Elon Musk's SpaceX Offers Low-Cost Rockets 221
HobbySpacer writes "The cover article of the latest issue of Aviation Week looks at SpaceX and how its Falcon line of rockets threatens to shake up the space launch industry. Founded by Elon Musk, who also started PayPal, SpaceX is developing the Falcon I (first flight this summer) and Falcon V (first flight in 2005) that will cost as little as 20-30% of what competitors like Orbital Sciences and Boeing charge for comparable vehicles."
Cool (Score:4, Funny)
I cant see any problems with this plan.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Does this have a huge key that you turn that activates on a tripod launcher?
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Right you are, Sir, no problems [slashdot.org]!
Re:Cool (Score:2)
What a deal... (Score:3, Funny)
If I max out my credit I will be 3/5900ths of the way to my own launch...woo hoo! Yay for the people who need this stuff though.
Falcon? (Score:2)
So when will the Millenium Falcon be flown then?
We already have Windows ME, so where is the MF ??
Re:Falcon? (Score:2)
er... in the year 3000
(or when they reach Falcon M ?)
Well (Score:3, Funny)
Mars (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:2)
It doesn't have a toilet?
Re: Well (Score:2)
Where do you want to go today?
Re:Well (Score:2)
And, with a 50% discount (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And, with a 50% discount (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And, with a 50% discount (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And, with a 50% discount (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen the argument that if the launch price went down a lot, the cost of hardware would go down.
If a subsystem didn't cost $10,000/lbs to launch it would be built much, much cheaper.
There would also be a push to standardisation of interfaces and modules.
What they don't mention (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What they don't mention (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What they don't mention (Score:2)
Re:What they don't mention (Score:2)
Re:What they don't mention (Score:2)
Re:What they don't mention (Score:3, Insightful)
Could you elaborate? Or are you just spreading FUD?
Re:What they don't mention (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortnately, such attempts at misinterpreted humor often fail because of the obscurity of the alternate interpretation, as in this case.
Overall funny rating: 2.5 out of a possible 5.0 (Weak). [Not to be confused with slashdot moderation scores, of course. Everyone knows those are a joke.]
When does the price drop enough for tourists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When does the price drop enough for tourists? (Score:4, Insightful)
But seriously... this is good news; having private enterprise undertake missions to space. It'll be good to see the price of launches drop even further.
Re:Zero G nookie (Score:4, Funny)
It already has... (Score:4, Informative)
Now, admittedly these have all been based on national programs taking on a "charity" case now and again either for a few bucks, or for the attention that it gives them, but I'd say it's only a matter of time before a private company starts really marketing these trips to the extremely wealthy. If you can bring the price down to a million dollars a trip, you'll have your self a line of people out the door ready and willing to go. This is the ultimate in conspicuous consumption, Thorsten Veblen would be proud.
Re:It already has... (Score:2)
Re:When does the price drop enough for tourists? (Score:2)
I'm all for deregulating spaceflight and allowing private ownership of property and property rights in space. Its a far quicker ticket for humanity ad astra than to wait for some congress to appropriate $$ for it over the incessant public whining for "more
Re:When does the price drop enough for tourists? (Score:2)
-Adam Smith
TCO is what's important, though. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:TCO is what's important, though. (Score:5, Insightful)
More to the point will Insurance Companies be willing to underwrite a launch on a vehicle with no launch history built by a company with no history?
I wish them luck but they have a hellva barrier to entry to overcome.
Re:TCO is what's important, though. (Score:2)
Re:TCO is what's important, though. (Score:4, Insightful)
And second, the main reason satellites are so expensive is that they have to use very exotic materials and low margins to save mass. If you have a cheaper launcher you can build your satellite heavier, cheaper and more rugged.
Re:TCO is what's important, though. (Score:2)
I agree. The payloads tend to be *very* expensive. However, I would bet that many p
Re:TCO is what's important, though. (Score:4, Interesting)
The United States Navy (who, if I am not mistaken is already funding this program).
USN is used to makign really risky (as in, people die if they don't get it right) investments in Technology. Compared with the decision to buy F-35's or F/A-18s, this is a simple matter. Cheap, check. Will it fly without blowing up? We will find out soon.
Nice protection of IP... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice to know they leave this stuff lying around...
Re:Nice protection of IP... (Score:3, Funny)
They make rockets? (Score:4, Funny)
It makes me smell sweet and alluring.
Paypal payload payments? (Score:2)
-psy
Re:Paypal payload payments? (Score:2)
It is reusable (Score:5, Interesting)
They have also developed their own turbopump and reusable engine with quite impressive performance.
And all that for less than 100 million $. For that kind of money, NASA could probably produce a really nice paper study, but nothing that gets off the ground.
Re:It is reusable (Score:5, Funny)
You could climb up on the paper...
Re:It is reusable (Score:2)
So I think your fears are unfounded.
The first stage will be reusable (Score:4, Interesting)
Starting with the first flight this summer, the vehicle's first stage will be reusable.
After propelling the second stage and payload to 56 mi. and Mach 9, a 75-ft. parachute will be blasted out of the first stage nose by a 10,000-lb.-thrust mortar. The chute will lower the vehicle to a splashdown 500 mi. off Baja California, where it will be recovered for $50,000 by the crew of the salvage tug Aahu.
So, they're not just copycats, they introduce innovative technologies to keep the costs down.
So, there'll probably be some fierce competition in the space delivery business before the scramjet tech becomes viable. After that point it's anybody's guess which companies will come on top.
Re:The first stage will be reusable (Score:2)
Re:The first stage will be reusable (Score:2)
Discount Rockets (Score:4, Funny)
it's going to be just like the Jetsons...
Re:Discount Rockets (Score:4, Funny)
reliability? (Score:4, Insightful)
But I'm all for it. Competition is a good thing, right?
Re:reliability? (Score:4, Informative)
Part of the reasons why satellites are so expensive is because the cost per pound is so high. Reduce the cost per pound, you need to spend less time and money making it so lightweight, which means you can spend time and money making it last longer, cheaper, more functional, etc.
Reliability for unmanned launches ends up being such that, currently, 98% launch reliability is "good enough" because going beyond that ends up being far too expensive.
Re:reliability? (Score:4, Interesting)
If it costs $30M to get into orbit, you don't waste that on a $1M satellite. You use it for a $30M+ satellite. NASA should be safe for high-cost payloads provided that they have the reliability record (only time will tell).
If it costs $6M to get into orbit, then a whole pile of people can get into the game that weren't previously there, and some design decisions may change. Plans like GPS look much more attractive provided the satellites are cheap. Consider launching 50 $2M satellites:
With NASA, that costs you $1.5B (launch) + $100M (hardware).
With SpaceX, that costs you $300M (launch) + $100M (hardware).
SpaceX is an attractive option provided they can launch very frequently, even if their reliability is terrible. Simply build 100 satellites and if half fail, you're still way ahead of the NASA budget.
Remember, what often makes launch failures so catastrophic is not the $30M lost on the launch, but the $1B lost on hardware at the tip of that rocket.
SpaceX will cause people to design cheaper, less-advanced satellites. Unfortunately, it will also further clutter our orbital spaces. I really have to think that with the advent of private launches, that the world govts need to coordinate and essentially tax each launch to cover debris tracking and ultimately debris cleanup.
Launching lunch (Score:3, Insightful)
Now supposes lunch blows up on the pad. Well, the seagulls are going to have to fight over some hamburger fried in rocket fuel. I am thinking a low-reliable low-cost l
Re:reliability? (Score:2)
From what I have seen, there are any number of customers eager to fly on Falcon. In particular, the USAF has been fawning all over SpaceX. The current doctrine in USAF Space is based around so-called "Responsive Space", which means launching small satellites fast and cheap in response to the needs of a specific
Re:reliability? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:reliability? (Score:3, Informative)
Very nice in theory, very hard in practice.
I *think* NASA had demonstrated this technology to get a 1-pound 'rocket' to a height of about 10 feet, but that's the state-of-the-art for ground-based laser launch.
Re:reliability? (Score:2)
cell phone towers - they receive and send
radio signals, usually on multiple channels.
When you design a comm sat, you want to maximize
earnings, which comes from maximizing number
of channels (transmitter/receivers) you have
and lifetime of the satellite. For each of
the component parts of the satellite, you
usually have a choice of cheaper, heavier
parts, such as aluminum structure and single
junction solar cells, vs more expensive, lighter
parts: graphite structure and
Intense Specs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Intense Specs (Score:5, Interesting)
The DOD on the other hand seems to be really interested in cheap, reliable and fast launch. They want to be able to put up a sattelite on short notice, and none of the incumbent companies are able to provide this.
That is why the DOD has bought the first launch of the Falcon I and will buy many launches on Falcon V. Of course the high value payloads will go up on Atlas V for the forseeable future, but there will be a lot of pressure on boeing and lockmart if falcon is successful.
Isn't competition great?
Re:Intense Specs (Score:3, Informative)
The DoD wants more than inexpensive, reliable and fast to launch. They have to consider many more things that cost a lot of money. When it gets to the mil specs and the requirements they put on a subcontractor, well you can see why a happer costs $100. There is a lot you don't see until you work in the industry. And it's all about what the military expects and there is almost always a good reason for it. And
My Specs (Score:2)
Re:Intense Specs (Score:5, Insightful)
Mmm... no. That's not about specs, it's an example of how NOT to design mechanical parts.
These gears could be put in two ways, the right way was non-obvious, and when put in the wrong way, the gears more-or-less work (so the problem doesn't show up during testing) until the time of unusual stress.
This really should be a textbook case of how not to do things.
Re:Intense Specs (Score:2)
A Rocket Scientist? (Score:4, Funny)
That explains a lot.
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Re:A Rocket Scientist? (Score:3, Informative)
Not exactly... as I understand it, he got rich from PayPal (originally at this cool URL [x.com]), *then* started SpaceX.
So in effect, PayPal created a Rocket Scientist!
What's next? Google Labs creating a Brain Surgeon?
Well, it had better be significantly cheaper ... (Score:5, Informative)
"That competition is caused by an oversupply of launch vehicles in a soft market according to a recent report by Booz-Allen and Hamilton mentioned in Spacelift Washington. That report notes that the "excess capacity" in the launch vehicle market is currently at 35 percent of the market and growing, creating a downward pressure on prices. That excess capacity may not deter new entrants into the launch vehicle market, such as Japan's H-2A and India's GSLV, but it will prevent them from gaining more than a small piece of the overall market."
It will have to go up against a lot of established players, most notably Ariane with their 12,000 tonne payload launch system, Ariane 5. I don't know what a launch on Ariane 5 costs at the moment though.
Re:Well, it had better be significantly cheaper .. (Score:2, Informative)
An Ariane 5 launch will be expensive though
Re:Well, it had better be significantly cheaper .. (Score:2)
Yeah it costs ALOT to have a Delta 4 put a satellite into orbit. However, they've been highly successful at doing so, so is the extra cost worth it?
Or would you rather put the money you were going to spend launching the satellite into increasing the satellite capacities but now your launching on a less proven quasi reliable launch system (aka Ariane)
So, if these guys can prove to the market place th
Re:Well, it had better be significantly cheaper .. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only potential clash with Ariane is, as another poster has pointed out, the ASAP ring that Ariane uses to launch small payloads. Falcon is more expensive than an ASAP launch. However, Falcon has a larger payload capacity than an ASAP slot. More importantly, a Falcon payload launches as the primary, rather than as a secondary. That means launching when you want, and to the orbit that you want. For many payloads that makes it worth paying a little more than an ASAP launch.
Re:Well, it had better be significantly cheaper .. (Score:3, Informative)
That still doesn't change the fact that ASAP launches are constrained to go when and where the primary payload wants to go, while Falcon launches are not.
Can you make a fully functional useful satellite in 300kg? Imagine launching 4 at the same time and then being able to offer a few hundred digital TV channels off your own satellite network ... heh!
Yes. Globalstar satellites were ~300 kg. They were launched multiply
The secret, revealed! (Score:3, Funny)
Cool. (Score:2)
20-30% eh? (Score:2)
Question, is this even legal ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Question, is this even legal ? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Falcon I development is funded in part by the Defense Dept.'s Office of Force Transformation because the Pentagon believes if SpaceX is successful, it could have a major "transformational effect" on how military space operations are launched.
This is definately being santioned by the government.
Enabling solar power satellites? (Score:4, Interesting)
At least all those other technical areas have had even less money invested in them than space launch - so there's good reason to hope all the needed breakthroughs can be made soon - with some R&D money.
Re:Enabling solar power satellites? (Score:3, Interesting)
Lets just hope the first launch goes according to plan. That would be really good for attracting outside investors.
Re:Enabling solar power satellites? (Score:3, Insightful)
Design the rocket factory, not the rocket (Score:5, Insightful)
It also means having enough volume that you can afford to invest in factory. This is the real chicken-and-egg problem. Without a high volume of launches, you can't justify the invetsment in a multi-billion dollar rocket factory and streamlined launch process. And without the rocket factory, you can't get the launch price low enough to create the launch volume. I do hope that some of the remaining wealthy internet entrepeneurs invest their collective billions in this endevour.
Re:Design the rocket factory, not the rocket (Score:3, Interesting)
That might be one approach -- but the Lockheed Martin (then Martin Marietta) factory south of Denver, when it was built in the early 1960s, was capable of rolling out a Titan II every week (actually the peak was closer to 6/month). Back then, aside from their role in the Gemini program, they were also our ICBM of choice.
You're still left with the problem of guaranteeing
Off Topic (Score:2)
You, my friend, have never driven in Pittsburgh.
Elon Musk Lecture notes, Stanford 10/08/03 (Score:5, Informative)
Zip2 - print-media-to-web software, clients included KnightRidder, etc, sold for $300,000,000 in cash to Compaq
PayPal - started as idea for one web site for all a person's financial needs. Email-money-to-someone feature was a quicky add-on feature, took one day of initial development, "classic viral marketting", 1 million customers at start of 2nd year of operations, went public in 2002, sold in june to Ebay for 4.5 billion in stocks, now worth 3billion.
Was doing background space research in '01-02, why did we stumble after Apollo? Computing analogy, mainframes filling rooms in 1970s, etc.
The idea he settled into would generate public interest, advance both science and engineering and be privately funded. It was a $10-20million Mars lander. The lander would carry seeds and nutrients, a miniature greenhouse, it would attempt to grow plants, the furthest life would have travelled. Went to Moscow looking for rockets, "We don't buy Russian cars, kitchen appliances or computers. Why can the Russians build such reliable, low cost launch vehicles?"
friends with group of aero-engineers from Mercury onward, put together a feasibility study. This happened at the same time he was selling PayPal, at this point he settled on "doing space" as his next business enterprise.
Space now - US govt. spaceflight in bad shape, quick recap of Shuttle status, losses, expenses, dangerous.
Slide - problems of Shuttle - kind of standard complaints.
Slide - OSP/Orbital Space Plane - "Pretty Darn Expensive" -
$300-400million/flight, Delta-IV Heavy is $200mil alone.
Between NASA and the industrial partners, things have traditionally not been under budget and under time.
Soyuz has a good (safety) record, and only costs about $60mil/flight.
Russian economy is size of Belgian economy.
China's program is only current effort that could spur any new government space programs, be it NASA, ESA, etc
Slide - dawn of a new era of space exploration like DARPA, NASA could support entrepreneurs. Burt Rutan, Scaled, Jeff Bezos, SpaceX could all benefit from NASA as enabling customer.
Slide - Armadillo Aerospace
Slide - Bezos' Blue Origin
Slide - SpaceX -
Falcon is a 2-stage orbital rocket, initial target is satelite launch business small commsats- revenue base long-term aim is human spaceflight super-heavy lift, Apollo-class rocket for Moon, Mars, SpaceX "Holy Grail"
Video - Merlin main engine test
Video - Upper stage engine test
First flight will be from SpaceX's pad at Vandenburg AFB, aiming for March 2004, a Navy satelite
QA -
comparison of Zip2, PayPal
PP had 30 fulltime engineers, both were made of small teams, software-based products flat hierarchy, best idea wins, everyone in each company was an equity stakeholder on development, pick a path, do it instead of vacilating on design decisions both companies were very product focused.
q- biggest stumbling blocks for space entrepreneurs?
a - stifling regulation, jumping through regulator's hoops. Rockets are still munitions, lack of regulations on software encouraged development, Silicon Valley as "Libertarian Paradise"
Falcon has been the fastest development time ever for an orbital vehicle.
(basic rocket/space questions)
Rocket development, "What makes space expensive?" - Low launch rates, 2/% of rocket's mass to orbit low cost launch suffers from chicken-and-egg problem, need cheaper flights to get a bigger volume of flights, need volume for cheaper flights. (he doesn't say this, but Internet entrepreneurs like him
have the resources to solve the chicken-egg problem)
Compares Falcon to Pegasus, costs of $6 vs $25 million/flight
Q - XPrize - will it succeed in brining CATS, How did SpaceX get Navy contract?
A- likes the XPrize, compares Carmac, etc, a very good thing. Mentions that
Attribution! Re:Elon Musk Lecture notes, Stanford (Score:5, Informative)
Jon Goff pointed me toward the lecture video a couple months ago. I saw your notes and gosh do they look familiar:
My sci.space.policy lecture notes, posted 14.12.2003 titled Elon Musk Lecture notes, Stanford 10/08/03 [google.com]
That said, Elon rocks! Falcon will be cheap enough that new businesses beyond comm sats may become viable. Entrpreneurs have postulated a "sweet spot" in pricing where widely available tourism, water mining, maybe Space Solar Power become viable. Russian Dnepr rockets almost hit that spot (offered @ $700/lb in late 90s), but we Americans have to pay significantly more for them, a rule to keep home-grown rocket companies "competitive". Yeah, free market and all. Anyway, the Falcon looks to be about to completely shake up the launch market. Imagine Falcon flying from the SeaLaunch [sealaunch.com] platform?
Now, can you please give me a little credit, Amigoro? And you forgot to include my intro paragraph.
Josh
BAD Idea Boeing is actually well armed (Score:5, Funny)
Cost (Score:3, Insightful)
When launch costs are lower you don't need satellites that last 15 years and tested to the nines. If I use the shuttle to launch it costs half a billion dollars to get my bird up (although a lot of that is picked up by the taxpayers), so I need something that's guarenteed to work. That means lots of expensive parts, and lots of expensive testing.
If I can launch cheaply I can afford to make cheaper satellites, since the cost of failure is lower. So now I need one less decimal place in my reliability, which means one less decimal place in the price. And I don't need the darned thing to work forever - a five year life might make more sense if I can replace it cheaply.
This makes the number of launches go up. Which makes the cost of the launch go down. Which makes the price of satellites go down. Take this loop a couple of times and you'll get closer to the actual production cost of the rocket, which is very low, in the grand scheme of things.
Re:Cost (Score:4, Insightful)
The cost of launching a GEO bird could drop to $10/lb next Monday, and a commsat would still cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, because the cost of an outage because of a failed bird remains the same. And it would still take weeks to months to replace the bird. They aren't built on an assembly line and never will be, there simply isn't a need for that many, nor is their space in GEO for them.
Layers (Score:2, Interesting)
Pressure fed systems (Score:4, Informative)
The most interesting thing about the Falcon X second stage is that it is pressure fed. This simplifies the rocket design at the expense of increasing its size. Check out this old but interesting article [rocketryonline.com] which discusses many ideas which the folks at FalconX seemed to have taken to heart.
Re:Pressure fed systems (Score:4, Informative)
-It does not use liquid hydrogen, so the propellants can be stored for a few weeks.
-It uses heated helium for propellant settling and gimballing and dual redundant torch igniters for ignition, so it can be restarted basically indefinitely as long as there is some propellant left.
-As a pressure fed stage it is extremely rugged, so the empty stage could be reused as the hull of a space station. That would make most sense for the falcon V, since the falcon I upper stage is not big enough.
Launch info (Score:3, Informative)
The Vandenberg AFB launch schedule [af.mil] currently shows the launch as 'indefinite'. Until it's got a scheduled launch date it'll stay down at the bottom of the page.
Yeah, I know there aren't any exact dates listed for the launches. Hopefully Public Affairs will let me change that soon... it's been that way since 9/11. Until then, Google is your friend.
excellent (Score:2)
minus paragraphs, minus line breaks... (Score:5, Funny)
*BAM!*
Damn! That dense block of unbroken text just jumped out right in front of me. Thank goodness my browser has airbags.
Everyone else OK?
Re:Amazing! (Score:2)
I'll give you every dollar in my wallet for the 747...that would be $6 today!
Re:Jetsons! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Jetsons! (Score:2, Insightful)
With rockets, the craft would be heavily weighed down with the necessary O2 tank. An air-breathing engine would be much lighter, not to mention less expensive.
If a flying car is ever to be practical, it won't be using rockets.
Re:Jetsons! (Score:2)
Re:The lowest bidder (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, because NASA has done much to discourage competition. Like the point in the 80s where they were trying to shut down Atlas, Delta, and Titan so that everything would launch on the shuttle.
Re:The lowest bidder (Score:2)
Geosynchronous orbit is 35,785 kilometers, which is not a low altitude.
Re:good (Score:2)
Yes, because there are all those millionaires who just couldn't afford spend $20 million on a trip, but think $5 million is a much better deal...
Sorry...I know that, looking at the numbers, a 75% savings is a really good deal. But it's still $5 million that you need to put up, and that's a lot of money. There might be a few people who will do it, but even the rich people who could afford $20 million probably wouldn't take this deal up.
Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a lot of millionaires who can't afford $20 million but do think that $5 million is a good deal. The former trip is four times as expensive as the latter. You are falling victim to the common fallacy that "the rich" are a nebulous, homogenous group. Some people can afford $20 million for a thrill. Some can afford $5 million. Some can afford $100K. Some can afford $10K. Some can afford $100. There isn't any fixed line between "the rich" and "everybody else".