LIVE: SpaceX - Falcon I (Mk.II) NET March 20 (Attempt 2)

[kevin-rf]

Edit : my send key stuck

[kevin-rf]

WHAP - 2/4/2007  2:11 PM
Once Atlas V booster production moves, I wonder if you'll see an Atlas V on an airplane again.

Even for West Coast launches? Is it really better to send an Atlas to the west coast by way of panama?

I wonder, maybe SpaceX can rent some boat time from ULA for KSC flights... Though if Falcon IX is in the same weight class as Atlas V it should still fit  inside any plane Atlas V fits in.

[Jim]

kevin-rf - 2/4/2007  3:43 PM

WHAP - 2/4/2007  2:11 PM
Once Atlas V booster production moves, I wonder if you'll see an Atlas V on an airplane again.

Even for West Coast launches? Is it really better to send an Atlas to the west coast by way of panama?

I wonder, maybe SpaceX can rent some boat time from ULA for KSC flights... Though if Falcon IX is in the same weight class as Atlas V it should still fit  inside any plane Atlas V fits in.

That's how the D-IV gets to VAFB

[WHAP]

kevin-rf - 2/4/2007  1:43 PM
Even for West Coast launches? Is it really better to send an Atlas to the west coast by way of panama?

Who knows?  I guess there are probably too many variables to try and predict, but it doesn't seem that any EELV is in a rush to get off the pad at VAFB.  But, if Delta currently builds Delta II's at Decatur and ships them via aircraft, then I guess ULA could do the same for Atlas.

[Jim]

Delta II's are trucked crosscountry.  They never have used an airplane

[Antares]

WHAP - 2/4/2007  3:11 PM
Once Atlas V booster production moves, I wonder if you'll see an Atlas V on an airplane again.

The runway at HSV is pretty big, 12600'x150'
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KHSV

[rpspeck]

Low estimates of the market for small launch vehicles reflect the reality that not many individuals are excited about putting a robot into orbit to do something for them personally.  It is equally true that that few individuals build robots for undersea exploration.  But millions of people spend time, money and effort to explore undersea THEMSELVES.  

It takes only modest insight to realize that the mass of a Mercury capsule can be reduced 60% to match the payload capacity of a Falcon 1.  Actually, using modern systems and materials, this launch vehicle should be able to carry at least two people into orbit for $ 5 Million each.  Note that this allows custom orbits (a Hubble repair trip ?)  in addition to standard destinations.  

I know this claim will generate incredulity and dissent.  The fact that the Falcon has yet to succeed, and has failed twice, is of course relevant.  It will have to succeed a number of times before such a use is reasonable.  The two instances of early Engine Shutdown are, however, a benign category of failure.  Neither would have threatened a voyager with a parachute.  This is in marked contrast to the STS (Shuttle) whose two failures were far from benign!    

Regarding lightweight possibilities, keep in mind the BD-5 Jet (which I and many others have seen fly at air shows) with its 465 pound dry weight.  This is remarkable for a functional, high speed turbojet aircraft!  What should a compact aerospace system weigh with no power plant or wings?  Quite a bit less!

For a space craft with reentry capability (which should be able to deal with any nonviolent launch failure), most parts scale with reentry mass.  The retrorocket runs 4% to 8% of reentry mass.  The heat shield may run 10% for crude materials to less than 4% for the best.  Attitude control jets scale similarly.  Radios and navigational electronics have collapsed to ounces of mass – or a few pounds with multiple spares.  That leaves the astronaut in a pressure suit.  

Assume that a suit exists safe enough for its user to jump up and down on the Moon, carry and set up equipment and generally work for several hours without feeling that each minute was “inviting catastrophe”.  (I seem to recall seeing exactly those things happen – although we could now make the suits even safer).  Putting such a user inside a metal box for ascent and descent on either the Earth or Moon protects him from NO KNOWN HAZARD which he has not chosen to face for a much longer period of time.   The “Capsule” looks like a nearly useless façade which raises the trip cost by an order of magnitude!

Manned use of lightweight launch vehicles, enabling special (possibly profitable) trips into space, will ratchet up the flight rate and make this sector viable.  And the combination will make a wide range of small space businesses possible!  

[Danderman]

Mr. Speck,

Wonderful theories. Let us know when your rocket is flying in space.

Otherwise, this is wildly offtopic.

[rpspeck]

RE: Uses and Payloads for Falcon 1

In particular new markets which will disrupt classical sales patterns for launch vehicles in this class.

[kevin-rf]

rpspeck - 4/4/2007  1:08 PM
Regarding lightweight possibilities, keep in mind the BD-5 Jet (which I and many others have seen fly at air shows) with its 465 pound dry weight.  This is remarkable for a functional, high speed turbojet aircraft!  What should a compact aerospace system weigh with no power plant or wings?  Quite a bit less!

rpspeck, google cri-cri Now that is a tiny plane.

http://flight.cz/cricri/english/cri-cri-videos-movies.php

As for riding a falcon 1, umm it is only 5.5 feet in diameter. A little small unless the "capsule" is of a larger diameter than the LV. This has been done before with other more conventional launch vehicles.

The Falcon 1 would be a great launch vehicle to test out the dragon's avionics and reentry environment. Much cheaper than a falcon 9 flight. If it works Mr. Musk could develop a recoverable space flight buisness on the side

[Jim]

rpspeck - 4/4/2007  2:08 PM
 Neither would have threatened a voyager with a parachute.  

Bull roar.

There is no 'Bailing out" of a launch vehicle

and the second launch, any bailout would burn up the "voyager"

[Jim]

rpspeck - 4/4/2007  2:08 PM
 
It takes only modest insight to realize that the mass of a Mercury capsule can be reduced 60% to match the payload capacity of a Falcon 1.  Actually, using modern systems and materials, this launch vehicle should be able to carry at least two people into orbit for $ 5 Million each.  Note that this allows custom orbits (a Hubble repair trip ?)  in addition to standard destinations.  


Regarding lightweight possibilities, keep in mind the BD-5 Jet (which I and many others have seen fly at air shows) with its 465 pound dry weight.  This is remarkable for a functional, high speed turbojet aircraft!  What should a compact aerospace system weigh with no power plant or wings?  Quite a bit less!

For a space craft with reentry capability (which should be able to deal with any nonviolent launch failure), most parts scale with reentry mass.  The retrorocket runs 4% to 8% of reentry mass.  The heat shield may run 10% for crude materials to less than 4% for the best.  Attitude control jets scale similarly.  Radios and navigational electronics have collapsed to ounces of mass – or a few pounds with multiple spares.  That leaves the astronaut in a pressure suit.  

Assume that a suit exists safe enough for its user to jump up and down on the Moon, carry and set up equipment and generally work for several hours without feeling that each minute was “inviting catastrophe”.  (I seem to recall seeing exactly those things happen – although we could now make the suits even safer).  Putting such a user inside a metal box for ascent and descent on either the Earth or Moon protects him from NO KNOWN HAZARD which he has not chosen to face for a much longer period of time.   The “Capsule” looks like a nearly useless façade which raises the trip cost by an order of magnitude!

Avionics do not make up that much mass.  There is that much savings

Attitude jets were never massive.

Aircraft are not viable analogies.

major error in this is passengers don't want to be in a spacesuit for the whole flight.

No. Space-X won't disrupt the LV market - its too incestuous with its customers for that to happen.

Economics are very peculiar in space, where its often cheaper in the end to use parts 100x the price, because of proven history and integration. Unfortunately, because its total volumes are so small due to launch rates, you tend to not evolve out costs, because the chain of costly parts and services interlock, often for excellent reliability reasons.

When you get a new kid at the table, everyone gets nervous because "new" doesn't mean better, "new" just means different, which often means "bad" but not yet obviously so. No one wants anything to rob success from the launch - often times no matter how small, because rocket science IS rocket science. Having seen so much oversold promises of "better, faster, cheaper" that really turned out to be "no better, slower, costly, unreliable" turns the cynical eye away. We only know years later if anything pays off, but by that time it joins the list of parts, for better or worse.

So you're either a "glass empty" type, where Space-X is just reinventing the same wheel, or a "glass full" type, where you think that they've done it better this time around without losing reliability. If you want to look at it financially, you model the total cost of one against a prior, and then look at what use of capital yields in terms of total accumulated revenues. It's easier to compare Space-X to Kistler, than Space-X to Boeing or LockMart.

My net takeaway from Space-X is that the parts and operations could end up being cheaper - this is far from proven. If this turns out to be true, and they can build a reliable LV business out of a beginning, they could attract payloads that won't see Delta or Atlas as attractive. If this results in increased launch rates, it will have stimulated the industry and been a "good thing". If it's chaotic for years, it will tend to depress launch rates and end up being a "bad thing" for the industry. So even if you're not part of any of these firms, it can hurt or help you. If you're conservative, you adopt a "its bad until proven good" approach of skepticism. If not, you're betting on the come that there's going to be a payoff in the end.

Which may explain to you why many aren't instantly happy with a new LV source.

[yinzer]

Also keep in mind that the BD-5 is a complete deathtrap.  Probably for some of the same reasons that it is small - i.e. "aggressive" design.

But the fuselage diameter of a Learjet isn't much more than 5.5 meters, so you might be able to fit two people into a biconic capsule.

[rpspeck]

“There is no 'Bailing out’ of a launch vehicle and the second launch, any bailout would burn up the ‘voyager’"

Manned launch vehicles have built with ejection seats.  “Bailing out” of a ballistic trajectory topping out at 5000 feet would bother no qualified sky diver, unless he was sealed into a capsule and couldn’t get out.

For the second launch, the reentry shield / seat assembly discussed later would be required just as it would be required to get home after a successful launch.  Flipping that assembly after engine shutdown is about all that would be required.

It is useful to think “outside the box”, or in this case, outside the capsule.  The STS provides robust shielding against things that aren’t going to happen, while demonstrably condemning astronauts to unnecessary death with real failures.


“major error in this is passengers don't want to be in a spacesuit for the whole flight.”

It is not difficult to envision launches which rendezvous with a space station in less than two hours (A tolerable EVA time at ISS or on the Moon).   In addition, a quick look at airline coach travel will show that people will put up with a lot to save money.  Cutting the $35 Million orbital launch with EVA opportunity to $5 Million for both will have a noticeable impact on ticket sales.  

[Jim]

rpspeck - 4/4/2007  5:22 PM

1.  Manned launch vehicles have built with ejection seats.  Bailing out of a ballistic trajectory topping out at 5000 feet would bother no qualified sky diver, unless he was sealed into a capsule and couldnt get out.


2.  It is not difficult to envision launches which rendezvous with a space station in less than two hours (A tolerable EVA time at ISS or on the Moon).   In addition, a quick look at airline coach travel will show that people will put up with a lot to save money.  Cutting the $35 Million orbital launch with EVA opportunity to $5 Million for both will have a noticeable impact on ticket sales.  

1.  You can't state you have a "small" light spacecraft like Mercury and  then say is has ejection seats.  ejection seats are heavy.  You just blew your whole line of reasoning.  Also ejection seats won't work on RP-1 and LOX launch vehicles, it can't out run the fireball.  Also Joe Public is not qualified for ejection seats.  Escape rocket is a better idea

2.  Yes it is hard to envision this
 A.  This is suppose to be a small spacecraft.  Now you need manuvering fuel, docking device and rendezvous and docking sensors.  It is not a Mercury but a Gemini
B .  Two hours missions with a docking are impractical.  There are very few opportunities to do it and is takes a robust launch vehicle with variable azimuths and yaw steering
C.  Also the spacecraft fuel requirements are much even greater than for rendevous in later orbits

thinking out the bax is fine but be at least in the same zip code

Your concepts are subjecting the people to more risks

[meiza]

maybe you should start a microspace q&a thread, rpspeck?

[wingod]

Antares - 3/4/2007  12:56 AM

WHAP - 2/4/2007  3:11 PM
Once Atlas V booster production moves, I wonder if you'll see an Atlas V on an airplane again.

The runway at HSV is pretty big, 12600'x150'
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KHSV

There is another big runway on the Base at Redstone arsenal that they used to fly the Shuttle into.

[wingod]

aero313 - 2/4/2007  1:02 PM

Cretan126 - 2/4/2007  11:30 AM

 Has anyone noted that LockMart builds the Atlas V EELV - in its entirety - at its facility at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Littleton, CO?  Not a port in sight.  They transport the booster (in the early morning hours) from Littleton to Denver International and fly them to the Cape or VAFB.  So being near a port is not that big of a deal, although it helps.

Free air freight on government-furnished C-5As probably doesn't hurt either.

Let's be serious here.  The decisions made by a company with a lot of legacy infrastructure and overhead costs being primarily carried on government contracts will be made differently than those of a purely commecial, supposedly "clean sheet" company whose stated goal is low cost launch.  The location of the Martin Waterton plant was driven as much by Cold War-driven dispersion of national assets as anything else.  Building Delta IIs in Pueblo, CO also made sense when you factored in goverment surplus facilities, incentives, etc.

They only built the D-II upper stage there.

[wingod]

51D Mascot - 28/3/2007  3:00 AM

Jim - 28/3/2007  12:45 AM

Build it and they will come does not apply.  There is interest but like everything else "no bucks, no Buck Rogers"   The smallsat market isn't there.

And in that assertion you are simply incorrect--or uninformed. I recently reviewed an in-depth assessment of the SmallSat market potential and found it to be rather widespread--and growing. That was based on thoroughly-documented facts, not opinions proclaimed as fact. Unfortunately, the assessment was proprietary, so I can't share it with you, so we'll just have to wait and see the proof, as you say, in the pudding.

The problem with the small sat market is the cost/benefit ratio.  What is the potential profit for the cost.

Lets look at a couple of numbers.

Say that I can build a small sat for $5M dollars and a launch for $7M dollars.  For $12M what kind of spacecraft can I get, who are the customers, and how can I make my money back.

You also have support costs on the ground after launch, including overhead for the company which I will put at a low $1M per year.  Therefore to keep from going out of business the spacecraft has to make at least $1M per year and to obtain a return on investment you need to pay the money back in three years.  Oh also there is the 25% insurance on a smallsat so that is another $3M so by the time the first year is over of business you have spent $16M dollars, of which only $1M is your ongoing costs.

Also, you have to make more money that the cost of a nominal loan which for business ventures is about 8% per year.  So that $15M x 0.08 x 2 = $2.4M dollars on a two year accelerated schedule to launch.  So now we are up to $18.4M + another 1.2M for the first year in opportunity/cost of money costs.  So now your run costs have to be paid for at about $2.4M the first year and you are at $19.6M total out the door by the end of the first year.  Check out is done in a nominal one month so now you have 11 months to make some money.  This was simple interest, it would end up being about $20M with compound interest.

You have to pay back that $19.6M dollars and what small sat costing $5M dollars is going to give you this return?

Remote sensing is one.  What is another?

Just a thought experiment.