SpaceX Falcon 9

[LG]

Спецстрой - это такая штука как ящик Пандоры. Вещь в себе. Что внутри - никто не скажет.

[Петр Зайцев]

Маск быстрее не построит, он его быстрее перестроит :lol:

Вы не поняли. Вопрос Сало был не про перестройку SLC-3E, а про объявленный конкурс на строительство коммерческого космодрома с нуля. Которого, конечно, может еще и не быть.

[Дем]

В америке космодромы строят проще.
Выровняли площадку, поставили посреди табуретку и с неё пускают.
А у нас землю рыть любят.

[LG]

Было бы интересно посмотреть как Маск планирует делать и испытывать башню САС для Ф9

[Salo]

Маск быстрее не построит, он его быстрее перестроит :lol:

Вы не поняли. Вопрос Сало был не про перестройку SLC-3E, а про объявленный конкурс на строительство коммерческого космодрома с нуля. Которого, конечно, может еще и не быть.

Мне непонятно зачем он ему вообще нужен.
Впрочем лучше пусть строит, а мы посмотрим на цены.

[Петр Зайцев]

Мне непонятно зачем он ему вообще нужен.

Видать хлебнул горя с 45-м крылом ВВС. Например, он до последнего пытался протащить обеспечение безопасности остановом вместо подрыва. Нет, замутили свое, причем в последний момент. То же самое с расписанием. А уж что делалось на Вандерберге в 2003-м - это просто клоунада. Военные его просто откровенно саботировали, например мурыжили "пока Атлас улетит", хотя на самом деле просто вообще не хотели давать пускать и все. Слухи, правда, ходили, что Элон мог бы и не наглеть на переговорах, но все равно. Для объяснения причин поиска более сговорчевых партнеров вполне достаточно.

[Alex_II]

Мне непонятно зачем он ему вообще нужен.
Впрочем лучше пусть строит, а мы посмотрим на цены.

Резонно, в общем-то... Что ему, мало 2х столов? Тогда у него точно планов громадье... Будем посмотреть.

[Старый]

А уж что делалось на Вандерберге в 2003-м - это просто клоунада. Военные его просто откровенно саботировали, например мурыжили "пока Атлас улетит", хотя на самом деле просто вообще не хотели давать пускать и все. Слухи, правда, ходили, что Элон мог бы и не наглеть на переговорах, но все равно. Для объяснения причин поиска более сговорчевых партнеров вполне достаточно.

Слухи ходили что Флакон не готов и Маск устроил скандал чтобы оправдать перенос и уход на Кваджалейн.

[avmich]

А уж что делалось на Вандерберге в 2003-м - это просто клоунада. Военные его просто откровенно саботировали, например мурыжили "пока Атлас улетит", хотя на самом деле просто вообще не хотели давать пускать и все. Слухи, правда, ходили, что Элон мог бы и не наглеть на переговорах, но все равно. Для объяснения причин поиска более сговорчевых партнеров вполне достаточно.

Слухи ходили что Флакон не готов и Маск устроил скандал чтобы оправдать перенос и уход на Кваджалейн.

Маску недоброжелатели любой перенос вправо напоминать будут. И в каком-то смысле логично - Маск высоко себе планку поднял, а какая там разница, из-за чего перенос - понятно, что это неважно.

Посмотрим, как будет стараться.

[Потусторонний]

Маск быстрее не построит, он его быстрее перестроит :lol:

Вы не поняли. Вопрос Сало был не про перестройку SLC-3E, а про объявленный конкурс на строительство коммерческого космодрома с нуля. Которого, конечно, может еще и не быть.

теперь разобрался. Вот это?

...SpaceX рассматривает Пуэрто-Рико, штат Техас, Гавайи, или Флориду...

[Космос-3794]

теперь разобрался. Вот это?

...SpaceX рассматривает Пуэрто-Рико, штат Техас, Гавайи, или Флориду...

Только вместо Флориды впишите Вирджинию.
Здесь подробнее - http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20111112/NEWS02/311120022/1007/rss06/SpaceX-scouting-sites-launch

[LG]

теперь разобрался. Вот это?

...SpaceX рассматривает Пуэрто-Рико, штат Техас, Гавайи, или Флориду...

Только вместо Флориды впишите Вирджинию.
Здесь подробнее - http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20111112/NEWS02/311120022/1007/rss06/SpaceX-scouting-sites-launch

Лавры Союза мелкому придурку по прозвищу Маск покоя не дают?

[avmich]

теперь разобрался. Вот это?

...SpaceX рассматривает Пуэрто-Рико, штат Техас, Гавайи, или Флориду...

Только вместо Флориды впишите Вирджинию.
Здесь подробнее - http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20111112/NEWS02/311120022/1007/rss06/SpaceX-scouting-sites-launch

Лавры Союза мелкому придурку по прозвищу Маск покоя не дают? :D

Исторические лавров Союза повторить нельзя. А новые лавры заработать - почему бы и нет. Союз хорош по экономике, но скромен технологически. Времена меняются - оптимальные комбинации тоже меняются. Чтобы оставаться чемпионом, нужно всё время бежать вперёд.

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/111125-spacex-expanding-florida-launch-demand.html

Fri, 25 November, 2011
SpaceX Expanding Florida Facilities To Meet Launch Demand[/size]
By Irene Klotz

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space Exploration Technologies, the startup rocket company developing cut-rate launch services, is expanding its Florida base, with additional hangars to prepare its Falcon 9 rockets and customer payloads for flight.

    The firm, owned and operated by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, has more than 40 flights worth about $3.5 billion on its manifest from the U.S. government, commercial and international customers.

    About 40 percent of that business is for NASA, which has hired the company, also known as SpaceX, to fly cargo to the international space station beginning next year. A demonstration flight is scheduled for launch in January.

    Falcon 9s fly from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40, which previously was used by the now-retired Titan rocket program. Currently, only one vehicle can be processed at a time at a hangar adjacent to the launch pad.

    To accommodate an expected flight rate of 10 to 12 launches per year, SpaceX is building a  16,000-square-meter addition to Space Launch Complex 40 and taking over an old Delta 2 processing building called Hangar AO. Space Florida, a state-funded agency focused on expanding space-related business in Florida, is providing $7.3 million toward the upgrades.

    "We'll be able to integrate three rockets at a time instead of one," Scott Henderson, SpaceX's director of mission assurance, said at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association conference in Cocoa Beach earlier this month.

    The upgrade includes a clean room, a hazardous hypergolic fueling facility and enough volume to encapsulate a payload in a fairing in a vertical position.

    The company also plans to either upgrade Pad 40 or add another launch pad to support its planned Falcon Heavy rockets. That would be in addition to the West Coast Falcon Heavy launch complex under construction at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

    "We can do it on Launch Complex 40; technically it's not a challenge. The problem is how you do that while not breaking up your revenue stream as you're launching Falcon 9, so you've got a challenge there," Henderson said.

    The company, which is based in Hawthorne, Calif., currently has about 1,600 employees, including about 70 in Florida.

    "We will never, as a small, commercial, lean, agile company, win the job-creation battle," Henderson said, referring to the political push for companies to replace jobs lost by the retirement of NASA's space shuttles.

    "It doesn't really match the commercial model. What we're really trying to do is increase launch rate, because if you increase launch rate you bring in new customers to Florida, they bring in suppliers, bring in people to watch launches, and all boats lift on the rising tide," he said.

    SpaceX faces what likely will be a keen competition for NASA funds to continue work on a passenger version of its Dragon capsule. A cargo Dragon made its debut flight in December 2010 and is targeted for a second demonstration flight, including possibly berthing at the space station, Jan. 7.

    SpaceX currently shares a pool of $316.2 million in NASA funds with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Blue Origin for space taxi development and work on related technologies. The White House had requested $850 million for 2012. Congress budged $406 million.

    NASA has not yet announced how the cut would impact the number of contractors, the scope of the work or the timing for the next phase of the program. A solicitation was expected to be released before the end of the year.[/size]

[Петр Зайцев]

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/111125-spacex-expanding-florida-launch-demand.html

Fri, 25 November, 2011
SpaceX Expanding Florida Facilities To Meet Launch Demand[/size]
By Irene Klotz

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space Exploration Technologies, the startup rocket company developing cut-rate launch services, is expanding its Florida base, with additional hangars to prepare its Falcon 9 rockets and customer payloads for flight.

    To accommodate an expected flight rate of 10 to 12 launches per year, SpaceX is building a  16,000-square-meter addition to Space Launch Complex 40 and taking over an old Delta 2 processing building called Hangar AO. Space Florida, a state-funded agency focused on expanding space-related business in Florida, is providing $7.3 million toward the upgrades.[/size]

Меня удивило, что площадь в кв.метрах, пошел смотреть, и оказалось, что несколько репортеров записало шпиль Хендерсона, но ни один кроме Клотзихи сообщил подробности. Дин из Флориды Тудей прошелся как "цветные квадратики обозначают фирмы" на плане, и не сфотографировал план!! Ну не козлы ли?!

[Salo]

http://magazine.lmu.edu/archive/2011/rocket-man

Rocket Man[/size]


Published: November 11, 2011

Biography

Tom Mueller '92 is co-founder and vice president of propulsion and development at SpaceX, located in Hawthorne, Calif. Mueller earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering. Prior to SpaceX, he spent 14 years at TRW, where he ran the Propulsion and Combustion Products Department and earned the TRW Chairman's Award. Mueller holds several U.S. patents in propulsion technology.

Mueller says he was the kind of kid who took things apart and put them back together. "One day," he says, "I was walking home from school, and I found an old grandfather clock. I picked up all the pieces and tried to put it back together."

In the coming months, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, will launch a supply ship carrying hundreds of pounds of astronaut provisions to the International Space Station. NASA is counting on the company, and another private firm, to take over the Space Shuttle's resupply missions to the iss. only nine years old, SpaceX has technologically leapfrogged its competitors to lay claim to the world's least-costly space flights. One of the brains behind SpaceX is Tom Mueller. He was interviewed by Doug McInnis.

Mankind's dream of living and working in space seems to hinge on three factors — the ability to do it affordably, safely and reliably. So far, spacecraft have been made to work more or less reliably and safely, but not affordably. Has SpaceX cracked the cost barrier?
 We've made a big improvement over the previous cost barrier. We can send a payload up for as little as one-fifth as much as other U.S. launch providers. But we would like to reduce that to 1/100 the current cost or less. The problem is that all rockets, including ours, are used just once. With expendable rockets, you pay for the full cost of the rocket each time you fly. With a reusable rocket, you could get the cost down. Ultimately, we want the whole thing to be like an aircraft flight — you don't throw anything away except maybe some of the food trays you serve to the crew.

If cost is less of an inhibiting factor, is manned travel to the Moon, Mars and elsewhere coming?
 Absolutely. I think that's the next step in human exploration. Somehow we got trapped in low-Earth orbit for the past 40 years. That's unfortunate. I think what mankind really wants to do is go to Mars. And certainly there are reasons to go back to the moon.

Do you think future SpaceX vehicles will go to the Moon or Mars, and do you think that someday SpaceX travel will be cheap enough to take tourists into space?
 Yes, on both counts. We'll be capable of going to the moon within five years and to Mars hopefully within 10. We're also working really hard on reusability to get the price down, and I think that will open up space tourism. We've already announced our initial price for NASA astronauts: It's about $20 million. But if we get reusability down and are able to cut that price dramatically, that would open it up for a lot more people.

What sorts of things have you done to create propulsion systems that work better and cost less to operate? was there a magic bullet or lots of small improvements?
 There's no real magic bullet. In order to keep the rocket's engine simple, reliable and low cost, we picked fuels that were simple, low-cost and widely available. We picked an engine cycle that's about 95 percent of maximum. It's not like a Ferrari, as some other companies have done. It's like a Chevy. It's reliable and low-cost. We save money by making most of the parts. We do our own testing at our own sites. We have control of design and development through launch. We build the launch vehicle and the engine that powers it, so we don't have to go to another company to interface. I just go to another office in the same building.

To create a new propulsion system, is it an advantage to start from scratch?
 In the beginning, we would have liked to have bought an existing system to save all the development costs. But there was no system, not even the Russian system, that would do what we wanted. So we had to develop our own. That really allowed us to do a paradigm shift and get the costs down. We're not looking to do an evolutionary change. We're looking to do a revolutionary change.

Is your background from outside the box?
 I come from a hands-on background. My dad was a logger, so I grew up around logging trucks and equipment, and chain saws. You learn a lot from that environment. I tend to have that rare gift where I can easily conceptualize what will work. If somebody were to give me specs for a different kind of engine, I could easily conceptualize what will work.

What were you like as a kid?
 I got in big trouble when I took the lawn mower apart. My father came home and found the parts all over the yard. He was mad because he figured it wasn't going to go back together. I had the pistons out and the valves out. But I put it back together, and the thing ran fine. At Christmas, I always went for the Erector Set–kind of stuff.

When did you become interested in space propulsion and how did you pursue those interests over the years?
 I was always interested in rockets, even as a kid. I flew my own rockets. I read science fiction and was really into astronomy. The kid across the street from me was a real brain. He had a telescope. I would go over to his house and look at the stars. I loved reading about the stars, black holes, anything that had to do with space. But my junior high school guidance teacher decided I should be an aircraft mechanic. Then in my first year in high school, my math teacher asked if I was going to be an engineer. I said no. He was astounded. He asked, "Do you want to be the guy who fixes the plane or the guy who designs it?" If it hadn't been for that math teacher, I probably would have been a mechanic or a logger. Thanks to him, I got the right courses to go to college.

SpaceX was the brainchild of Elon Musk, the legendary entrepreneur who also founded PayPal and electric carmaker Tesla Motors. What's it like to work for him?
 Elon says a company is the sum of all of its vectors. If you have a small company with all the vectors pointed in the right direction, he says it's better than a large company with the vectors pointing in random directions. Here, everybody is moving in the right direction to build a very efficient machine that is super reliable.

You had a good job with TRW, a Fortune 500 company. Why did you give it up for SpaceX?
 I was pretty happy there. The biggest problem probably was that rocket engines weren't a core component of TRW's operations. But when I met Elon, the rocket engine was key frontline technology for SpaceX. In addition, Elon's business plan and the way he wanted to set up the company really appealed to me. And he had the capital to do it. So when Elon said (to me and another prospective employee), if you guys join, we'll start the company, I signed on as one of the three cofounders.

SpaceX has a government contract to deliver unmanned supply vehicles to the space station. what other things do you have in the works?
 Just over 50 percent of our work is commercial. We have, for example, a $550 million contract with Iridium Communications, a satellite communications company in McLean, Vir., to launch its next generation of telecommunications satellites into space. We also have a contract with NASA to develop a manned version of our Dragon spacecraft. And we are working to get more launches for the Department of Defense.

Do companies such as spacex indicate a shift from public to private space exploration?
 Yes. To qualify that statement, government will always play an important role in space exploration. But NASA will be able to hire private companies to handle access to low-Earth orbit and eventually some points beyond. The government will need to lead efforts for deep space missions requiring farther-reaching technology (like ion and nuclear engines).

What's next in space travel?
 Until now, the trajectory has been all wrong. We went to the moon in 1969. Then we got stuck in low-Earth orbit with the space shuttle. And now we don't even have that any more. I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a commercial revolution in terms of access to space. I think there are going to be a lot of startups. Hopefully, we're going to bring spaceflight back so that it will be at the forefront of people's attention. That's what SpaceX is all about.[/size]

[Alex_II]

What sorts of things have you done to create propulsion systems that work better and cost less to operate? was there a magic bullet or lots of small improvements?
There's no real magic bullet. In order to keep the rocket's engine simple, reliable and low cost, we picked fuels that were simple, low-cost and widely available. We picked an engine cycle that's about 95 percent of maximum. It's not like a Ferrari, as some other companies have done. It's like a Chevy. It's reliable and low-cost. We save money by making most of the parts. We do our own testing at our own sites. We have control of design and development through launch. We build the launch vehicle and the engine that powers it, so we don't have to go to another company to interface. I just go to another office in the same building.

Бальзам на сердце Старому...

[Потусторонний]

http://moonandback.com/2011/11/21/the-case-against-spacex/  21 November 2011
The Case Against SpaceX  by trent waddington

As an advocate of commercial spaceflight I can understand why many find it difficult to write objectively about SpaceX – which is arguably the poster child of this nascent industry. As a result, the majority of negative commentary about our darling comes from a horrible "journalist" like Andy Pasztor at The Wall Street Journal or a traditional aerospace mouth-piece like Loren Thompson at Forbes.

An occasional coherent comment on a blog or space forum may be accepted by the space community as containing a nugget of truth, but these are easily filed in the don't-think-too-hard-about basket and forgotten.

I've taken to thinking about the criticism I have heard, and after some long and rather arduous discussion with these critics I've processed it through what I hope are reasonable and constructive filtering. Here's the finished package.

The Circuitous Route To Reuse

Since SpaceX first announced the Falcon 9 they have claimed it is designed to be reusable, but they've yet to demonstrate how. For a number of years the answer has, apparently, been parachutes. Both the successful flights of the Falcon 9 have carried them and for a while we were told they had been deployed. Gwynne Shotwell, speaking at the Space Access conference this year was quoted "We have recovered pieces of the first stages." They were breaking up during re-entry, not giving the parachutes time to deploy.

Most recently, SpaceX has announced with fanfare the new overall approach with pretty graphics and a funky soundtrack. Clearly, they are still a long way away from a working vehicle. I asked Gary Hudson on The Space Show to provide us an educated guess at how fast the Falcon 9 may be going at first stage separation, and at what altitude – the kind of trivial information required to even visualize how such a vehicle could function. He declined.

While it is certainly true that SpaceX's engineers have a lot more information and no doubt have some idea how it is supposed to work, I find it more than a little disconcerting that arguably one of the most seasoned RLV veterans around today isn't able to speculate. At the same time, a new test program dubbed Grasshopper was announced to test vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) which is a critical part of the new non-parachute approach to reuse.

If that sounds familiar, it should. A subscale VTVL demonstrator has been considered the starting point for this kind of RLV ever since the DC-X program back in the early 1990s. More recently, Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems have been following this path, with considerably less money to play with. It's 2011 and it seems like SpaceX is starting all over again with reuse.

The Funding Crunch

There's another pathway to reuse: put wings on it. So far, we haven't seen any indication that SpaceX is pursuing that route but, then again, we saw no indication they were pursing VTVL a year ago either. A regularly advocated way to maintain revenue while pursing this route is to woo suborbital markets such as scientific research and tourism. This approach is best exemplified by XCOR and, to a lesser extent Virgin Galactic (as they still seem to have no orbital aspirations). So far, there is no indication that SpaceX is doing that either, but who knows what the future might bring. If the current suborbital providers are successful it may boost investor confidence so much that SpaceX begins to take an interest.

Instead, SpaceX intends to fund their RLV development by selling launch services on the expendable configuration of the Falcon 9. This is good in a number of ways, most notably that it gets into the orbital launch business early, establishing a record of success (hopefully), and has given SpaceX the rocket engine and other components necessary to even start thinking about making a reusable vehicle.

The alternative to both of these paths is to simply have enough up-front funding to buy rocket engines and components from existing providers. For example, the RL-10 from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is considered one of the most reliable rocket engine families available with variants that have been tested rigorously for reuse. Many single-stage to orbit (SSTO) designs of the 1990s just assumed this engine, and the cost, most likely because it was used in the DC-X. SpaceX didn't have this option because their funding was meager by aerospace standards.

The Mars Dream

Elon Musk's plans to send humans to Mars are simply not realistic. Or, at least, that's what I'd say if I had any idea of the details. From all the times I've heard the dream I've managed to garner that basically he's adherent of Bob Zubrin's vision of men braving the perils of space to explore the red planet, with families of immigrants following close behind. This is complete with the heavy lift fetish.

Despite decades of examples that heavy lift can never be cheap, SpaceX has redefined the idea by claiming their upcoming Falcon Heavy launch vehicle will break the $1000/lb barrier and usher in a new age of cheap access to space. The aspirations for even bigger launch vehicles (presumably with even cheaper prices per lb) run deep.

Advocates of staging propellant in orbit, assembling and refueling deep space exploration vehicles which are launched on more modest sized rockets should not be surprised if they find heavy lift advocates counting SpaceX in their camp – but they often are. This defiles the traditional battle lines, with RLV advocates more commonly coming down on the side of propellant depot advocates, if not simply because one of the best uses for an RLV is filling propellant depots with propellants.

As such, it seems that the dream of Mars at SpaceX is essentially Mars Direct with a single heavy lift launch vehicle throwing a Dragon-sized capsule, with stir-crazy explorers, directly to Mars escape velocity. Zubrin has written of such a plan, claiming a Mars landing by 2016 is possible using the Falcon Heavy. It looks good on a cocktail napkin but the same old hand waving is required to shoo away the issues with those pesky human factors like radiation protection and artificial gravity generation.

NASA Assimilation

Practical and profitable space activities are much more effective for exciting public support than dreams of Mars exploration, but it is clear NASA is not going to industrialize space – it threatens the status quo – and today NASA remains SpaceX's greatest customer.

The goal of SpaceX is human spaceflight, and the greatest repository of knowledge about human spaceflight is NASA. As such, it would appear obvious that getting NASA to help you to fly humans safely is a good idea. The way to do that is with Space Act Agreements. This is what SpaceX did under the COTS program, and later under the CCDev program.. and they got paid for the privilege. As a result, the Dragon spacecraft will soon be fully qualified as safe for human habitation on orbit as it will be berthed to the ISS and have astronauts inside it.

The problem is that NASA is a precocious customer. They know what they want, they think they know even better than you do how to make it, and they feel no guilt about changing their mind halfway through the project. As such, Space Act Agreements just totally grind NASA's gears. They don't have enough control.

NASA money is like heroin.. once they start taking it, most people find it very hard to stop. There's a dependence that has grown between NASA and SpaceX, and although it is obviously a love-hate relationship, it's going to be very hard for SpaceX to let go.. but, inevitably, they must. The current needs of NASA are very different to the long term goals of SpaceX.

Promises, Promises, and Delays

SpaceX promises a lot more than they deliver. Over time those promises have changed, with the old promises being forgotten, and new promises being made with more showmanship. Failure is to be expected, with plans changing in response to the lessons learned, but doing so requires clear acknowledgement that there was a failure.

In September this year it was revealed that the second flight of the Falcon 9 had experienced an engine anomaly. While it later became apparent that the issue was minor and not unexpected, the immediate response by the space media was to pounce on what could be a hot story. Quite a number of people I talk to have expressed dismay at the way SpaceX handled the situation, including the lawsuit against Joseph Fragola earlier in the year. While I certainly don't subscribe to the view that SpaceX should be anywhere near as open as NASA with their proprietary information, I do agree that it is indicative of a deeper problem with their engineering culture.

Oh, and we're still waiting for a Falcon 9 flight in 2011.. seems it isn't going to happen.

The Business Case

Now I'd like to talk about the elephant in the room. Fundamentally, SpaceX has a shoddy business case which is best described as a house of cards.. that they're still trying to play poker with.. and there's dogs at the table, and they're smoking cigars! Yeah, metaphor.

The launch business is about volume. If you can get your launch rate up then you can charge less for each launch because the fixed costs will be spread over more launches. SpaceX hasn't done that yet, but they're already charging less than anyone else in the business. This is a common criticism of SpaceX, which most of us in the advocate community love to retort by saying something like: Elon says SpaceX has been profitable every year since 2007!

Okay, that's great. How? There's really only two possible answers: NASA's money, or booking fees. If it is just the former then SpaceX is destined to become just another NASA lackey. So we prefer to think it is the latter – but that means they're living on their seed corn. Eventually they're going to have to actually fly these payloads or give back the deposits. So the acid test will come when SpaceX is called upon to launch and turn a profit in the same year. At that time we will discover if SpaceX is getting the launch rate they require to amortize the fixed costs such that their revenues exceed their expenses. Only then will we know if their prices were realistic.

Suppose they're not. What options does SpaceX have then? Obviously, they can't rise their prices much – that will put them in the same market as the existing providers which have a much better track record (and much better ties to the biggest customers in the government). SpaceX is competing on price, so they will have no choice but to reduce their expenses or increase their flight rate. Reuse is their strategy for doing both of these approaches simultaneously.

There's only one problem: the inherent assumption that there is a market for cheap lift, and that this market can come online fast enough to provide the demand to both amortize their fixed costs and fund their reuse development. In the space community we have a name for this kind of faith: if you build it they will come [no really, watch it!].

If you ask Elon Musk why he is building something which is totally illogical, he will give you the story about the Mars dream. While I don't fully subscribe to the space-based solar power vision, preferring the human tended maintenance of geostationary orbital satellites variety of industrializing space, at least they have some practical idea of what might be economically valuable activities to do in space.

SpaceX is, unquestionably, a bold faced shot in the dark. It is going all-in on the boat hoping that the river will give you a straight flush. It's ballsy madness, and that's why we love them.

[Salo]

Жёстко этот Трент Уоддингтон прошёлся по Маску!

ЗЫ: Кстати Мюллер в своём интервью ничего конкретного о двигателях не сказал.

[Потусторонний]

Кстати Мюллер в своём интервью ничего конкретного о двигателях не сказал.

Самое главное он сказал: С хорошим двигателем и забор полетит.

Жёстко этот Трент Уоддингтон прошёлся по Маску!

Его на этом форуме зовут Старый :lol: Шютка