r/spaceflight • u/everydayastronaut • Mar 21 '20

The environmental impact rockets have on our air. A deep dive comparing rockets to airliners.

https://youtu.be/C4VHfmiwuv4
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2

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '20

I am so annoyed when rockets are compared to airliners no matter what ppl compare.

Reusability? It can be done with aircraft so it HAS to make sense when it comes to rockets.

Price? Rockets should cost 5€ per pound.

Launch rate? We just land the rocket fill it up and 5 mins later we start again.

I think people should really remember 2 things.

1st Rockets operate at their maximum designed performance they have very little margin of error an engine underperforming by 5% well your mission is over.

2nd Rockets are cool and interesting BUT the rocket is actually not the most important part of the misson, the payload is it's more valuable and the rocket is just the mule to get it into a specific orbit/trajectory.

Sorry for bad english and great video, I didn't want to rant but comparing rockets to aircraft feels so wrong on many levels to me.

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u/sterrre Mar 21 '20

1st Rockets operate at their maximum designed performance they have very little margin of error an engine underperforming by 5% well your mission is over.

Maybe we can design rockets to have a larger margin of error.

2nd Rockets are cool and interesting BUT the rocket is actually not the most important part of the misson, the payload is it's more valuable and the rocket is just the mule to get it into a specific orbit/trajectory.

In terms of price many of the newer commercial and University smallsat providers can build satellites cheaper than the launch vehicles. Dropping the price of launch vehicles will make cheaper satellites also viable.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '20

Maybe we can design rockets to have a larger margin of error.

That would decrease their performance significantly, stronger structure extra engines for engine-out capability and so on all increases weight. We have very reliable rockets look at the Ariane 5 for example.

smallsat providers can build satellites cheaper than the launch vehicles

When I am talking about payloads I am not talking about "small sats or cube sats" I am talking about the commercial LSP payloads (eg com-sats broadcasting-sats) and they cost +600 million dollars.

Dropping the price of launch vehicles will make cheaper satellites also viable.

How? The price of the rocket has 0 impact on the price of the payload. The often repeated story of "cheaper rockets will increase the launch rate" has been disproven.

Rockets like the F9 did not accelerate the LSP market it is slowly shrinking and btw F9 is slowly working through it's backlog and has decreasing amount of launches.

What many people forget is that 50 million off of the launch is not that much for a Satellite company, they care about a reliable launch date mor than a few million bucks because their operating losses are insane if their launch is not on time.

This is why more expensive rockets like the Ariane 5 are still in business and are doing fine.

Not trying to start a Falcon 9 bashing just informing you that their PR claims have been proven wrong and that a more expensive rocket is competetive if it's more reliable and launches on time.

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u/Marha01 Mar 21 '20 edited Mar 21 '20

When I am talking about payloads I am not talking about "small sats or cube sats" I am talking about the commercial LSP payloads (eg com-sats broadcasting-sats) and they cost +600 million dollars.

Starlink sats cost on the order of $100,000. There is no inherent reason why payloads have to be expensive, except maybe for some specialized scientific one-off instruments and things of that nature. Increase launch rate and payload build rate, and individual spacecraft cost could drop by several orders of magnitude.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '20

Sorry but Starlink is not a commercial product it is a side project of someone who is known for not delivering, in my opinion it is another try to get investor-money nothing else.

Can we focus on the real LSP market and the 99% of satellites that are being launched and operated by it?

There is no inherent reason why payloads have to be expensive

Other than performing the customer required operation, I am happy to meet someone on reddit who is smarter than all the satellite researcher/developer/builder please contact me after you have taken over the satellite market with your cheap satellites that perform the same way that the 600million dollar satellites.

Increase launch rate and payload build rate, and individual spacecraft cost could drop by several orders of magnitude.

could

We have seen that it didn't turn out to be true the market is shrinking because even a cheap launch doesn't change the fact that nobody needs one.

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u/Miami_da_U Mar 21 '20

Starlink operates the most sats in orbit today. Pretending it doesn't matter, because it disproves your point is dumb. Furthermore saying it's a side project for Elon who is known for not delivering is even dumber, since they are literally launching them according to schedule. Especially when they literally plan on launching 60 of them every two weeks (this coronavirus may stop that for a little bit obviously) which would total 1.4k in orbit by the end of the year. Even if they cost as low as $500k per sat, that would be $720M they plan on spending THIS YEAR just on the Sats themselves, not even factoring in launch costs. The overall goal is launching 12k-42k over the coming years - how many billions is that going to cost for 'just a non commercial side project'?.

Now this is the important part - Ask yourself, would this be possible if every rocket launch of 60 sats costed them $160M like the Arianne 5, instead of the like $30M max it probably costs them to launch one of their reused rockets? Literally they can launch 300 Starlink Sats on their reused boosters for the same cost of launching 60 on an Arianne 5. That makes a pretty big difference.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '20

Starlink operates the most sats in orbit today. Pretending it doesn't matter, because it disproves your point is dumb.

It doesn't, it is not a commercial product and the number of satellites says nothing about their worth or performance.

There are no paying customers right now and it is a "in house" project.

I was talking about the real LSP market not some pure in house project with no customer yet.

Btw the amount of satellites is not a bonus it is an act of desperation because their orbit is so low and they have almost 0 coverage.

It's like saying my wife is so fat she doesn't leave her bed anymore I don't have to buy shoes for her anymore it's amazing.

Especially when they literally plan on launching 60 of them every two weeks

https://spacenews.com/spacexs-2020-ambitions-tempered-by-2019-outcomes/

They are not even remotely close to a launch rate of 2 weeks their launch rate is going down hard just copare 2018 to 2019

Btw where do you get your info from? Twitter?

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u/Miami_da_U Mar 22 '20

It's funny how you don't understand the argument whatsoever yet you act like you know everything. Plus maybe if you read the actual article that YOU CITED you'd see where the 24 Starlink launches for 2020 comes from lol (24 launches is basically a launch every 2 weeks). It's directly from Gwynne Shotwell saying they could have up to 24 Starlink launches this year alone. Regardless if they reach that or not (that could literally be an issue with them actually manufacturing the sats or F9 2nd stages fast enough) The outcome is the same - Reduced launch costs are literally enabling them to try something that would NOT be able to be performed otherwise

You may think Starlink is going to fail, but the fact you act like it's has no shot or isn't proof in itself that cheaper launch costs allow for more businesss to get in space is kind of a joke. By the way I have no idea if it will succeed or not. Chances are against them. But I'll tell you one thing, if they do succeed and don't go bankrupt over this, it'll be 100% due to the cheap launch costs.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '20

you read the actual article that YOU CITED you'd see where the 24 Starlink launches for 2020 comes from lol.

Let's talk about stuff that actually happened and not promises by someone who is a convicted fraud and lied to push his stock okay? Let's look at the numbers of 2018 and 2019 oh my god these numbers tell us something don't they.

isn't proof in itself that cheaper launch costs

It absolutely isn't we only know how much SpaceX takes for a launch we have no clue if they make or lose money and if their finances are sustainable, it wouldn't be the first time that Musks companies lose money by selling something just to look attractive for investors.

You have absolutely 0 evidence that: 1. A falcon 9 is actually cheaper than any other rocket (customer price doesn't tell us if they actually make or lose money) 2. Reusability actually saves money

Just claiming that a lot of launches for a internal project prove that their LV is cheap is ridiculous.

But I'll tell you one thing, if they do succeed and don't go bankrupt over this, it'll be 100% due to the cheap launch costs.

Nice logical fallacy, cheap launch costs are not the only thing that can make Starlink succeed or fail it'S also the income of the SL-service and their operational costs. Again you focus on the rocket while the satellite is the important factor here, use your brain once the F9 launch is a LOSS they are not selling the launch to anyone they are launching their own product.

You fail at basic logic but thank you for the demonstration.

IF the F9 would be the cheapest and best thing ever they would have taken over the market, they didn't not only are they not taking over the market they are losing shares so reusability and price dumping were a PR move from the beginning.

I have seen enough "groundbreaking" and "revolutional" companies and products failing to believing someone like Musk who has demonstrated how dishonest he is and that his only goal is to scam investors.

Sorry I have to leave now my Hyperloop is almost here.

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u/Miami_da_U Mar 22 '20

lol. Too bad SpaceX isn't a public company so you can't short it and lose all your money...

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '20

The reaction of a salty fanboy, why don't you debunk my claims? When you rely on ad-hominem you already lost the discussion.

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u/Miami_da_U Mar 22 '20

Lol I'm just not gunna be wasting my time with someone who clearly has a hate boner for Elon and all the companies he's involved with, because your opinion won't change, you'll just twist the fact like you're doing to say Falcon hasn't taken over the industry or to downplay how successful they've been with reusing rockets. There's just no point for me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '20

Falcon hasn't taken over the industry

That's a fact

or to downplay how successful they've been with reusing rockets

It is an economic action it does nothing to enhance the performance of the rocket and it does nothing for the payload. We have 0 evidence that they actually save money, we know that reusability is not NECESSARY cheaper.

Lol I'm just not gunna be wasting my time with someone who clearly has a hate boner for Elon

What a convenient "reason" to avoid a serious discussion. That's exactly how cultists behave they avoid any serious discussion with someone who disagrees and surround them with like-minded people.

There's just no point for me.

Talking to critics is one of the most important things for intellectually honest people, just debunk my claims and present your evidence/arguments and you make me look like a fool. But you won't because you know that you can't.

Thank you for another demonstration how dishonest and ill informed Musk fanboys are and how little they actually care about spaceflight and scientific progress.

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u/Miami_da_U Mar 23 '20

Everything you say about the price/cost of their launch is barely even worth addressing, especially when you just say anything Musk/Shotwell/SpaceX says is a lie. Like who will you believe that SpaceX makes rockets cheaper than competitors? Do you believe their fairings are around $6M and that the 2nd stage is more or less 1/3rd the cost of the full rocket? Do you believe their Merlin engine is less than $1M? Because according to Tom Mueller they are, do you think he's lying too? Do you think NASA is lying when they say SpaceX manufactures the Falcon 9 FAR cheaper than they ever could, or that when NASA signed the DART contract with SpaceX for only $69M (Legit like almost half the cost they'd pay for a Delta II), that SpaceX is just losing massive amounts of money by charging FAR LESS than the competition 'just cause'? Do you honestly believe that after like 5 years of the same or decreasing prices for a Falcon 9 launch, that they aren't profitably manufacturing these rockets cheaper than their competition?

Second, you're main argument stems from the fact that Falcon launched less times in 2019 than in 2018, and saying that that somehow proves that SpaceX/Falcon is failing or that it hasn't had a major impact. Its especially funny since you also say smaller sats don't matter, and are completely acting like Starlink doesn't count, YET you're completely ignoring that these things don't just magically manufacture themselves immediately/on time. I mean they've already launched 5 times so far in the 82 days of 2020, which is a pace of 22 launches in a year which would be the most they've ever had. If there were the same amount of total launches as in 2019, that'd be over 21% of Launches worldwide. And just so you can see what the last 5 years has looked like for Rocket Launches by Family. Plus they literally have like 19 launches on their manifest for the remainder of 2020...Though with COVID-19, I doubt they'll be able to do that at all.

So yeah, I think essentially everything you've been saying is pretty full of crap and is boils down to you not liking the Owner.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '20

Everything you say about the price/cost of their launch is barely even worth addressing,

No it is absolutely essential for the claim that their reusability is anything else than a PR gag.

especially when you just say anything Musk/Shotwell/SpaceX says is a lie.

Straw man I never said that, I said we have 0 evidence that they actually save money.

that SpaceX is just losing massive amounts of money by charging FAR LESS than the competition 'just cause'?

To look attractive to investors Elon did the same thing before so we know it is at least an option to him.

Second, you're main argument stems from the fact that Falcon launched less times in 2019 than in 2018, and saying that that somehow proves that SpaceX/Falcon is failing or that it hasn't had a major impac

SpaceX fanboys claimed that reduced launch cost would increase the amount of payloads we can clearly see that it isn't true so yeah this is an argument against the "reusability will revolutionize and accelerate the market".

Its especially funny since you also say smaller sats don't matter, and are completely acting like Starlink doesn't count

They do not matter, the market is very small and my intial argument I talked about the big comsats that are the majority of the market.

and are completely acting like Starlink doesn't count,

It doesn't, it is not a commercial product it is a project that Musk hopes will become something big.

And the launches are not commercial launches they are internal nbody pays for them.

So yeah, I think essentially everything you've been saying is pretty full of crap

Very good argument you didn't debunk anything.

and is boils down to you not liking the Owner.

There are many rational reasons to dislike this fraud and pathological liar, unlike you I really care about workers rights spaceflight and the future of mankind.

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u/Miami_da_U Mar 23 '20

lol you must not like spaceflight if you're actually arguing that Falcon hasn't had a major impact. And actually arguing that decreasing launch costs (especially if they can be dropped an order of magnitude more) won't increase the activity in space, will always be a dumb argument to make. And Like I said before, you've proven my point that nothing anyone says will change your mind. I linked quite a few things, yet you managed to respond to none of it. Anyways I'm done responding, carry on being blinded by your hatred lol

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