41 thoughts on “A Reusable Falcon”

  1. Wouldn’t there also be development of new launch systems while these reusables were in operation? The airlines develop new aircraft pretty regularly, all while their reusables fly for many years, even decades.

  3. At $500/lb or $250/lb, Musk himself will demand substantial capacity. If he spends just one of his billion dollar IPOs on launching stuff at Mars, he can put over a million pounds into orbit assuming 1/3 of the cost is launch cost. That’s 25 reusable heavy flights if he can fit 1/3 as much on a reusable version as the 1-shot version.

  4. The problem is that economists tend to assume instant changes in the demand curve from lower costs, but in practice it will take a while for the traffic to develop as folks find need to find value in putting payloads, including humans, into space at the lower prices. That is why currently the demand for space launch is basically inelastic.

    Also airlines are not a good match as they simply replaced other forms of transportation initially. For example mail that went by train went by air, if the higher speed was worth the higher cost to the individual. Eventually the costs for airmail dropped so much that most first class ended up on aircraft. Similarly folks who traveled by train/boat learned to fly to save time. The destination and need to go there were the same for both, merely the mode of transportation different.

    By contrast there are few existing demands for space launch and so new markets in the form of new uses for space will need to be developed and that takes time. Unfortunately space advocates, believing in the “build it they will come” model fail to realize that the rapid gains and adoption of other forms of transportation (steam ships, railroads, aircraft, pipelines) was due to demand pull, not technology push. That is why government subsidies are needed for firms like SpaceX, along with a lot of faith that the demand will emerge, especially when the focus is on HSF.

    BTW that is why the DragonLab is far more important than Commercial Crew. It has the potential to create a billion dollar plus market in microgravity biotech research IF its inexpensive and IF the cycle time between experiments drops to a level comparable with Earth labs. You could easily get weekly and even daily flights of the Dragon Lab if it meets the needs of the biotech industry. By contrast even the most optimist projections are for only a couple of “Commercial” crew flights per year.

    In short, industries like biotech could be profitable for an RLV, while NASA never will.

      1. Rand,

        Folks like you that seem to think “Commercial” crew is advancing true commercial projects like DragonLab instead of delaying them.

          1. Your lack of understanding of NASA’s negative impact on developing commercial orbital markets is also noted. But then you think government contracting is a “commercial” market. Maybe you need to read an introductory textbook on marketing.

          2. SpaceX made the Dragon reusable because they intended to use it for manned spaceflight. Are you telling me your biotech experiments or whatever don’t need recovery?

            Not to mention that many such payloads have similar environmental requirements to human crew.

          3. Godzilla,

            Yes, they are recoverable but you unlike a crewed capsule you don’t need an abort system. And the experiments could have their own self contained “life support” systems, in fact that would probably be a requirement to prevent contamination between them. In short the existing Dragon would work fine, if Elon could spare one from his NASA flights.

            The problem of cost is he wouldn’t get his money until after the successful flight, not be paid for “development” milestones as is the case with NASA. That is one difference between commercial markets and government ones…

          4. The problem of cost is he wouldn’t get his money until after the successful flight, not be paid for “development” milestones as is the case with NASA.

            He’s being paid for performance in either case. If a rocket blows up, does the commercial customer get their money back? Not from SpaceX. That’s why customers insure.

            However, I do agree the govt. is providing a subsidy. I do not agree that makes SpaceX anything less than a private commercial company. The government is just one of many customers. I do agree that serving the government may take away from private customers (but nobody can be certain of that… they have way too many employees for that to be the case. Although, many of them were hired specifically to deal with govt. issues.)

    2. Oh, there are all sorts of crazy things to do in space what could be extremely profitable, even just in communications.

      Here’s a crazy one that just occurred to me.

      Many areas use satellites for internet access, often accessing the same sets of data which can be cached on some server. If the launch costs were very low, some enterprising company might launch a cluster of satellites that are similar to Iridium, but far more capable, perhaps even using laser links to ground stations to vastly increase the bandwidth.

      If those satellites, unlike Iridium, were heavy and shielded, they could be filled with the servers and solid state drives and [i]be[/i] the cache, syncing with each other so that uploaded data is shared throughout the whole constellation in a matter of seconds. If the data you access in on the satellite instead of a ground station, the access time could drop in half (up-down instead of up-down-up-down), as would the bandwidth requirement per access.

      You could charge users (especially ISP’s in remote areas), [i]and[/i] you could charge content providers for the precious high-access speed server and storage space that is [i]in orbit[/i].

      1. Back in the 1990s, there was a proposal to build a LEO constellation of wideband satellites for Internet access. It was called Teledesic. They were going to build hundreds of satellites, leading to forecasts of a vastly expanded market for booster services. Unfortunately, the idea collapsed under its own weight (pun intended).

        It’s cheaper to launch into LEO but you need more satellites for continuous coverage. Higher orbits mean you need fewer satellites but latency goes up and so does the launch costs.

      2. Well, in the 1990’s the launch/cost to storage mass ratio was vastly lower than today (although bandwidth expectations are vastly higher now). At some point on those curves putting the servers in low orbit would make finanicial and technical sense, assuming their was a profitable niche that hadn’t already been filled by advances ground-based connectivity.

      1. COTS, CCDev, etc. are classic examples of government subsidies programs. Look subsidy up in ANY economic dictionary.

        1. If you believe NASA is a legitimate government program, how is paying SpaceX to launch cargo or crew to ISS any more of a subsidy than paying FedEx to deliver material to NASA offices or an airline to fly NASA employees around America?

          You could certainly argue that NASA is not a legitimate government program, but I don’t see any way you can claim that buying services from a private company rather than spending several times as much to do the job yourself is a ‘subsidy’.

          1. Edward,

            NASA didn’t pay FedEx (subsidize…) to design and develop the DC-10 or trucks they use for the delivery…. They just pay for the service. That is why CRS is not a subsidy, but COTS and “Commercial” Crew are.

          2. “NASA didn’t pay FedEx (subsidize…) to design and develop the DC-10 or trucks they use for the delivery”

            That is because those transportation systems were already in existance. The Federal government requested that a federal agency, NASA aquire a service. That service did not exist. NASA decided that any company, in the future, bidding on providing this service would need to have mastered certain abilities/capabilities. In order to insure that the companies had those capabilities the government required they decided to BUY those capabilities (the product).

            Each company had to, on their own dime design, develope and or build each milestone to NASA’s specifications, only on completion of each milestone (product) would the government pay for that product.

            No company would retool build dies and jigs, hire new personal design and build something only on the hope it might fill a government need. If we are talking about a new paper clip maybe … hundreds of millions? Not on your life.

            You can not hold up an orange and say it is an apple. The government was demanding a product and service that did not exist and wasn’t going to magically appear in the new term.

            When the government pays a farmer to not grow to keep prices higher that is a subsidy. When the government pays to get a product that does not exist …

    4. “believing in the “build it they will come” model fail to realize that the rapid gains and adoption of other forms of transportation (steam ships, railroads, aircraft, pipelines) was due to demand pull, not technology push. ”

      I do not believe there was demand pull for automobiles or aeroplanes. Both were tech pushes. Horse transportation had a nationwide network of livery stables, blacksmiths and grain farmers. There wasn’t any network for autos or airplanes. It is the government subsidies of new infrastructure, everthing from oil and gas to roads and airport runways that opened it up enough that there was actual demand pull.

  5. This blogger wrote a post praising Netflix just before they stumbled badly last year. His thinking seems to be off.

    1. While some of Colin’s articles are hit and miss, I find them a treat, even the mistakes, like cookies. I’ve been reading him for a while off and on. And his insights can be quite illuminating such as his discussion of the economics of cubesats which I think was one of the things that drew me in.

      But anyway, this article is typical of most of his stuff. He studies some market or strategy, usually as a comparison with another. The data tables come out and interesting discussion can be had. It’s not always correct discussion, but it gets you thinking.

  6. I fear that a reusable Falcon will be bad for SpaceX in the same way that a reusable Space Shuttle was bad for NASA. A proper reusable space launch vehicle might well find a market, but Falcon – like STS before it – seems locked in to an architecture that can never be more than just salvageable. Low flight rates and high recurring costs.

    1. But you forget that a re-usable Falcon, unlike the Shuttle, has a competitor in the Falcon itself. The re-usable version can’t be worse than the expendable because the re-usable is an expendable, just one that’s being re-used.

      1. The reusable can be worse than the expendable if the useable payload, after adding the extra mass required for reusability, drops to zero.

      2. No, I’m saying that in that case they would just go back to expending the re-usable, because its re-use is just a flight profile. With the Shuttle they didn’t have that option because they couldn’t just shed the tiles and wings on a launch-by-launch basis. When an individual Falcon 9R starts getting long in the tooth, they’ll probably choose to expend it, launching a larger payload. As long as they don’t shut down the production lines, the Falcon 9R will actually be two competing launchers.

    2. The reusable Falcon is supposed to be fully reusable unlike the Shuttle SLS which had drop tanks and solids. It remains to be seen how the aerostructures will hold, the TPS, not to mention the most important thing which is the payload. But I see little reason for it to not work as intended.

  7. I don’t see how a reusable version would be bad for SpaceX
    They’d loose payload, of course, but for many mission that’d work just fine given lower cost per pound.

    However, I do have issues with their video. The first stage does a RTLS? That sounds like one hell of a lot of detla-v required. At first stage MECO they’re doing around 4000 mph downrange, and are well above most of the atmosphere. They’d need to null that 4000 mph with thrust, and also impart some motion back towards the launch site (they’re about 50 miles downrange at that point, if I remember right).

    A ballistic impact point would be about 600 miles downrange.

    Wouldn’t they be a lot better off landing somewhere near where they’d end up ballistically; maybe a floating barge, or somewhere in the Cape Hatteras area on an ISS launch profile (far less Delta-v needed to reach there than do a RTLS)?

    On the other hand, using thrust to null their speed and RTLS avoids a lot of the issues of hitting the atmosphere at 4000 mph.

    1. Deceleration modes would find the optimal trade-off between fuel mass and thermal protection, but I agree that hitting a barge, island strip, or old oil platform would certainly improve their economics. Partially refueling and then flying the booster back might even come out cheaper than loading and shipping it, and then unloading it again, with less wear in handling.

      However, RTLS does let you get the best observation and control of the landing without duplicating your launch team at the remote site, and for debugging and normalizing operations it would be a better and simpler way to start.

    2. I have not seen any technical data on SpaceX’s recovery idea. One possibility is that they’ll fly a more lofted trajectory with the first stage, trading some downrange velocity for altitude. Another thought is that they’d use aerodynamic drag to kill a lot of that downrange velocity before using thrust to return to the launch site. If there were a suitable island downrange, that’d probably be the best option. A platform would require pretty precise landing accuracy.

      1. It wasn’t given much of a chance to, much to the chagrin of a number of potential users who had been gearing up to use it.

    2. They kept changing the characteristics of the vehicle, most launches failed, what else was to be expected? Had they kept going at it and sold it to universities and businesses interested in cubesats or smallsats it could IMO have succeeded. The market takes time to mature. Even in something like cellphones it may take 2 years for a product to get widespread market penetration.

  9. His analysis ignores the reason SpaceX exists. Most people do.

    I’ve been concerned that Elon is hiring too many people, but only Elon knows what projections that hiring is based upon. To say a reusable means people can’t stay sharp is analysis without actual data.

    There will be an aftermarket for his used reusable vehicles. There will be new markets, not just including sending millions of people to mars (and not just those first 10,000.)

    While he will adjust course along the way, taking advantage of opportunities as they appear, he has a very firm achievable goal in the next ten to twenty years. Customers (MarsOne) are already looking for funding to buy multiple red dragon flights to mars. NASA may find red dragon to be the cheapest way to put more rovers on mars. If successful SpaceX will have to license out their technology to competing companies to handle the demand. The lander dragon will land on any rock in the solar system.

    Once settlements are established it will be demonstrated that they are a viable and fun place to live (I dream of low gravity every time I drag my sorry old bones out of bed each morning. Sadly, I will never be able to go.)

    We are not even at the dawn yet.

    1. Elon is following the typical Silicon Valley startup model. This means he is supposed to grow his company to the point where it is unassailable due to a vast technological lead over the competition. He needs to be able to compete on every single deal that shows up and be in a position to win it. Sincerely I think he is increasing the headcount too much as well. If it was my company I would try to grow it more slowly so I could ensure a more sustained growth model. These sorts of high growth models usually require an IPO at some point to inject the necessary capital for the company to survive relatively soon in the life cycle. I would not be surprised if Elon was working on an IPO of SpaceX.

      1. We already know that he isn’t working towards an IPO at this time. At least, he said as much in an interview with PandoDaily last month. SpaceX is cash-flow positive and can fund all current costs out of revenues. There’s no need to seek further capital at this time.

        1. Will he one day want to increase the pace of getting to mars with an IPO? How many would buy shares knowing that profit is not his objective? (Even if, as a good businessman, he always looks for profit.)

          Will only employees go to mars? Will they have ownership of anything? Will mars be a company town a hundred years from now?

  10. There is simply no way that a RLV is bad for SpaceX, even if there is zero elasticity of demand.

    RLV only drives the cost to orbit down. The price is set by Elon. And Elon’s prices are already lower than the competition. If Elon develops an RLV that actually lowers costs, then he can maintain the same prices at higher margins and still wrap up 90% of the ComSat market.

    Heck he could do this for 2-3 years while Boeing and the others pull their heads out of their asses / file for bankruptcy, print money until he’s rich as he cares to be, and then lower prices later to drum up new demand. He’d be the Saudi Arabia of launch – lowest production cost in a high-price commodity market. And if prices ever fell it would only increase his market share as the high-cost producers fold under the margin pressure.

  11. That is why CRS is not a subsidy, but COTS and “Commercial” Crew are.

    Nonsense, that would only be true if there already were several competing crew transport solutions and if NASA were to finance development of additional ones. If NASA needs the service and the required vehicles aren’t available yet, then it is simply going to have to pay for their development one way or the other. Doing so through a milestone based program with ongoing competition between redundant suppliers is one excellent way of doing that.

    1. mmeijeri,

      Which is the classic reason why the government steps in to subsidizes an industry, because the commercial market is insufficient to justify the development of solutions. Or as in the case with the ISS, the only option is a foreign supplier. So you just admitted COTS/”Commercial” Crew is a subsidy done for nation policy goals.

      What I find so amusing is that there is nothing evil about subsidies, nearly every industry in the U.S. has benefited from them at one time or the other. One could even make a strong argument more subsidizes are needed for the economic development of space. So why do space advocates go to such lengths to deny that is what they are? Is it part of the belief that space must be “pure” from such forms of national self-interest? Or space is not like other American industries?

Comments are closed.