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To me this is a major reason why the reusable launchers were not developed in Europe. The concept was being studied but never gained traction. One of the reaso
by marsokod 8y ago
To me this is a major reason why the reusable launchers were not developed in Europe. The concept was being studied but never gained traction.
One of the reason might have been vanity but if you look at it with the view point of a CEO from a European firm, reusability was a risky gamble:
1) In order to keep your manufacturing quality, one needs to produce a new rocket every two or three months. Beyond that, the people manufacturing it losses knowledge and unless quality assurance is increased a lot, you will losses quality.
2) EU was doing around 12 launches a year, and that was by being very cheap. You could plan on increasing the market share but that starts being difficult as a lot of what remains cannot use a European launcher for political reasons.
3) For the sake of the argument, let say cheaper price double the market share, that leaves 24 launches a year. Based on a manufacturing of 6 launchers a year, this leaves 4 launches per rocket. And that is with very optimistic numbers (doubling of marketshare, no issue with reusability).
4) If you look at the numbers from SpaceX, 4 launches per rocket is where the reusability starts making sense. But ideally, you want more.
5) The Airbus people have shareholders to account to, not a CEO who does not care risking going banqueroute while pursuing a dream to go on Mars.
So yeah, doable but much more difficult than in a market with better access to investment and to huge cash cows named NASA and DoD
- jlmorton 8y agoAlain Charmeau spelled this out explicitly to Der Spiegel: > Charmeau said the Ariane rocket does not launch often enough to justify the investment into reusability. (It would need about 30 launches a year to justify these costs, he said). And then Charmeau said something telling about why reusability doesn't make sense to a government-backed rocket company—jobs. > "Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'" http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/alain-charmeau-die-amerikaner-wollen-europa-aus-dem-weltraum-kicken-a-1207322.html http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/alain-charmeau-di...
- 1996 8y agoWhat will make even more sense is when he says to his teams: "Farewell, it was really nice working with you all, too bad the foreign competition slashed prices and bankrupted us"
- WJW 8y agoThe solution is therefore pretty simple: taxes will subsidize "industries of national interest". It is for the same reason as the US would never buy Swedish fighter jets, Israeli ICBMs or German submarines. This has been true since the beginning of the nation state.
- 1996 8y agoGreat idea - note however the lack of existance of Swedish fighter jets, the low quality of Israeli ICBM, and the rarity of German submarines. A government can subsidize with taxes an industry as much as it wants, and force its products down its citizens throat as much as it can: it will not be able to create quality, which is essential to get a large market demand. Unless the industry is very hard to replicate for whatever reason like large capital requirements given the available technology (ex: a computer in the 1940s, sending a human to the moon in the 1960s) this create a market opportunity. Natural market forces such as competition ensure the end result. EDIT: My bad, I forgot about the Swedish Gripen. It exists, which is no small feat by itself! It is just low quality and rare. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen "Gripen has achieved moderate success in sales to nations in Central Europe, South Africa and Southeast Asia; bribery has been suspected in some of these procurements, but authorities closed the investigation in 2009" Thanks to bribery, this wonderful piece of technology could be sold to major world powers like South Africa and Hungary.
- mnl 8y agoActually Saab has been producing fine Swedish jet fighters for 60 years. Ever heard of the JAS 39 Gripen?
- 8y ago
- HeadsUpHigh 8y ago>If you look at the numbers from SpaceX, 4 launches per rocket is where the reusability starts making sense. Shotwell mentioned that SpaceX actually saved money even on their first reused booster which was broken down and inspected to pieces. So I think your number doesn't stand. The Falcon 9 has a unique cost structure compared to other rockets, completely aimed towards making reusability work out as quickly as possible.