3 ms·

It is worth considering the track record, which even the article alludes to. It may well be worth paying 3x the cost for a higher probability of launch success

It is worth considering the track record, which even the article alludes to. It may well be worth paying 3x the cost for a higher probability of launch success depending on what the payload is. Launches are not yet commodities, there are major differences in success rates between vendors.

windlep 10y ago
I was thinking about that as well. Depending on the payload, it might make sense to build duplicates of many satellites for redundancy should SpaceX lose a rocket. Cost-wise that could still come out ahead given how much more ULA costs. Of course, I doubt it'd come as a surprise to anyone that these payloads are likely insanely expensive as they too have gone through the govt procurement system (which seems to make everything cost 100x what it should cost). At which point it makes sense to avoid losing the payload even at ULA pricing.
ska 10y ago
This would make sense if you could somewhat transparently define why it cost 3x, and what that is buying you in term of assurances. If you just hand wave about reliability, it's not worth much.
- abduhl 10y ago
  We can work out the math easily. Given a 100% success rate for $350 million each for ULA and assuming a SpaceX cost of $100 million and assuming a 95% success rate (I have no idea what the actual rate is) then, per launch, the true cost to put something in orbit per launch is: $350x1.00 = $350 million for ULA $100x(1/.95) = $105.2 million for SpaceX The difference is then $245 million or so. So, the government needs to justify why reducing their risk from 5% to 0% on losing a payload is worth $245 million. Purely economically, the payload would need to be worth about $4.9 billion to justify this cost. If we start talking about State secrets, actual production time for the payload on top of the economic cost, redundancy requirements for intelligence gathering, technological advantage over rival powers (China/Russia) that could be lost if another country recovers the wreckage, and the worth of a citizen's/soldier's life on the front line (e.g. - items that are hard to quantify economically) and you can see how easy it is to justify $245 million. Plus your buddy works at ULA and it would suck if he had to work somewhere else because they went out of business.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    You would have to justify not paying SpaceX however much it would cost them to do a launch at 0% risk. If SpaceX could do it for $300m then that's significant saving for the same service.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ska 10y ago
    That isn't what transparency means.

windlep 10y ago

I was thinking about that as well. Depending on the payload, it might make sense to build duplicates of many satellites for redundancy should SpaceX lose a rocket. Cost-wise that could still come out ahead given how much more ULA costs. Of course, I doubt it'd come as a surprise to anyone that these payloads are likely insanely expensive as they too have gone through the govt procurement system (which seems to make everything cost 100x what it should cost). At which point it makes sense to avoid losing the payload even at ULA pricing.

ska 10y ago

This would make sense if you could somewhat transparently define why it cost 3x, and what that is buying you in term of assurances. If you just hand wave about reliability, it's not worth much.

abduhl 10y ago
We can work out the math easily. Given a 100% success rate for $350 million each for ULA and assuming a SpaceX cost of $100 million and assuming a 95% success rate (I have no idea what the actual rate is) then, per launch, the true cost to put something in orbit per launch is: $350x1.00 = $350 million for ULA $100x(1/.95) = $105.2 million for SpaceX The difference is then $245 million or so. So, the government needs to justify why reducing their risk from 5% to 0% on losing a payload is worth $245 million. Purely economically, the payload would need to be worth about $4.9 billion to justify this cost. If we start talking about State secrets, actual production time for the payload on top of the economic cost, redundancy requirements for intelligence gathering, technological advantage over rival powers (China/Russia) that could be lost if another country recovers the wreckage, and the worth of a citizen's/soldier's life on the front line (e.g. - items that are hard to quantify economically) and you can see how easy it is to justify $245 million. Plus your buddy works at ULA and it would suck if he had to work somewhere else because they went out of business.
- onion2k 10y ago
  You would have to justify not paying SpaceX however much it would cost them to do a launch at 0% risk. If SpaceX could do it for $300m then that's significant saving for the same service.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ska 10y ago
  That isn't what transparency means.