4 ms·
I’m guessing the current price has to pay for a whole new rocket, as NASA probably won’t use a used (“flight-proven”) one for humans. Eventually I expect used
by tomp 6y ago
I’m guessing the current price has to pay for a whole new rocket, as NASA probably won’t use a used (“flight-proven”) one for humans.
Eventually I expect used ones to be not only cheaper, but also more reliable. Like for (water)ships - they say “it’s new after you’ve owned it for a year”, the implication being that you spend the first year discovering and fixing manufacturing defects.
- matthewdgreen 6y agoWhat happens to the rockets after they're flown for a single mission? Do they belong to SpaceX for later re-use in commercial cargo missions, or does NASA own them?
- saberdancer 6y agoNASA pays for the mission, transport XY amount of tonnage to the ISS. The rocket remains owned by SpaceX. In majority of situations, owning a rocket means little as it cannot be reused. Also very few customers have the means to "run" a rocket, NASA fits the bill and it's conceivable NASA could buy a F9 and use it after quite a bit of training, but this makes little sense for them and little sense for SpaceX.
- hinkley 6y agoI think I'm picking up from context (aka reading between the lines) that the optics of NASA using a refurbished rocket - and it failing - is not good, so let SpaceX do what they want. Recall that a lot of aerospace budget from the US is defense spending dressed up as something else. Similar to the way the original space race was a proxy war for a proxy war: If you can fly people into space you can fly an ICBM to Moscow/Washington DC.