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What did he say that was factually wrong? I think he said most of what you said and didn't contradict the rest. For example: “Along came Elon Musk and changed

What did he say that was factually wrong? I think he said most of what you said and didn't contradict the rest. For example: “Along came Elon Musk and changed the game completely…we can’t afford [to bid] any more because the price points are coming down as low as $60 million,” he said. “The best day you’ll see us bid at $125 million or twice that number. Add in the capabilities cost, it eclipses the $200 million. … So now we’re going to have to take and figure out how to bid these things much lower cost. The government can’t just say, you know, ULA’s got a great track record, they’ve done 100 launches.” What are you referring to?

mikeash 11y ago
He greatly overestimated the amount of fuel SpaceX needs to land a Falcon 9, and especially overestimated the amount of fuel needed for the SES-9 landing attempt. The implication that fuel even matters is pretty weird too; The fuel for a ~$60 million Falcon 9 launch costs about $200,000. He also says that SpaceX loses a quarter of a billion dollars per launch, which makes very little sense. Really, the fuel thing sticks out at me. Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about it, but reuse is going to be very important, ULA is working on their own version of it (recovering just the engines, not the entire first stage), and he ought to know about it. Or if he doesn't, because details are for underlings, he ought to know what he doesn't know about it.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > He greatly overestimated the amount of fuel SpaceX needs to land a Falcon 9, and especially overestimated the amount of fuel needed for the SES-9 landing attempt. He made no estimate of that and didn't mention SES-9. What are you reading? Is that in the original audio recording because it's not in the article. His criticism was that "it requires flying additional fuel to perform the landing", which I interpreted to be about weight and not fuel cost, and that ULA's plan is to parachute the rockets down, I assume to minimize that problem. Do you have information that contradicts him? Where is this coming from? [Deleted last sentence]
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Yes, it's from the original audio. "He carried 100,000 pounds of fuel after he deployed this last SES satellite...." Starts just after 22 minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYhClj8zYcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYhClj8zYcY
- mozumder 11y ago
  He's right about the rocket landing being a dumb idea. It takes about 15-20% extra fuel to do that, which is a lot in a first stage.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Why does 15-20% (and it's more like 5-10%) make it dumb? What matters is how much you can put into orbit. RTLS hits you with a 30% payload penalty, a normal barge landing is about a 15% penalty, and a crazy hail-Mary attempt like SES-9 is somewhat less. If your payload is under that threshold then the only downside to it is the extra cost of fuel and support. Both are completely minimal. For example, SpaceX's next ISS supply mission has plenty of margin for an RTLS landing. A Dragon stuffed full of cargo still weighs less than what Falcon 9 can put into the ISS's orbit and land back at the launch site afterwards. For a little bit of extra fuel, you can potentially save a rocket stage worth tens of millions. That doesn't sound dump to me. For those few payloads that can't tolerate that penalty, they can fly the rocket expendable. It's still one of the cheapest out there even if they don't recover it. Or they can fly it on Falcon Heavy, which if recovered is cheaper than an expandable Falcon 9. The only big unknown right now is the cost of refurbishing a recovered first stage so it can be ready for another launch. That's what made the Space Shuttle cost so much more than it was supposed to. It sounds good so far, but until they're doing this on a regular basis we can't know for sure.
  - TrevorJ 11y ago
    Total fuel cost on that rocket is around 200k. The stage costs something like 14 million. Given those number's I'd say it is a great idea.

mikeash 11y ago

He greatly overestimated the amount of fuel SpaceX needs to land a Falcon 9, and especially overestimated the amount of fuel needed for the SES-9 landing attempt. The implication that fuel even matters is pretty weird too; The fuel for a ~$60 million Falcon 9 launch costs about $200,000. He also says that SpaceX loses a quarter of a billion dollars per launch, which makes very little sense. Really, the fuel thing sticks out at me. Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about it, but reuse is going to be very important, ULA is working on their own version of it (recovering just the engines, not the entire first stage), and he ought to know about it. Or if he doesn't, because details are for underlings, he ought to know what he doesn't know about it.

hackuser 11y ago
> He greatly overestimated the amount of fuel SpaceX needs to land a Falcon 9, and especially overestimated the amount of fuel needed for the SES-9 landing attempt. He made no estimate of that and didn't mention SES-9. What are you reading? Is that in the original audio recording because it's not in the article. His criticism was that "it requires flying additional fuel to perform the landing", which I interpreted to be about weight and not fuel cost, and that ULA's plan is to parachute the rockets down, I assume to minimize that problem. Do you have information that contradicts him? Where is this coming from? [Deleted last sentence]
- mikeash 11y ago
  Yes, it's from the original audio. "He carried 100,000 pounds of fuel after he deployed this last SES satellite...." Starts just after 22 minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYhClj8zYcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYhClj8zYcY
mozumder 11y ago
He's right about the rocket landing being a dumb idea. It takes about 15-20% extra fuel to do that, which is a lot in a first stage.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Why does 15-20% (and it's more like 5-10%) make it dumb? What matters is how much you can put into orbit. RTLS hits you with a 30% payload penalty, a normal barge landing is about a 15% penalty, and a crazy hail-Mary attempt like SES-9 is somewhat less. If your payload is under that threshold then the only downside to it is the extra cost of fuel and support. Both are completely minimal. For example, SpaceX's next ISS supply mission has plenty of margin for an RTLS landing. A Dragon stuffed full of cargo still weighs less than what Falcon 9 can put into the ISS's orbit and land back at the launch site afterwards. For a little bit of extra fuel, you can potentially save a rocket stage worth tens of millions. That doesn't sound dump to me. For those few payloads that can't tolerate that penalty, they can fly the rocket expendable. It's still one of the cheapest out there even if they don't recover it. Or they can fly it on Falcon Heavy, which if recovered is cheaper than an expandable Falcon 9. The only big unknown right now is the cost of refurbishing a recovered first stage so it can be ready for another launch. That's what made the Space Shuttle cost so much more than it was supposed to. It sounds good so far, but until they're doing this on a regular basis we can't know for sure.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  Total fuel cost on that rocket is around 200k. The stage costs something like 14 million. Given those number's I'd say it is a great idea.