5 ms·

What exactly was he wrong about?

• calinet6 12y ago
  Well, if you can take 80% as a success rate at a quarter the cost per launch due to re-using old parts, and build that into your business model somehow (insurance, assurance, whatever and however it might be done), then maybe it can be viable as opposed to using new materials and expensive innovation to get a more reliable result at a higher cost. I'm not arguing for that business strategy; I think it would not be successful. I also don't think that re-using old rocket parts actually reduces cost to orbit significantly (I haven't looked at the numbers). I also don't think that what I think matters a whole lot. However, it's worth a discussion beyond simply rejecting the model at face value.
  • PeterisP 12y ago
    It's not only a cost issue - those old engines have performance characteristics that (in some areas) outperform anything that they could buy today off-shelf (as much as "off-shelf" exists for rocket engines), and developing a completely new model would likely be even less reliable than the current situation.