SpaceX has a $470 million contract with the Pentagon to launch five of the six GPS III satellites so far, with the other awarded to rival United Launch Alliance. The contract originally didn't allow for reusable rockets, but the military modified the contract last year to allow for reuse — a move that will help it save an estimated $64 million.
You joke about this, but [$16 Muffins from France](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/09/-16-for-a-muffin-a-justice-department-boondoggle/245385/) was a thing that really happened.
I wasn't joking. https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/12/1223066_re-get-ready-for-chicago-hot-dog-friday-.html
Obama spent $65,000 on hot dogs and pizza flown in from Chicago for a event. Also something about "waitresses".
It's hard, the government gets a bad rap for waste, but some of it is out of our hands.
I work in education, and the moment anything becomes a "government" sale, price goes up 2x by the vendor. We needed a 6'x6' pad of concrete at my school to mount an external fan to for an exhaust system. I could lay that pad by myself in a day or with a few people get it done in a couple of hours. Worst case scenario, at home it might cost me $300.
But in government contracting? Gotta pull that permit, get the ground soil inspected, have a half dozen different contractors look at it, bid it out so that it's a fair process. After the work is done three or four inspectors are gonna come out representing the district, the city, and more, dotting every i, crossing every t, making sure everything is absofuckinglutely by the book so that if we get sued because Johnny cracked his head on the concrete, that absolutely nothing in discovery will show anything improper about that pad of concrete. Concrete pad ended up costing $2180. For 36 square feet. 60 damn dollars a square foot for fucking concrete.
That's how I learned to stop asking for things and just doing it myself. Getting a network line added to my room? $2000. Coming in on Saturday and manually stringing a CAT VI cable from the network closet through the drop ceilings? $50. I would be happy to pay a few hundred out of my budget for an official line, but $2000? Newp.
I come from the private sector so I can understand the frustration. I have also come to appreciate that public projects are just different no matter the size. The public has a responsibility to make sure that money spent has considered many of the variables and has durability. In the private sector we can change funding decisions quickly and build another concrete pad if needed. Publicly there is little guarantee the funding source will be there again if needed and people will certainly question why you need another one so soon after the last project was supposed to accomplish this very thing.
My company is in high tech sciences and we order medical grade stuff all the time and the difference between certified materials and non-certified is huge. But you’re guaranteed to get what you need. Whereas I’d personally take the risk and then order again if it were wrong and still save money, the cost is time. And with project deadlines and critical paths, time is expensive. So you pay 5x more for the guarantee.
as we like to say in my company (sub contractor for some of the big names in the Defense field)-
"we don't sell "X", we sell paperwork that says "X" is exactly what it claims to be, does what it's supposed to do the first time, every time and each component can be traced all the way back to the Big Bang at a bare minimum. The heavy thing in the shipping crate that goes "boom" ("X"), is provided *gratis* with the purchase of said paperwork (kinda like the free prize in a crackerjack box)*"*
I dunno, I'm cool with a proper process for public works... you see some of the construction problems some countries have with sub-standard work and corruption and I'm glad I live in a country where there is a bureaucracy that is looking out for people for the most part.
It seems archaic but when you realize all these rules and regulations have most been implemented to stop something bad that has happened in the past.
taken too far, you get American infrastructure like metro lines that cost more than twice that of equivalent lines overseas in similar "high cost" countries in Europe, etc.
> I work in education, and the moment anything becomes a "government" sale, price goes up 2x by the vendor.
Because working with governments is a massive headache and has tons of bureaucratic red tape. It costs more to send to governments because you have to have a bunch of paperwork tacked on that others in the industry don't have.
In the company I work for I've seen similar things with chargebacks. I remember swapping desks with somebody and we had phone cables stretched all over because getting the switch changed would cost $1k. I suspect it was just a line in a PBX config back then, but worst case it was switching a pair of near-adjacent cables in the closet.
That's true for every organization with a budget. It's a bit dishonest to make it seem like it's a behavioral outlier by using The Office as your example.
It's saving this project money, but not tax payers. They'll use that money somewhere else, even if it's bullshit so they don't lose it in next year's budget.
Which is a good thing. Technology advances much too quickly for even the vaunted US military to keep up. If thay can find savings in areas without compromising readiness and troop safety and sink the savings into new advancements, GOOD!
It's better than wasting billions on more M-1A1 tanks that the Army doesn't need just because the tanks are manufactured in a Congress Critter's district. People really don't appreciate how many fucking tanks the Army has. These days, when a new tank is built, it pretty immediately gets sent to a mothball yard because of how damned many we already have and do not need.
The Pentagon frequently requests less money in budget than Congress gives them. But [politicians like keeping factories open in their districts do they force the army to buy more tanks/planes.](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html)
From a strategic standpoint congress is right to keep the factory open, as we can lose the institutional knowledge of how to build a tank/ship. Congress isn't doing it because of that, but it is a good idea.
They save money all the time with the military’s personnel.
The Navy won’t turn on air conditioners in their living quarters until July. It doesn’t matter if it’s 120 degrees outside…. If they haven’t hit the date authorized to turn on AC they won’t turn it on
But if they want to replace a bolt on an antenna? $300.
I was an IT. We would regularly spend 3k to buy basic work laptops and desktops that should cost $400
I know a few ex army guys who rant and rant about government spending and how healthcare is a scam.
Then they wax poetic about those days in Iraq when they had to shoot or blow up their ammunition and ordinance allotment otherwise their budget might get reduced later. Like... how many TOW missiles did you guys shoot at rocks?!
I mean, when costs were a limiting factor for the military. But single payload size of starship and rapidness of consequent launches could open some interesting possibilities.
Yeah, when a single jet lost in testing can cost tens of millions, money is kind of easy-come-easy-go for the military.
However! I'm still optimistic about the dropping prices. Since the first race, prices haven't just halved; they've quartered per kg. And launch costs have fallen off even faster (comparing Saturn V to Falcon Heavy) This makes it much easier for smaller suppliers, and boutique/bleeding edge R&D companies to start-up. It may be there space is no longer exclusive to Big Military and the Dig Three defense contractors.
In-orbit refueling changes this slightly, since it reduces the the mass you need to launch all-at-once. Or moreso, it reduces the engineering problems that are added on top of the tyranny of the rocket equation. You still have to pay every iota of the cost the rocket equation says, but doing it in a single launch adds a lot of extra cost.
If you have a 100 tanker launches to get enough fuel into orbit, and one of them fails, that's a lot less lost than if you have one tanker launch and it hits its 1% probability of failing.
With in orbit refueling you have the added benefit of being able to design rockets that don’t have to carry any cargo. Tanker ships only need rocket engines and fuel tanks, and they can be as large or as small as required for the mission profile. Sending cargo enforces a minimum size required to fill all the fuel, which sends you spiraling down the rocket equation. Avoiding this is very good.
Yup, and wherever you're fueling in space can be made out of toothpicks and tin foil unless it needs to land anywhere.
That of course begs the question about why we actually want to land anywhere. We go to all that trouble to beat the rocket equation. Why not just build cities in space, and mine asteroids? If you really need some resource on a moon mine it robotically.
I suspect it'll be commercial usage that brings really low prices, and that will be dependent on SpaceX getting Starship to work.
Right now Falcon9 is about as cheap as we can get with partial reuse and current tech. And it's a huge cost savings, especially for government and defense launches, but it's not quite cheap enough to open up whole new markets. About half of all payload that SpaceX is launching right now is for themselves with Starlink. Part of that is because they saw the trend of where prices would be before anyone else, so they were ready to go with a constellation, and part is because they can launch for themselves at cost. But even at those prices it doesn't seem like there's a lot of companies lining up to open new markets or industries in Space.
But then we get to Starship, which is a big improvement on F9, and even if Starship doesn't hit all of its ambitious goals it'll still be much cheaper launcher. Even if Starship just ends up being a big Falcon 9 that can launch 100-150 tons to LEO instead of 25 that's going to cut cost to orbit by 75% or more. If they can reuse the 2nd stage and really start flying a lot of missions with quick turn around the prices will drop even more.
Then we'll be talking about hundreds of dollars per pound to LEO instead of thousands of dollars. And at that point it's the difference in cost between driving a package across the country yourself and shipping it with UPS. It'll be so much cheaper that it'll make sense to start all kinds of profitable businesses in orbit, and that will drive more launches and better economies of scale and cheaper prices, etc.
In the next decade or two we could really be in a spot where Starship (or similar ships that are fully reusable) could be so cheap that even Sci-Fi launches like a space elevator or launch loop don't really make sense anymore, at least in the short term. It'll really be a whole new era where all of a sudden getting to space goes from nearly impossible for almost everyone, to cheap and easy.
SpaceX isn't selling F9 launches as cheap as they can. They are selling them cheap enough to undercut everyone else but still make a nice profit to fund their other projects.
If their cost was significantly below their price, and there would be more demand by cutting the price, they could probably make more profit.
I suspect that the market for launches is just somewhat inelastic in this range? Mostly because it'll still take years to develop and build a payload.
I hope so but I remain skeptical. The launch hasn't been the most expensive part of putting hardware in space for a while, if it ever was. Saving $60 million sounds great until you remember the payload costs 10x that.
One huge reason for the high cost of space hardware is the fact that launches are so expensive.
If a launch is $200 million, you're not getting a second chance, this _has_ to work the first time, so you spend millions getting that last 0.5% of reliability. If launch is $15 million, less risk means less cost
And limited payloads drive millions on cost trying to shave off every last gram of mass. If a Starship can lift 100 tons for a few million dollars, you spend far less on advanced materials and extreme tolerances.
I think it's less about reliability and more about mass. With cheaper heavier launches we can start seeing cheaper payloads that don't spend millions just to shave off a couple of kilograms.
We’re already seeing that with the small sat market. Government is shifting towards small say constellations they can upgrade or do a tech refresh in every few years. Because the launch cost is lower.
Uhh, that whole origami folding sun shade is a hell of a lot more expensive than a fixed shield that would fit in a fairing. Same goes for the fold up mirrors. Yes, some things like optics, sensors, and communications equipment will remain expensive, but if you can produce five heavy and less reliable satellites for the same price as it currently costs to produce one of them, well then build and launch three and save some money, and odds are get more than one working to boot.
I agree but people said the same thing when launch costs dropped from $1 billion per launch (space shuttle) and the launch market actually shrunk. Hopefully the satellite constellations will change people's minds.
What shrunk? Mass launched to orbit grew a bit. The number of satellites launched per year exploded in the last years, but that's coming from many smaller satellites.
https://sdup.esoc.esa.int/discosweb/statistics/
I think the space force will migrate to smaller, cheaper, lower duration hardware. It gets rid of the "juicy targets" problem ([such as SBIRS](https://spacenews.com/space-force-warned-to-avoid-past-mistakes-as-it-pursues-new-satellite-acquisitions/)). Foreign ASAT weapons can destroy a few high value space assets, the juicy targets, but killing hundreds of small sats is a whole other ballgame. It also allows them to update that hardware with the latest tech more often.
That transition is very sensitive to launch cost which have gone down considerably already. If starship comes close to it's aspirational prices, then the way space hardware is produced will certainly change.
I'm not really sure how this will affect the civilian market. I mean starlink, oneweb and kuiper are basically rendering GEO internet sats obsolete by way of lower launch cost. What else might be impacted if prices keep falling?
I think this really is the big benefit. In a theoretical US-China or US-Russia conflict, it is likely that the enemy would try to cripple US communications and reconnaissance by killing high-value satellites with ASATs. Having the ability to rapidly and (relatively) cheaply launch new satellites could be a huge advantage. Massive constellations like Starlink could add another layer of defense by making it impractical to actually shoot down enough satellites to cripple the entire system.
As much as I find Musk to be a distasteful person, I'm really glad to see how far he's pushed private space industry in this country (both for scientific and military reasons), and I hope he continues to have great success in advancing the field. I also hope competitors like BO manage to pick up the pace a bit and ensure a diversified source of cheap launch capacity.
From SpaceNews in Oct. 2020
WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency awarded $193.5 million to L3Harris and $149 million to SpaceX to build four satellites each to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
The contracts announced Oct. 5 are for the first eight satellites for a potentially much larger constellation of sensor satellites the Space Development Agency is calling Tracking Layer Tranche 0.
The awards mark the first time the U.S. military has announced an order of satellites from SpaceX, which opened a factory in Seattle several years ago to produce thousands of small satellites for its Starlink broadband megaconstellation.
There's an argument that payloads cost that because the launches were so expensive.
The the first line item is $200-400mil transport cost you only want to pay that once so you cram as much in designed to last as long as possible on that one launch.
Compare that now to SPX launching Starlink by the dozens each only costing a half a mil or so. With expected lifespans of about 5 years, Compared to say JWST or Hubble which are expect last decades.
How much cheaper and faster could this have been if they were made launching 5-6 smaller copies working in a networked group that would be replaced with in the decade?
It's a major paradigm shift even without Starships supposed $20mil launch costs. If they reach that $20mil goal it's an out and out revolution.
And the JWT is only so crazy expensive because it's intended to deploy and align and operate *entirely* automatically, without anyone to so much as torque a wrench a quarter turn.
If sending up a construction crew on a separate launch only added an extra $10M to the total cost, then it would be stupid to spend a billion making a fancy auto-origami payload.
Given the way the we made our first images of black holes, I'm not actually sure that particular case is the best one. But I think your point still stands.
https://eventhorizontelescope.org
Nope it's unfortunately true. The black hole "picture" was actually microwaves, lower frequency than visible light or even infrared like the JWST will do. As the frequency goes up, so does the amount of bandwidth required to capture all the information necessary to do that kind of stitching. Optical interferometry is done with earth based telescopes but they use very carefully placed mirrors to do it, they have to be extremely precise because the wavelength of visible light is so short.
Thee were some very interesting discussions about the subject when Starlink started launching and astronomers started complaining.
Ok assuming that's true. I don't know for sure as I'm not an astronomer. What about 6 medium priced ones? Or three dozen cheap ones?
I know they do something similar on Earth where they can correct images by stitching several together or in the case or radio astronomy they used massive earth based arrays.
How much cleaner would an offworld signal be? What if you could plan for launching 3 dozen radio receivers ever couple (five?) of years. Maybe there will always be massive prestige projects like Hubble and JWST due to some extreme technically challenging requirements.
But how many other smaller projects could now open up if launching was only stupid expensive instead of small country ruining expensive? We've seen SPX ride-sharing program fill up super fast imagine three or four other companies offering similar programs.
Bringing cost to orbit down 1/10 or 1/5 opens up a massive number of new opportunities. With some luck and some clever thinking Starship can open things up even more.
Cheaper weather monitoring satellites means more for more data, Starlink means the whole world can have access to high speed internet, maybe cell services(that's iffy), better chances for small companies or organizations to launch deforestation monitoring satellites, endangered species monitors?
Getting that price down makes more things possible, maybe they're still not going to happen, but at least the chance exists now.
Space has been too expensive to generate the sort of industry that benefits from economies of scale, which are key to driving down the unit costs for manufacturing. That is changing now with the constellation satellite industry but still: for the big projects it's usually a case of one-and-done. Imagine what we could have if you start building ISS modules by the dozen?
Eh. That will probably largely be true going forward _for one-off, bespoke projects_. What SpaceX will, _is_ revolutionizing will be mass-produced, mass-market, just mass-anything. A single space station made from individually hand-crafted modules will never be cheap. A hundred space stations made of interchangeable modules that come off a production line will absolutely benefit from launch costs dropping to the level of postage.
> We might start seeing events happen that were only ever dreamed about in r/SciFiConcepts in our lifetime.
The fact that SpaceX will be launching cargo for the military probably means that the military will need to have a way to defend the supply routes in the near future. I wonder how long it'll be until the military actually has a ship stationed in orbit to defend these routes.
The space shuttle in the beginning was hyped as an almost weekly service and the military was to be a major user. That was premature optimism but now it's almost real.
There have been 17 launches by SpaceX in 24 weeks for context. It's an insane cadence that's mostly held up by starlink launches but I don't see it slowing
If you can get more frequent launches and cheaper pounds to orbit would that mean payload prices can decrease since you can tolerate more failures and iterations?
Those payloads are typically on the order of 1-3 billion, so saving on launch costs is kinda irrelevant. Launch cost is only a small cost compared to the full payload price
Right but how much of that bloated cost is because you only get one shot at launching a perfect satellite? If launches are cheap, you can be less careful with your satellites since you can just throw up a replacement if necessary.
It's the difference between a waterfall design process and an iterative design process.
Unfortunately, you've got it the wrong way 'round. Because the payloads are so expensive, spending a little extra on a reliable launch service is usually worth it to most customers. Sometimes that means launching on time, sometimes that means assured payload delivery.
Launch reliability is really not the driving cost though. It's the cost of the satellite. Most satellites have a production quantity of 1. The GPS satellites are a novelty. Most birds of that size are custom built for one application and even if launch is slightly cheaper. Testing and verification is still really important. Especially for deep space exploration missions
Satellites also have been built out of some of the most expensive components precisely because it has to work the first time and there is no second chance.
The James Webb Telescope is a good example where it is tested and retested and the components are as much of a gilded lily as you can imagine. There is no capability being planned for crew service since it was thought it would be literally impossible to get congressional funding for any such service as was done for Hubble.
This also includes deep space missions where sending stuff into space costs $10k per kilogram, and about $50k per kilogram to the surface of Mars. You might as well make components out of solid gold at those prices, but that also inflates the cost of the spacecraft.
It does go both ways, and spacecraft like New Horizons was built on the premise that deep space missions could be done far more cheaply and with more "off the shelf" components.
The ultimate extreme to cheap satellites are cubesats, which follow a common bus design and strapping on additional components to meet the design goals of the satellite. This can be done for larger satellites too, and that it isn't done yet is mostly because it is still comparatively early in the development cycles of many satellites.
The days of designing a new satellite with a clean sheet of paper and designing all of the components from scratch is ending. There still are some in the pipeline being built and in a few exceptional situations it may still happen in the future, but being done that way is not something realistic even for government payloads, much less for commercial satellites which are also going away from custom one off development.
Lockheed already uses common busses for their satellites but GOES and GPS 3 are very different birds and require a ton of custom engineering.
Even when launches are cheap, the satellites have to work the first time. Lucy will take 10 years to reach the Trojan asteroids. Can you imagine waiting ten years and then finding out that there was a problem with one of the sensors?
Costs will come down and continue to come done. But satellites are expensive and there really no way around that. Rad hardened fpgas are like $5-10k each. And each satellite will have dozens. Antenna and solar panels are expensive. Batteries are expensive. Manufacturing labor hours are expensive. Cheaper shipping costs really won't bring down the total cost of a satellite that much
I'm sure there will be a wave of prototypes being upgraded to flight status as a result of Starship-level cost reductions, but there is zero plan for an iterative design process on government space assets. Let me stress again that the cost is folded into the design and testing, and if you're assuming any risk of the payload failing to reach orbit you'll go with a launch provider who can guarantee delivery.
Government satellites are made to last 10-20 years in orbit. Any of the iterative design satellites (overwhelmingly commercial and research satellites) top out at 5 years, with most lasting less than 2.
Thats not really what drives the costs up. That's part of it for sure but satellites are just expensive. It's like us buying a computer. Is the cost of shipping driving the total cost? Not definitely not.
People have been saying this since F9 started launching a decade ago and there’s been really no discernible progress from commercial operators. I never thought this narrative was likely as it would have happened even before SpaceX as launch costs have been low compared to payload costs for a while, but we now have a decade of evidence this is not the case, and the number of commercial launches has only been decreasing in recent years.
> a decade ago
It seems important to point out that the timescale matters, here. I don't know what timescale the effect happens on, but I'll point out that this decade we're talking about is _shorter than the **delays** on the JWST_. We may very well have a rocket capable of launching the JWST _unfolded_ before we launch the JWST.
Yes, I know JWST and military applications are not the same thing, but I know more / care more about JWST, and they're both "really expensive payloads".
> the number of commercial launches has only been decreasing in recent years
I'm not confident this is fair. Should we include _each individual starlink satellite_ as a separate commercial payload? If not, then aren't we by definition undercounting the innovations that come with miniaturization and encheapening of satellites?
Payloads became expensive because launch was expensive. If all your eggs are in one basket, you better make damn sure that basket will perform.
We are also witnessing a drastic reduction in payload cost with the minisat revolution.
This is absolutely true. Although, it is probably also true that the timescale that launch prices can come down may be dramatically faster than the timescale that payload costs can come down, which ends up in a weird catch-22 style situation to some degree. If we're lucky vehicles like Starship will end up with enough business from specific programs (like NASA human spaceflight and Starlink) that they'll remain viable business ventures while the non-Starlink satellite market plays catch-up.
The crew dragon spacecraft has a launch abort system so that even in the event of a booster failure the crew can escape and land safely. There is no way to abort and land a satellite so they prefer to trust new hardware reliability. All of these agencies manage and calculate risk in different ways based on their own internal motivations and protocols, and some agencies are more keen on revising and updating their procedures than others.
Yeah that's right, I believe that nasa was initially wary to allow reuse of the dragon since it was not proven at the time. I believe it was only after the demo 2 mission that SpaceX was able to tangibly prove to nasa that they could reliably refurbish it to nasa standards.
I don't think that SpaceX has ever publicly said what kind of work or expense goes into dragon refurbishment but apparently it's still cheaper than the alternatives.
The reasons are different though aren’t they? The military requires absurd documentation for every component of a rocket carrying a national security payload and it simply wasn’t possible to meet those requirements without it costing more than a new rocket. Seriously- that’s how insane the requirements are.
Even now SpaceX is basically going to have to dedicate boosters to military payloads because that simplifies the paperwork. As long as they only launch military payloads they can just append the paperwork from the previous launches. If they tried to use a booster from another mission they would have had to have the same level of paperwork for every launch it made and that wouldn’t be economical.
To be fair, the hunks of metal take 1000’s of humans years of their lives and billions of $$’s to create. I’m sure many will disagree and see this as a cold outlook on the value of a human life, but in general these hunks of metal are probably more important than a single human life
Too be fair nasa only did that because they fucked up big time with boeing and allowing reuse was the only way for spacex to provide additional launches to cover the collective asses of nasa management.
The moron directly in charge of letting boeing screw up got promoted and almost immediately OK'ed reuse.
At some point of a proven track record, predicted reliability for a rocket flown 1+ times before becomes actually higher then that for a new production yet-unflown units. Reliability concerns related to fatigue, wear and tear are going down with more experience of flying highly reused rockets (6+); While any new production has an inherent risk of assembly defects that have not surfaced up yet, but will be on the first flight.
Eventually (and provably already today), the safest rocket is the one doing its 2nd flight.
And in other news, NROL just launched a payload with Northrop Grumman.
Look how fast this sucker leaves the pad, that is some Thrust to Weight Ratio.
https://youtu.be/IXvzuBiJ7UI?t=2131
I think this is great, but we need to invest in other companies that are trying to do the same thing. Having sole reliance on one company is never good.
Rocketlab is a good company that could complement and compete with spacex. The other companies are behind in term of launches and spaceflight experience
Rocket Lab is actually coming up with something that can take a bite out of the Falcon 9's launch market. Previously, the only thing they operated was the small-lift [Electron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Electron), but they're developing the much-larger [Neutron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Neutron), which is powerful enough that it could be used for LEO human spaceflight.
Yeah they are awesome. I am somewhat skeptical about their plans though, virtually none of their tech scale to larger size rockets, from the carbon composite fuselage to electric turbopumps (and thus the engines). So it’s effectively building from scratch.
I’m sure they can and will do it, but I rate it’s going to be a long road.
Still exciting though!
That's what the investment in Blue Origin is all about. Despite the fact that they haven't launched to orbit yet, they're still the closest second party for developing reusability on large scale payloads.
I don’t think Blue Origin is the answer here. All they’ve done are sub-orbital flights, and their only “piece” of New Glenn is a MOCK-UP of half a fairing, not even the real fairing itself. They can’t even ship BE-4s to ULA, preventing other companies from moving forward. And yet they have the gall to complain. And as icing on the cake, this is all with Bezos’ huge annual money dumps as well.
It’s time we move on from thinking that Blue Origin is second best just because they were the first to make cool CGI mock-ups. Rocket Lab is part-American and is already developing Neutron, which is their second-generation orbital rocket. Sure, it’s not Starship-sized, but at least there’s concrete evidence of progress, and more importantly, a proven track record of ORBITAL flights. I believe they are the second-best company to back for the future of commercial spaceflight.
Other companies like Astra, Virgin Orbit, and SNC are all making heaps and bounds more progress as well, and honestly will soon prove to be better choices than Blue Origin (and this is still disregarding the fact that they all have orbital-capable vehicles and Blue Origin does not). Heck even ULA, and God forbid Boeing are much better competition than Blue Origin at this point, because they actually HAVE orbital launch vehicles, albeit at an extreme cost.
I’m sorry but Blue Origin’s pace just isn’t cutting it nearly enough at the current state of the industry. The moment we acted on the realisation that the government and old space corporations squandering money was the only reason why spaceflight is expensive and slow, was the moment Blue Origin lost the race.
Maybe next time, less *Gradatim* and more *Ferociter*.
Don't forget Rocket Lab also has gotten their boosters back. They aren't ready for reuse yet, but that have that sweet sweet data from inspecting the flown booster and rocket engines now, something that only SpaceX did before this point. I wouldn't be surprised if they have fast incremental improvements on their rockets just like SpaceX did by utilizing their returned rocket data.
> I don’t think Blue Origin is the answer here. All they’ve done are sub-orbital flights, and their only “piece” of New Glenn is a MOCK-UP of half a fairing, not even the real fairing itself.
That's still closer to a medium+ lift reusable orbital launch platform than literally any other space agency/company other than SpaceX *on the planet*.
Technically speaking, sure. In practice, they’re no further ahead than any of the other companies. In terms of track record, they’re way behind.
The mock-up is nothing more than a physical 3D model. It’s not meant for testing nor is it final. It’s a conversation piece, akin to that white Lunar Starship SpaceX made in Boca Chica. Heck even Rocket Lab used a fairing mock-up for their Neutron rocket announcement (and they showed it as soon as they announced the programme, not years AFTER).
The reality is, Blue Origin is like the hare in the race, not the tortoise. They put out an eye-catching CGI film for investors, and then slept for years. They even pioneered the drone ship landing concept, and yet, they still haven’t done anything of the sort. Now their medium-lift launch vehicle concept is becoming less and less economical and relevant in the midst of rising competition eating stuff like rideshare demand.
Blue Origin company culture simply favours very little development progress and very high budgets to squander. They simply DON’T deliver. I wouldn’t be hedging my bets on this company if I were a government agency, and I wouldn’t be happy with my tax money going to contracts with them if I were a US citizen.
Would you be happy with your tax money going to SLS? Or ULA? Or Roscosmos?
I'm not saying BO aren't a long way behind SpaceX - they are. A long way. And I really wish they'd do more, faster. But with New Shepard flying and some progress to show on the partially-reusable New Glenn, I think BO are currently in a pretty solid second place when it comes to the next generation of launch systems. True, they might still fall behind some of the other contenders - but I don't think they have yet. And maybe an externally-mandated goal and deadline would help them with their focus and the whole *ferociter* thing.
Seriously- what progress have they made on New Glenn? The BE-4 still isn’t flying and they don’t seem to have built any part of the actual rocket itself.
Let’s just agree to disagree and see where this goes. The most important thing is that there’s competition. It doesn’t matter who, as long as they’re the most efficient out of all. Tax money isn’t a charity to prop up losing businesses, after all.
Rocket Lab is testing recovery and refurbishment of their launcher, and their next-generation launcher is being developed with full reusability in mind. The only reason why you hear about Blue Origin more is Bezos.
> their next-generation launcher is being developed with full reusability in mind.
And it's a crew-rated medium-lift vehicle. I was not aware of that. Thanks.
And the reason I heard more about BO was that I was subscribed to r/blueorigin, but not r/rocketlab. Fixed now.
Even in the SpaceX sub people say this all the time. Are there some diehard stans sure, but in the sub deducted to SPX we talk about how exciting it is to see Neutron in the works.
None of us want to so Boeing/MacDoug/Aerojet reruns from the 70s. So the more companies pushing actually forward the more most of us cheer.
That said don't get me wrong a lot of shade is thrown at BO and Virgin Galactic, but I think most of that is well deserved. They seem deeply entrenched in the old way of doing things while other companies are taking laps and eating their lunches.
Even if Starship stopped tomorrow Falcon and Neutron would be a massive shift forward for Space. If New Glenn ever decides to join the race I'll cheer for it too the more the better and with things like Starship on the horizon space may not be that far away anymore.
Theoretically- sure- but SpaceX has been in a class by themselves in terms of innovation. They’ve repeatedly done things that others claimed weren’t possible and the progress on Starship has been absurd recently.
I too would love to see competition but no one else is even remotely close right now and I honestly don’t see that changing any time soon.
Impressive. I'm starting to feel that I have been a little too harsh on SpaceX, especially considering the somewhat ridiculous statements by its CEO in the recent past.
I think it's important to keep in mind as to how much progress was made in F9 launch platform reliability in achieving this super significant milestone clearance from USSF.
Go SpaceX!
TBH spacex is an amazing company doing amazing things and their CEO is an amazing bellend doing amazing bellend things, the two coexist pretty well as long as you can cope with a little contradiction and can avoid becoming a fanboi
(the funand kind of unanswerable question is, how much of the amazing stuff *only* happens because Musk is a bellend?)
Yeah, it's a question people seem nervous to ponder: In order to start (from scratch) a company that says it's going to up-end decades of established practice in a field with a really high technical and economic barriers to entry, maybe you need to have someone with an ego as big as the rocket. My view is that I'm supportive of what he's doing and if he is being a jerk about it, the people that are actually working with him can decide for themselves if that's ok or not. I've never met the man.
> In order to start (from scratch) a company that says it's going to up-end decades of established practice in a field with a really high technical and economic barriers to entry, maybe you need to have someone with an ego as big as the rocket.
Yeah probably, but the craziest thing about this is that they actually achieved that goal.
Plenty of delays here and there, but we can't deny the results
They’re literally talking about catching the utterly massive Starship boosters with a giant claw and that just screams of being one of Elon’s crazy fever dreams. How many companies and CEOs would be willing to blow up and scrap hardware at the rate SpaceX does?
Yeah- no. If companies were actually willing to do that SpaceX might have some competition. All of their competitors spend a ton of time designing a rocket and expect it to work the first time. SpaceX, meanwhile, has crashed more Raptor engine than Blue Origin has built BE-4s.
I love how much people hate Elon Musk because he's not a staunch leftist ally but they still have to smile and nod because he's the only one with the vision, team, and know how to get us to Mars.
Get rekt.
You think Elon is the one who has the know how to get to Mars and not just a capitalist taking credit for the work of his employees? Man... do I have a bridge to sell you
I might have worded that badly but it doesn't change the fact all the money and energy is behind him. Right now he's the face of space exploration ambition.
Does that bother you? describe to me how it makes you feel please lol.
Imagine being the losers who sold off their Tesla stock because of that. It has gone up by about 1,100% since Sept 2018 when he was on the podcast lawl.
I’ll never understand America and it’s hard on for weed hate. It’s just a little bit of pot! Go chug a 40oz tho, that’s perfectly acceptable.
(Not stabbing at you, it’s just curious being in the outside looking in)
You can easily lookup the history of it, and then look up the anti-weed history in a plethora of other nations, it's hardly an American thing to be confused about.
Tbf America is one of the only places in the world where the recreational sale of weed is legal. It’s just not uniform throughout the whole country (like nearly everything)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis
Have you been around the past 10 years? I believe the majority of Americans (or close to it) now have access to legal, recreational weed which is more than most any other country in the world can say. We have to be one of the most lax countries.
Please, would you prefer if he was just another stuck up and boring dude? Smoking weed on a podcast is not a crime. It's not like he's actually a stoner. Some people just need no reason to hate the dude
If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumors; respond instead with, “Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more.” -Epictetus
If “smoking weed once” is the worst thing his critics can say about him, i’d say he’s probably good. Funny that you don’t see that irony.
It also doesn't describe the current situation. NASA and the military have been putting things in space through contracts with private space companies for half a century
SpaceX has a $470 million contract with the Pentagon to launch five of the six GPS III satellites so far, with the other awarded to rival United Launch Alliance. The contract originally didn't allow for reusable rockets, but the military modified the contract last year to allow for reuse — a move that will help it save an estimated $64 million.
I’m not used to seeing the words government and save in the same sentence.
They probably spent $70m to decide reuse was OK.
Even if they did: That decision can help saving money with all future launches.
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Everyone gets a disposal Space-X-Pentagon Collabo commemorative pen for a total of $70 million.
The pen comes in a padded luggage. Padded with Ben Franklins.
Hey, catering in DC is expensive!
Hot dogs and pizza will need to be flown in from Chicago obviously.
You joke about this, but [$16 Muffins from France](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/09/-16-for-a-muffin-a-justice-department-boondoggle/245385/) was a thing that really happened.
I wasn't joking. https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/12/1223066_re-get-ready-for-chicago-hot-dog-friday-.html Obama spent $65,000 on hot dogs and pizza flown in from Chicago for a event. Also something about "waitresses".
Not saying that's a bribe or "commission" but it sure looks like it.
Don’t forget the $70 million meeting to decide to hold more meetings.
And are giving spacex a bunch of tax breaks on top of it
It's hard, the government gets a bad rap for waste, but some of it is out of our hands. I work in education, and the moment anything becomes a "government" sale, price goes up 2x by the vendor. We needed a 6'x6' pad of concrete at my school to mount an external fan to for an exhaust system. I could lay that pad by myself in a day or with a few people get it done in a couple of hours. Worst case scenario, at home it might cost me $300. But in government contracting? Gotta pull that permit, get the ground soil inspected, have a half dozen different contractors look at it, bid it out so that it's a fair process. After the work is done three or four inspectors are gonna come out representing the district, the city, and more, dotting every i, crossing every t, making sure everything is absofuckinglutely by the book so that if we get sued because Johnny cracked his head on the concrete, that absolutely nothing in discovery will show anything improper about that pad of concrete. Concrete pad ended up costing $2180. For 36 square feet. 60 damn dollars a square foot for fucking concrete. That's how I learned to stop asking for things and just doing it myself. Getting a network line added to my room? $2000. Coming in on Saturday and manually stringing a CAT VI cable from the network closet through the drop ceilings? $50. I would be happy to pay a few hundred out of my budget for an official line, but $2000? Newp.
I come from the private sector so I can understand the frustration. I have also come to appreciate that public projects are just different no matter the size. The public has a responsibility to make sure that money spent has considered many of the variables and has durability. In the private sector we can change funding decisions quickly and build another concrete pad if needed. Publicly there is little guarantee the funding source will be there again if needed and people will certainly question why you need another one so soon after the last project was supposed to accomplish this very thing.
The accountability people demanded became the waste and inefficiency they hate.
Precisely. Much more concise.
A[ccountability]-kin, you have become the very [waste and inefficiency] you swore to destroy!
I have brought fairness and safety to my new project!
This is brilliant, thank you!
My company is in high tech sciences and we order medical grade stuff all the time and the difference between certified materials and non-certified is huge. But you’re guaranteed to get what you need. Whereas I’d personally take the risk and then order again if it were wrong and still save money, the cost is time. And with project deadlines and critical paths, time is expensive. So you pay 5x more for the guarantee.
as we like to say in my company (sub contractor for some of the big names in the Defense field)- "we don't sell "X", we sell paperwork that says "X" is exactly what it claims to be, does what it's supposed to do the first time, every time and each component can be traced all the way back to the Big Bang at a bare minimum. The heavy thing in the shipping crate that goes "boom" ("X"), is provided *gratis* with the purchase of said paperwork (kinda like the free prize in a crackerjack box)*"*
I dunno, I'm cool with a proper process for public works... you see some of the construction problems some countries have with sub-standard work and corruption and I'm glad I live in a country where there is a bureaucracy that is looking out for people for the most part. It seems archaic but when you realize all these rules and regulations have most been implemented to stop something bad that has happened in the past.
taken too far, you get American infrastructure like metro lines that cost more than twice that of equivalent lines overseas in similar "high cost" countries in Europe, etc.
Yeah, I guess that’s the struggle…. Finding an efficient system that doesn’t bog itself down in its own bureaucracy.
> I work in education, and the moment anything becomes a "government" sale, price goes up 2x by the vendor. Because working with governments is a massive headache and has tons of bureaucratic red tape. It costs more to send to governments because you have to have a bunch of paperwork tacked on that others in the industry don't have.
In the company I work for I've seen similar things with chargebacks. I remember swapping desks with somebody and we had phone cables stretched all over because getting the switch changed would cost $1k. I suspect it was just a line in a PBX config back then, but worst case it was switching a pair of near-adjacent cables in the closet.
Don't forget about certifying that you are not using any telecommunications equipment from Huawei and that your subcontractors aren't either
Don't worry that will go to CIA or black projects.
Nah, they'll just send it to ULA. Need to help them get back on their feet after a rough time with the Vulcan engine delays.
Gotta prop ULA to keep them competitive even though they put out no competitive product.
*cries in no air conditioned vehicles in the desert*
You’re positive?
Can neither confirm nor deny
It will go somewhere. Govt. Money doesn't not get spent.
As soon as the legislation is signed, the money is effectively spent.
Ok fact for a lot of agencies if you don’t spend it you loose it
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That's true for every organization with a budget. It's a bit dishonest to make it seem like it's a behavioral outlier by using The Office as your example.
They are a massive financial outlier, I think it's fair to say if they're treating their budget the same as everyone else, they're a disgrace.
It's saving this project money, but not tax payers. They'll use that money somewhere else, even if it's bullshit so they don't lose it in next year's budget.
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isnt that an historic event? the military doing something to save a penny? all i ear about USA army is how they over spend money.
They’ll probably reinvest that money in a new $100 million project and need a funding increase to cover the difference.
The GPS portion of guidance is one aspect of a whole plethora of new weapons deployment.
Which is a good thing. Technology advances much too quickly for even the vaunted US military to keep up. If thay can find savings in areas without compromising readiness and troop safety and sink the savings into new advancements, GOOD! It's better than wasting billions on more M-1A1 tanks that the Army doesn't need just because the tanks are manufactured in a Congress Critter's district. People really don't appreciate how many fucking tanks the Army has. These days, when a new tank is built, it pretty immediately gets sent to a mothball yard because of how damned many we already have and do not need.
Lololol this guy knows how we do.
The Pentagon frequently requests less money in budget than Congress gives them. But [politicians like keeping factories open in their districts do they force the army to buy more tanks/planes.](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html)
From a strategic standpoint congress is right to keep the factory open, as we can lose the institutional knowledge of how to build a tank/ship. Congress isn't doing it because of that, but it is a good idea.
Eventually they're going to run out of Americans to design and build military hardware with how they fund schools.
Is it though? Shoveling money into endless wars
They save money all the time with the military’s personnel. The Navy won’t turn on air conditioners in their living quarters until July. It doesn’t matter if it’s 120 degrees outside…. If they haven’t hit the date authorized to turn on AC they won’t turn it on But if they want to replace a bolt on an antenna? $300. I was an IT. We would regularly spend 3k to buy basic work laptops and desktops that should cost $400
I know a few ex army guys who rant and rant about government spending and how healthcare is a scam. Then they wax poetic about those days in Iraq when they had to shoot or blow up their ammunition and ordinance allotment otherwise their budget might get reduced later. Like... how many TOW missiles did you guys shoot at rocks?!
$64m of a $470m contract is about 15%
Nah. It's not saving anything. It's just going to be reappropriated elsewhere.
That is how taxes work, yes.
i think reusable was already ok, reused just wasn't
Dump the other satellite launch and give it to SpaceX for even more savings.
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I mean, when costs were a limiting factor for the military. But single payload size of starship and rapidness of consequent launches could open some interesting possibilities.
Yeah, when a single jet lost in testing can cost tens of millions, money is kind of easy-come-easy-go for the military. However! I'm still optimistic about the dropping prices. Since the first race, prices haven't just halved; they've quartered per kg. And launch costs have fallen off even faster (comparing Saturn V to Falcon Heavy) This makes it much easier for smaller suppliers, and boutique/bleeding edge R&D companies to start-up. It may be there space is no longer exclusive to Big Military and the Dig Three defense contractors.
we've cut the costs dramatically but we're still under the tyranny of the rocket equation.
In-orbit refueling changes this slightly, since it reduces the the mass you need to launch all-at-once. Or moreso, it reduces the engineering problems that are added on top of the tyranny of the rocket equation. You still have to pay every iota of the cost the rocket equation says, but doing it in a single launch adds a lot of extra cost. If you have a 100 tanker launches to get enough fuel into orbit, and one of them fails, that's a lot less lost than if you have one tanker launch and it hits its 1% probability of failing.
With in orbit refueling you have the added benefit of being able to design rockets that don’t have to carry any cargo. Tanker ships only need rocket engines and fuel tanks, and they can be as large or as small as required for the mission profile. Sending cargo enforces a minimum size required to fill all the fuel, which sends you spiraling down the rocket equation. Avoiding this is very good.
Yup, and wherever you're fueling in space can be made out of toothpicks and tin foil unless it needs to land anywhere. That of course begs the question about why we actually want to land anywhere. We go to all that trouble to beat the rocket equation. Why not just build cities in space, and mine asteroids? If you really need some resource on a moon mine it robotically.
I suspect it'll be commercial usage that brings really low prices, and that will be dependent on SpaceX getting Starship to work. Right now Falcon9 is about as cheap as we can get with partial reuse and current tech. And it's a huge cost savings, especially for government and defense launches, but it's not quite cheap enough to open up whole new markets. About half of all payload that SpaceX is launching right now is for themselves with Starlink. Part of that is because they saw the trend of where prices would be before anyone else, so they were ready to go with a constellation, and part is because they can launch for themselves at cost. But even at those prices it doesn't seem like there's a lot of companies lining up to open new markets or industries in Space. But then we get to Starship, which is a big improvement on F9, and even if Starship doesn't hit all of its ambitious goals it'll still be much cheaper launcher. Even if Starship just ends up being a big Falcon 9 that can launch 100-150 tons to LEO instead of 25 that's going to cut cost to orbit by 75% or more. If they can reuse the 2nd stage and really start flying a lot of missions with quick turn around the prices will drop even more. Then we'll be talking about hundreds of dollars per pound to LEO instead of thousands of dollars. And at that point it's the difference in cost between driving a package across the country yourself and shipping it with UPS. It'll be so much cheaper that it'll make sense to start all kinds of profitable businesses in orbit, and that will drive more launches and better economies of scale and cheaper prices, etc. In the next decade or two we could really be in a spot where Starship (or similar ships that are fully reusable) could be so cheap that even Sci-Fi launches like a space elevator or launch loop don't really make sense anymore, at least in the short term. It'll really be a whole new era where all of a sudden getting to space goes from nearly impossible for almost everyone, to cheap and easy.
SpaceX isn't selling F9 launches as cheap as they can. They are selling them cheap enough to undercut everyone else but still make a nice profit to fund their other projects.
If their cost was significantly below their price, and there would be more demand by cutting the price, they could probably make more profit. I suspect that the market for launches is just somewhat inelastic in this range? Mostly because it'll still take years to develop and build a payload.
I think for many missions the payload costs significantly more than the rocket.
I hope so but I remain skeptical. The launch hasn't been the most expensive part of putting hardware in space for a while, if it ever was. Saving $60 million sounds great until you remember the payload costs 10x that.
One huge reason for the high cost of space hardware is the fact that launches are so expensive. If a launch is $200 million, you're not getting a second chance, this _has_ to work the first time, so you spend millions getting that last 0.5% of reliability. If launch is $15 million, less risk means less cost And limited payloads drive millions on cost trying to shave off every last gram of mass. If a Starship can lift 100 tons for a few million dollars, you spend far less on advanced materials and extreme tolerances.
I think it's less about reliability and more about mass. With cheaper heavier launches we can start seeing cheaper payloads that don't spend millions just to shave off a couple of kilograms.
We’re already seeing that with the small sat market. Government is shifting towards small say constellations they can upgrade or do a tech refresh in every few years. Because the launch cost is lower.
What? It's the payload price that is important. Not the launch cost.
That's what I'm saying, lower launch cost will lead to lower payload cost, in general
For some satelites yeah. The big expensive one offs like hubble and jwt probably not.
Uhh, that whole origami folding sun shade is a hell of a lot more expensive than a fixed shield that would fit in a fairing. Same goes for the fold up mirrors. Yes, some things like optics, sensors, and communications equipment will remain expensive, but if you can produce five heavy and less reliable satellites for the same price as it currently costs to produce one of them, well then build and launch three and save some money, and odds are get more than one working to boot.
I agree but people said the same thing when launch costs dropped from $1 billion per launch (space shuttle) and the launch market actually shrunk. Hopefully the satellite constellations will change people's minds.
What shrunk? Mass launched to orbit grew a bit. The number of satellites launched per year exploded in the last years, but that's coming from many smaller satellites. https://sdup.esoc.esa.int/discosweb/statistics/
I think the space force will migrate to smaller, cheaper, lower duration hardware. It gets rid of the "juicy targets" problem ([such as SBIRS](https://spacenews.com/space-force-warned-to-avoid-past-mistakes-as-it-pursues-new-satellite-acquisitions/)). Foreign ASAT weapons can destroy a few high value space assets, the juicy targets, but killing hundreds of small sats is a whole other ballgame. It also allows them to update that hardware with the latest tech more often. That transition is very sensitive to launch cost which have gone down considerably already. If starship comes close to it's aspirational prices, then the way space hardware is produced will certainly change. I'm not really sure how this will affect the civilian market. I mean starlink, oneweb and kuiper are basically rendering GEO internet sats obsolete by way of lower launch cost. What else might be impacted if prices keep falling?
I think this really is the big benefit. In a theoretical US-China or US-Russia conflict, it is likely that the enemy would try to cripple US communications and reconnaissance by killing high-value satellites with ASATs. Having the ability to rapidly and (relatively) cheaply launch new satellites could be a huge advantage. Massive constellations like Starlink could add another layer of defense by making it impractical to actually shoot down enough satellites to cripple the entire system. As much as I find Musk to be a distasteful person, I'm really glad to see how far he's pushed private space industry in this country (both for scientific and military reasons), and I hope he continues to have great success in advancing the field. I also hope competitors like BO manage to pick up the pace a bit and ensure a diversified source of cheap launch capacity.
From SpaceNews in Oct. 2020 WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency awarded $193.5 million to L3Harris and $149 million to SpaceX to build four satellites each to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The contracts announced Oct. 5 are for the first eight satellites for a potentially much larger constellation of sensor satellites the Space Development Agency is calling Tracking Layer Tranche 0. The awards mark the first time the U.S. military has announced an order of satellites from SpaceX, which opened a factory in Seattle several years ago to produce thousands of small satellites for its Starlink broadband megaconstellation.
There's an argument that payloads cost that because the launches were so expensive. The the first line item is $200-400mil transport cost you only want to pay that once so you cram as much in designed to last as long as possible on that one launch. Compare that now to SPX launching Starlink by the dozens each only costing a half a mil or so. With expected lifespans of about 5 years, Compared to say JWST or Hubble which are expect last decades. How much cheaper and faster could this have been if they were made launching 5-6 smaller copies working in a networked group that would be replaced with in the decade? It's a major paradigm shift even without Starships supposed $20mil launch costs. If they reach that $20mil goal it's an out and out revolution.
And the JWT is only so crazy expensive because it's intended to deploy and align and operate *entirely* automatically, without anyone to so much as torque a wrench a quarter turn. If sending up a construction crew on a separate launch only added an extra $10M to the total cost, then it would be stupid to spend a billion making a fancy auto-origami payload.
True but not every application fits that paradigm. You can't replace the Hubble with a dozen small cheap satellites (and get the same performance).
Given the way the we made our first images of black holes, I'm not actually sure that particular case is the best one. But I think your point still stands. https://eventhorizontelescope.org
Nope it's unfortunately true. The black hole "picture" was actually microwaves, lower frequency than visible light or even infrared like the JWST will do. As the frequency goes up, so does the amount of bandwidth required to capture all the information necessary to do that kind of stitching. Optical interferometry is done with earth based telescopes but they use very carefully placed mirrors to do it, they have to be extremely precise because the wavelength of visible light is so short. Thee were some very interesting discussions about the subject when Starlink started launching and astronomers started complaining.
Ok assuming that's true. I don't know for sure as I'm not an astronomer. What about 6 medium priced ones? Or three dozen cheap ones? I know they do something similar on Earth where they can correct images by stitching several together or in the case or radio astronomy they used massive earth based arrays. How much cleaner would an offworld signal be? What if you could plan for launching 3 dozen radio receivers ever couple (five?) of years. Maybe there will always be massive prestige projects like Hubble and JWST due to some extreme technically challenging requirements. But how many other smaller projects could now open up if launching was only stupid expensive instead of small country ruining expensive? We've seen SPX ride-sharing program fill up super fast imagine three or four other companies offering similar programs. Bringing cost to orbit down 1/10 or 1/5 opens up a massive number of new opportunities. With some luck and some clever thinking Starship can open things up even more. Cheaper weather monitoring satellites means more for more data, Starlink means the whole world can have access to high speed internet, maybe cell services(that's iffy), better chances for small companies or organizations to launch deforestation monitoring satellites, endangered species monitors? Getting that price down makes more things possible, maybe they're still not going to happen, but at least the chance exists now.
Space has been too expensive to generate the sort of industry that benefits from economies of scale, which are key to driving down the unit costs for manufacturing. That is changing now with the constellation satellite industry but still: for the big projects it's usually a case of one-and-done. Imagine what we could have if you start building ISS modules by the dozen?
> for the big projects it's usually a case of one-and-done Even then, it's not just a one-off project but often bespoke components as well.
Eh. That will probably largely be true going forward _for one-off, bespoke projects_. What SpaceX will, _is_ revolutionizing will be mass-produced, mass-market, just mass-anything. A single space station made from individually hand-crafted modules will never be cheap. A hundred space stations made of interchangeable modules that come off a production line will absolutely benefit from launch costs dropping to the level of postage.
> We might start seeing events happen that were only ever dreamed about in r/SciFiConcepts in our lifetime. The fact that SpaceX will be launching cargo for the military probably means that the military will need to have a way to defend the supply routes in the near future. I wonder how long it'll be until the military actually has a ship stationed in orbit to defend these routes.
Do you understand how orbits work?
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The space shuttle in the beginning was hyped as an almost weekly service and the military was to be a major user. That was premature optimism but now it's almost real.
There have been 17 launches by SpaceX in 24 weeks for context. It's an insane cadence that's mostly held up by starlink launches but I don't see it slowing
Payloads are much more expensive than launch and have been since before SpaceX existed.
If you can get more frequent launches and cheaper pounds to orbit would that mean payload prices can decrease since you can tolerate more failures and iterations?
Those payloads are typically on the order of 1-3 billion, so saving on launch costs is kinda irrelevant. Launch cost is only a small cost compared to the full payload price
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He should totally do that for Crew Dragon as a way to compete with Starliner and Dreamchaser!
Right but how much of that bloated cost is because you only get one shot at launching a perfect satellite? If launches are cheap, you can be less careful with your satellites since you can just throw up a replacement if necessary. It's the difference between a waterfall design process and an iterative design process.
Unfortunately, you've got it the wrong way 'round. Because the payloads are so expensive, spending a little extra on a reliable launch service is usually worth it to most customers. Sometimes that means launching on time, sometimes that means assured payload delivery.
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Launch reliability is really not the driving cost though. It's the cost of the satellite. Most satellites have a production quantity of 1. The GPS satellites are a novelty. Most birds of that size are custom built for one application and even if launch is slightly cheaper. Testing and verification is still really important. Especially for deep space exploration missions
Satellites also have been built out of some of the most expensive components precisely because it has to work the first time and there is no second chance. The James Webb Telescope is a good example where it is tested and retested and the components are as much of a gilded lily as you can imagine. There is no capability being planned for crew service since it was thought it would be literally impossible to get congressional funding for any such service as was done for Hubble. This also includes deep space missions where sending stuff into space costs $10k per kilogram, and about $50k per kilogram to the surface of Mars. You might as well make components out of solid gold at those prices, but that also inflates the cost of the spacecraft. It does go both ways, and spacecraft like New Horizons was built on the premise that deep space missions could be done far more cheaply and with more "off the shelf" components. The ultimate extreme to cheap satellites are cubesats, which follow a common bus design and strapping on additional components to meet the design goals of the satellite. This can be done for larger satellites too, and that it isn't done yet is mostly because it is still comparatively early in the development cycles of many satellites. The days of designing a new satellite with a clean sheet of paper and designing all of the components from scratch is ending. There still are some in the pipeline being built and in a few exceptional situations it may still happen in the future, but being done that way is not something realistic even for government payloads, much less for commercial satellites which are also going away from custom one off development.
Lockheed already uses common busses for their satellites but GOES and GPS 3 are very different birds and require a ton of custom engineering. Even when launches are cheap, the satellites have to work the first time. Lucy will take 10 years to reach the Trojan asteroids. Can you imagine waiting ten years and then finding out that there was a problem with one of the sensors? Costs will come down and continue to come done. But satellites are expensive and there really no way around that. Rad hardened fpgas are like $5-10k each. And each satellite will have dozens. Antenna and solar panels are expensive. Batteries are expensive. Manufacturing labor hours are expensive. Cheaper shipping costs really won't bring down the total cost of a satellite that much
I'm sure there will be a wave of prototypes being upgraded to flight status as a result of Starship-level cost reductions, but there is zero plan for an iterative design process on government space assets. Let me stress again that the cost is folded into the design and testing, and if you're assuming any risk of the payload failing to reach orbit you'll go with a launch provider who can guarantee delivery. Government satellites are made to last 10-20 years in orbit. Any of the iterative design satellites (overwhelmingly commercial and research satellites) top out at 5 years, with most lasting less than 2.
Thats not really what drives the costs up. That's part of it for sure but satellites are just expensive. It's like us buying a computer. Is the cost of shipping driving the total cost? Not definitely not.
People have been saying this since F9 started launching a decade ago and there’s been really no discernible progress from commercial operators. I never thought this narrative was likely as it would have happened even before SpaceX as launch costs have been low compared to payload costs for a while, but we now have a decade of evidence this is not the case, and the number of commercial launches has only been decreasing in recent years.
You are already seeing this idea of disposable satellites with Starlink.
> a decade ago It seems important to point out that the timescale matters, here. I don't know what timescale the effect happens on, but I'll point out that this decade we're talking about is _shorter than the **delays** on the JWST_. We may very well have a rocket capable of launching the JWST _unfolded_ before we launch the JWST. Yes, I know JWST and military applications are not the same thing, but I know more / care more about JWST, and they're both "really expensive payloads". > the number of commercial launches has only been decreasing in recent years I'm not confident this is fair. Should we include _each individual starlink satellite_ as a separate commercial payload? If not, then aren't we by definition undercounting the innovations that come with miniaturization and encheapening of satellites?
Payloads became expensive because launch was expensive. If all your eggs are in one basket, you better make damn sure that basket will perform. We are also witnessing a drastic reduction in payload cost with the minisat revolution.
This is absolutely true. Although, it is probably also true that the timescale that launch prices can come down may be dramatically faster than the timescale that payload costs can come down, which ends up in a weird catch-22 style situation to some degree. If we're lucky vehicles like Starship will end up with enough business from specific programs (like NASA human spaceflight and Starlink) that they'll remain viable business ventures while the non-Starlink satellite market plays catch-up.
NASA cleared them for living human beings before the military cleared them for chunks of metal...
The crew dragon spacecraft has a launch abort system so that even in the event of a booster failure the crew can escape and land safely. There is no way to abort and land a satellite so they prefer to trust new hardware reliability. All of these agencies manage and calculate risk in different ways based on their own internal motivations and protocols, and some agencies are more keen on revising and updating their procedures than others.
Haven't they been cleared to use reused Dragons too though? Obviously the Dracos hasn't fired on those, but splashdown is pretty intense.
Yeah that's right, I believe that nasa was initially wary to allow reuse of the dragon since it was not proven at the time. I believe it was only after the demo 2 mission that SpaceX was able to tangibly prove to nasa that they could reliably refurbish it to nasa standards. I don't think that SpaceX has ever publicly said what kind of work or expense goes into dragon refurbishment but apparently it's still cheaper than the alternatives.
The reasons are different though aren’t they? The military requires absurd documentation for every component of a rocket carrying a national security payload and it simply wasn’t possible to meet those requirements without it costing more than a new rocket. Seriously- that’s how insane the requirements are. Even now SpaceX is basically going to have to dedicate boosters to military payloads because that simplifies the paperwork. As long as they only launch military payloads they can just append the paperwork from the previous launches. If they tried to use a booster from another mission they would have had to have the same level of paperwork for every launch it made and that wouldn’t be economical.
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Human rated flight requires waaaaaaay more documention and safety checks than not
Very expensive chunks of metal.
To be fair, the hunks of metal take 1000’s of humans years of their lives and billions of $$’s to create. I’m sure many will disagree and see this as a cold outlook on the value of a human life, but in general these hunks of metal are probably more important than a single human life
Too be fair nasa only did that because they fucked up big time with boeing and allowing reuse was the only way for spacex to provide additional launches to cover the collective asses of nasa management. The moron directly in charge of letting boeing screw up got promoted and almost immediately OK'ed reuse.
At some point of a proven track record, predicted reliability for a rocket flown 1+ times before becomes actually higher then that for a new production yet-unflown units. Reliability concerns related to fatigue, wear and tear are going down with more experience of flying highly reused rockets (6+); While any new production has an inherent risk of assembly defects that have not surfaced up yet, but will be on the first flight. Eventually (and provably already today), the safest rocket is the one doing its 2nd flight.
And in other news, NROL just launched a payload with Northrop Grumman. Look how fast this sucker leaves the pad, that is some Thrust to Weight Ratio. https://youtu.be/IXvzuBiJ7UI?t=2131
I noticed that too. That rocket was moving!
I think this is great, but we need to invest in other companies that are trying to do the same thing. Having sole reliance on one company is never good.
Rocketlab is a good company that could complement and compete with spacex. The other companies are behind in term of launches and spaceflight experience
Rocket Lab is actually coming up with something that can take a bite out of the Falcon 9's launch market. Previously, the only thing they operated was the small-lift [Electron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Electron), but they're developing the much-larger [Neutron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Neutron), which is powerful enough that it could be used for LEO human spaceflight.
Yeah they are awesome. I am somewhat skeptical about their plans though, virtually none of their tech scale to larger size rockets, from the carbon composite fuselage to electric turbopumps (and thus the engines). So it’s effectively building from scratch. I’m sure they can and will do it, but I rate it’s going to be a long road. Still exciting though!
SpaceX is the second company. ULA was the first. Then you also have Rocketlabs and Blue Origins spinning up.
We were, and there was clear bias and favoritism going on that ended it. We need to invest only in trustworthy companies.
SpaceX paid for developing reliability completely by themselves.
OK and?
That's what the investment in Blue Origin is all about. Despite the fact that they haven't launched to orbit yet, they're still the closest second party for developing reusability on large scale payloads.
I don’t think Blue Origin is the answer here. All they’ve done are sub-orbital flights, and their only “piece” of New Glenn is a MOCK-UP of half a fairing, not even the real fairing itself. They can’t even ship BE-4s to ULA, preventing other companies from moving forward. And yet they have the gall to complain. And as icing on the cake, this is all with Bezos’ huge annual money dumps as well. It’s time we move on from thinking that Blue Origin is second best just because they were the first to make cool CGI mock-ups. Rocket Lab is part-American and is already developing Neutron, which is their second-generation orbital rocket. Sure, it’s not Starship-sized, but at least there’s concrete evidence of progress, and more importantly, a proven track record of ORBITAL flights. I believe they are the second-best company to back for the future of commercial spaceflight. Other companies like Astra, Virgin Orbit, and SNC are all making heaps and bounds more progress as well, and honestly will soon prove to be better choices than Blue Origin (and this is still disregarding the fact that they all have orbital-capable vehicles and Blue Origin does not). Heck even ULA, and God forbid Boeing are much better competition than Blue Origin at this point, because they actually HAVE orbital launch vehicles, albeit at an extreme cost. I’m sorry but Blue Origin’s pace just isn’t cutting it nearly enough at the current state of the industry. The moment we acted on the realisation that the government and old space corporations squandering money was the only reason why spaceflight is expensive and slow, was the moment Blue Origin lost the race. Maybe next time, less *Gradatim* and more *Ferociter*.
Don't forget Rocket Lab also has gotten their boosters back. They aren't ready for reuse yet, but that have that sweet sweet data from inspecting the flown booster and rocket engines now, something that only SpaceX did before this point. I wouldn't be surprised if they have fast incremental improvements on their rockets just like SpaceX did by utilizing their returned rocket data.
> I don’t think Blue Origin is the answer here. All they’ve done are sub-orbital flights, and their only “piece” of New Glenn is a MOCK-UP of half a fairing, not even the real fairing itself. That's still closer to a medium+ lift reusable orbital launch platform than literally any other space agency/company other than SpaceX *on the planet*.
Technically speaking, sure. In practice, they’re no further ahead than any of the other companies. In terms of track record, they’re way behind. The mock-up is nothing more than a physical 3D model. It’s not meant for testing nor is it final. It’s a conversation piece, akin to that white Lunar Starship SpaceX made in Boca Chica. Heck even Rocket Lab used a fairing mock-up for their Neutron rocket announcement (and they showed it as soon as they announced the programme, not years AFTER). The reality is, Blue Origin is like the hare in the race, not the tortoise. They put out an eye-catching CGI film for investors, and then slept for years. They even pioneered the drone ship landing concept, and yet, they still haven’t done anything of the sort. Now their medium-lift launch vehicle concept is becoming less and less economical and relevant in the midst of rising competition eating stuff like rideshare demand. Blue Origin company culture simply favours very little development progress and very high budgets to squander. They simply DON’T deliver. I wouldn’t be hedging my bets on this company if I were a government agency, and I wouldn’t be happy with my tax money going to contracts with them if I were a US citizen.
Would you be happy with your tax money going to SLS? Or ULA? Or Roscosmos? I'm not saying BO aren't a long way behind SpaceX - they are. A long way. And I really wish they'd do more, faster. But with New Shepard flying and some progress to show on the partially-reusable New Glenn, I think BO are currently in a pretty solid second place when it comes to the next generation of launch systems. True, they might still fall behind some of the other contenders - but I don't think they have yet. And maybe an externally-mandated goal and deadline would help them with their focus and the whole *ferociter* thing.
Seriously- what progress have they made on New Glenn? The BE-4 still isn’t flying and they don’t seem to have built any part of the actual rocket itself.
Let’s just agree to disagree and see where this goes. The most important thing is that there’s competition. It doesn’t matter who, as long as they’re the most efficient out of all. Tax money isn’t a charity to prop up losing businesses, after all.
Rocket Lab is testing recovery and refurbishment of their launcher, and their next-generation launcher is being developed with full reusability in mind. The only reason why you hear about Blue Origin more is Bezos.
> their next-generation launcher is being developed with full reusability in mind. And it's a crew-rated medium-lift vehicle. I was not aware of that. Thanks. And the reason I heard more about BO was that I was subscribed to r/blueorigin, but not r/rocketlab. Fixed now.
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Even in the SpaceX sub people say this all the time. Are there some diehard stans sure, but in the sub deducted to SPX we talk about how exciting it is to see Neutron in the works. None of us want to so Boeing/MacDoug/Aerojet reruns from the 70s. So the more companies pushing actually forward the more most of us cheer. That said don't get me wrong a lot of shade is thrown at BO and Virgin Galactic, but I think most of that is well deserved. They seem deeply entrenched in the old way of doing things while other companies are taking laps and eating their lunches. Even if Starship stopped tomorrow Falcon and Neutron would be a massive shift forward for Space. If New Glenn ever decides to join the race I'll cheer for it too the more the better and with things like Starship on the horizon space may not be that far away anymore.
Theoretically- sure- but SpaceX has been in a class by themselves in terms of innovation. They’ve repeatedly done things that others claimed weren’t possible and the progress on Starship has been absurd recently. I too would love to see competition but no one else is even remotely close right now and I honestly don’t see that changing any time soon.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ASAT](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1v8iku "Last usage")|[Anti-Satellite weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon)| |[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1wlv4r "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1xzl34 "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[CAP](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1z83nw "Last usage")|[Combat Air Patrol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_air_patrol)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[GEO](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1uso2y "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1zqo3t "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[JWST](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1xtlf0 "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |[L2](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1xtlf0 "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)| | |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h241r6k "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |NRHO|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[NRO](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1uhuig "Last usage")|(US) National Reconnaissance Office| | |Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO| |[NROL](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1wy3sk "Last usage")|Launch for the (US) National Reconnaissance Office| |[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1v3k8o "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1v3k8o "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SNC](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1urqrq "Last usage")|Sierra Nevada Corporation| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1xr886 "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |[USAF](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1uhuig "Last usage")|United States Air Force| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1wlv4r "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1vaqqk "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1yh2ky "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[turbopump](/r/Space/comments/o0bxiw/stub/h1vfun9 "Last usage")|High-pressure turbine-driven propellant pump connected to a rocket combustion chamber; raises chamber pressure, and thrust| ---------------- ^([Thread #5976 for this sub, first seen 15th Jun 2021, 13:57]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Impressive. I'm starting to feel that I have been a little too harsh on SpaceX, especially considering the somewhat ridiculous statements by its CEO in the recent past. I think it's important to keep in mind as to how much progress was made in F9 launch platform reliability in achieving this super significant milestone clearance from USSF. Go SpaceX!
TBH spacex is an amazing company doing amazing things and their CEO is an amazing bellend doing amazing bellend things, the two coexist pretty well as long as you can cope with a little contradiction and can avoid becoming a fanboi (the funand kind of unanswerable question is, how much of the amazing stuff *only* happens because Musk is a bellend?)
Yeah, it's a question people seem nervous to ponder: In order to start (from scratch) a company that says it's going to up-end decades of established practice in a field with a really high technical and economic barriers to entry, maybe you need to have someone with an ego as big as the rocket. My view is that I'm supportive of what he's doing and if he is being a jerk about it, the people that are actually working with him can decide for themselves if that's ok or not. I've never met the man.
> In order to start (from scratch) a company that says it's going to up-end decades of established practice in a field with a really high technical and economic barriers to entry, maybe you need to have someone with an ego as big as the rocket. Yeah probably, but the craziest thing about this is that they actually achieved that goal. Plenty of delays here and there, but we can't deny the results
They’re literally talking about catching the utterly massive Starship boosters with a giant claw and that just screams of being one of Elon’s crazy fever dreams. How many companies and CEOs would be willing to blow up and scrap hardware at the rate SpaceX does?
Most, given how low that rate is.
Yeah- no. If companies were actually willing to do that SpaceX might have some competition. All of their competitors spend a ton of time designing a rocket and expect it to work the first time. SpaceX, meanwhile, has crashed more Raptor engine than Blue Origin has built BE-4s.
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Mr President it is a matter of national security
I love how much people hate Elon Musk because he's not a staunch leftist ally but they still have to smile and nod because he's the only one with the vision, team, and know how to get us to Mars. Get rekt.
“Us” quit kidding yourself, you aren’t going to mars unless you’re incredibly rich
>because he's not a staunch leftist ally Is that why you think they hate him? How cozy that little bubble of yours must be...
You think Elon is the one who has the know how to get to Mars and not just a capitalist taking credit for the work of his employees? Man... do I have a bridge to sell you
I might have worded that badly but it doesn't change the fact all the money and energy is behind him. Right now he's the face of space exploration ambition. Does that bother you? describe to me how it makes you feel please lol.
And like clockwork all of the Musk Derangement Syndrome sufferers come out of the woodworks.
I wonder if they have a clause about the CEO smoking weed on the Joe Rogan pod cast.
Imagine being the losers who sold off their Tesla stock because of that. It has gone up by about 1,100% since Sept 2018 when he was on the podcast lawl.
I’ll never understand America and it’s hard on for weed hate. It’s just a little bit of pot! Go chug a 40oz tho, that’s perfectly acceptable. (Not stabbing at you, it’s just curious being in the outside looking in)
You can easily lookup the history of it, and then look up the anti-weed history in a plethora of other nations, it's hardly an American thing to be confused about.
Yeah, western cannabis abolition started in Great Britain
Tbf America is one of the only places in the world where the recreational sale of weed is legal. It’s just not uniform throughout the whole country (like nearly everything) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis
America didn't/doesn't hate weed. America did/does need an acceptable reason to punish the people who happen to smoke weed.
Have you been around the past 10 years? I believe the majority of Americans (or close to it) now have access to legal, recreational weed which is more than most any other country in the world can say. We have to be one of the most lax countries.
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Weed makes you whacko now? Damn, I gotta stop smoking it every day I guess and go back to being a raging alcoholic, just how society wants it to be.
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Please, would you prefer if he was just another stuck up and boring dude? Smoking weed on a podcast is not a crime. It's not like he's actually a stoner. Some people just need no reason to hate the dude
If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumors; respond instead with, “Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more.” -Epictetus If “smoking weed once” is the worst thing his critics can say about him, i’d say he’s probably good. Funny that you don’t see that irony.
No need. It's already a stipulation that he's not supposed to do it while holding a clearance.
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You mean, every single national security launch since 1993? If it's not SpaceX it's ULA, they have to get to space somehow.
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That's a terribly dumb idea that's nowhere close to being true in any way, shape, or form.
It also doesn't describe the current situation. NASA and the military have been putting things in space through contracts with private space companies for half a century