Slashdot Mirror
Hondas in Space
mikejz84 writes "Fast Company takes a look at SpaceX's attempt to challenge the high cost of space. This cost cutting philosophy includes buying equipment on eBay, looking to milk trucks for tank design ideas, and rummaging though junk yards. CEO Elon Musk remarks 'A Ferrari is a very expensive car. It is not reliable. But I would bet you 1,000-to-1 that if you bought a Honda Civic that that sucker will not break down in the first year of operation. You can have a cheap car that's reliable, and the same applies to rockets.'"
They aren't meant to be reliable. They're meant to be fast, and cool, which they are. But they aren't meant to be everyday drive-it-to-work cars, and they are in the shop a lot more often than your average Honda Civic.
That's only because chicks don't know you are driving a veeeery expensive FIAT.
To be serious though, in terms of usability and reliability (poster's original point), the Honda still wins hands down.
Every orbit, 90 minutes or so, is at least 25,000 miles.
for anyone not in the US: IINM, a 'rice rocket' is a car with all the go-faster accessories, like a big wing on the back, stripes down the side, and (in the US) aweful looking shiney chrome wheels (alloy wheels in other places).
The Honda Civic was designed to be reliable. That means that the safety margins in its design are much larger than that of a Ferrari. Engines in mass-produced cars are often intentionally detuned from peak performance by the manufacturer. They trade horsepower for reliability and reduced maintenance costs.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
(Unfortunately, they don't always stick to these principles; as the owner of a Kiev 88 medium format camera, I know ;))
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
The reason falcons will be cheap is not because they use cheap components, but because they have a different approach than old defense contractors like boeing and lockheed.
In fact they use very high quality materials such as a titanium thrust frame in the first stage. But they can afford that because the first stage is reusable.
They also try to avoid any hazardous materials like explosive bolts and dangerous chemicals since that makes working with the rocket before launch much safer and thus cheaper. The falcon I is the first rocket that is allowed to fly without an explosive flight termination system because of redundant thrust termination systems. So there is no bomb on board.
Take a look at the falcon launch complex. It is basically just a simple concrete building and a flatbed truck. The satellite is integrated while the rocket is horizontal, so they do not need a huge building for satellite integration.
The launch control center is a truck trailer, so they only need one for all launch pads and do not have all that expensive computer hardware sitting around idle.
Now compare that with the launch complex for the boeing delta IV. There is a vertical integration building for fitting the payload, a huge umbilical tower and all kinds of facilities to handle the huge quantities of liquid hydrogen that the delta IV needs.
The only large rocket that has a comparably clean launch pad like the falcon is the russian/ukrainian Zenit (also used by Sea Launch), which is also the cheapest of its class.
The falcon I will also have a very benign launch environment for the payload. The amount of vibration is much lower than with other rockets since the falcon does not use solids. See the payload users guide for details.
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
Usually the price tag for developping a new car for mass production is estimated between US$ 2 and 2.5 billion. If a car sells 1 mio units during its production cycle, it's still between US$ 2000 and 2500 development cost per car.
So if you build a rocket for X-Price with the hope to get 5 units running, and it would cost you about US$ 2 billion to design it, then the price per rocket will still be at 400 mio US$, much mor than the original X-Price is worth.
Besides, the world's only mass-produced rocket had some reliability issues, from what I understand. So mass production doesn't guarentee it'll be good.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
I have no idea what model of Honda you could be referring to, but it sure as hell isn't an NSX or any other Honda sold in America.
Software piracy is victimless theft.
V2 rockets did not have reliability problems. Not only were they designed in such a way so as to make assembly by prisoners possible - which also introduced defects in the process - but they relied on very, very primitive gyros for navigation. That fact alone accounts for the poor accuracy of the rockets. Otherwise, they were a great feat of engineering. Hell, the Canadian X-Prize team used a copy of the propulsion system because of its reliability!
A blog like any other.
In 1996 Ford admitted to spending 8.3 billion developing the Taurus. Detroit insiders say that is typical for bread-and-butter cars with high sales numbers. For vehicles with less potential, the numbers look more like yours.
It's even outlived its successor, the MX "Peacekeeper" from the Reagan era. MX has been retired, but the Minuteman III lives on. They're "remanufactured" every few decades, on a slow upgrade cycle. The basic vehicle lives on.
So the "cheap booster" is quite feasible, if you order a thousand at a time.
Actually, this quote was taken from a REAL quote by John Glenn.
When asked about what was going through his mind before he was launched into space, he replied:
"What would you think about, if it were you, sitting there in an oversized suit, strapped to an intricate and complex network of components...wires, circuits and engines, all procured by the government, from the lowest bidder?"
When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. --Anatole France
The largest "successful" rocket ever built - NASA's Saturn V - used Kerosene and LOX (Liquid Oxygen) for the 1st stage.
Also, I think you got nitrogen mixed-up with hydrogen. Nitrogen is mostly inert, but it *is* used to manage volume expansion in fuel tanks and additional exhaust nozzle bell cooling.
--ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
I don't know about Ferraris, but I talked with a director of a Porsche dealership and he told that most repairs are cosmetic (scratched paint, a handle or something breaking off, etc.). They alsmost never need to fix anything under the hood. Expensive cars are built very well.
Of course, I don't think you need to spend 500000$ on a car to make it reliable. It's just that you can't justify 100% reliability for a 20000$ car, so the manufacturers purposefully use slightly less reliable and much cheaper parts. If someone wanted that, a reliable version of a cheap car could be probably built for only 20-50% more.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I tried submitting a story on SpaceX a couple of weeks ago, but it was sadly rejected. Here's the text of the submission, along with some other interesting info:
Spaceflight Now has an article on SpaceX, a low-cost space launch company started by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk (he is no longer with PayPal). The article describes SpaceX's small-size Falcon I rocket, scheduled to launch a military imaging satellite on its maiden flight in March, and their medium-size Falcon V rocket, scheduled to lift a prototype Bigelow inflatable space habitat next year. Interestingly, the Falcon V has enough capacity to lift a Gemini-style capsule with 5-6 people to orbit. Both rockets have per-pound launch costs approximately one-fifth that of comparable rockets. Long-term plans call for evolving the basic design to heavy-lift and super-heavy lift rockets, assuming SpaceX survives its legal battles with defense giants like Northrup Grumman. Musk believes that ultimately a launch cost of '$500 per pound or less is very achievable' (compared to $10,000 per pound for the Space Shuttle). Elon Musk is a member of the Mars Society, and started SpaceX after he realized that current launch costs would be a large barrier to his plans for a philanthropic mission to put an experimental greenhouse with food crops on Mars.
This radio interview with Elon Musk from 2001 is pretty neat, and has some information I haven't seen elsewhere.