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#300
by
Cherokee43v6
on 02 Jun, 2022 13:24
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Opinions can't be wrong Jim. They are his/her opinions and while you might not agree , he/she is allowed to have them and they don't always have to match yours.
A too-often held wrong statement. Opinions can be wrong if they are about objective reality. Lots of people have wrong "opinions" - flat Earth, creationism, COVID vaccines have microchips in them, etc.
You're only entitled to have opinions about subjective subjects, not objective ones.
Nonsense and a rubbish argument. The earth will never be flat, it's an impossibility so it's just wrong to claim it is, but in years to come we could see an issue with the starliner system ( I think it's a fine engineering solution btw) which renders the engineering questionable. So yes his opinion is valid and can't be dismissed out of hand.
What I said is true - opinions are for subjective things only (favorite color, this food better than that food, art, and so on). Objective reality is based on data. Mother Nature doesn't care if you think you have a right to your own "opinion" or not.
CoWorker of mine has a great T-Shirt:
It's fine if you disagree with me.
I can't force you to be right.
Back to the topic now please?
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#301
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 02 Jun, 2022 21:30
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Commercial crew discussion thread (
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49156.0) is going over the 5 new Dragon flights to ISS purchased by NASA. It’s looking like Boeing are not going to get any more NASA Starliner flights, beyond the already awarded 6 operational missions, prior to 2030.
So will Starliner ever get any more missions? I can’t see who would pay to cover the costs of certifying Vulcan to carry people? If Vulcan doesn’t have any more delays, maybe some Amazon Kuiper launches move off Atlas. That would make a few more Starliner flights possible, but may mean ULA has to maintain Atlas infrastructure for longer.
It’s looking to me that before Starliner has any crewed flights, its manifest is already complete.
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#302
by
SoftwareDude
on 02 Jun, 2022 21:40
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Commercial crew discussion thread (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49156.0) is going over the 5 new Dragon flights to ISS purchased by NASA. It’s looking like Boeing are not going to get any more NASA Starliner flights, beyond the already awarded 6 operational missions, prior to 2030.
So will Starliner ever get any more missions? I can’t see who would pay to cover the costs of certifying Vulcan to carry people? If Vulcan doesn’t have any more delays, maybe some Amazon Kuiper launches move off Atlas. That would make a few more Starliner flights possible, but may mean ULA has to maintain Atlas infrastructure for longer.
It’s looking to me that before Starliner has any crewed flights, its manifest is already complete.
Boeing and ULA have to decide if crewed flight is a business they want. If so then they will make the investment to certify Vulcan. People here have said that Starliner is not competitive but maintaining a foothold in a market is more important than the profit for now.
Hard for me to believe that Boeing would give up on such a market.
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#303
by
whitelancer64
on 02 Jun, 2022 21:47
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Don't forget about the possibility of Starliner launching on New Glenn. Cheaper than Vulcan with a lot more payload capacity to LEO.
Blue Origin has said multiple times their New Glenn launch pad / tower was designed with crew access in mind.
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#304
by
Lee Jay
on 02 Jun, 2022 21:55
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Don't forget about the possibility of Starliner launching on New Glenn. Cheaper than Vulcan with a lot more payload capacity to LEO.
If and when there are signs of New Glenn actually existing and launching we can think about it, and after it's launched a dozen times or so, we might start to know its costs.
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#305
by
whitelancer64
on 02 Jun, 2022 22:06
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Don't forget about the possibility of Starliner launching on New Glenn. Cheaper than Vulcan with a lot more payload capacity to LEO.
If and when there are signs of New Glenn actually existing and launching we can think about it, and after it's launched a dozen times or so, we might start to know its costs.
Relatively soon. The BE-4 engines are very close to complete and qualified for ULA. And this isn't a pressing, near-term issue. I would think it's 2-3 years at soonest for a private Starliner flight, and more likely not until after commercial space station modules are actually in orbit.
Every launch cost estimate I've seen for New Glenn has it very comfortably below costs for Vulcan.
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#306
by
Jim
on 02 Jun, 2022 22:10
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Don't forget about the possibility of Starliner launching on New Glenn. Cheaper than Vulcan with a lot more payload capacity to LEO.
If and when there are signs of New Glenn actually existing and launching we can think about it, and after it's launched a dozen times or so, we might start to know its costs.
Relatively soon.
Every launch cost estimate I've seen for New Glenn has it very comfortably below costs for Vulcan.
yeah, two fallacies in the same post.
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#307
by
Lee Jay
on 02 Jun, 2022 22:12
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Don't forget about the possibility of Starliner launching on New Glenn. Cheaper than Vulcan with a lot more payload capacity to LEO.
If and when there are signs of New Glenn actually existing and launching we can think about it, and after it's launched a dozen times or so, we might start to know its costs.
Relatively soon.
Relative to what? Plate tectonics?
The BE-4 engines are very close to complete and qualified for ULA.
And ULA is having trouble getting two of them. 7 won't be easier.
And this isn't a pressing, near-term issue.
Good thing, too.
I would think it's 2-3 years at soonest for a private Starliner flight, and more likely not until after commercial space station modules are actually in orbit.
Every launch cost estimate I've seen for New Glenn has it very comfortably below costs for Vulcan.
And, as I said, we and they won't know costs until after several (or many) flights. This is a new company (from a launch history point of view - not from a calendar point of view) that hasn't ever launched an orbital rocket before, and I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
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#308
by
Vettedrmr
on 02 Jun, 2022 22:19
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... I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
I believe that's assuming full reuseability. How long that takes to accomplish is an "amazing Kreskin" guess.
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#309
by
whitelancer64
on 02 Jun, 2022 22:23
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Don't forget about the possibility of Starliner launching on New Glenn. Cheaper than Vulcan with a lot more payload capacity to LEO.
If and when there are signs of New Glenn actually existing and launching we can think about it, and after it's launched a dozen times or so, we might start to know its costs.
Relatively soon.
Relative to what? Plate tectonics?
The BE-4 engines are very close to complete and qualified for ULA.
And ULA is having trouble getting two of them. 7 won't be easier.
And this isn't a pressing, near-term issue.
Good thing, too.
I would think it's 2-3 years at soonest for a private Starliner flight, and more likely not until after commercial space station modules are actually in orbit.
Every launch cost estimate I've seen for New Glenn has it very comfortably below costs for Vulcan.
And, as I said, we and they won't know costs until after several (or many) flights. This is a new company (from a launch history point of view - not from a calendar point of view) that hasn't ever launched an orbital rocket before, and I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
Relative to a launch vehicle that doesn't have any engines completed for it yet.
Seven production run engines will be a lot easier than going through all the development hell and qualification testing of the first two.
We won't know exactly until later, obviously. What we've got now are estimates.
It'll be cheaper - especially in the long run - because those seven engines are reusable. ULA's also got those non-reusable SRBs that bump up the price tag, too.
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#310
by
ulm_atms
on 02 Jun, 2022 23:04
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... I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
With that logic....
Starship is DOA for costs then
Electron is the same price as F9, and those two are much more expensive then AtlasV/DIVH
And Delta IV Heavy should be one of the cheapest rockets ever in the kg/$...FH the worse.
What specifically makes you have a hard time believing it?
EDIT:We are kinda straying from the topic though...
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#311
by
Lee Jay
on 02 Jun, 2022 23:14
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... I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
With that logic....
Starship is DOA for costs then
No, we don't know it's costs.
Electron is the same price as F9,
No, Electron and F9 don't use the same engines.
and those two are much more expensive then AtlasV/DIVH
Again, they don't use the same engines.
Vulcan uses 2 of the same engines that New Glenn uses 7 of. Follow now?
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#312
by
Comga
on 02 Jun, 2022 23:33
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Commercial crew discussion thread (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49156.0) is going over the 5 new Dragon flights to ISS purchased by NASA. It’s looking like Boeing are not going to get any more NASA Starliner flights, beyond the already awarded 6 operational missions, prior to 2030.
So will Starliner ever get any more missions? I can’t see who would pay to cover the costs of certifying Vulcan to carry people? If Vulcan doesn’t have any more delays, maybe some Amazon Kuiper launches move off Atlas. That would make a few more Starliner flights possible, but may mean ULA has to maintain Atlas infrastructure for longer.
It’s looking to me that before Starliner has any crewed flights, its manifest is already complete.
Boeing and ULA have to decide if crewed flight is a business they want. If so then they will make the investment to certify Vulcan. People here have said that Starliner is not competitive but maintaining a foothold in a market is more important than the profit for now.
Hard for me to believe that Boeing would give up on such a market.
(My bolding)
Are you confident that the Boeing C suite agrees with that assertion?
It seems to go against everything they have done for the past decade.
And it may be hard for you to believe something but they may not see as profitable a market by their criteria as do you with yours.
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#313
by
DanClemmensen
on 02 Jun, 2022 23:41
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Lee, comparing Vulcan to New Glenn, said:
And, as I said, we and they won't know costs until after several (or many) flights. This is a new company (from a launch history point of view - not from a calendar point of view) that hasn't ever launched an orbital rocket before, and I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
Vulcan in the VC0 configuration is ideally sized for Starliner to ISS and needs no SRBs, while New Glenn is a heavy-lift vehicle, oversized for the mission. Even so, If NG's reusability is roughly equivalent to F9, then NG needs seven booster engines to fly at least 12 missions, while Vulcan will need 24 booster engines for 12 missions. Both rockets will expend 2 upper-stage hydrolox engines per flight.
So with respect to engine count Lee might be technically correct for the cost of the first flight, but not for the average of 12 flights.
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#314
by
king1999
on 03 Jun, 2022 00:04
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I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
New Glenn is designed to be reusable (booster at least) from the get-go while Vulcan is not. So in THEORY, it could be cheaper.
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#315
by
jdon759
on 03 Jun, 2022 00:37
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Lee, comparing Vulcan to New Glenn, said:
And, as I said, we and they won't know costs until after several (or many) flights. This is a new company (from a launch history point of view - not from a calendar point of view) that hasn't ever launched an orbital rocket before, and I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
Vulcan in the VC0 configuration is ideally sized for Starliner to ISS and needs no SRBs, while New Glenn is a heavy-lift vehicle, oversized for the mission. Even so, If NG's reusability is roughly equivalent to F9, then NG needs seven booster engines to fly at least 12 missions, while Vulcan will need 24 booster engines for 12 missions. Both rockets will expend 2 upper-stage hydrolox engines per flight.
So with respect to engine count Lee might be technically correct for the cost of the first flight, but not for the average of 12 flights.
Don't forget that ULA now state they have committed to SMART. By the time any CST-100 needs to fly on Vulcan, that is likely to be operational, reducing the need for new engines. ULA may not aim to use each engine 12 times, but even if they only reuse each engine 3 times, that is still 8 engines for 12 flights - only one more than NG for the same flights.
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#316
by
Cherokee43v6
on 03 Jun, 2022 00:46
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Commercial crew discussion thread (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49156.0) is going over the 5 new Dragon flights to ISS purchased by NASA. It’s looking like Boeing are not going to get any more NASA Starliner flights, beyond the already awarded 6 operational missions, prior to 2030.
So will Starliner ever get any more missions? I can’t see who would pay to cover the costs of certifying Vulcan to carry people? If Vulcan doesn’t have any more delays, maybe some Amazon Kuiper launches move off Atlas. That would make a few more Starliner flights possible, but may mean ULA has to maintain Atlas infrastructure for longer.
It’s looking to me that before Starliner has any crewed flights, its manifest is already complete.
Boeing and ULA have to decide if crewed flight is a business they want. If so then they will make the investment to certify Vulcan. People here have said that Starliner is not competitive but maintaining a foothold in a market is more important than the profit for now.
Hard for me to believe that Boeing would give up on such a market.
The problem is that based on the comments Boeing management has made about the 'fixed price' nature of the Starliner contract, I firmly believe that they do not believe in the commercial crew market.
As I recall, part of the reasoning for commercial crew by NASA was that the companies building these vehicles would fly them on missions for customers other than NASA as a means of actually making money using them. SpaceX has done so twice so far with plans for more. Boeing, on the other hand, appears to have tried to treat this as 'just another government contract' and been bit in the butt by that positioning.
Instead of treating this as a potential new commercial product line that they can sell or lease to operators, in a manner like their aircraft, they instead are solely focused on the NASA mission. (In spite of pretty powerpoints from other sources showing their capsule at various stations.) You'll note that the most likely user for Starliner, namely Blue Origin's Orbital Reef, instead has focused in on Dreamchaser as its crew vehicle.
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#317
by
DanClemmensen
on 03 Jun, 2022 01:20
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Lee, comparing Vulcan to New Glenn, said:
And, as I said, we and they won't know costs until after several (or many) flights. This is a new company (from a launch history point of view - not from a calendar point of view) that hasn't ever launched an orbital rocket before, and I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
Vulcan in the VC0 configuration is ideally sized for Starliner to ISS and needs no SRBs, while New Glenn is a heavy-lift vehicle, oversized for the mission. Even so, If NG's reusability is roughly equivalent to F9, then NG needs seven booster engines to fly at least 12 missions, while Vulcan will need 24 booster engines for 12 missions. Both rockets will expend 2 upper-stage hydrolox engines per flight.
So with respect to engine count Lee might be technically correct for the cost of the first flight, but not for the average of 12 flights.
Don't forget that ULA now state they have committed to SMART. By the time any CST-100 needs to fly on Vulcan, that is likely to be operational, reducing the need for new engines. ULA may not aim to use each engine 12 times, but even if they only reuse each engine 3 times, that is still 8 engines for 12 flights - only one more than NG for the same flights.
As Lee said, we won't know the actual costs until New Glenn and Vulcan/SMART have flown a few operational missions. The only examples we have for operational re-usability so far are STS, Falcon 9, Dragon, and soon Starliner, and from them we know both that it takes awhile to get it right and that recovery and refurbishment costs vary a lot and depend on the system architecture. Because NG is so oversized for Starliner, it will almost certainly use RTLS, which ought to be cheaper than SMART recovery, but we won't know until they actually demonstrate it.
Unless Boeing can find a way to sell more than a few additional Starliner missions, the development costs are likely to outweigh the difference in launch costs anyway.
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#318
by
zubenelgenubi
on 03 Jun, 2022 01:52
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As a member, I wish also to note...
The amount of concern trolling on this thread is remarkable.
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#319
by
Lee Jay
on 03 Jun, 2022 02:39
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Lee, comparing Vulcan to New Glenn, said:
And, as I said, we and they won't know costs until after several (or many) flights. This is a new company (from a launch history point of view - not from a calendar point of view) that hasn't ever launched an orbital rocket before, and I have a hard time believing a rocket that needs 7 engines to get off the ground will be cheaper than one that needs 2.
Vulcan in the VC0 configuration is ideally sized for Starliner to ISS and needs no SRBs, while New Glenn is a heavy-lift vehicle, oversized for the mission. Even so, If NG's reusability is roughly equivalent to F9, then NG needs seven booster engines to fly at least 12 missions, while Vulcan will need 24 booster engines for 12 missions. Both rockets will expend 2 upper-stage hydrolox engines per flight.
So with respect to engine count Lee might be technically correct for the cost of the first flight, but not for the average of 12 flights.
I'm not counting on reusability on either one until I see it happen, repeatedly and reliably enough to actually save money. Since neither vehicle has flown, we're a long way away from that. ULA is way ahead, though, because they actually know what it takes to mount a launch campaign, integrate a payload, and complete a launch - things that they themselves say cost at least as much as the rocket.
