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I wonder what this means for manned spaceflight that SpaceX is working on. Is it still a waste of money, or have things changed enough to make it worth it?

Rebelgecko 7y ago
A good chunk of the costs of the space shuttle was because it didn't launch as often as it was originally supposed to, which made it harder to amortize R&D costs. The rockets themselves were expensive, and refurbishing the "reusable" parts wasn't cheap. I think SpaceX is in a good position to dramatically lower the costs, as long as they can keep refurbishment costs down and share as much architecture as possible between their manned and unmanned launches. Being able to use a rocket from a manned F9 launch another 20 times (even if they're only certified to use it on unmanned launches) would do wonders for reducing costs.
- eru 7y ago
  Also: SpaceX doesn't have to manufacture in each congressional district; and while their contracts are mostly paid by the taxpayer, if they screw up they go under by themselves.
simonh 7y ago
None of the political and military requirements that burdened the Shuttle, which the article details at length, apply to SpaceX. These design constraints lead the Shuttle to be much bigger and heavier than necessary for the missions it actually ended up flying, and this increased weight and size meant it was too big to launch on the top of a first stage booster. Hence the side-mounted design. In addition to subsequent technological advantages, Starship can get away with being much lighter for the same payload than the Shuttle. Finally one factor that isn't often mentioned is that automated vertical landing capability is a real game changer. early plans for vertical landing systems would have required manual pilot control, as early computer systems weren't up to the task. The automated systems capable of hoverslam landings that SpaceX has developed are dramatically more efficient than manual control would be, and I strongly suspect it's this difference that really makes it viable.
adrianN 7y ago
Manned space flight will be a "waste" of money for a long time to come because there is very little in space that we want that we can't do without humans. There are no economic reasons for wanting a Mars colony. They are other reasons to do it though.

Rebelgecko 7y ago

A good chunk of the costs of the space shuttle was because it didn't launch as often as it was originally supposed to, which made it harder to amortize R&D costs. The rockets themselves were expensive, and refurbishing the "reusable" parts wasn't cheap. I think SpaceX is in a good position to dramatically lower the costs, as long as they can keep refurbishment costs down and share as much architecture as possible between their manned and unmanned launches. Being able to use a rocket from a manned F9 launch another 20 times (even if they're only certified to use it on unmanned launches) would do wonders for reducing costs.

eru 7y ago
Also: SpaceX doesn't have to manufacture in each congressional district; and while their contracts are mostly paid by the taxpayer, if they screw up they go under by themselves.

simonh 7y ago

None of the political and military requirements that burdened the Shuttle, which the article details at length, apply to SpaceX. These design constraints lead the Shuttle to be much bigger and heavier than necessary for the missions it actually ended up flying, and this increased weight and size meant it was too big to launch on the top of a first stage booster. Hence the side-mounted design. In addition to subsequent technological advantages, Starship can get away with being much lighter for the same payload than the Shuttle. Finally one factor that isn't often mentioned is that automated vertical landing capability is a real game changer. early plans for vertical landing systems would have required manual pilot control, as early computer systems weren't up to the task. The automated systems capable of hoverslam landings that SpaceX has developed are dramatically more efficient than manual control would be, and I strongly suspect it's this difference that really makes it viable.

adrianN 7y ago

Manned space flight will be a "waste" of money for a long time to come because there is very little in space that we want that we can't do without humans. There are no economic reasons for wanting a Mars colony. They are other reasons to do it though.