4 ms·

>with reusable rockets, bringing down launch costs by 80-95% Nice joke.

by BLanen 8y ago

felipeko 8y ago
SpaceX is supposedly selling F9 flights for $50 million already, while the competition is selling comparable flights for $150/$170 million. As SpaceX is still recouping the technology research investment, 95% may be a stretch, but 80% reduction is not that far of really, it will probably be very close to that if they are able to reuse fairing.
- nkoren 8y ago
  The competition is only selling at $150-$170M today because SpaceX pushed them into it. 10 years ago, F9-class payloads would've cost $400-500M (on Western launchers; Russia and China were always cheaper). Those prices had been pretty stable for decades; the key thing which has changed since then is the presence of a real competitor. So 80%-90% has already happened.
imglorp 8y ago
Would you explain your extreme position instead of making snide comments? We're all here to learn. Educate us.
- BLanen 8y ago
  Let's begin by seeing that SpaceX increased it's launch cost by 50% for 2020 to $228 million while Orbital ATK is launching for $223 million, meanwhile actually being a profitable company. [1] SpaceX blames this on NASA. So Orbital ATK didn't have that problem because, reasons?[1] Unbiased sources on launch costs are really hard to find. And about the Mars thing, it's not going to happen. SpaceX works for contract work, not for dreams. Nobody's going to pay for that. Why not the moon first anyway? Almost just as cool and way more practical. I haven't seen any practical unpartial sources for savings from reusable rocket stages. I expected the hackernews community to be more skeptical. [1]https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/spacex-price-hikes-iss-resupply-costs/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/spacex-price-hikes-iss-r... More reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/8334qu/setting_the_score_straight_on_spacex_and_its_many/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/8334qu/sett... https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/7vurtd/clarifying_disinfo_on_falcon_heavy_launch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/7vurtd/clar...

>with reusable rockets, bringing down launch costs by 80-95% Nice joke.

by BLanen 8y ago

>with reusable rockets, bringing down launch costs by 80-95% Nice joke.

SpaceX is supposedly selling F9 flights for $50 million already, while the competition is selling comparable flights for $150/$170 million. As SpaceX is still recouping the technology research investment, 95% may be a stretch, but 80% reduction is not that far of really, it will probably be very close to that if they are able to reuse fairing.

nkoren 8y ago
The competition is only selling at $150-$170M today because SpaceX pushed them into it. 10 years ago, F9-class payloads would've cost $400-500M (on Western launchers; Russia and China were always cheaper). Those prices had been pretty stable for decades; the key thing which has changed since then is the presence of a real competitor. So 80%-90% has already happened.

imglorp 8y ago

Would you explain your extreme position instead of making snide comments? We're all here to learn. Educate us.

BLanen 8y ago
Let's begin by seeing that SpaceX increased it's launch cost by 50% for 2020 to $228 million while Orbital ATK is launching for $223 million, meanwhile actually being a profitable company. [1] SpaceX blames this on NASA. So Orbital ATK didn't have that problem because, reasons?[1] Unbiased sources on launch costs are really hard to find. And about the Mars thing, it's not going to happen. SpaceX works for contract work, not for dreams. Nobody's going to pay for that. Why not the moon first anyway? Almost just as cool and way more practical. I haven't seen any practical unpartial sources for savings from reusable rocket stages. I expected the hackernews community to be more skeptical. [1]https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/spacex-price-hikes-iss-resupply-costs/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/spacex-price-hikes-iss-r... More reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/8334qu/setting_the_score_straight_on_spacex_and_its_many/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/8334qu/sett... https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/7vurtd/clarifying_disinfo_on_falcon_heavy_launch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/7vurtd/clar...