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Or maybe having been working on rockets for decades they have good insights about what is valuable or not. And reusable stages still has to prove to be worth it

Or maybe having been working on rockets for decades they have good insights about what is valuable or not. And reusable stages still has to prove to be worth it and not just a gimmick. As you like to say, market will solve it all.

dnautics 9y ago
To address the argument from authority, the presumption there is that the existing expertise has been self selected by a rational and efficient market, which in the government contracting sphere is very much not necessarily rational, and I think you'd have a hard time finding an efficient market anywhere. It's pretty clear that from first principles, reusable rockets are a win[0]. The question of actualizing those principles can only be assessed by actually doing it, and is likely to be highly empirical. Unless there have been secret launches we don't know about, the ESA cannot possibly have good insight about whether or not it's valuable. [0] then why haven't they done it yet? As a constrained market, none of the contractors who normally build rockets have had to yet. Moreover, I presume a lot of the computational engineering would not have been so easy 10-20 years ago, much less in a large contracting company with established folkways.
- namelost 9y ago
  I agree with what you're saying and I'd also like to add that SpaceX could have failed. Based on the evidence available in 2002 there was no reason to think that reusable rockets were necessarily going to work. Musk is a gambler, and this time he won, but other times he has failed. The reason he can gamble is because SpaceX is funded by private money.
valuearb 9y ago
So you are saying there is no proof that blowing up a super expensive rocket booster is less affordable than reusing it? I was going to drive my car to work tomorrow, but now I’m thinking of setting it on fire and buying a new one. You know, to save money.
agumonkey 9y ago
ESA had a slower pace of innovation, somehow on purpose. They chose risk avoidance above anything else. Now for sure Musk and his friends kicked the tree quite hard .. but it's not really a sad thing that ESA was lagging behind.
nickik 9y ago
The argument that 'reusable is not proven' simply does not fly anymore. Multiple commercial reuses, no indication of any plan chances, NASA and Air force have looked at it and find no issue with it. Markets will only solve it if government does not stop it. If Ariane had to compete on the commercial market only they could already not compete. If Ariane 6 had to actually earn its own development cost they could not even build it.

dnautics 9y ago

To address the argument from authority, the presumption there is that the existing expertise has been self selected by a rational and efficient market, which in the government contracting sphere is very much not necessarily rational, and I think you'd have a hard time finding an efficient market anywhere. It's pretty clear that from first principles, reusable rockets are a win[0]. The question of actualizing those principles can only be assessed by actually doing it, and is likely to be highly empirical. Unless there have been secret launches we don't know about, the ESA cannot possibly have good insight about whether or not it's valuable. [0] then why haven't they done it yet? As a constrained market, none of the contractors who normally build rockets have had to yet. Moreover, I presume a lot of the computational engineering would not have been so easy 10-20 years ago, much less in a large contracting company with established folkways.

namelost 9y ago
I agree with what you're saying and I'd also like to add that SpaceX could have failed. Based on the evidence available in 2002 there was no reason to think that reusable rockets were necessarily going to work. Musk is a gambler, and this time he won, but other times he has failed. The reason he can gamble is because SpaceX is funded by private money.

valuearb 9y ago

So you are saying there is no proof that blowing up a super expensive rocket booster is less affordable than reusing it? I was going to drive my car to work tomorrow, but now I’m thinking of setting it on fire and buying a new one. You know, to save money.

agumonkey 9y ago

ESA had a slower pace of innovation, somehow on purpose. They chose risk avoidance above anything else. Now for sure Musk and his friends kicked the tree quite hard .. but it's not really a sad thing that ESA was lagging behind.

nickik 9y ago

The argument that 'reusable is not proven' simply does not fly anymore. Multiple commercial reuses, no indication of any plan chances, NASA and Air force have looked at it and find no issue with it. Markets will only solve it if government does not stop it. If Ariane had to compete on the commercial market only they could already not compete. If Ariane 6 had to actually earn its own development cost they could not even build it.