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Thanks for your kind comments :) First, I never claimed DeltaIV's cost was lower than Falcon 9's (or discrediting SpaceX)...I just said Falcon 9 was about mark

by physcab 16y ago

Thanks for your kind comments :) First, I never claimed DeltaIV's cost was lower than Falcon 9's (or discrediting SpaceX)...I just said Falcon 9 was about market cost and probably won't be close to their $50m stated price. That price probably is the cost of the rocket anyways, not the mission. And no, I don't think the two craft are truly comparable because their missions are different, but I'm just arguing SpaceX's rockets won't be dramatically lower in price all things considered. Second, looking at their launch manifest (http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php) most of those flights are for the Falcon 9 with the customer being NASA (the government). How many of those customers are purchasing the low-cost Falcon 1 rocket? 1 maybe 2? 8% of their manifest is low-cost flight. The rest are for (probably) market-cost flight. Do you have any links to suggest that the market for low-cost spaceflight is booming? My point being: Most people think SpaceX is the future of spaceflight when it looks like they are just another NASA contractor. What's horrifying to me is how they were able to win the NASA COTS $1.6bn contract with absolutely no record of mission success. EDIT: Another interesting tid-bit- NASA reportedly spends about $114m per a Soyuz mission (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=13441.0 http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=13441.0). That docks with the ISS as well and the Soyuz is arguably the most efficient and reliable rocket out there.

radu_floricica 16y ago
Very good point about market price vs costs. But I see the NASA contract as a form of investment. NASA needs a domestic provider, and SpaceX is a good match - good enough to be worth paying at _current_ market price. What will happen when the technology is proven and ready to scale is a completely different game. As the GP said, the configuration and special requirements will likely keep the price up for government contracts. On the private end however the new market price will depend heavily on how much this technology can be scaled and how the market will react to a lower price. The exact figure is known to nobody, but enough variables are being changed to have a real hope that it will be sensibly lower.
- physcab 16y ago
  That may be true for a typical business but I doubt SpaceX will be able to take advantage of economies of scale. There are simply not enough payloads to dramatically lower the development cost, which is reflected in the cost of other commercial vehicles.

by physcab 16y ago

radu_floricica 16y ago

Very good point about market price vs costs. But I see the NASA contract as a form of investment. NASA needs a domestic provider, and SpaceX is a good match - good enough to be worth paying at _current_ market price. What will happen when the technology is proven and ready to scale is a completely different game. As the GP said, the configuration and special requirements will likely keep the price up for government contracts. On the private end however the new market price will depend heavily on how much this technology can be scaled and how the market will react to a lower price. The exact figure is known to nobody, but enough variables are being changed to have a real hope that it will be sensibly lower.

physcab 16y ago
That may be true for a typical business but I doubt SpaceX will be able to take advantage of economies of scale. There are simply not enough payloads to dramatically lower the development cost, which is reflected in the cost of other commercial vehicles.