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.'"
You can have a cheap car that's reliable, and the same applies to rockets.
Or you can have a cheap car that is also a rocket!
Be relentless!
If it costs $1,000,000 per pound to send somebody to space, virtually nobody goes to space, no matter how "safe". At that cost, it isn't worth it.
However, when the cost comes down enough, SO WHAT if a few people die?
Now, it sounds callous, but when you look at statistis, Motorcycles (AKA murder-cycles) are MIGHTY DANGEROUS..
NOBODY IS BANNING THE KAWASAKI, ARE THEY?
When you see somebody get on board a relatively cheap, fast, murder-cycle, do you tell them about the risks?
See, when space travel is cheap and "good enough", people will use it, even if it's as dangerous as a (gulp!) murder-cycle.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The analogy also sucks because cars are mass-produced by the millions. If they only ever built 20 Honda Civics, they would cost a lot more than they do. The cost of developing the design of the Honda Civic is known only to Honda, but I could easily imagine it approaching the price of a typical space system; especially if you factor in the cost of its predecessors whose designs it borrows from (since that borrowing is not nearly as easy to do in a space system which is not merely a yearly update of a previous model). Only by selling hundreds of thousands of cars does Honda recoup that cost.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
It's not so much the cost part as the simplicity part or finding the right way to do something. He mentions this in the linked article but it seems to be missing from the story above.
An AK47 assault rifle is more reliable than an M16 because it was designed to be simple and mass-produced, not designed to be cheap. A Honda Civic is more reliable than a Ferrari because it has less moving parts and is mass produced, ditto the Soyuz space capsule that the Russians use - on a per mission basis, it's had less failures than the shuttle.
It doesn't mean the rocket is being made with bits from scrapyards and eBay, just that the ideas are being lifted from non-rocket science thinking, and some of the tools are secondhand. Either way, getting someone into space on top of a controlled explosion is not cheap however you look at it, and if they can cut down on the peripheral costs, then good luck to them.
When was the last time a manned rocket flown by a private company blew up when it was launched during the proper weather conditions?
Your argument is basically, "NASA has experience, others don't". In fact, nobody has any idea whether NASA is better or worse than private companies because none of them have tried anything yet. You're just making a gigantic assumption based on the idea that if they have experience, they must be good at it.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
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)
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