SpaceX progress

[Pyrrho]

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

Awesome photos.

[Rob Lister]

In the spirit of rocket stage reusability, I'm bumping this thread. SpaceX was a fledgling startup in 2010. Well, 8 years old but for rockets, that's an infant. Here, just 8 years after that, we get ...

Ariane chief seems frustrated with SpaceX for driving down launch costs

Like Russia and the US-based United Launch Alliance, the Ariane Group faces pricing pressure from SpaceX, which offers launch prices as low as $62 million for its Falcon 9 rocket. It has specifically developed the Ariane 6 rocket to compete with the Falcon 9 booster.

But there are a couple of problems with this. Despite efforts to cut costs, the two variants of the Ariane 6 will still cost at least 25 percent more than SpaceX's present-day prices. Moreover, the Ariane 6 will not fly until 2020 at the earliest, by which time Falcon 9 could offer significantly cheaper prices on used Falcon 9 boosters if it needed to. (The Ariane 6 rocket is entirely expendable).

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05 ... nch-costs/

He's bitching because they can't compete with SpaceX rates in the European market. Why? Because SpaceX doesn't have to build every rocket from scratch. They build it once and reused it up to ten times. It's very unfair because they can't do the same thing; making rockets reusable is too efficient.

"Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'"

Bless his little socialist heart.

[Rob Lister]

A very nice launch today

All three boosters recovered, first time ever.

[Pyrrho]

Never gets old.

[Rob Lister]

Space X is announcing an """" anomaly """" during an engine test.

[Anaxagoras]

From 2016

[asthmatic camel]

Aaaand it's all bullshit.

Extremely expensive bullshit.

So that a few, a very few, ultra-rich people can head for barren, frozen rocks for a vacation or, just possibly, build themselves bunkers on Mars, so they can escape the chaos they've created here on Earth. And, inevitably, die there, (if they ever get there in the first place.)

[robinson]

[gnome]

So that a few, a very few, ultra-rich people can head for barren, frozen rocks for a vacation

Maybe. And not particularly harmful.

just possibly, build themselves bunkers on Mars, so they can escape the chaos they've created here on Earth.

Will not happen.

Surprisingly optimistic for you, I would think... Mr. "One Last Round of Plunder".

[robinson]

[Pyrrho]

[Rob Lister]

1) it's good to see their seats don't share a common arm rest. Thoughtful Musk.
2) the only control they have of the capsule is the air conditioning. Typical Musk.

[robinson]

Rob is making shit up

[Pyrrho]

Splashdown! And that's that.

[robinson]

And for 2 billion less than NASA would have cost!

[robinson]

Seems I was a little off on the figures

[Anaxagoras]

I'm not sure that apples are being compared to apples here, but OK.

Is the cost of a single mission being compared to the entire cost of development of a new rocket system?

[Rob Lister]

And Musk took a hell of a lot longer than a year and a billion dollars developing that system.

Not that it's still not a hell of a lot better than what NASA could/would have done on their own.

[robinson]

Boeing got more development money

Space X got it done faster

How to calculate cost is pretty fuzzy

[robinson]

By paying both companies NASA wins no matter what

[robinson]

[robinson]

It's not strictly capitalism when private industry gets massive government funding.

Unlike in an Ayn Rand novel, the genius billionaires are among the looters.

Looters don’t build working starships

[Rob Lister]

At 38 seconds, it looks like something very bad is about to happen.

[ceptimus]

I wouldn't want it landing on my lawn. The scorch mark would probably last for months.

[robinson2]

That engine is very impressive.

[Hotarubi]

[robinson]