SpaceX Falcon Heavy Discussion (Thread 6)

[AncientU]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

[M.E.T.]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

Yes, FH is needed as an insurance policy in case ITSy takes longer than hoped for to develop. But it remains a bridging vehicle, which will have little justification for its existence once the Raptor based vehicle becomes operational.

[DJPledger]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

SpaceX should have skipped FH altogether and gone straight with ITSy. All the money burned on FH dev. should have been put towards accelerating ITSy dev. and getting ITSy launching ASAP.

[M.E.T.]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

SpaceX should have skipped FH altogether and gone straight with ITSy. All the money burned on FH dev. should have been put towards accelerating ITSy dev. and getting ITSy launching ASAP.

That is a sunk cost now. Given how close they are to FH's maiden flight, and how uncertain the timeframe for ITSy's development is at this point, the correct decision now is to continue with FH while ITSy development proceeds in the background, as fast as possible.

[AncientU]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

SpaceX should have skipped FH altogether and gone straight with ITSy. All the money burned on FH dev. should have been put towards accelerating ITSy dev. and getting ITSy launching ASAP.

20-20 hindsight... show us where you said that theee years ago.
may still prove to be a pivotal asset

[mme]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

SpaceX should have skipped FH altogether and gone straight with ITSy. All the money burned on FH dev. should have been put towards accelerating ITSy dev. and getting ITSy launching ASAP.

Even with all the unexpected complexity I suspect FH will be significantly less expensive to develop than ITSy.  I doubt a team the size of the FH team could have ITSy ready in the same time frame as FH.

I think people are over playing the sunk cost fallacy with regard to FH. At least right up until they cancelled Red Dragon.  But we can't go back in time and pretend that SpaceX should have known that Red Dragon would be cancelled.  Red Dragon was part of their iterative process to getting to Mars.

I don't think SpaceX is launching FH do to the sunk cost fallacy.  I think they are launching it because they think it will be make/save them more money to have FH until ITSy is ready.  FH can still be useful for large payloads, and the constellation. Especially if they can develop 2nd stage reuse. And 2nd stage reuse my include valuable lessons for ITSy's spacecraft.

I do agree that FH's operational life is probably limited until ITSy is flying.

[Space Ghost 1962]

How about a long duration mission in the form of an aerobrake Neptune orbiter, funding by a billionaire, as a "monument" that would endure possibly for millions of years?

Sometime where he can have the last word, and never have to worry about it ever being "shut up" 

(This did amuse in certain quarters ...)

[Lars-J]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

SpaceX should have skipped FH altogether and gone straight with ITSy. All the money burned on FH dev. should have been put towards accelerating ITSy dev. and getting ITSy launching ASAP.

The vast majority of funds "burned" to get to this point included F9 developments. ITS and "ITSy" are far more risky, speculative, and expensive whereas FH has real customers waiting for it to launch.

Don't fell into this trap just because Elon is lowballing expectations. FH is very close now, and will launch soon. All the hardware is at the launch site. And they will launch it when they are confident of success.

[AncientU]

...               

SpaceX can't afford ITS development on its own.  Until they find another partner willing to spend tens of billions of dollars, I wouldn't hold your breath.

...

Not everyone requires tens of billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle.  Recall the study that showed it would have taken $4B to build F9 using NASA's approach, but it actually took $390k (1/10th the estimate)?  Tens of billions becomes a few billion... and the builders have so much relevant experience and applicable technology now.  $1-2B seems reasonable; tens of billions sounds like wishful thinking (a.k.a., denial).

[Jim]

...               

SpaceX can't afford ITS development on its own.  Until they find another partner willing to spend tens of billions of dollars, I wouldn't hold your breath.

...

Not everyone requires tens of billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle.  Recall the study that showed it would have taken $4B to build F9 using NASA's approach, but it actually took $390k (1/10th the estimate)?  Tens of billions becomes a few billion... and the builders have so much relevant experience and applicable technology now.  $1-2B seems reasonable; tens of billions sounds like wishful thinking (a.k.a., denial).

The last sentence is wishful thinking and willful suspension of disbelieve.  F9 development costs are much more because development hasn't finished.  Also, "$1-2B seems reasonable" is seriously delusional.

[Ictogan]

...               

SpaceX can't afford ITS development on its own.  Until they find another partner willing to spend tens of billions of dollars, I wouldn't hold your breath.

...

Not everyone requires tens of billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle.  Recall the study that showed it would have taken $4B to build F9 using NASA's approach, but it actually took $390k (1/10th the estimate)?  Tens of billions becomes a few billion... and the builders have so much relevant experience and applicable technology now.  $1-2B seems reasonable; tens of billions sounds like wishful thinking (a.k.a., denial).

Remember that ITS is a much more complex system than F9. It's not even just a launch vehicle. Musk estimated that developing reusability for Falcon 9 cost them about $1b. SX has gotten over $3b in total from the commercial crew program. ITS needs a crew vehicle an order of magnitude larger than Dragon 2 and a reusable launch vehicle an order of magnitude larger than F9.

[AncientU]

...               

SpaceX can't afford ITS development on its own.  Until they find another partner willing to spend tens of billions of dollars, I wouldn't hold your breath.

...

Not everyone requires tens of billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle.  Recall the study that showed it would have taken $4B to build F9 using NASA's approach, but it actually took $390k (1/10th the estimate)?  Tens of billions becomes a few billion... and the builders have so much relevant experience and applicable technology now.  $1-2B seems reasonable; tens of billions sounds like wishful thinking (a.k.a., denial).

Remember that ITS is a much more complex system than F9. It's not even just a launch vehicle. Musk estimated that developing reusability for Falcon 9 cost them about $1b. SX has gotten over $3b in total from the commercial crew program. ITS needs a crew vehicle an order of magnitude larger than Dragon 2 and a reusable launch vehicle an order of magnitude larger than F9.

There is virtually nothing in the Falcon reusability scheme that cannot be scaled directly to ITSy booster.  (Assuming, of course, that it uses Li-Al and scaled landing legs instead of carbon composites and a launch mount landing.)   Cannot just naively add an order of magnitude.  The spacecraft is another story.  It will be the majority of the cost, since it uses radically different technology than second stage plus Dragon 2.  Because the ITSy spaceship is the cost driver, I suspect SpaceX will first build a conventional second stage and fairing (again, fully within the existing technology base).  Though this will be a far cry from the ITSy vehicle, it will be quite similar (though larger, and reusable, and an order of magnitude cheaper) than another developing vehicle of that class.

[envy887]

...               

SpaceX can't afford ITS development on its own.  Until they find another partner willing to spend tens of billions of dollars, I wouldn't hold your breath.

...

Not everyone requires tens of billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle.  Recall the study that showed it would have taken $4B to build F9 using NASA's approach, but it actually took $390k (1/10th the estimate)?  Tens of billions becomes a few billion... and the builders have so much relevant experience and applicable technology now.  $1-2B seems reasonable; tens of billions sounds like wishful thinking (a.k.a., denial).

The last sentence is wishful thinking and willful suspension of disbelieve.  F9 development costs are much more because development hasn't finished.  Also, "$1-2B seems reasonable" is seriously delusional.

F9 development is also 15 years on now, if you count F1 - which the $390M figure does. Or 11 years, if you go with the ~$300M spent only on getting F9 flying. The vast majority of the money spend on developing F9 was spent after getting it flying and while it was earning revenue and booking orders.

SpaceX will likely try to get a minimalist ITS flying as quickly as possible, to earn revenue with it, and iterate towards a more capable vehicle. That is their MO. They might eventually dump $15 billion into it, but that of itself doesn't mean it couldn't fly (in minimalist form) for less than $3 billion.

[watermod]

Would it be reasonable to build the mini-its first stage, a second stage that has the cargo/tanker function include a Dragon 2 inside the cargo stage for astronauts if needed?

[envy887]

Would it be reasonable to build the mini-its first stage, a second stage that has the cargo/tanker function include a Dragon 2 inside the cargo stage for astronauts if needed?

That basically precludes abort. It's a major hurdle for crew Dream Chaser.

[david1971]

Dead end kluge might be a bit harsh... what if ITSy didn't or doesn't ever exist?

Yes, FH is needed as an insurance policy in case ITSy takes longer than hoped for to develop. But it remains a bridging vehicle, which will have little justification for its existence once the Raptor based vehicle becomes operational.

Given the money we've spent and will continue to spend as taxpayers on SLS on what is now a hedge against "what if all the commercial heavy lift programs fail," the amount of resources that have been spent and will be spent on FH as "insurance" seem laughable.

[Robotbeat]

"What do we think the odds are that, doing it all over again, SpaceX would not attempt a tri-core launch vehicle?"

Very low. Shotwell is poo-pooing the market size too. At one time it probably looked safer to build upon F9 technology than to redesign completely. Probably would have to me too.

Then given SpaceX's penchant to switch direction when an approach no longer makes sense - why haven't they just given up on the heavy?

They are one Demo launch away from having the world's largest launcher by a factor of two -- and it will be born reusable (for about 90% of the vehicle cost).  Not time for the faint of heart. 

If Demo goes south and Demo2 follows, and ITSy is making good progress, they may rethink this vehicle.

I raised the decreasing justification for the FH a couple of months ago, even before ITSy was announced. In my mind the FH is going to have a very short lifespan. And with Dragon no longer going to Mars, it really seems that in hindsight it was a lot of money wasted on a concept that has been replaced by a better one before the first even saw its maiden flight.

I think the moment ITSy flies, FH is retired. Now the question just is, how long will it take to get to ITSy's first flight?

Think about it this way: as soon as FH flies successfully, they'll be able to sell to that market segment. They can pack their manifest for several years' full. If they get ITSy flying in 2020, that's 3 years of flights.

Also, they need FH for crewed trips around the Moon or they'll have to wait for ITSy, after the Apollo 8 and 11 anniversaries.

And it could take even longer before ITSy flies: 2022? 2023?

The market will pass them by if they let it.

[su27k]

...               

SpaceX can't afford ITS development on its own.  Until they find another partner willing to spend tens of billions of dollars, I wouldn't hold your breath.

...

Not everyone requires tens of billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle.  Recall the study that showed it would have taken $4B to build F9 using NASA's approach, but it actually took $390k (1/10th the estimate)?  Tens of billions becomes a few billion... and the builders have so much relevant experience and applicable technology now.  $1-2B seems reasonable; tens of billions sounds like wishful thinking (a.k.a., denial).

The last sentence is wishful thinking and willful suspension of disbelieve.  F9 development costs are much more because development hasn't finished.  Also, "$1-2B seems reasonable" is seriously delusional.

F9 development is also 15 years on now, if you count F1 - which the $390M figure does. Or 11 years, if you go with the ~$300M spent only on getting F9 flying. The vast majority of the money spend on developing F9 was spent after getting it flying and while it was earning revenue and booking orders.

SpaceX will likely try to get a minimalist ITS flying as quickly as possible, to earn revenue with it, and iterate towards a more capable vehicle. That is their MO. They might eventually dump $15 billion into it, but that of itself doesn't mean it couldn't fly (in minimalist form) for less than $3 billion.

Exactly, it would be a prototype at the start (think F9 v1.0 first flight), probably no refueling capability, nothing related to crew, and may not even have payload bay. It would be just enough to prove the point, which is a reusable super heavy is possible, and SpaceX is fully capable of building it.

So far the majority of aerospace industry and congress is treating ITS like a joke, first order of business is to prove them wrong (again, for the 3rd or 4th time). Then SpaceX can leverage the existing hardware to get additional investment from public and/or private sources to finish the rest.

[Space Ghost 1962]

... first order of business is to prove them wrong ...

You can't prove anything to a fool.

[llanitedave]

... first order of business is to prove them wrong ...

You can't prove anything to a fool.

Or 535 fools.