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The launch costs is just a small part of the total costs. You destroy my house and I should be happy you offer me a discount when I buy new blueprints from you

The launch costs is just a small part of the total costs. You destroy my house and I should be happy you offer me a discount when I buy new blueprints from you.

iso1210 6y ago
More like "you build something ugly opposite my house"
- simion314 6y ago
  Disagree, if I make a factory in China that generates some ugly clouds so you can't see your beautiful sky anymore, then if you complain I give you a discount on my airlines so you can fly above the clouds and see the sky for the first time. It could happen if we let companies pollute for free.
  - iso1210 6y ago
    I have a view over the ocean. Along comes Shell and builds an oil rig, thus spoiling my view. I have a view over the ocean, 50 miles up the coast in another country a marina opens, and dozens of sailing ships start arriving over the hour. I have a view, and an airport opens down the road, I'm now under a flight path, not only is my view obscured, I'm getting noise too.
    - simion314 6y ago
      There is a thing called pollution and light pollution is a thing, So you have a home and someone makes noise so you can't sleep, you have a home and your neighbor has pig shit in his backyard and the smell enters in your yard. Also I amargueing from a public(international) point of view. As an individual with terrible eyes sight I already can't see the stars anymore.
valuearb 6y ago
Historically this has only been true because of the immense cost of building super lightweight payloads using super expensive super light materials to fit in very limited payload mass requirements. Falcon 9 is a heavy launch system that can lift up to 50,000 lbs of payload to orbit, similar to the Shuttle. Falcon Heavy is a super heavy launch system that can put 140,000 lbs of payload in orbit. Starship is designed to be significantly cheaper than both of the Falcons, and to put over 200,000 lbs of payload in orbit with a far larger fairing size (though Falcon Heavy is getting a larger fairing shortly). These are all game changers the scientific and commercial space customers haven’t yet taken advantage of.
- welterde 6y ago
  You are forgetting that the telescope has to work in space. Big thermal swings, no easy air cooling, no AC outlet to get your power from, no convenient anchoring point for your telescope to push against to point a certain direction, no just bolting several racks full of off-the-shelve electronics to the telescope (none of them work in vacuum), no possibility to repair or upgrade anything, ... Having to use lightweight materials is the least of your worries (and not even that expensive - and sometimes done for ground-based instruments as well).
  - valuearb 6y ago
    I didn’t say it was easy, just easier.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    With much cheaper launch costs, you can afford to send a couple more robust telescopes. That's the vicious cycle of space mission costs put in reverse. The missions are expensive today, because launches are expensive, meaning you have one shot at doing your decade-long project, so you need to max out on risk mitigation - increasing your project length, labor costs, and launch mass. Significant drops in launch costs and increases in cadence translate to ability to launch much less robust mission (and launch a replacement if/when it fails), which drops the costs all across the board. > Big thermal swings, no easy air cooling, no AC outlet to get your power from, no convenient anchoring point for your telescope to push against to point a certain direction, no just bolting several racks full of off-the-shelve electronics to the telescope While by no means easy, that's still table stakes for space missions, and something there's decades of experience in around the world. > none of them work in vacuum Nobody is, nor was, sending the equivalent of a ground telescope installation upwell. You only send the looking part, with a downlink bolted on them. You do control and data processing planetside. > no possibility to repair or upgrade anything Cheap launches = you can replace. Even cheaper launches = you can try to repair. We'll need to develop that capability anyway, if we want a cislunar space economy.

The launch costs is just a small part of the total costs. You destroy my house and I should be happy you offer me a discount when I buy new blueprints from you.

iso1210 6y ago

More like "you build something ugly opposite my house"

simion314 6y ago
Disagree, if I make a factory in China that generates some ugly clouds so you can't see your beautiful sky anymore, then if you complain I give you a discount on my airlines so you can fly above the clouds and see the sky for the first time. It could happen if we let companies pollute for free.
- iso1210 6y ago
  I have a view over the ocean. Along comes Shell and builds an oil rig, thus spoiling my view. I have a view over the ocean, 50 miles up the coast in another country a marina opens, and dozens of sailing ships start arriving over the hour. I have a view, and an airport opens down the road, I'm now under a flight path, not only is my view obscured, I'm getting noise too.
  - simion314 6y ago
    There is a thing called pollution and light pollution is a thing, So you have a home and someone makes noise so you can't sleep, you have a home and your neighbor has pig shit in his backyard and the smell enters in your yard. Also I amargueing from a public(international) point of view. As an individual with terrible eyes sight I already can't see the stars anymore.

valuearb 6y ago

Historically this has only been true because of the immense cost of building super lightweight payloads using super expensive super light materials to fit in very limited payload mass requirements. Falcon 9 is a heavy launch system that can lift up to 50,000 lbs of payload to orbit, similar to the Shuttle. Falcon Heavy is a super heavy launch system that can put 140,000 lbs of payload in orbit. Starship is designed to be significantly cheaper than both of the Falcons, and to put over 200,000 lbs of payload in orbit with a far larger fairing size (though Falcon Heavy is getting a larger fairing shortly). These are all game changers the scientific and commercial space customers haven’t yet taken advantage of.

welterde 6y ago
You are forgetting that the telescope has to work in space. Big thermal swings, no easy air cooling, no AC outlet to get your power from, no convenient anchoring point for your telescope to push against to point a certain direction, no just bolting several racks full of off-the-shelve electronics to the telescope (none of them work in vacuum), no possibility to repair or upgrade anything, ... Having to use lightweight materials is the least of your worries (and not even that expensive - and sometimes done for ground-based instruments as well).
- valuearb 6y ago
  I didn’t say it was easy, just easier.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  With much cheaper launch costs, you can afford to send a couple more robust telescopes. That's the vicious cycle of space mission costs put in reverse. The missions are expensive today, because launches are expensive, meaning you have one shot at doing your decade-long project, so you need to max out on risk mitigation - increasing your project length, labor costs, and launch mass. Significant drops in launch costs and increases in cadence translate to ability to launch much less robust mission (and launch a replacement if/when it fails), which drops the costs all across the board. > Big thermal swings, no easy air cooling, no AC outlet to get your power from, no convenient anchoring point for your telescope to push against to point a certain direction, no just bolting several racks full of off-the-shelve electronics to the telescope While by no means easy, that's still table stakes for space missions, and something there's decades of experience in around the world. > none of them work in vacuum Nobody is, nor was, sending the equivalent of a ground telescope installation upwell. You only send the looking part, with a downlink bolted on them. You do control and data processing planetside. > no possibility to repair or upgrade anything Cheap launches = you can replace. Even cheaper launches = you can try to repair. We'll need to develop that capability anyway, if we want a cislunar space economy.