It depends heavily on the design. In the case of Falcon 9 there is only 1 variant. In some ways this is part of the genius of the SpaceX model. The Falcon 9 was built larger than most payloads, so there is a mass margin they can play with on every flight (say to test out various recovery approaches), paid for by someone else (the primary payload owner). Most other rockets have variants for different levels of performance, Ariane 5 has ECA and ES, Atlas V has something like 22 different variants, and the customer will typically buy the one most suited for their payload (why pay more for capacity they don't need)
SpaceX doesn't charge the same, because the service is the same. For Government launches (DoD, NASA, NRO etc) there is considerable additional requirements, paperwork and oversight that need to be met. These incur additional costs above and beyond commercial launches
One could also argue that the new approach is safer for astronauts and support crews
Operations during fueling may be more dangerous, however astronauts are boarding and getting strapped into a known safe vehicle (there is no fuel or oxidizer when they board). When the fueling takes place they the capsule is ready to escape at a moments notice. No other people are put at risk. There is a contingency if something goes wrong.
Or, while operations while fueled may be less dangerous, astronauts and support crews are working on a known dangerous vehicle (fuel and oxidizer onboard with ongoing top up procedures). Everyone is at risk during the boarding process and there is very little contingency if something goes wrong (the zip line option only works in a very limited set of circumstances)
Until the detailed analysis is done, we don't know which is safer
Canada, same movies, same video games, far less gun violence
UK, same movies, same video games, far less gun violence
Australia, same moves, same video games, far less gun violence
Fact 1: Roughly half the US murder rate is attributable to big cities comprising about 20% of the total population. The rest of the country is about as safe as Europe in terms of murder rate per capita.
I'm pretty sure that Europe has big cities too. What do their rates look like if you remove the cities comprising the most murderous 20% of Europeans.
More than that, there are countries with the exact same movies and video games (Canada, UK, Australia) yet don't have the same issues with gun violence
The Dragon v2 capsule (the crewed variant) is not yet ready and has not yet flown (target is before end of the year). Dragon v1 has been flying for some time, but it has no seats or launch escape system
One could argue that the US program was far more centrally planned and managed that the Soviet program. While private companies competed for NASA contracts, what they built and how they built it were often prescribed (and in several cases required to use state owned facilities). The Soviets on the other hand probably had a half dozen space programs going on, spread across several design bureaus (of which Korolev's OKB-1 was just one). All this "competition" resulted in funds being spread too thinly (at one time there were 4 different Soviet moon rockets under development). A single "NASA" like organization would have gone a long way to solving many of the Soviet's problems
It may predate ISS, but not the Space Station program. The Shuttle concept was specifically designed as a space station logistics vehicle. Phase A Shuttle concept studies occurred I parallel the Phase B Station studies and both were marketed as complimentary programs under the 1969 STG report. When the Shuttle was approved without the space station, the assumption was that the space station program would be resumed once the shuttle was operational. Hence the 1983 start on Space Station Freedom which eventually morphed into Alpha and then ISS
Actually when originally proposed, the Shuttle was specifically designed as the logistics vehicle for a space station. The phase B space station study contract was issued in April 1969 for a 12 person space station with the ability to be upgraded to a 50 person space base. They were originally marketed as complementary programs under the 1969 Space Task Group study (Shuttle would make supplying a large space station affordable, the station would give the Shuttle enough flights to make it economic to operate). When it became apparent that Congress would fund one or the other, the Shuttle was chosen with the assumption of once it was done, the next big project would be the space station. Freedom was kicked off in 1983 shortly after the Shuttle became operational.
Yes because everyone knows that the two industries you want to be in to make easy money and become super famous are the automotive and space launch industry. If Elonâ(TM)s sole driver was wealth and fame he would have invested his $100M PayPal payday very differently
Nuclear powered Ion engines (or Nuclear Electric Rockets) add the complexity of electrical power conversion and thermal management. NERVA ran at just under 5GW thermal power, however since the heat was carried away by the fuel, they are easy to keep cool. Powering an Ion engine with a nuclear reactor means you need to dump all the heat generated by the reactor using radiators. JIMO proposed a 200kW reactor and needed a football field sized radiator to keep it cool
Space is already a radiation blasted wasteland. Plus the hydrogen fuel of these designs arn't inside the reactor long enough to become radioactive (Nuclear Thermal Rockets are very different from Fission Fragment Rockets). While the NERVA didn't completely solve the problem of fuel erosion (meaning it's exhaust was somewhat radioactive), they were close to solving the problem when the program was cancelled in 1972, and we should be able to something better with 45years of progress in material sciences
Moore's Law is just fine (if perhaps slowing slightly) in that hardware performance continues to grow in leaps and bounds. It's one of the reasons that AI and applications like Self Driving vehicles have been making such progress in recent years. The challenge is that it is diminishing returns for most general purpose computing needs (email, browser, spreadsheets, etc.). There is not much to be gained from and end user perspective by throwing twice the processing power at rendering a web page. My 7 year old desktop is still good enough to most of my day to day needs, even though a new machine would run circles around it from a pure benchmarking perspective
As someone who worked at Nortel for 10 years, the fundamental technology of optical transport has most definitely changed. 10 years ago 40GE and 100GE using electronic dispursion compensation was a lab experiment, now itâ(TM)s widely deployed.
There are any kickstarter companies that do exactly this. Nothing quite gets a VC's attention as knowing that 100's or 1000's of people have put up cold hard cash to pre-purchase your product
Good luck rolling your own radio baseband processor code. Virtually all of that is proprietary and even if you did write one, the carriers would never let you authenticate
You are aware that the rent you pay needs to cover ALL of those costs (which your landlord has to bear), plus a profit. Otherwise there would be no incentive to be a landlord. Now while rent may not need to cover equity (if the landlord owns the property outright), if you're a home owner, the additional equity you pay is going into your own pocket
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It depends heavily on the design. In the case of Falcon 9 there is only 1 variant. In some ways this is part of the genius of the SpaceX model. The Falcon 9 was built larger than most payloads, so there is a mass margin they can play with on every flight (say to test out various recovery approaches), paid for by someone else (the primary payload owner). Most other rockets have variants for different levels of performance, Ariane 5 has ECA and ES, Atlas V has something like 22 different variants, and the customer will typically buy the one most suited for their payload (why pay more for capacity they don't need)
SpaceX doesn't charge the same, because the service is the same. For Government launches (DoD, NASA, NRO etc) there is considerable additional requirements, paperwork and oversight that need to be met. These incur additional costs above and beyond commercial launches
Ya, the biggest killer for Skylon is it's amortized development costs.
Except that only US citizens can work at SpaceX due to ITAR restrictions (unless you go through an incredibly extensive waiver process)
One could also argue that the new approach is safer for astronauts and support crews Operations during fueling may be more dangerous, however astronauts are boarding and getting strapped into a known safe vehicle (there is no fuel or oxidizer when they board). When the fueling takes place they the capsule is ready to escape at a moments notice. No other people are put at risk. There is a contingency if something goes wrong. Or, while operations while fueled may be less dangerous, astronauts and support crews are working on a known dangerous vehicle (fuel and oxidizer onboard with ongoing top up procedures). Everyone is at risk during the boarding process and there is very little contingency if something goes wrong (the zip line option only works in a very limited set of circumstances) Until the detailed analysis is done, we don't know which is safer
Canada, same movies, same video games, far less gun violence UK, same movies, same video games, far less gun violence Australia, same moves, same video games, far less gun violence
Fact 1: Roughly half the US murder rate is attributable to big cities comprising about 20% of the total population. The rest of the country is about as safe as Europe in terms of murder rate per capita.
I'm pretty sure that Europe has big cities too. What do their rates look like if you remove the cities comprising the most murderous 20% of Europeans.
More than that, there are countries with the exact same movies and video games (Canada, UK, Australia) yet don't have the same issues with gun violence
The Dragon v2 capsule (the crewed variant) is not yet ready and has not yet flown (target is before end of the year). Dragon v1 has been flying for some time, but it has no seats or launch escape system
One could argue that the US program was far more centrally planned and managed that the Soviet program. While private companies competed for NASA contracts, what they built and how they built it were often prescribed (and in several cases required to use state owned facilities). The Soviets on the other hand probably had a half dozen space programs going on, spread across several design bureaus (of which Korolev's OKB-1 was just one). All this "competition" resulted in funds being spread too thinly (at one time there were 4 different Soviet moon rockets under development). A single "NASA" like organization would have gone a long way to solving many of the Soviet's problems
The irony of the second flight was that KORD shut down every engine EXCEPT the one that was reporting a problem
Or watch Knowing
It may predate ISS, but not the Space Station program. The Shuttle concept was specifically designed as a space station logistics vehicle. Phase A Shuttle concept studies occurred I parallel the Phase B Station studies and both were marketed as complimentary programs under the 1969 STG report. When the Shuttle was approved without the space station, the assumption was that the space station program would be resumed once the shuttle was operational. Hence the 1983 start on Space Station Freedom which eventually morphed into Alpha and then ISS
Actually when originally proposed, the Shuttle was specifically designed as the logistics vehicle for a space station. The phase B space station study contract was issued in April 1969 for a 12 person space station with the ability to be upgraded to a 50 person space base. They were originally marketed as complementary programs under the 1969 Space Task Group study (Shuttle would make supplying a large space station affordable, the station would give the Shuttle enough flights to make it economic to operate). When it became apparent that Congress would fund one or the other, the Shuttle was chosen with the assumption of once it was done, the next big project would be the space station. Freedom was kicked off in 1983 shortly after the Shuttle became operational.
Yes because everyone knows that the two industries you want to be in to make easy money and become super famous are the automotive and space launch industry. If Elonâ(TM)s sole driver was wealth and fame he would have invested his $100M PayPal payday very differently
In Canada in provinces where legislation in place is 105km/hr, Australia is 100 km/hr (where legislated). So definately not most or all counties
Nuclear powered Ion engines (or Nuclear Electric Rockets) add the complexity of electrical power conversion and thermal management. NERVA ran at just under 5GW thermal power, however since the heat was carried away by the fuel, they are easy to keep cool. Powering an Ion engine with a nuclear reactor means you need to dump all the heat generated by the reactor using radiators. JIMO proposed a 200kW reactor and needed a football field sized radiator to keep it cool
Look up NERVA, NASA BUILT and TESTED Nuclear Thermal Reactors in the 60's and 70's, they were almost flight ready when the program was cancelled
Space is already a radiation blasted wasteland. Plus the hydrogen fuel of these designs arn't inside the reactor long enough to become radioactive (Nuclear Thermal Rockets are very different from Fission Fragment Rockets). While the NERVA didn't completely solve the problem of fuel erosion (meaning it's exhaust was somewhat radioactive), they were close to solving the problem when the program was cancelled in 1972, and we should be able to something better with 45years of progress in material sciences
Moore's Law is just fine (if perhaps slowing slightly) in that hardware performance continues to grow in leaps and bounds. It's one of the reasons that AI and applications like Self Driving vehicles have been making such progress in recent years. The challenge is that it is diminishing returns for most general purpose computing needs (email, browser, spreadsheets, etc.). There is not much to be gained from and end user perspective by throwing twice the processing power at rendering a web page. My 7 year old desktop is still good enough to most of my day to day needs, even though a new machine would run circles around it from a pure benchmarking perspective
80" in my attic
As someone who worked at Nortel for 10 years, the fundamental technology of optical transport has most definitely changed. 10 years ago 40GE and 100GE using electronic dispursion compensation was a lab experiment, now itâ(TM)s widely deployed.
There are any kickstarter companies that do exactly this. Nothing quite gets a VC's attention as knowing that 100's or 1000's of people have put up cold hard cash to pre-purchase your product
Good luck rolling your own radio baseband processor code. Virtually all of that is proprietary and even if you did write one, the carriers would never let you authenticate
You are aware that the rent you pay needs to cover ALL of those costs (which your landlord has to bear), plus a profit. Otherwise there would be no incentive to be a landlord. Now while rent may not need to cover equity (if the landlord owns the property outright), if you're a home owner, the additional equity you pay is going into your own pocket