Visa takes 3% of gross revenues, taxes come off the net (ie: "profit"), after you pay rent, utilities, salaries, insurance, etc., which could easily chew up 90~95% of your gross, even if you sell your products at 200% markup.
30% * 5% = 1.5% ( 3%) [assuming 100% of sales use Visa]
A fast-food restaurant might have 90% of its sales in cash, while a clothing store might have 90% of sales on credit cards. For an online retailer the Visa quotient would be practically 100%.
Comparing Orbital with SpaceX, I'd rather put my chips on the company that starts with failure and overcomes it than the company that starts well and later crashes.
As I recall, Musk's quote about $2.5B for a Saturn-V equivalent was for the development cost, not for a single rocket. Once it's developed and tested, presumably they could crank them out for a much lower price. And as others have noted in this thread, who cares about a "super-heavy" like the S5? SpaceX is already booking flights on the Falcon Heavy for a fixed price of ~$120M apiece. Why spend $2.5B to develop a super-heavy when you can buy the same payload-to-orbit for 1/10th of the cost?
Also (AFAIK) the Falcon family of rockets is already man rated, it's only the Dragon capsule that still needs certification. This is mainly due to the need for a launch abort system, which they are already working on. They expect to be ready in 2014 if all goes to plan.
Except that COTS was announced in 2006 under the Bush administration. And frankly, COTS will have proved itself successful long before any new president would get the chance to cut it. The first SpaceX Falcon-9 flight to ISS is scheduled for next month.
AFAIK, their plan does not involve parachutes. They use heat shields to reach terminal velocity, then rockets to land from there. (Parachutes are just a backup system in case the rockets fail.)
I'd say it's more of an exaggeration than a "facetious" comment. I'm just quoting from SpaceX's PR propaganda... that's why I put the phrase in quotes. Obviously it depends on the conditions, but in theory they have enough delta-V to land on any "hospitable" surface... eg: Mars. (I've seen some scenarios where they use strap-on tanks to increase fuel/payload capacity.)
In any case, it's a pretty cool hack to use side-mount thrusters for launch-abort instead of a tower system (like Apollo). Not only does it allow for propulsive landings, it also lets you abort at any time during the boost phase, not just up the the "tower-jettison" point... making the Dragon capsule the safest ever flown. (in theory...)
I know the keys are right next to each other on the keyboard, but "Xhengzhou" is simply not possible in the Chinese spelling system. You got it right in the summary (Zhengzhou), but the headline is just nutty.
Actually their first ISS rendezvous mission was scheduled for this month, but it recently got postponed to March. On this first mission they will only "berth" with ISS, rather than docking. (They'll fly up close enough so that the ISS manipulator arm can grapple the Dragon capsule and haul it in.) If that goes well, they'll be allowed to actually dock with ISS on the next flight.
And you're right, they are already underselling every other vendor on the launch market. Even the Chinese say they can't possibly beat SpaceX's price-per-pound to orbit.
Summary misses the point... yes, they need a launch-abort system to meet NASA's human-rating specs, but the real goal of the SuperDraco engines is to enable propulsive landings with pinpoint accuracy. They claim that a Dragon capsule so-equipped will be able to land on "any surface" in the solar system.
Where to start... I guess the most crucial factor is launch costs, both from Earth and from Luna.
Earth: Our gravity well is so steep that you really need a chemical rocket to escape. There are some promising experiments with lasers and such, but that's a good 10 years in the future. (Sky-hooks and space elevators are probably more like 30~50yrs away, at least.) The real trick with chemical rockets is to make one that's reusable. You wanna launch your satellite on a Delta rocket? No problem... that'll be $100M for the rocket and $150K for the fuel. SpaceX has already cut that price in half, but their goal is a rocket that's as reusable as a Boeing 747. That alone would bring launch cost to LEO down below $1000/lb..
Moon: The energy needed to escape Luna's gravity is a tiny fraction of that for Earth. It can be done with electric power (no chemical rockets needed) for less than $1/lb. That may not be profitable for iron or nickel, but what about platinum or palladium? More to the point, what's the cost of iron or oxygen in orbit around the earth or moon? Even if SpaceX succeeds with their reusable-rocket plans, such things will cost hundreds of dollars per pound if launched from the earth, so there's a huge incentive to loft those resources from the moon instead.
As for the Mars rovers... not sure how that got into the discussion. We're talking about the moon here, which is closer than Mars by at least a couple orders of magnitude.
It all comes down to that reusable rocket. If SpaceX can crack that nut, it will be a game-changer on the scale of discovering the new world. If it cost less than $1M for a ticket to the moon, how long do you think the waiting list would be?
Yes, any sensible moon-mining scheme would be highly automated, but there will be a human presence on the moon, for various reasons from research to tourism, so it only makes sense to accommodate that market too. If SpaceX can achieve its "holy grail" of a completely reusable rocket, the price of a ticket will come down by a couple orders of magnitude. That will be a real game changer, and ought to bring a much greater presence on the moon in all categories.
Well, I never said I wouldn't mine the asteroid belt, but the moon has the advantage of proximity. You can get to the moon in a few days, the asteroid belt is farther away than Mars. Also, the moon's gravity well is conveniently shallow enough to escape with a rail-gun (see: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress), and most of the stuff you need to build and power your rail-gun is available in the regolith.
So, first you go to the moon, and start mining the resources: oxygen for propellant and life support; iron, aluminum, magnesium, and titanium for building things. Once you can deliver these goods to lunar orbit, you start building the habitats and cargo ships you'll need in order to mine the asteroids. In the meantime, you can do a more close-up assay of the moon's resources. Given the number of asteroids that have impacted on the moon over billions of years, there's a good chance you could find some major sources of platinum, palladium, nickel, etc..
In this scenario, the main things you'll need to import to the moon will be carbon and ammonia. Carbon is essential to life, and useful for making high-grade steel; ammonia gives you nitrogen and hydrogen, both of which are scarce on the moon, but necessary for human settlement.
FTFA: "There’s bugger all worth mining on the moon."
Well, yes, there's nothing there worth bringing back to earth, but that doesn't mean there's nothing of value. Regolith contains several useful elements, such as oxygen, iron, aluminum, titanium. These are all fairly plentiful on earth, but in space they're worth a small fortune.
My thoughts exactly. This is getting ridiculous. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any solution as long as government is bought and paid-for by corporations.
Thanks. That's a bit overkill, but good to know about. I don't want to turn off spell-check, synonyms, or word-stem matching, just the "personalized" stuff. Those other things are actually quite useful. I would just rather not have them skew the results based on presumptions about what I want. For example, what if I'm borrowing a friend's machine for a quick search? I wouldn't want my results tailored to their habits of usage. (Or if my mom borrows my machine to search for anything with the word "Asian"... could be a bit awkward...;-)
I'll have to experiment a bit with side-by-side browsers -- one logged in, the other not -- and see how different the results really are.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no need for any more marketing or FUD. Haven't you heard? This is the Year of the Linux Desktop!
Visa takes 3% of gross revenues, taxes come off the net (ie: "profit"), after you pay rent, utilities, salaries, insurance, etc., which could easily chew up 90~95% of your gross, even if you sell your products at 200% markup.
30% * 5% = 1.5% ( 3%) [assuming 100% of sales use Visa]
A fast-food restaurant might have 90% of its sales in cash, while a clothing store might have 90% of sales on credit cards. For an online retailer the Visa quotient would be practically 100%.
(they had three demo flight failures)
Comparing Orbital with SpaceX, I'd rather put my chips on the company that starts with failure and overcomes it than the company that starts well and later crashes.
As I recall, Musk's quote about $2.5B for a Saturn-V equivalent was for the development cost, not for a single rocket. Once it's developed and tested, presumably they could crank them out for a much lower price. And as others have noted in this thread, who cares about a "super-heavy" like the S5? SpaceX is already booking flights on the Falcon Heavy for a fixed price of ~$120M apiece. Why spend $2.5B to develop a super-heavy when you can buy the same payload-to-orbit for 1/10th of the cost?
That and irony... though I suppose you could say that hypocrisy is irony's evil twin.
Also (AFAIK) the Falcon family of rockets is already man rated, it's only the Dragon capsule that still needs certification. This is mainly due to the need for a launch abort system, which they are already working on. They expect to be ready in 2014 if all goes to plan.
Actually, he's against privatizing parts of NASA's job because...
And apparently the GGP doesn't know that Kay Hutchinson is a woman.
Except that COTS was announced in 2006 under the Bush administration. And frankly, COTS will have proved itself successful long before any new president would get the chance to cut it. The first SpaceX Falcon-9 flight to ISS is scheduled for next month.
Will this allow people in $DICTATORSHIP to stay connected even when their government has blocked normal internet access?
FYI, the "lead a horiculture" quip was invented by a woman.
Well spoken, Bruce.
From what I've seen online, I gather that SpaceX is very aware their IP risks, and take steps to minimize such leaks. I hope it works for them.
AFAIK, their plan does not involve parachutes. They use heat shields to reach terminal velocity, then rockets to land from there. (Parachutes are just a backup system in case the rockets fail.)
I'd say it's more of an exaggeration than a "facetious" comment. I'm just quoting from SpaceX's PR propaganda... that's why I put the phrase in quotes. Obviously it depends on the conditions, but in theory they have enough delta-V to land on any "hospitable" surface... eg: Mars. (I've seen some scenarios where they use strap-on tanks to increase fuel/payload capacity.)
In any case, it's a pretty cool hack to use side-mount thrusters for launch-abort instead of a tower system (like Apollo). Not only does it allow for propulsive landings, it also lets you abort at any time during the boost phase, not just up the the "tower-jettison" point... making the Dragon capsule the safest ever flown. (in theory...)
Thanks for the clarification. I knew there was some distinction between this and future crewed flights, but apparently I got the details wrong.
In Xhengzhou, Thousands Vie For Foxconn Jobs
I know the keys are right next to each other on the keyboard, but "Xhengzhou" is simply not possible in the Chinese spelling system. You got it right in the summary (Zhengzhou), but the headline is just nutty.
Actually their first ISS rendezvous mission was scheduled for this month, but it recently got postponed to March. On this first mission they will only "berth" with ISS, rather than docking. (They'll fly up close enough so that the ISS manipulator arm can grapple the Dragon capsule and haul it in.) If that goes well, they'll be allowed to actually dock with ISS on the next flight.
And you're right, they are already underselling every other vendor on the launch market. Even the Chinese say they can't possibly beat SpaceX's price-per-pound to orbit.
Summary misses the point... yes, they need a launch-abort system to meet NASA's human-rating specs, but the real goal of the SuperDraco engines is to enable propulsive landings with pinpoint accuracy. They claim that a Dragon capsule so-equipped will be able to land on "any surface" in the solar system.
Where to start... I guess the most crucial factor is launch costs, both from Earth and from Luna.
Earth: Our gravity well is so steep that you really need a chemical rocket to escape. There are some promising experiments with lasers and such, but that's a good 10 years in the future. (Sky-hooks and space elevators are probably more like 30~50yrs away, at least.) The real trick with chemical rockets is to make one that's reusable. You wanna launch your satellite on a Delta rocket? No problem... that'll be $100M for the rocket and $150K for the fuel. SpaceX has already cut that price in half, but their goal is a rocket that's as reusable as a Boeing 747. That alone would bring launch cost to LEO down below $1000/lb..
Moon: The energy needed to escape Luna's gravity is a tiny fraction of that for Earth. It can be done with electric power (no chemical rockets needed) for less than $1/lb. That may not be profitable for iron or nickel, but what about platinum or palladium? More to the point, what's the cost of iron or oxygen in orbit around the earth or moon? Even if SpaceX succeeds with their reusable-rocket plans, such things will cost hundreds of dollars per pound if launched from the earth, so there's a huge incentive to loft those resources from the moon instead.
As for the Mars rovers... not sure how that got into the discussion. We're talking about the moon here, which is closer than Mars by at least a couple orders of magnitude.
It all comes down to that reusable rocket. If SpaceX can crack that nut, it will be a game-changer on the scale of discovering the new world. If it cost less than $1M for a ticket to the moon, how long do you think the waiting list would be?
Yes, any sensible moon-mining scheme would be highly automated, but there will be a human presence on the moon, for various reasons from research to tourism, so it only makes sense to accommodate that market too. If SpaceX can achieve its "holy grail" of a completely reusable rocket, the price of a ticket will come down by a couple orders of magnitude. That will be a real game changer, and ought to bring a much greater presence on the moon in all categories.
Well, I never said I wouldn't mine the asteroid belt, but the moon has the advantage of proximity. You can get to the moon in a few days, the asteroid belt is farther away than Mars. Also, the moon's gravity well is conveniently shallow enough to escape with a rail-gun (see: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress), and most of the stuff you need to build and power your rail-gun is available in the regolith.
So, first you go to the moon, and start mining the resources: oxygen for propellant and life support; iron, aluminum, magnesium, and titanium for building things. Once you can deliver these goods to lunar orbit, you start building the habitats and cargo ships you'll need in order to mine the asteroids. In the meantime, you can do a more close-up assay of the moon's resources. Given the number of asteroids that have impacted on the moon over billions of years, there's a good chance you could find some major sources of platinum, palladium, nickel, etc..
In this scenario, the main things you'll need to import to the moon will be carbon and ammonia. Carbon is essential to life, and useful for making high-grade steel; ammonia gives you nitrogen and hydrogen, both of which are scarce on the moon, but necessary for human settlement.
FTFA: "There’s bugger all worth mining on the moon."
Well, yes, there's nothing there worth bringing back to earth, but that doesn't mean there's nothing of value. Regolith contains several useful elements, such as oxygen, iron, aluminum, titanium. These are all fairly plentiful on earth, but in space they're worth a small fortune.
Sheesh, not again! Next you'll be telling me they've uncovered a giant black obelisk on the moon...
Except for freight cars, of course. "Car" is just a short version of "carriage."
Do you mean Citizen X which starred Stephen Rea, Donald Sutherland, Max von Sydow?
My thoughts exactly. This is getting ridiculous. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any solution as long as government is bought and paid-for by corporations.
Maybe it's time to end corporate personhood?
Thanks. That's a bit overkill, but good to know about. I don't want to turn off spell-check, synonyms, or word-stem matching, just the "personalized" stuff. Those other things are actually quite useful. I would just rather not have them skew the results based on presumptions about what I want. For example, what if I'm borrowing a friend's machine for a quick search? I wouldn't want my results tailored to their habits of usage. (Or if my mom borrows my machine to search for anything with the word "Asian"... could be a bit awkward...;-)
I'll have to experiment a bit with side-by-side browsers -- one logged in, the other not -- and see how different the results really are.