again in 2018.

[Lee Jay]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

[RonM]

Oh please. SpaceX has been getting things done by just about any honest measure.

Yes, they are getting things done. I think people are forgetting SpaceX has a large staff and is capable of working on many projects at the same time.

Unfortunately, SpaceX has lost two payloads in less than two years. They can't afford to lose another one in 2017. I'm sure they are working very hard to prevent another loss.

Once SpaceX gets all three pads operational, they will be able to quickly get through their launch backlog.

If SpaceX stops blowing anything up, that's a sure sign they've stopped really innovating.

They need to keep failures limited to their tests. Blowing up customer payloads is not a good thing.

[Lee Jay]

To be clear - Orbcomm-OG2 wasn't "splashed" it was put in a lower-than intended orbit.

It burned up in the atmosphere and the remaining pieces likely landed in the ocean.  I believe the point was clear.

[Robotbeat]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

Costs less than a car: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/powered-paraglider

[Robotbeat]

To be clear - Orbcomm-OG2 wasn't "splashed" it was put in a lower-than intended orbit.

It burned up in the atmosphere and the remaining pieces likely landed in the ocean.  I believe the point was clear.

Less than 10% of that F9's payload by mass and value and still partly successful. Point seems pretty clear.

[Lee Jay]

If SpaceX stops blowing anything up, that's a sure sign they've stopped really innovating.

Did you notice how I didn't include either the Grasshopper explosion nor any of the recovery failures in my list?

They can blow up all the test stuff they want to as long as they don't blow up the super expensive stuff their customers pay them to put safely into space.  I'm all in favor of trying hard stuff in tests - and failing.  The main-line stuff has to be as good or better than the average in the industry, and that's around a 5% failure rate.  SpaceX is currently more than twice that.

[Lee Jay]

To be clear - Orbcomm-OG2 wasn't "splashed" it was put in a lower-than intended orbit.

It burned up in the atmosphere and the remaining pieces likely landed in the ocean.  I believe the point was clear.

Less than 10% of that F9's payload by mass and value and still partly successful. Point seems pretty clear.

It failed to get to orbit because one of SpaceX's engines RUD'd during first stage flight, and it was a paying customer payload that burned up in the atmosphere.  They've launched other stuff for that company.  If those count as successes, this one counts as a failure.

[Robotbeat]

SpaceX's failure right is in line with other new launch vehicles (for instance, Ariane 5 had 2 full failures in first 20 launches plus partial failures. Pegasus had 3 total failures and 2 partial failures in its first 20 launches). And far better than the early days when there was true innovation.

They must do well in 2017 as you say, but it's silly concern trolling to pretend they're way out of line.

[llanitedave]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

So all you need is some inspirational entrepreneur to start a company dedicated to doing just that, who attracts a crowd of bright-eyed young visionaries to help him build it for less than the prevailing wage.


It could happen.  And these will probably be self-flying cars, using technology based on that from Tesla and Google.

[sdsds]

I'm totally and completely rooting for them,

Really?

[Robotbeat]

To be clear - Orbcomm-OG2 wasn't "splashed" it was put in a lower-than intended orbit.

It burned up in the atmosphere and the remaining pieces likely landed in the ocean.  I believe the point was clear.

Less than 10% of that F9's payload by mass and value and still partly successful. Point seems pretty clear.

It failed to get to orbit because one of SpaceX's engines RUD'd during first stage flight, and it was a paying customer payload that burned up in the atmosphere.  They've launched other stuff for that company.  If those count as successes, this one counts as a failure.

Nope. It got to orbit, so that 5% was partially successful. Main payload, which was 95% of the mass and value, was fully successful.

Remember Atlas V once put a payload in a lower than planned orbit. The payload had to compensate with on-board propellant which technically should reduce its service life as well. No one counts that launch as a full failure, even though it was the main payload.

[Robotbeat]

Every customer who flies on a SpaceX rocket or ANY rocket knows they're taking a risk. This is partly why SpaceX doesn't charge as much. Orbcomm still ends up WAY ahead. They are one of SpaceX's happiest customers.

[meekGee]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

That sentiment is partly why humanity in general needs to expand.

I'd love me a flying car too, but it doesn't help with survivability.

[Robotbeat]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

[Lee Jay]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

That sentiment is partly why humanity in general needs to expand.

I'd love me a flying car too, but it doesn't help with survivability.

Neither does moving a few people to a place with no biosphere, who will be totally dependent on Earth.

Face it, if we screw up Earth, we're screwed.  Period.  That is, unless we have nuclear powered rocketry.

[Robotbeat]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

That sentiment is partly why humanity in general needs to expand.

I'd love me a flying car too, but it doesn't help with survivability.

Neither does moving a few people to a place with no biosphere, who will be totally dependent on Earth.

That's begging the question. And frankly, if sustainable space settlement (i.e. Possibility of Earth independence) isn't possible, then all human space flight is basically pointless. Which is 90% of this whole website and the reason people come here and not unmannedspaceflight.com and about half of NASA's budget.

Face it, if we screw up Earth, we're screwed.  Period.  That is, unless we have nuclear powered rocketry.

What does nuclear powered rocketry have to do with it?

[meekGee]

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

That sentiment is partly why humanity in general needs to expand.

I'd love me a flying car too, but it doesn't help with survivability.

Neither does moving a few people to a place with no biosphere, who will be totally dependent on Earth.

Face it, if we screw up Earth, we're screwed.  Period.  That is, unless we have nuclear powered rocketry.

I don't think you understand the point of colonising Mars then.

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

And yes, what was that about nuclear rockets?

[savuporo]

1. Fly
2. Fly
3. Fly
4. Fly

"Less talk, more rocket"

[Robotbeat]

There's an interesting bias that people have with respect to probabilities. We seem to treat low probability (say, 10%) as synonymous with impossible. This goes in both directions, i.e. Probability of launch failure and probability of something amazing happening.

[Robotbeat]

I'd give SpaceX a 50:50 chance of launching the next 25 rockets successfully in a row. That may be optimistic, as it assumes about a 97.5% reliability, higher than the industry average and higher than they've demonstrated. And a 75% chance of getting through 2017 without a launch failure.

This business is not for the faint of heart. Everyone eventually has a failure. (ULA hasn't suffered a FULL failure since they formed... Which absolutely deserves respect. But they've never fielded a new rocket since formation, either, and they pay a LOT for mission assurance... They'll have a failure eventually, too.)

[Lee Jay]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

[sdsds]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Well at least not in 2017. Which is ... the topic of this thread, right?

[meekGee]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Ok, that's settled then.

[Robotbeat]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Don't see how nuclear rockets improve that at all. Makes it worse.

[AncientU]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

A string of successful launches is needed in 2017 so that cash flow will return to positive.
Reuse and Mars technology development can then continue and accelerate.

[LouScheffer]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce

Perhaps they're not fools but have been fooled.

Perhaps they're neither fools nor fooled, but they're taking a long view, and seeing their aspirations actually making forward progress.

This is often the case in scientific research.  The place I work studies the brain. Of course our ultimate goal is to understand the human brain, but that's way out of reach for today's technology - I'd guess at least as far out as Mars colonization.  But really smart people still choose to come here and work super hard on the problems we can attack today, for less money than they can make in industry.  They are not being fooled, they know exactly the tradeoffs, but they choose to make what progress they can for a cause they believe in.

[Lee Jay]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years, and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

[Lar]

Inexpensive, safe flying cars have been a similar pipe dream for over 50 years, and they are a far easier nut to crack than the colonization of Mars on chemical rocketry.

I actually think inexpensive flying cars are a far harder nut to crack, believe it or not.

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

As long as it's not 100%...

1 million people out of 7 billion is 99.986 % ... and one million would be more than enough, we think, for a viable colony that grows to essential self reliance in a century or so.

It's always been so, or almost always... pioneers are a small fraction of the whole.

[Robotbeat]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years, and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

Doing with nuclear rockets is even less likely.

[meekGee]

There's a feasible rocket design that will carry ~100 people.

100 such ships is 10,000 people per synod. This already puts you in the ballpark, so impossible, it ain't. 

You can think it won't happen, but that's a far cry from "can't"

And again, why would a nuclear ship be any different?

[vapour_nudge]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

The nonsense point is the theory about saving the species

[Robotbeat]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

The nonsense point is the theory about saving the species

Thank goodness not all of us have such narrow perspectives.

[AncientU]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years (Note 1), and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

Expensive, expendable chemical rockets that launch once or twice per year?  You are correct... even getting to Mars ain't going to happen. 

Rapidly reusable chemical launchers, refuelable on orbit chemical spaceships?  Different story.

SpaceX has to continue pursuing this technology suite and associated reductions in launch costs, plus increases in launch cadence.  Not going to be easy, but not impossible.
Fly early and often (as they say in Chicago).

Note 1: Investing in a single technology that worked, but turned out to be an economic dead end -- not impossible -- and giving up does not disprove the point.  Only a billion (maybe a million Note 2) times harder means there is a chance, right? 

Note 2: Six orders of magnitude improvement from shuttle is a few hundred times cheaper ($100/kg) x a few thousand times more delivered to orbit per year (300,000 tonnes/yr).  Hard, but not impossible...  This is close to what EM presented in September.

[laszlo]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

The nonsense point is the theory about saving the species

Thank goodness not all of us have such narrow perspectives.

Personally, I think that there are a lot more efficient ways to ensure the survival of the species in the event of a planetary catastrophe. Ways that need no further development of spaceflight, chemical or nuclear or reactionless. For example:

Digitize (at least) a few hundred thousand individuals' DNA sequences. Pack them into a spacecraft that also contains all the precursor chemicals to turn the digital data into human beings, as well as enough servos and AI to control the process. Put it into an orbit that extends out to the Kuiper belt, where the low temperatures will help preserve everything. As the spacecraft approaches the inner Solar System every few hundred years, its AI can wake up, look for human life signs on Earth and land and repopulate the Earth if needed. Kick out a few hundred or thousand of these things and there will always be a supply of human biological starter culture to repopulate the planet. All the heavy work will be in the fields of biochemistry, computer science, psychology, robotics, anthropology, orbital spacecraft design, etc. Every field except rocketry, really. There'd be no need to colonize and terraform a hostile planet. Instead, Earth would be colonized, which is a well-known process. The spin-offs would also be much more interesting. Any tech that could create a living human from just precursor chemicals and a digital map would be able to cure pretty much any physical disease as a side-effect.

All that off-topic stuff being said, it's Elon's company. If he wants to go to Mars, good for him. But if he wants it paid for he needs to stop matching my orbital success rate (since September he & I have put equal amounts of payload into low Earth orbit). Everything else is nonsense.

[The Amazing Catstronaut]

LeeJay, with all due respect, you're at the point of re-iterating your opinion, not elaborating on it. The point of the thread is possibility of the (speculative) four things SpaceX can do this year, and you're getting tangential. You're a moderator - self-moderate.


I believe SpaceX most likely will launch Falcon heavy in 2017. They'll have 0 launch failures once they build up a cadence with the final F9 variant ("fuller thrust" or whatever name we're going with). Re-launch(s), plural, will likely occur. We're at a natural cumulation point, yes, but I'd say that most of the risk for the F9 architecture is behind us in terms of launch operations, providing that they've learnt all lessons that have occurred on the way up. Every manufacturer and operator of OLVs has had similar or higher LOV rates whilst in the early stages of architecture development. We're now at the maturing point.


One datapoint for 2017 will be hearing more about the red dragon mission. We'll likely need to see red dragon sometime before next December if it is going to go skyward in 2018 - there's no reason to be reserved with RDs PR if they believe they can make reasonable operational readiness.

Damn, it's good to be back on this forum. I think I'll pour myself something.

[laszlo]

Damn, it's good to be back on this forum. I think I'll pour myself something.

Flying saucer of milk? 

[vapour_nudge]

Good point. Straying off topic and yes, I'm guilty too.  So here we go again:

1) Fix the broken launch pad so they can launch more often
2) Focus on RTF. Reliability is far more important than several successes interspersed with the odd failure. That's Proton's job
3) Then cautiously ramp up flight rate and deal with the backlog
4) Finally - reuse a stage and get that process working fine. FH is a distraction, get reusability going first

I don't consider myself a fan. I really want them to go well. No more silly talk about saving us all by going to Mars please.

[Robotbeat]

SpaceX was doing fine with flight rate until the accident. So if they can avoid another accident, I think flight rate will mostly take care of itself. Probably not QUITE as fast as we'd all like, but one a month, maybe one every 2-3 weeks towards late 2017 if the rest of the year goes well.

[llanitedave]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Chemical rockets are getting cheaper.  Wouldn't work for the outer solar system, but Mars seems to be doable with them.  Nuclear rockets will be better suited to the asteroid belt, and the economics of THAT will probably be what makes Mars profitable.  I don't think anyone envisions that technology will remain static throughout this process.

[meekGee]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Chemical rockets are getting cheaper.  Wouldn't work for the outer solar system, but Mars seems to be doable with them.  Nuclear rockets will be better suited to the asteroid belt, and the economics of THAT will probably be what makes Mars profitable.  I don't think anyone envisions that technology will remain static throughout this process.

It'll be interesting to see if fuel production on Mars will open up the asteroids.

All these plans requires a lot of energy. I think nuclear on Mars will be necessary sooner rather than later.

Nuclear rockets, OTOH - what are we discussing?  (So I know which thread to take this to...)  Thermal?  Electric?

None of these exist in a "near term" kind of way, nor do they promise a solution ro something that is currently a show stopper.

[llanitedave]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Chemical rockets are getting cheaper.  Wouldn't work for the outer solar system, but Mars seems to be doable with them.  Nuclear rockets will be better suited to the asteroid belt, and the economics of THAT will probably be what makes Mars profitable.  I don't think anyone envisions that technology will remain static throughout this process.

It'll be interesting to see if fuel production on Mars will open up the asteroids.

All these plans requires a lot of energy. I think nuclear on Mars will be necessary sooner rather than later.

Nuclear rockets, OTOH - what are we discussing?  (So I know which thread to take this to...)  Thermal?  Electric?

Yeah, those are well beyond the scope of anything SpaceX has to do soon.  It's just here to get the process rolling.  After that, development should take care of itself.


As I said earlier, the things that SpaceX needs to do next year are the things it plans to do.  No insights from this particular peanut gallery are going to improve on that.

[meekGee]

The things that SpaceX needs to do next year are the things it plans to do.  No insights from this particular peanut gallery are going to improve on that.

Yup.

Meanwhile, we'll cross fingers on the FH launch. ..

[Robotbeat]

The things that SpaceX needs to do next year are the things it plans to do.  No insights from this particular peanut gallery are going to improve on that.

Yup.

Meanwhile, we'll cross fingers on the FH launch. ..

High chance, say 50%, of a failure in its first 5 launches. Just how these things are.

[bob the martian]

I think SpaceX are quite aware of what they need to do, and are in the process of doing it.  It's not like they intend to stand down for months at a time.  I have a sneaking suspicion Eric had a deadline and nothing else to fill the space with, so he went with a pretty "well, duh" article. 

They found a new failure mode, which is actually a good thing.  Unfortunately, they did so with the customer's payload strapped on, which was a bad thing.   But given the nature of the failure, it was just as likely to happen during the actual launch countdown as during a test; it was entirely possible that the static fire could have gone smoothly, and then have the stack disintegrate during the actual countdown (which, frankly, would have been worse from a PR perspective). 

As long as they insist on innovating and upgrading the platform, they're going to find new and exciting ways to blow up, and I don't think they should shy away from that.  Customers just have to be aware that they are trading risk for cost.  As long as that risk can be quantified (and insured against), I don't think they'll have any issues with future orders.

Having said that, they really need a good solid round of successful launches.  One-off failures are survivable, but two or more in a row could be deadly. 

[dglow]

All these plans requires a lot of energy. I think nuclear on Mars will be necessary sooner rather than later.

Nuclear rockets, OTOH - what are we discussing?  (So I know which thread to take this to...)  Thermal?  Electric?

Advanced Concepts: propellantless nuclear electric. 

[Nomadd]

To be clear - Orbcomm-OG2 wasn't "splashed" it was put in a lower-than intended orbit.

It burned up in the atmosphere and the remaining pieces likely landed in the ocean.  I believe the point was clear.

Less than 10% of that F9's payload by mass and value and still partly successful. Point seems pretty clear.

It failed to get to orbit because one of SpaceX's engines RUD'd during first stage flight, and it was a paying customer payload that burned up in the atmosphere.  They've launched other stuff for that company.  If those count as successes, this one counts as a failure.

No, it failed to get to the right orbit because somebody decided it was a risk to the ISS to try. The rocket was almost certainly capable of doing the job.

[meekGee]

All these plans requires a lot of energy. I think nuclear on Mars will be necessary sooner rather than later.

Nuclear rockets, OTOH - what are we discussing?  (So I know which thread to take this to...)  Thermal?  Electric?

Advanced Concepts: propellantless nuclear electric. 

You must be speaking of non other than the mysterious and alluring Elon Musk drive!

[ZachS09]

Here are the four things SpaceX can do next year:

1: Try their best not to freeze the liquid oxygen in any stage tanks during the fueling process.

2: Get SLC-40 fixed up as soon as possible.

3: Stay away from "GO Fever" and launch at a steady rate. No rush.

4: Recover as many cores as they can.

[john smith 19]

Get the new pad working.

Get the old pad fixed within the first 6 months of 2017.

Launch the FH sometime in 2017.

Launch from Vandenberg. Ideally an FH.

IIRC SX has to do 3 successful launches to cerfity FH for NSS payloads.  The sooner they start the sooner this becomes a potential revenue stream, and it looks like SX is going to need a lot of revenue.

[jcliving]

There's a feasible rocket design that will carry ~100 people.

100 such ships is 10,000 people per synod. This already puts you in the ballpark, so impossible, it ain't. 

You can think it won't happen, but that's a far cry from "can't"

And again, why would a nuclear ship be any different?

There is a draft design for launching 100 people, but It has not progressed far enough for me to be comfortable calling it a feasible design.  I will stipulate that a viable ship that launches 100 people makes 10k per synod possible.  It still does not seem to be economically feasible to build 100 ITS ships plus the supporting tankers within the next 30 years.

[Robotbeat]

Musk seems to think reaching a million people on Mars could take a full century. But building 3 ITSes per year doesn't sound that hard. We used to talk about SLS flight rates of 4-10 per year, which is about the same level of difficulty and might cost more.

[jcliving]

It is very important to avoid an accident in 2017.  That has to be the top priority for Spacex.  The other very important goal is successfully reusing a core.  As long as people have faith Spacex will solve the reuse problem there will be tolerance for a slightly elevated failure rate.

[Robotbeat]

They can avoid a failure by just not launching very much.

[Nomadd]

They can avoid a failure by just not launching very much.

That would be one of the worst failures.

[Robotbeat]

They can avoid a failure by just not launching very much.

That would be one of the worst failures.

Precisely.

[rockets4life97]

I think Red Dragon is very important. SpaceX's reason for existence is Mars. Sending something to Mars in 2018 (even if it crashes - still valuable EDL data) is a big step towards fulfilling that goal. FH and Crew Dragon are on the critical path, so there needs to be big steps forward in 2017.

I'm not saying getting Falcon flying regularly isn't important - the satellite business and ISS business pay the bills - but I think much can be forgiven if they can pull off Red Dragon in 2018.

[ShawnGSE]

Get the new pad working.

Get the old pad fixed within the first 6 months of 2017.

Launch the FH sometime in 2017.

Launch from Vandenberg. Ideally an FH.

IIRC SX has to do 3 successful launches to cerfity FH for NSS payloads.  The sooner they start the sooner this becomes a potential revenue stream, and it looks like SX is going to need a lot of revenue.

There will be no FH launches from Vandenberg.

[AncientU]

In 2017? Or ever?

[Rocket Science]

Restrict their "blowing-up" experiments to the test stand and not the pad...

[ShawnGSE]

In 2017? Or ever?

Ever is a long time but as currently configured it will not launch a FH. 

[Kansan52]

Ok, you've got my curiosity going. Memory says that the Vandeburg launch site was modified to do F9 or FH and at one time the first FH launch would be there.

[Robotbeat]

But FH has changed a lot since then.

[AncientU]

In 2017? Or ever?

Ever is a long time but as currently configured it will not launch a FH.

Is there a single show-stopper, or just general upgrades of TEL, etc. needed to deal with latest design iteration (which hopefully will be the final 'Block' for a while)?

Maybe the saturated ground in Boca Chica will be a blessing in disguise... it postponed development of the launch facility while FH (and F9 Block 5) was still a moving target.

[ShawnGSE]

Ok, you've got my curiosity going. Memory says that the Vandeburg launch site was modified to do F9 or FH and at one time the first FH launch would be there.

I can't go into detailed specifics really but Google images of the Vandy pad show pretty clearly why.  While several things have been upgraded, you can clearly see the differences in the Vandy launch frame versus what is proposed in the last FH video from 39A. 

[matthewkantar]

I thought the base of the TEL had removable plugs so that it could adapt to F9 or FH. Is it that the flame trench is not wide enough?

Matthew

[ShawnGSE]

As shown in the 39A illustration that would only affect the hold downs that touch the single stick on east and west sides.  There isn't a "plug" that has 3 hold downs on it. 

[Aussie_Space_Nut]

Yes Elon's Mars/Solar System colonisation vision is completely nuts!

That is what makes it so exciting. We've all read our sci-fi books for years and can't wait to see it.

Without progressing this vision in some real ways the people alongside him, his team, will lose heart and move on.

Yes Elon needs to keep the money rolling in through a successful workhorse rocket. Without this, his team will not get paid and eventually move on.

So for me its not about what can be done but what should be done to balance these 2 goals.

I don't see some cazy eyed nut case throwing away reason while bankrupting the company on a crazy dream. Take the falcon heavy for a great example. We are only just now seeing hardware. This has been a measured approach building off earlier successes. He did'nt try and do it all at once. But by progressing the falcon 9 he was always working towards it. We see this again with retropropulsion, great for landing used 1st stages here on Earth, great for learning how to do it on Mars.

If the recent past is anything to go by I think Musk will balance the "Mars" stuff and the workhorse stuff really well.

[Vultur]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

1) I don't think any meaningful statements about economics can be made this far into the future. Our current economy was IMO not predictable from the standpoint of, say, 1920.

2) The assumption that normal economics apply to this situation is not necessarily true, even in the much nearer term. Multibillionaires like Musk and Bezos investing in space primarily for its own sake rather than for financial returns change the picture rather dramatically. There's a definitely non-zero chance that, say, Tesla gets hugely successful in the next decade or two and Musk gets enough money to fund the Mars colony by himself.

EDIT:

Digitize (at least) a few hundred thousand individuals' DNA sequences. Pack them into a spacecraft that also contains all the precursor chemicals to turn the digital data into human beings, as well as enough servos and AI to control the process.

The problem is that this level of biotech and AI is way harder than building ITS. ITS, if I remember correctly, contains no undemonstrated technologies - it's just much larger scale.

Building a human from chemicals, no starting cells, is incredibly hard and would be pretty much a fundamental breakthrough.

AI capable of raising a functional human child would effectively be strong AI, which requires a fundamental breakthrough (and electronic computers are different enough from brains that I don't think we can even say that it's known to be possible at all - non-electronic computers like quantum computers or DNA computers are very primitive or largely theoretical.)

[Vultur]

As long as they insist on innovating and upgrading the platform, they're going to find new and exciting ways to blow up, and I don't think they should shy away from that.  Customers just have to be aware that they are trading risk for cost.  As long as that risk can be quantified (and insured against), I don't think they'll have any issues with future orders.

This. If the RTF blew up, that would be really bad for them, but they're enough cheaper than ULA that they don't need ULA-level reliability to be commercially viable. I don't think most commercial payloads cost enough that paying the difference (for an ULA flight) is worth it for a few percent improvement in reliability (say 93% to 99%). Wasn't the one destroyed "only" $200 million or so? If so, you'd need something like a 20% reliability difference (79% vs 99%) to make up for a (say) $40 million cost difference.

The real problem will be Commercial Crew.

[meekGee]

I think the economic model is not crazy at all, it's just that it hasn't been used in a couple of centuries....

But this certainly is not one of the four things they need to do in 2017..

[matthewkantar]

The real problem will be Commercial Crew.

If the LAS works as hoped Spacex could lose a mission, and not lose a crew. I don't think that would be so bad.

If they lose a crew, that would be very bad for all concerned.

Matthew

[JamesH65]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years, and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

Doing with nuclear rockets is even less likely.

It's less likely because it's damn sight more difficult to do than building the ITS. Someone who knows (Henry Spencer) is of the opinion that inner planets exploration is best done with chemical, you only need nuclear for the outer planets, which is much longer term goal anyway.

And note, NO ONE is developing nuclear engines, and the cost to do so would dwarf the cost of the ITS system anyway.

ITS is cheapest done with chemical - it's a known technology.

[john smith 19]

This. If the RTF blew up, that would be really bad for them, but they're enough cheaper than ULA that they don't need ULA-level reliability to be commercially viable.

They are substantially cheaper than ULA but not Ariane 5, merely competitive AFAIK.

I don't think most commercial payloads cost enough that paying the difference (for an ULA flight) is worth it for a few percent improvement in reliability (say 93% to 99%). Wasn't the one destroyed "only" $200 million or so? If so, you'd need something like a 20% reliability difference (79% vs 99%) to make up for a (say) $40 million cost difference.

The real problem will be Commercial Crew.

[DOCinCT]

It's less likely because it's damn sight more difficult to do than building the ITS. Someone who knows (Henry Spencer) is of the opinion that inner planets exploration is best done with chemical, you only need nuclear for the outer planets, which is much longer term goal anyway.
And note, NO ONE is developing nuclear engines, and the cost to do so would dwarf the cost of the ITS system anyway.

The combined cost of combined Rover/NERVA programs (1955 to 1972) is about $7.6B, F1 cost $3B, SMEE $4B (and counting). Not quite "dwarfing" cost of ITS (which is more likely more than the $10B Musk is speculating on.
The  NR-1 (RIFT) program was a close to flight prototype; proposed designs are more sophisticated and advanced. One way to pay for the cost is in avoiding multiple SLS launches needed for chemical alternatives. 
NASA still spends money on testing core materials as the concept of NRP has never really gone away. see: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140002718.pdf and spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon10-12/Borowski_6-27-12/Borowski_6-27-12.ppt

[IainMcClatchie]

I recognise that comsats are less exciting than Mars, uh, occupation.  But there is no business case for occupation.  Without profit it cannot scale.

Comsats have been shown to be profitable.  A LEO last-mile constellation addresses a growing trillion-dollar market, but has, so far, cost too much to deploy.

If SpaceX can drop the cost of a LEO constellation enough to make last-mile internet service cost effective, that will change them and the world utterly.  Apple is a nearly $200B/year company.  SpaceX can be a > $500B/year company.  The available profit will force them to hire hundreds of thousands of people.  They will end up in very high stakes negotiations with most countries.  The real estate of space will become vastly more valuable, and therefore there will be more struggle to control it, both commercially and militarily.  Huge numbers of people who currently do not care at all about space stuff because it does not affect them will become interested.

Therefore, the most important thing SpaceX can do in 2017 is make progress on the constellation.  Launch a couple demo satellites.

[AncientU]

It's less likely because it's damn sight more difficult to do than building the ITS. Someone who knows (Henry Spencer) is of the opinion that inner planets exploration is best done with chemical, you only need nuclear for the outer planets, which is much longer term goal anyway.
And note, NO ONE is developing nuclear engines, and the cost to do so would dwarf the cost of the ITS system anyway.

The combined cost of combined Rover/NERVA programs (1955 to 1972) is about $7.6B, F1 cost $3B, SMEE $4B (and counting). Not quite "dwarfing" cost of ITS (which is more likely more than the $10B Musk is speculating on.
The  NR-1 (RIFT) program was a close to flight prototype; proposed designs are more sophisticated and advanced. One way to pay for the cost is in avoiding multiple SLS launches needed for chemical alternatives. 
NASA still spends money on testing core materials as the concept of NRP has never really gone away. see: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140002718.pdf and spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon10-12/Borowski_6-27-12/Borowski_6-27-12.ppt

One of the four things Spacex must do in 2017 is ignore the nuclear in-space engine option.

1. They already have a prototype of their in-space engine which is common with their booster engine thus incredibly cost effective;
2. The 30-40% improvement on IMLEO with nuclear is insignificant when an orders of magnitude improvement is needed to make Mars viable; and
3. The cost of the 25klbf engine program exceeds the cost of the entire ITS.

Reusability and refueling are game changers -- nuclear is not. 

(Don't be distracted by shiny objects.)
(Don't wade into the swamp of anti-nuclear public opinion.)

Edit: Added quote

[Robotbeat]

I recognise that comsats are less exciting than Mars, uh, occupation.  But there is no business case for occupation.  Without profit it cannot scale.

Comsats have been shown to be profitable.  A LEO last-mile constellation addresses a growing trillion-dollar market, but has, so far, cost too much to deploy.

If SpaceX can drop the cost of a LEO constellation enough to make last-mile internet service cost effective, that will change them and the world utterly.  Apple is a nearly $200B/year company.  SpaceX can be a > $500B/year company.  The available profit will force them to hire hundreds of thousands of people.  They will end up in very high stakes negotiations with most countries.  The real estate of space will become vastly more valuable, and therefore there will be more struggle to control it, both commercially and militarily.  Huge numbers of people who currently do not care at all about space stuff because it does not affect them will become interested.

Therefore, the most important thing SpaceX can do in 2017 is make progress on the constellation.  Launch a couple demo satellites.

Good point.

I'd argue that getting F9 on solid footing (preferably with actual reuse) is a nearer-term priority, but you're absolutely right about the constellation.

If they are highly successful with F9 and the constellation, they'll have plenty of resources for everything else.

[john smith 19]

I recognise that comsats are less exciting than Mars, uh, occupation.  But there is no business case for occupation.  Without profit it cannot scale.

As always it depends. Can SX develop the system for a low enough price that they can recoup the costs on the passenger? $500k for a 100 passengers. That's $50m. Full reusability means the more flights the more profit if the operating costs are a (fairly) small fraction of total customer revenue.

Comsats have been shown to be profitable.  A LEO last-mile constellation addresses a growing trillion-dollar market, but has, so far, cost too much to deploy.

Actually Orbcomm worked but their goals were more modest. Iridium worked once the company went bankrupt and re-financed.

Huge numbers of people who currently do not care at all about space stuff because it does not affect them will become interested.

Huge number of people depend on the GPS system but how many of them think about it's satellite based?  There's a rather amusing Sky news report where one of their reporters is interviewing someone from Reaction Engines. The reporter is literally unaware that what they do depends on comm sats working.

Unless the service is directly delivered to them by "SpacexBroadand (TM)" I doubt anyone will notice it.

The money it generates is another matter. If the revenue produced is that great all of SX's goals become easier.

Therefore, the most important thing SpaceX can do in 2017 is make progress on the constellation.  Launch a couple demo satellites.

Certainly on their todo list.

[Lee Jay]

As always it depends. Can SX develop the system for a low enough price that they can recoup the costs on the passenger? $500k for a 100 passengers. That's $50m. Full reusability means the more flights the more profit if the operating costs are a (fairly) small fraction of total customer revenue.

That's less than the cost of just the fuel and oxidizer - on Earth - for those 100 passengers and the supplies and equipment they'll need to survive the trip and the stay.  So, even if the rockets are free, the operations costs are free, the supplies and equipment are free, and you have 100% reusability, it'll cost more than that.

[Robotbeat]

I recognise that comsats are less exciting than Mars, uh, occupation.  But there is no business case for occupation.  Without profit it cannot scale.

As always it depends. Can SX develop the system for a low enough price that they can recoup the costs on the passenger? $500k for a 100 passengers. That's $50m. Full reusability means the more flights the more profit if the operating costs are a (fairly) small fraction of total customer revenue.

Comsats have been shown to be profitable.  A LEO last-mile constellation addresses a growing trillion-dollar market, but has, so far, cost too much to deploy.

Actually Orbcomm worked but their goals were more modest. Iridium worked once the company went bankrupt and re-financed.

Huge numbers of people who currently do not care at all about space stuff because it does not affect them will become interested.

Huge number of people depend on the GPS system but how many of them think about it's satellite based?  There's a rather amusing Sky news report where one of their reporters is interviewing someone from Reaction Engines. The reporter is literally unaware that what they do depends on comm sats working.

Unless the service is directly delivered to them by "SpacexBroadand (TM)" I doubt anyone will notice it.

The money it generates is another matter. If the revenue produced is that great all of SX's goals become easier.

Therefore, the most important thing SpaceX can do in 2017 is make progress on the constellation.  Launch a couple demo satellites.

Certainly on their todo list.

Yeah, I agree. Most people have no idea about space, and I doubt the constellation will change that. Heck, we'll have a million people and Mars and other places, and most people still won't think about it.

[Robotbeat]

As always it depends. Can SX develop the system for a low enough price that they can recoup the costs on the passenger? $500k for a 100 passengers. That's $50m. Full reusability means the more flights the more profit if the operating costs are a (fairly) small fraction of total customer revenue.

That's less than the cost of just the fuel and oxidizer - on Earth - for those 100 passengers and the supplies and equipment they'll need to survive the trip and the stay.  So, even if the rockets are free, the operations costs are free, the supplies and equipment are free, and you have 100% reusability, it'll cost more than that.

If you use RP1, maybe. Not industrial methane and oxygen in bulk.

[john smith 19]

If you use RP1, maybe. Not industrial methane and oxygen in bulk.

RP1 is not cheap relative to other hydrocarbons. I've no feel for bulk Methane pricing or what sort of mass we're talking about, although obviously in the 10s to 100s of tonnes.

[Robotbeat]

If you use RP1, maybe. Not industrial methane and oxygen in bulk.

RP1 is not cheap relative to other hydrocarbons. I've no feel for bulk Methane pricing or what sort of mass we're talking about, although obviously in the 10s to 100s of tonnes.

On the order of 100 tons of methane per person, 400 tons of O2.

[envy887]

If you use RP1, maybe. Not industrial methane and oxygen in bulk.

RP1 is not cheap relative to other hydrocarbons. I've no feel for bulk Methane pricing or what sort of mass we're talking about, although obviously in the 10s to 100s of tonnes.

Landing 1 loaded ITS on Mars will require roughly 50,000 tonnes of methalox. Methalox bulk cost is about $0.20 per kg, so that's $10M. Each passenger would have to contribute roughly $100k to pay for fuel if there are 100 per flight.

[meekGee]

I recognise that comsats are less exciting than Mars, uh, occupation.  But there is no business case for occupation.  Without profit it cannot scale.

Comsats have been shown to be profitable.  A LEO last-mile constellation addresses a growing trillion-dollar market, but has, so far, cost too much to deploy.

If SpaceX can drop the cost of a LEO constellation enough to make last-mile internet service cost effective, that will change them and the world utterly.  Apple is a nearly $200B/year company.  SpaceX can be a > $500B/year company.  The available profit will force them to hire hundreds of thousands of people.  They will end up in very high stakes negotiations with most countries.  The real estate of space will become vastly more valuable, and therefore there will be more struggle to control it, both commercially and militarily.  Huge numbers of people who currently do not care at all about space stuff because it does not affect them will become interested.

Therefore, the most important thing SpaceX can do in 2017 is make progress on the constellation.  Launch a couple demo satellites.

Absolutely agreed on the constellation. It may be a "detour", but it is potentially a huge revenue source.

But here's something they need to do IMO.  The constellation will require constant launches.  Tens per year.  All to similar LEO orbits.  Launch cost will be a significant part of the total constellation cost.

They also have competition from oneWeb.

SpaceX has an opportunity to reduce launch costs through full reusability.  For several reasons outlined in other threads, full reusability of S2 has been deferred for now.  A lot of it had to do with the fact that the S2 is really optimized for delivery to GTO.

But launching the BFC satellites with a generic S2 and a fairing system is really sub-optimal.

What SpaceX needs, to be competitive, is a reusable all-in-one S2 dispenser combo.

Consider:

- BFC launches are pretty much "all the same"
- BFC launches are volume limited, since they are to LEO, and F9 has a LOT of performance now.
- BFC launches are to LEO, which makes reentry and recovery easier. (e.g. air capture over the ocean near the launch site)
- BFC satellites are small. This means there's no need for a large fairing the encompasses the whole thing. You can integrate the fairing with the structure, and still allow the satellites to be deployed.
- If you try to carry too many satellites, you become inefficient because they won't all go into the same orbital plane.

- A fully reusable system is going to be cheaper, and that's the SpaceX way - optimize for cost.  Make a launch system that puts enough satellites per orbital plane, and then comes back and is fully reusable - giving them a unique edge over the competition that will be launching using expendables.

But I don't know if we'll see this in 2017 already...  I think they certainly need to start working on it.

[john smith 19]

Landing 1 loaded ITS on Mars will require roughly 50,000 tonnes of methalox. Methalox bulk cost is about $0.20 per kg, so that's $10M. Each passenger would have to contribute roughly $100k to pay for fuel if there are 100 per flight.

Thanks for that. Can you split out the bulk Methane cost alone?

So $400k/passenger left to cover other consumables, and all development and launch costs.
I'm using a round trip time of 2 years to Mars & back so maybe 15 flights in 30 years? That's about $750m revenue per vehicle over it's lifetime, less 150m for the propellant that's $650m for everything. That suggests 2 could recover a $1Bn development cost over their lifetimes.

It's pretty obvious they will be building more than one hull. I think once you send more than one vehicle at a time the risks of catastrophic failure in one of them drops a lot, like having engine out capability during launch. Likewise more hulls means less overhead per hull to allocate to the contingency of taking on passengers from other hulls. To keep it reasonable I think you need to have at least 4 hulls at a time in transit. 

I'm not sure how much they can do in 2017 toward this. Musk has said they've done full size tanks and 1/4 scale Raptors already.  Finish the ground tests on the 1/4 Raptor and move to the full size one?
Start on a full size ground dummy of the ITS?

[Lar]

Musk has said they've done full size tanks and 1/4 scale Raptors already.

1/4 scale raptors? [[citation needed]]  I think you're thinking about power levels.

[john smith 19]

Musk has said they've done full size tanks and 1/4 scale Raptors already.

1/4 scale raptors? [[citation needed]]  I think you're thinking about power levels.

No. It struck in my mind because it was odd. It was IIRC during the ITS reveal. The first Raptor run was long enough to give steady state readings but then he mentioned it was 1/4 size, not quarter power.

[envy887]

Per this article the test raptor is a 1000 kN sub scale version, with the goal of reaching 3050 in with the production version: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/10/its-propulsion-evolution-raptor-engine/

There's some debate to whether that means the test engine is full size hardware at lower pressures, or smaller hardware at full pressures. Personally I think it's the latter, as it's much easier to scale hardware to 3x area (1.73x diameter) than to 3x chamber pressure.

[Robotbeat]

That's not true. Scaling size changes the physics a lot. It also would actually be smaller than Merlin 1D. That means it's need different tooling. Changing operating pressure means no change in tooling, because after all:

They already need Raptor to throttle down, i.e. Operate at lower pressure.

Operating at lower pressure is much easier, since the challenge of Raptor isn't the size (it's the same size as Merlin) but the extreme pressure.

Operating a smaller version of Raptor but at the same pressure would still require the insane double-stage turbo pump, which is one of the most challenging parts. It'd also require the crazy alloys for the oxygen side.

It makes far more sense to me that it was operated at lower pressure than a separate smaller scale design but at the crazy high pressure. Frankly, I don't understand the obsession here about sub scale Raptor. The challenge of Raptor isn't it's scale but the high pressure and the ox-rich side of the turbopump, neither of which are really easier at smaller scale. But operating at lower pressure definitely does help.

[douglas100]

...What SpaceX needs, to be competitive, is a reusable all-in-one S2 dispenser combo.

Consider:

- BFC launches are pretty much "all the same"
- BFC launches are volume limited, since they are to LEO, and F9 has a LOT of performance now.
- BFC launches are to LEO, which makes reentry and recovery easier. (e.g. air capture over the ocean near the launch site)
- BFC satellites are small. This means there's no need for a large fairing the encompasses the whole thing. You can integrate the fairing with the structure, and still allow the satellites to be deployed.
- If you try to carry too many satellites, you become inefficient because they won't all go into the same orbital plane.

- A fully reusable system is going to be cheaper, and that's the SpaceX way - optimize for cost.  Make a launch system that puts enough satellites per orbital plane, and then comes back and is fully reusable - giving them a unique edge over the competition that will be launching using expendables.

But I don't know if we'll see this in 2017 already...  I think they certainly need to start working on it.

A fully reusable system will probably be cheaper. But bear in mind that there has been no re-use of the recovered stages yet. That comes before any serious work on recovering the second stage. They were right to defer it. There are too many other things to do.

And the first thing is a no-brainer: returning the F9 successfully to flight. Everything else, including the constellation, is secondary. So I don't think you will see a reusable second stage fly in 2017. It doesn't mean they won't be working on it, though.

[envy887]

That's not true. Scaling size changes the physics a lot. It also would actually be smaller than Merlin 1D. That means it's need different tooling. Changing operating pressure means no change in tooling, because after all:

They already need Raptor to throttle down, i.e. Operate at lower pressure.

Operating at lower pressure is much easier, since the challenge of Raptor isn't the size (it's the same size as Merlin) but the extreme pressure.

Operating a smaller version of Raptor but at the same pressure would still require the insane double-stage turbo pump, which is one of the most challenging parts. It'd also require the crazy alloys for the oxygen side.

It makes far more sense to me that it was operated at lower pressure than a separate smaller scale design but at the crazy high pressure. Frankly, I don't understand the obsession here about sub scale Raptor. The challenge of Raptor isn't it's scale but the high pressure and the ox-rich side of the turbopump, neither of which are really easier at smaller scale. But operating at lower pressure definitely does help.

The point is to prove they can do the hard parts, not try to build a less capable but easier to make engine. Once they solve the pressure and ox-rich issues, scaling is fairly easy.

Testing a sub-scale full pressure engine means they are a lot closer to flying Raptor than testing a full scale low pressure version.

[meekGee]

...What SpaceX needs, to be competitive, is a reusable all-in-one S2 dispenser combo.

Consider:

- BFC launches are pretty much "all the same"
- BFC launches are volume limited, since they are to LEO, and F9 has a LOT of performance now.
- BFC launches are to LEO, which makes reentry and recovery easier. (e.g. air capture over the ocean near the launch site)
- BFC satellites are small. This means there's no need for a large fairing the encompasses the whole thing. You can integrate the fairing with the structure, and still allow the satellites to be deployed.
- If you try to carry too many satellites, you become inefficient because they won't all go into the same orbital plane.

- A fully reusable system is going to be cheaper, and that's the SpaceX way - optimize for cost.  Make a launch system that puts enough satellites per orbital plane, and then comes back and is fully reusable - giving them a unique edge over the competition that will be launching using expendables.

But I don't know if we'll see this in 2017 already...  I think they certainly need to start working on it.

A fully reusable system will probably be cheaper. But bear in mind that there has been no re-use of the recovered stages yet. That comes before any serious work on recovering the second stage. They were right to defer it. There are too many other things to do.

And the first thing is a no-brainer: returning the F9 successfully to flight. Everything else, including the constellation, is secondary. So I don't think you will see a reusable second stage fly in 2017. It doesn't mean they won't be working on it, though.

There hasn't been, but from a development standpoint, they are pretty advanced there.

Unlike conventional satellites, with BFC, they have a chance to simply price competitors out of the market, since they can be running a fully reusable launcher.

Reusing a second stage is in many ways easier than reusing a first stage. The only problem is that it eats up payload mass.

But with BFC, it actually plays out that there's inherently a lot of unused lifting capacity...  So they can use that capacity for a heatshield and parachute, and maybe some structural enhancements, which is all it really takes.  Remember they know how to re-enter already.

[DigitalMan]

Landing 1 loaded ITS on Mars will require roughly 50,000 tonnes of methalox. Methalox bulk cost is about $0.20 per kg, so that's $10M. Each passenger would have to contribute roughly $100k to pay for fuel if there are 100 per flight.

Thanks for that. Can you split out the bulk Methane cost alone?

So $400k/passenger left to cover other consumables, and all development and launch costs.
I'm using a round trip time of 2 years to Mars & back so maybe 15 flights in 30 years? That's about $750m revenue per vehicle over it's lifetime, less 150m for the propellant that's $650m for everything. That suggests 2 could recover a $1Bn development cost over their lifetimes.

It's pretty obvious they will be building more than one hull. I think once you send more than one vehicle at a time the risks of catastrophic failure in one of them drops a lot, like having engine out capability during launch. Likewise more hulls means less overhead per hull to allocate to the contingency of taking on passengers from other hulls. To keep it reasonable I think you need to have at least 4 hulls at a time in transit. 

I'm not sure how much they can do in 2017 toward this. Musk has said they've done full size tanks and 1/4 scale Raptors already.  Finish the ground tests on the 1/4 Raptor and move to the full size one?
Start on a full size ground dummy of the ITS?

The ITS slides show methane cost of $168/ton

[Robotbeat]

Landing 1 loaded ITS on Mars will require roughly 50,000 tonnes of methalox. Methalox bulk cost is about $0.20 per kg, so that's $10M. Each passenger would have to contribute roughly $100k to pay for fuel if there are 100 per flight.

Thanks for that. Can you split out the bulk Methane cost alone?

So $400k/passenger left to cover other consumables, and all development and launch costs.
I'm using a round trip time of 2 years to Mars & back so maybe 15 flights in 30 years? That's about $750m revenue per vehicle over it's lifetime, less 150m for the propellant that's $650m for everything. That suggests 2 could recover a $1Bn development cost over their lifetimes.

It's pretty obvious they will be building more than one hull. I think once you send more than one vehicle at a time the risks of catastrophic failure in one of them drops a lot, like having engine out capability during launch. Likewise more hulls means less overhead per hull to allocate to the contingency of taking on passengers from other hulls. To keep it reasonable I think you need to have at least 4 hulls at a time in transit. 

I'm not sure how much they can do in 2017 toward this. Musk has said they've done full size tanks and 1/4 scale Raptors already.  Finish the ground tests on the 1/4 Raptor and move to the full size one?
Start on a full size ground dummy of the ITS?

The ITS slides show methane cost of $168/ton

That's the spot price at the time of the presentation, roughly. So cheap that the liquid oxygen actually costs more, I believe (partly because you need more of it).

Optimistically, triple that price if you want to synthesize it from electricity. (triple the methane cost. the oxygen cost stays basically the same)

[john smith 19]

The ITS slides show methane cost of $168/ton

Thanks for that. Yes that's less than 8c/lb

That's the spot price at the time of the presentation, roughly. So cheap that the liquid oxygen actually costs more, I believe (partly because you need more of it).

Optimistically, triple that price if you want to synthesize it from electricity. (triple the methane cost. the oxygen cost stays basically the same)

That's uncharacteristically down beat of  you.

Unlike Hydrogen Methane can be produced by biology

[Robotbeat]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

But each passenger only needs like 100 tons of methane. So even at $500/ton, that's not so bad. (need about 400 tons of liquid oxygen, which is like $110/ton, maybe less if you make it yourself)

(Side note: hydrogen can also be made biologically.)

[MP99]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

But each passenger only needs like 100 tons of methane. So even at $500/ton, that's not so bad. (need about 400 tons of liquid oxygen, which is like $110/ton, maybe less if you make it yourself)

(Side note: hydrogen can also be made biologically.)

One question re biomethane - how pure is it? Would it need a lot of purification before being used as fuel?

Cheers, Martin

[Torbjorn Larsson, OM]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

But each passenger only needs like 100 tons of methane. So even at $500/ton, that's not so bad. (need about 400 tons of liquid oxygen, which is like $110/ton, maybe less if you make it yourself)

(Side note: hydrogen can also be made biologically.)

One question re biomethane - how pure is it? Would it need a lot of purification before being used as fuel?

Cheers, Martin

It must be the New Year - this made me chuckle.  You know what the local lingo calls that which a rocket need to get to orbit? You know, purely that and nothing else, as SpaceX likes to tell us - velocity?

It is called "fart".   

[john smith 19]

There's some debate to whether that means the test engine is full size hardware at lower pressures, or smaller hardware at full pressures. Personally I think it's the latter, as it's much easier to scale hardware to 3x area (1.73x diameter) than to 3x chamber pressure.

The article you cited certainly makes it sound like a smaller engine has been built. That gives you smaller pressure vessels to mfg which are better able to cope with high pressures. IIRC Cost models for engines scale at around Pc^3 and swallowing the hard work of high pressure up front (along with all the issues around the tight coupling of the start sequence. SSME was a nightmare. The much improved engine modelling should help, but now you've got 2 pre burners to start up in which order, or both together? If together how far out of synch can you let their startups get before an abort? And so on) in a smaller engine is the sensible option. Smaller parts to build, smaller parts to rebuild if they fail.

[john smith 19]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

Perhaps not but that's on Earth. On Mars energy of any kind is going to be expensive.

Even assuming the hulls can come back completely empty as an RPV/autopilot system they're still going to need a lot of propellant to get them back to Earth orbit.

[Robotbeat]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

Perhaps not but that's on Earth. On Mars energy of any kind is going to be expensive.

Even assuming the hulls can come back completely empty as an RPV/autopilot system they're still going to need a lot of propellant to get them back to Earth orbit.

Solar power is getting pretty cheap. There's ~half as much sunlight on Mars, sure, but I would BET you there's more average sunlight near the equator on some parts of Mars than most of northern Germany (consider that much of northern Germany gets less than half the sunlight as parts of the American Southwest and less than a THIRD the sunlight of parts of the Andes and Australia). And more consistent over the year, too, even taking into consideration dust storms (although that's less critical for our discussion here, which is about overall propellant production capability).

Solar panels (not just cells but panels) are down to around 39 cents per Watt, now. Probably will keep falling to below 25 cents per Watt, especially for thin film. And thin film solar could be made ridiculously lightweight given the right substrate. So you could ship the cells to Mars cheaply on ITS and install them on a frame built on Mars out of local material. Vast fields of solar panels on Mars, placed with some sort of semi-automated machine like we plant and harvest crops on Earth or lay railroads.

And nuclear power could be relatively cheap, too (assuming we have some local manufacturing capability... not super sophisticated necessarily). Worries about exposure are less critical since the whole surface is bathed in radiation, and land is basically free (IF you can get there). So it's possible you could build and run reactors cheaper on Mars (shipping only the sophisticated parts, not massive things like containment vessels which aren't needed on Mars and/or could be made locally anyway from meteoric iron) than you could in a highly developed country on Earth due to cost of land and radiation concerns. You could possibly use thorium-burning reactors (doesn't /have/ to be a sophisticated molten salt design, but I guess it could be) and only send basically raw thorium to Mars packed carefully.

So it's not obvious that by the time any of this happens that power would be immensely expensive on Mars. Initial setup WILL be expensive, but once you have some ability to build simple structures on Mars, it could be relatively reasonable.

[meekGee]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

Perhaps not but that's on Earth. On Mars energy of any kind is going to be expensive.

Even assuming the hulls can come back completely empty as an RPV/autopilot system they're still going to need a lot of propellant to get them back to Earth orbit.

Solar power is getting pretty cheap. There's ~half as much sunlight on Mars, sure, but I would BET you there's more average sunlight near the equator on some parts of Mars than most of northern Germany (consider that much of northern Germany gets less than half the sunlight as parts of the American Southwest and less than a THIRD the sunlight of parts of the Andes and Australia). And more consistent over the year, too, even taking into consideration dust storms (although that's less critical for our discussion here, which is about overall propellant production capability).

Solar panels (not just cells but panels) are down to around 39 cents per Watt, now. Probably will keep falling to below 25 cents per Watt, especially for thin film. And thin film solar could be made ridiculously lightweight given the right substrate. So you could ship the cells to Mars cheaply on ITS and install them on a frame built on Mars out of local material. Vast fields of solar panels on Mars, placed with some sort of semi-automated machine like we plant and harvest crops on Earth or lay railroads.

And nuclear power could be relatively cheap, too (assuming we have some local manufacturing capability... not super sophisticated necessarily). Worries about exposure are less critical since the whole surface is bathed in radiation, and land is basically free (IF you can get there). So it's possible you could build and run reactors cheaper on Mars (shipping only the sophisticated parts, not massive things like containment vessels which aren't needed on Mars and/or could be made locally anyway from meteoric iron) than you could in a highly developed country on Earth due to cost of land and radiation concerns. You could possibly use thorium-burning reactors (doesn't /have/ to be a sophisticated molten salt design, but I guess it could be) and only send basically raw thorium to Mars packed carefully.

So it's not obvious that by the time any of this happens that power would be immensely expensive on Mars. Initial setup WILL be expensive, but once you have some ability to build simple structures on Mars, it could be relatively reasonable.

All true, all good, one comment - Mars inclination is higher, so while consistent, solar power generation during winter is consistently low.   But that's just a known consistent factor you just have to bring into account.

For nuclear, I betcha legal costs on earth are higher than interplanetary transport costs...

And hey, there's always Hydrino power.

[Lar]

Biomethane is pretty clearly offtopic, so stop farting around and stick to the topic.

[john smith 19]

Hmm.

I think it's pretty clear that SX should avoid doing anything nuclear related in 2017.

I'm hopeful that NASA's work on the KiloPower project will deliver results that can be of use to SX. 5-10Kw seems a nice granular size for use in a variety of projects, on Mars, off Mars and en route to Mars.

But SX getting into nuclear technology directly seems a very bad use of time and what would be very significant resources, for all the issues around the approaches to space nuclear systems.

More positively if they want to meet the 2018 deadline for a Mars landing they will have to complete work on Red Dragon and I presume get it launched.

[Robotbeat]

Hmm.

I think it's pretty clear that SX should avoid doing anything nuclear related in 2017.

I'm hopeful that NASA's work on the KiloPower project will deliver results that can be of use to SX. 5-10Kw seems a nice granular size for use in a variety of projects, on Mars, off Mars and en route to Mars.

But SX getting into nuclear technology directly seems a very bad use of time and what would be very significant resources, for all the issues around the approaches to space nuclear systems.

More positively if they want to meet the 2018 deadline for a Mars landing they will have to complete work on Red Dragon and I presume get it launched.

Agreed.

[launchwatcher]

More positively if they want to meet the 2018 deadline for a Mars landing they will have to complete work on Red Dragon and I presume get it launched.

I don't think they're likely to land a Dragon on Mars in 2018 if they don't launch FH a few times in 2017 and their chance of success will be higher if they can flight-test anything novel that will be on board the first RD, but there would be no reason to launch RD to Mars in 2017.

Dinking around with the Ames trajectory browser, it looks like the next departure window is centered on May 2018, with minimal delta-V trajectories getting them there in December.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Not down-beat at all. Methane straight from the ground is ridiculously cheap right now in the US.

And a ton of methane is about 15 MWh of energy though takes almost twice that in electricity to produce it, say 25MWh. Even with, like 2 cents per kWh, you're still looking at $500. But you also have capital cost of the electrolysis, etc.

Biomethane wouldn't be cheaper than that.

Perhaps not but that's on Earth. On Mars energy of any kind is going to be expensive.

Even assuming the hulls can come back completely empty as an RPV/autopilot system they're still going to need a lot of propellant to get them back to Earth orbit.

Solar power is getting pretty cheap. There's ~half as much sunlight on Mars, sure, but I would BET you there's more average sunlight near the equator on some parts of Mars than most of northern Germany (consider that much of northern Germany gets less than half the sunlight as parts of the American Southwest and less than a THIRD the sunlight of parts of the Andes and Australia). And more consistent over the year, too, even taking into consideration dust storms (although that's less critical for our discussion here, which is about overall propellant production capability).

Solar panels (not just cells but panels) are down to around 39 cents per Watt, now. Probably will keep falling to below 25 cents per Watt, especially for thin film. And thin film solar could be made ridiculously lightweight given the right substrate. So you could ship the cells to Mars cheaply on ITS and install them on a frame built on Mars out of local material. Vast fields of solar panels on Mars, placed with some sort of semi-automated machine like we plant and harvest crops on Earth or lay railroads.

And nuclear power could be relatively cheap, too (assuming we have some local manufacturing capability... not super sophisticated necessarily). Worries about exposure are less critical since the whole surface is bathed in radiation, and land is basically free (IF you can get there). So it's possible you could build and run reactors cheaper on Mars (shipping only the sophisticated parts, not massive things like containment vessels which aren't needed on Mars and/or could be made locally anyway from meteoric iron) than you could in a highly developed country on Earth due to cost of land and radiation concerns. You could possibly use thorium-burning reactors (doesn't /have/ to be a sophisticated molten salt design, but I guess it could be) and only send basically raw thorium to Mars packed carefully.

So it's not obvious that by the time any of this happens that power would be immensely expensive on Mars. Initial setup WILL be expensive, but once you have some ability to build simple structures on Mars, it could be relatively reasonable.

All true, all good, one comment - Mars inclination is higher, so while consistent, solar power generation during winter is consistently low.   But that's just a known consistent factor you just have to bring into account.

For nuclear, I betcha legal costs on earth are higher than interplanetary transport costs...

And hey, there's always Hydrino power.

Over the life of a solar panel on Mars of 15 years. A panel that costs 39c/watt would be in energy price of 2.4c/kwh. That is just in the consideration of the cost of the panel itself (the cost of transport to Mars is more significant at $1 or more/watt) the same price at buss-bar prices in the US.

Now back to the things of significance that SpaceX will accomplish in 2017:
YES
- RTF: that is a forgone conclusion except it's success but that is a very high likelihood of being successful >96%.
- A high launch rate: this will be reached because the available cores have stacked up (4 or 5) since Sept even though the build rate may have been slowed temporarily. The build rate at Sept 1 was 18 cores a year. So that rate + the already built cores support a rate of 2 launches per month.
- FH: because cores are available this may not be as difficult as it was earlier, just the problem of pad availability for the extra time that doing the first FH launch on 39A could cause to the slowing of launches out of the Cape.
- LC-40 return to operations: Late 2017.
- Comm test satellites launched: The fact these will or will not be launched is not the question but as to whether the results from the test pushes forward the program.
- Full scale Raptor tests at full thrust: this looks that it could still happen by the end of the year.
- Continued progress on the Texas Launch site: this looks to still be on schedule and not delayed by the rebuild of LC-40 since the work going on now is still the prep-work for foundations.
- STARGATE becomes operational: From the progress shown by the construction and antenna setup this will happen.

NO
- Commercial Crew: Not going to happen this year I think, unfortunately.
- Red Dragon remains on schedule for 2018 launch: This could slip to 2020 because of delays in the Dragon 2 CC program flights.

[john smith 19]

I don't think they're likely to land a Dragon on Mars in 2018 if they don't launch FH a few times in 2017 and their chance of success will be higher if they can flight-test anything novel that will be on board the first RD, but there would be no reason to launch RD to Mars in 2017.

Dinking around with the Ames trajectory browser, it looks like the next departure window is centered on May 2018, with minimal delta-V trajectories getting them there in December.

I had 2018 in my head as the landing date.
But on that basis they need to get RD finished in the next 17 months and at least 1 FH launch prior to RD flight. 2 successful launches would push them a long way down the way to DoD acceptance of it as an NSS payload LV, very significant  market.

[Robotbeat]

At best a 50:50 chance of making the 2018 date for Red Dragon. And then still just a 50% chance of success if it does launch in 2018.

[meekGee]

At best a 50:50 chance of making the 2018 date for Red Dragon. And then still just a 50% chance of success if it does launch in 2018.

The funny part about SpaceX is that (other than F1) they always nail the hard stuff on the first try:
- F9
- Dragon re-engtry
- F91.1
- Grasshopper
- Controlled S1 Re-entry all the way to "hover" over the water surface
- Land landing (on RTF)

and then they mess up on smaller stuff:
- Landing S1 (hydraulic fluids, valve stiction and what not, after Grasshopper successes and after CASSIOPE)
- Run-of-the-mill failure (struts) after some 18 flights
- ok- chilled propellant, in retrospect, was a ticking time bomb from day 1, now hopefully diffused.

Based on that pattern, FH will launch like a babe, and RD will land beautifully...

Knock on wood.

[launchwatcher]

the next departure window is centered on May 2018, with minimal delta-V trajectories getting them there in December.

I had 2018 in my head as the landing date.

If it flies in 2018, both launch and landing will be in 2018.

[Lar]

Guys, this isn't a general predictions thread. We have that elsewhere. It's a bit more narrowly focused.

[john smith 19]

1) Launch the Iridium group without mishap on Jan 9th, or at least launch it in January
2)Keep launching a payload a month from that pad for the rest of the year without mishap
3)Launch an FH.
4)Finish work on the RD and get it flight ready for an FH launch.

Thinking further on the new F9 pad it occurred to me getting a 2nd pad ready won't help if the LV it's supposed to be launching is stood down unless the launch authorities are happy to continue launches with the design while the MIB is investigating. AFAIK there are no plans to allow this, hence the list I gave.

This balances SX's commercial, NSS and Mars goals.

[DOCinCT]

1) Launch the Iridium group without mishap on Jan 9th, or at least launch it in January
2)Keep launching a payload a month from that pad for the rest of the year without mishap
3)Launch an FH.
4)Finish work on the RD and get it flight ready for an FH launch.

1. Agreed and the AMOS launch by end of January
2. The pace needs to be an average of one per every 3 weeks, if they want to hit 18 commercial / NASA launches.
3. Two launches of FH this year.
4. Doable if RD is in fact a re-used Dragon 2, i.e., the one from the pad abort, or an existing un-flown one; it doesn't have to be one for either the commercial cargo or crew contracts.

[tleski]

(...)
1. Agreed and the AMOS launch by end of January
(...)

This is the one thing, I am sure, they will not be able to do.

[rockets4life97]

I'm pretty sure DOCinCT meant Echostar.

[Robotbeat]

This thread:

Four things SpaceX can do 2017:

1) Do everything smart and good that they should do.
2) Don't do things which are dumb that they shouldn't do.
3) Be lucky.
4) Don't be unlucky.

[john smith 19]

1) Launch the Iridium group without mishap on Jan 9th, or at least launch it in January
2)Keep launching a payload a month from that pad for the rest of the year without mishap
3)Launch an FH.
4)Finish work on the RD and get it flight ready for an FH launch.

1. Agreed and the AMOS launch by end of January

Hmm. Yes that would be a good idea.

2. The pace needs to be an average of one per every 3 weeks, if they want to hit 18 commercial / NASA launches.

I was hoping 40 would be back online by mid year but people on the other thread are talking end of the year.  Of course there's still Vandenberg.

3. Two launches of FH this year.

2 is better than 1 from the point of getting closer to being NSS certified. But at this point just one would be good.

4. Doable if RD is in fact a re-used Dragon 2, i.e., the one from the pad abort, or an existing un-flown one; it doesn't have to be one for either the commercial cargo or crew contracts.

Ah. I had not considered that option. Given this is a pretty high risk mission with, TBH a high risk of failure. The pad abort Dragon sounds like a good candidate for this task. Even if it fails the landing the trip out will give SX a lot of further data. 

[guckyfan]

The pad abort Dragon is a modified Dragon 1. My understanding was that it has not as much fuel capacity as the coming Dragon 2. Would that not rule it out for Mars landing? Or could they do it with low payload?

[Stefan.Christoff.19]

This thread:

Four things SpaceX can do 2017:

1) Do everything smart and good that they should do.
2) Don't do things which are dumb that they shouldn't do.
3) Be lucky.
4) Don't be unlucky.

I think the Manifest is a bit lucky since it includes 6 PLR (Iridium 1-6) and 3 SSO (Formosat-5, Sun Synch Express & SAOCOM 1A) launches, all of which will utilize Vandenberg's LC4E. I know that's somewhat by circumstance since they had to wait for it to come back online, but nevertheless 9 launches (which if all can make it within this calendar year) would go a long way towards establishing vehicle and procedure reliability without stressing them to get to a super fast cadence from LC39A.

I don't know if they have the resources to do simultaneous prep on both Vandy and the Cape. I know they did it last year with Orbcomm-2 and Jason-3, but the latter was the last launch from LC4E for the year.

 

[puttelino]

Yes, SpX has to get things in line.

We all know this, SpX certainly know this. A company how ever is not built on the principle "every one on the problem at hand". Think of it like a hockey team. If every one is chasing the puck, no one is guarding the net and the space around the puck gets awfully crowded.

On developing market, a company has to develop stuff or it is dead in a heart beat. ULA did get by on the launcher market for a long time without doing a lot development. This is because no one else did anything new. Space X came along and rattled the market, now every one seems to have a new project going.

On the talent side. Space X talent is not there because they wanted to get to Mars initialy. The talent goes to work in a place that is exciting. Most of us engineers are wiling to take a reasonable pay cut if it means we can build cool stuff and/or are trusted with expensive toys i.e. have a challenging and fun time at work.

This has been a strange post. To sum it up: Having "get your act together" on a list of things they could succeed with is foolish. Getting their act together is always an ongoing task at every company (certainly in the launch business).

So i think the thread starter has a pretty good (challenging) list of accomplishments for this year.

--

Edited out the profanity - Carl, Mod.

[Lar]

This thread:

Four things SpaceX can do 2017:

1) Do everything smart and good that they should do.
2) Don't do things which are dumb that they shouldn't do.
3) Be lucky.
4) Don't be unlucky.

Reminds me of Buddhism in a nutshell[0]:

1) Don't do bad things[1]
2) Do good things[1]
3) Clear your mind of distraction

Except of course luck is 99% perspiration and preparedness.

0 - According to my wife... paraphrase errors are mind
1 - These two are different.

[jcliving]

Eric Berger offered up "Four things SpaceX can do in 2017 to Get It's Groove Back"
1. RTF in January
2. First re-flown core in 1st quarter
3. Falcon Heavy by mid-year
4. Dragon 2 by year end

I think 1,2 not a problem, FH maybe, 4 probably not

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/four-things-spacex-can-do-in-2017-to-get-its-groove-back/

#1 and #2 on your list completed successfully.  Spacex is off to a good start.

[dglow]

Eric Berger offered up "Four things SpaceX can do in 2017 to Get It's Groove Back"
1. RTF in January
2. First re-flown core in 1st quarter
3. Falcon Heavy by mid-year
4. Dragon 2 by year end

I think 1,2 not a problem, FH maybe, 4 probably not

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/four-things-spacex-can-do-in-2017-to-get-its-groove-back/

#1 and #2 on your list completed successfully.  Spacex is off to a good start.

Yep, their groove is already back. Nailing 3 and 4 will make a deeper cut / with extra funk / in the Dragon's trunk.

[Ludus]

The next item, FH, has also become more ambitious than it was. Confirmed as using 2 flight tested cores, going for return of all 3, plus attempted recovery of the faring, and even taking a shot at recovering the second stage.

[TripD]

The next item, FH, has also become more ambitious than it was. Confirmed as using 2 flight tested cores, going for return of all 3, plus attempted recovery of the faring, and even taking a shot at recovering the second stage.

That is all well and good, but my heart rate is going to(peg-out/flatline, choose one) from the moment of going vertical on the pad until max Q.

[AncientU]

The next item, FH, has also become more ambitious than it was. Confirmed as using 2 flight tested cores, going for return of all 3, plus attempted recovery of the faring, and even taking a shot at recovering the second stage.

That is all well and good, but my heart rate is going to(peg-out/flatline, choose one) from the moment of going vertical on the pad until max Q.

Wait until separation is clean to resume breathing...