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SpaceX runs basically as a giant R&D program that also happens to accomplish useful things as byproducts of its approach (with the miracle of insurance to cover
by bane 6y ago
SpaceX runs basically as a giant R&D program that also happens to accomplish useful things as byproducts of its approach (with the miracle of insurance to cover costs if things get explody). Every flight is data for incremental improvement.
If you think of all SpaceX has ever done was try to get to this point, with somewhere around 80 flights on the Falcon 9, but for a variety of mission buyers (NASA, USAF, Commercial Sat companies, SpaceX itself!), somewhere around $5b (~$60m a launch) has been spent getting an entirely new, ground-up manned space program up and running to include launch vehicle with a majority re-usability. But along the way, numerous satellites and other stuff ended up in space as well. This allowed NASA to also split the R&D bill with multiple "partners".
To put this into context, the Mercury program ran about $2.25b in today's dollars, Gemini ran $7.3b ($723m per mission!).
The Space Shuttle program had a lifetime cost of $209b ($1.5b per flight!!!) If you think the Shuttle program is not comparable, the F9Heavy program, a derivative of this other work, can put up more mass than the Shuttle, managed to split much of the development costs with the Falcon 9, can land most of its mass, and has a per flight cost of $90m.
We now have the capability to put up another ISS today, resupply it, and staff it, at a fraction of the cost, all with launch equipment made by a single company that started a decade ago as a side project for a guy who was trying to make electric cars after making money on the internet.
This is a ridiculous bargain and Spacex isn't even close to done yet.
- starik36 6y agoAll true, however, (splitting hairs, yes), the reason FH9 can best the shuttle boosters is because they had to carry the shuttle itself, which was around 50 tons.
- bane 6y agoI wonder, as a percentage of launch vehicle, how much mass the shuttle program managed to reuse after a mission vs. the F9Heavy? It turns out not having to "shuttle" half a dozen humans up to orbit every time you want to get something up there is a good idea.
- yellowapple 6y agoWas the full crew necessarily just to put things in orbit? My impression was that most of the crew was doing other sorts of science and such because they might as well do so while the Shuttle's out in space (and later to get as many people into the ISS as possible per trip, which the Crew Falcon should now be able to do - maybe not to the same degree as the Shuttle, but certainly to a better degree than Soyuz).
- bkanber 6y agoMost shuttle missions had 5-7 crew members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews At minimum, each mission had a commander and pilot. Then there were missions specialists and payload specialists, which depended on the specific mission the shuttle was carrying out. There's always a lot of work to do, so it makes sense that they'd maximize for productivity.
- VLM 6y agoIts cheap light and easy to haul a half dozen humans home in a capsule, but its complicated and heavy to haul down immensely heavy satellites with a decent cross range such that you could land next orbit on friendly territory at all times. Remember the shuttle "had to" be all things to all people, and the military demands ended up being VERY heavy and expensive. At this time AFAIK nobody has the technical ability to snatch a Soviet spy sat and take it home, or haul strange and heavy (many ton) electronic warfare payloads over a target and land next orbit on NATO turf. Now, WHY you'd want to, or SHOULD you want to, are outside the bounds of this discussion, but the shuttle certainly had that kind of military stuff as a very expensive and very heavy design req.
- calaphos 6y agoTurns out it is a lot more useful to (potentially) reuse the first stage than to carry a lot of additional weight to reuse the last stage.
- raverbashing 6y agoWell, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable. The only non-reusable part was the external fuel tank. But yeah, sending something as big as a bus up and down was probably the bane of it.
- avmich 6y ago> Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable. But to use them again a lot of efforts had to be spent, comparing to what's possible with first stages of F9. That's why Shuttle boosters are called refurbishable.
- cdash 6y agoIf you call rebuilding an engine every time reusable. SRBs and reusable do not go together at all.
- 7thaccount 6y agoIncredibly impressive, but you have to take into account both more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build off the shoulders of giants. It is still amazing of course, but I doubt they could've done the same thing during the era of the mercury program, so not really apples to apples comparison.
- bane 6y agoSure, there are likely many small advantages that add up. For example, 3 flat panels and a few buttons probably weigh less than a metal panel full of dials, allowing for a better payload ratio. That technology wasn't available during the Mercury/Gemini/Shuttle period for any price.
- piyh 6y agoYou can't buy company culture either, but that could have been built 40 years ago
- VLM 6y agosensors and wiring always weighed more. Of course now the wiring COULD be CANbus or similar in concept instead of individual (heavy) wires. Or move the analog processing and microcontroller to the sensor itself instead of running wires all over the place to a central computer.
- yellowapple 6y ago> We now have the capability to put up another ISS today, resupply it, and staff it, at a fraction of the cost, all with launch equipment made by a single company that started a decade ago. This is the part that's exciting for me. Whether it comes in the form of more space stations like the ISS or a much bigger and reinvigorated ISS, either way is a vital step in the right direction toward making humanity less beholden to a single planet. Lots of challenges still to come, but this is a reminder that those challenges can someday be overcome.
- flingo 6y agoAFAIK, the ISS needs to be de-orbited over an ocean, burned up, and replaced. (like the plan was from the beginning) There are a number of scary mould patches up there, and potentially other pathogens, with no real way to properly clean the whole thing.
- toyg 6y agoI love space exploration like the next guy, but I have a massive fear that a proliferation of space-stations will lead to unpleasant situations. With all its tensions, the ISS has been an amazing tool for soft diplomacy; if we start having country-specific stations we’ll soon end up with nasty arguments. Already we have competing satellites rumoured to have classified capabilities, I hate to think what they could do with manned stations. I guess it’s inevitable.
- bane 6y agoYour fears our valid, and something we have to learn to work through as a species.
- the_duke 6y agoChina plans to launch the first part of their own space station next year. [1] They actually wanted to join the ISS effort, but were given a firm no and had no other option than to do pursue their own. [2] I don't think we will see any other country-specific stations for a long time, but modular commercial stations that can be shared for research and potential business endeavors (hotels, specialized manufacturing, ...). If efforts like SpaceX Starship actually succeed in very significantly lowering launch costs, that is. Right now it is simply not affordable either for nations or businesses. A single Starship would actually be a great temporary space station on it's own, comparable to the ISS in usable area. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_large_modular_space_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_large_modular_space_st... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_International_Space_Station#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_International_...
- calaphos 6y agoSpaceX developments have a clearly defined goal with most engineering and production decisions made according to mission + cost constraints. The space shuttle development had dramatically changing requirements from multiple stakeholders (cheap launches, crossrange capability, recovery of military satellites, etc.) with production facilities based on jobs in voting districts. As impressive as the space shuttle was from an engineering perspective, from an economic and safety standpoint it was a complete desaster.
- holyDictionary 6y ago> a single company that started a decade ago as a side project for a guy who was trying to make electric cars after making money on the internet. I believe this is backwards, SpaceX was created first and it was implied in the biography that it's more as if Tesla was the side project.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoTesla was a hostile takeover by Musk who was already an investor (arguably the largest/primary investor), as existing leadership was not focused on getting revenue in the door fast enough for the org to survive (circa 2007). https://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-fired-tesla-ceo-2014-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-fired-tesla-ce... Disclaimer: Long time TSLA investor
- agumonkey 6y agoThere was an article floating recently about the death of corporate R&D .. SpaceX might be one exception (or maybe first of a new wave ?)
- crocal 6y agoDid it really cost only 5B$ to get there? I just ask because if confirmed it’s unbelievably cheap. I am /stunned/.
- gpm 6y agoThere's also been a few (2 to 3) billion in stock based financing. I think that the 5b estimate sounds right order of magnitude.
- manquer 6y agoIn direct investments perhaps yes, but like all things it is bit more complicated, it can be cheaper in each generation, you can leverage existing talent and their experience from before . In theory a new entrant could achieve similar feats with lesser money . For example rocket lab is doing pretty well for their size with some real innovation based out of New Zealand! Extremely likely part of their staff would come from spacex ULA, NASA etc . Similarly spacex would have leveraged from ULA , NASA as well . NASA also does help them in some areas as part of this program and others and also the money they (and others) have spent during the last 15 years especially without validation. Very few customers would invest in 10 year product development journey they way NASA has with CCS. That would not possible without NASA’s own budgets being so large to support kind of projects like the shuttles and ISS in the first place . Only then the couple of billion they spent will look small enough to take that risk.
- adventured 6y ago> For example rocket lab is doing pretty well for their size with some real innovation based out of New Zealand! Rocket Lab isn't out of New Zealand, that's a popular underdog myth at this point. They're an American company, funded overwhelmingly by big US venture capital, that built their current technology primarily in the US. The initial low scale efforts for Rocket Lab originated out of New Zealand, with sounding rockets. They moved to the US because they could go no further with the limited native aerospace and funding capabilities of New Zealand. Their name is now Rocket Lab USA. Their headquarters has been in the US for most of their existence and progress. And most of their efforts and expansion are now also focused in the US: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-expands-footprint-with-new-long-beach-headquarters-and-production-complex/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-expands... New Zealand didn't have the native aerospace engineering capabilities to build what Rocket Lab has. Most of the advanced engineering was done in California, leaning on the massive aerospace resources of the state.
- toshk 6y agoIncredible. Also Tesla seems to be extremely focused on r&d. How does Elon Musk push and run his organisations so differently that he seems to be one of the only few, if not only one, capable of running big organisations that are able to accomplish this extreme level of innovation paired with tangible results?
- arminiusreturns 6y agoI think of it like this. It requires massive amounts of money to do the types of things we are talking about, but when the other big players have gotten so used to suckling at the teet of the military industrial complex and it's wars, and comfortable in that utterly corrupt cycle, Musk was a man with a narrow focus to "get shit done" much more than "line the C's and boards pockets" .
- jeffdavis 6y agoYou only do new things if you believe you will fail if you don't. Established companies have an expectation of success if they just keep doing what they are doing, so anything new is an unacceptable risk.
- toshk 6y agoAt the same time "startups" are also not able to reach any of the tangible results musk is producing. He seems to be able to benefit from the resources of a big company, while at the same time keep the fresh mindset of a relatively small company.
- peter303 6y agoA considerable portion of any modern engineering project is computing, whether its rocketry, automobiles or genomics. And they can leverage Moores Law which has continued for six decades.
- conradev 6y ago> all with launch equipment made by a single company that started a decade ago SpaceX was founded in 2002, almost two decades ago
- vermontdevil 6y agoImagine this started when Musk wanted to send seeds to Mars.
- computerex 6y agoWhilst I agree with the general sentiment, the Space Shuttle was the single most capable spacecraft that has ever flown. You are not being fair in measuring it simply on the basis of how much mass it could put in Orbit.
- simonh 6y agoIt was an amazing vehicle and highly capable in some way, but severely constrained in others. The main problem is it was almost completely useless for any missions or activities beyond LEO. In theory you could use it to put up a small boost stage for a light interplanetary probe, but its cargo capacity was a bit small for that, and there’s just no point using a whole shuttle to do it. Now that we have Falcon 9 and Heavy moon missions are back on the table, but the Shuttle was incapable of supporting any effective Lunar mission profiles.
- GuB-42 6y agoMy understanding is that Falcon rockets are not optimal beyond LEO. They can do it of course, Falcon Heavy could launch a car in the general direction of Mars. But they are limited by their use of kerosene in their 2nd stage and its low specific impulse compared to hydrogen. BFR and it's Raptor engines are better suited for that purpose. But we don't have a BFR yet.
- simonh 6y agoThat's true Hydrolox is by far preferred for upper stages, particularly for interplanetary missions. However Heavy is so powerful it compensates quite well for it's compromises in that area. It can still boost double the payload to Trans-Mars Injection than Delta IV Heavy and more again than Atlas(1). (1) As Dom Toretto always says, American Muscle beats Import every time ;)
- dingaling 6y agoThe Shuttle was never designed to support Lunar missions so that's a red herring. It was designed to recover satellites and bring them back to Earth safely as part of its military mission. Nothing Space X is offering has such a capability. Different vehicles for different roles.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> We now have the capability to put up another ISS today, resupply it, and staff it, at a fraction of the cost, Capacity to put mass into low orbit, but building a multipart space station requires far more than cobbling modules together KSP-style. Shuttle and the Canadarm(s) built the space station. SpaceX doesn't have that construction/manipulation capacity. It doesn't have the spacewalk capacity. To match Shuttle and build another ISS SpaceX would need to send people and cargo on the same flight, something that is certainly physically possible but remains logistically complex. NASA doesn't spend millions training astronauts in that giant swimming pool because they like the water.
- cryptonector 6y agoSpaceX is the most amazing demonstration of can-do spirit coupled with simple and good ideas. Elon Musk is the epitome of the can-do, unafraid, business man, but combined with great engineering chops and vision. And think of the fact that all of this is nothing compared to what a fully-deployed StarLink will do, and what weekly or daily launch capabilities would mean for the U.S. armed forces. The number of satellites to shoot down in a war is going up, and the rate at which they can be replaced is also going up. Moreover, the cost of sending up new interesting military sats is going way down, which means we'll see greatly upgraded capabilities in many areas. Civilian science too will be benefiting greatly. SpaceX's commercial and non-commercial competition is hobbled by subsidies. Ahhh, what a great demonstration that subsidies are dangerous to business. Otherwise, if they really wanted to, the competition is not that far behind SpaceX, and could catch up, and pretty quickly if they want to, but in the meantime, SpaceX continues to innovate and get ahead.
- mulmen 6y agoIn his post launch statements yesterday Elon said something like “maybe I just blank out the word doubt.” I think that’s a prerequisite to start a rocket company.
- WatchDog 6y agoI would probably say courageous rather than "unafraid", there are plenty of things Elon is afraid of, most recently he was expressing how nervous he was about the dm-2 launch. There is nothing wrong with fear, it's healthy to have a realistic view of things. It doesn't take any courage to do something you aren't afraid of.
- chooseaname 6y agoTo be fair, Mercury and Gemini didn’t have 40 years of space science to lean on. Now, before everyone goes huffy on me, I’m not trying to disregard everything that SpaceX has accomplished.