The Baker Electric cells are still being used a century after their original manufacturing was done and the factory which built them has since been bulldozed down. I think you would be hard pressed to find a cell that was easier to service although most companies would be wary of such longevity for cell chemistry like that.
Even if a Japanese cell manufacturer has been able to make a major breakthrough in storage technology, it will still take a couple of decades for that to work up to hundreds of billions of cells being produced each year to satisfy demand like is currently being done with Li-ion cells at the moment.
That is also why Telsa built their factory for batteries, as the rest of the manufacturers from around the world going at full production still couldn't keep up with the demand for them that Tesla and Nissan (also trying to get into using Li-ion cells) are needing for their respective automobiles.
When you need billions of dollars, you choice is not to go to a nearby bank but rather raise the capital on Wall Street or from the U.S. Federal government.
I'm glad that Tesla chose Wall Street over Capitol Hill.
This isn't really true. The Li-ion batteries have been used by laptop manufacturers for years before Tesla even got started. Tesla wasn't even the first electric automobile designer to use them in electric automobiles.
What Tesla did was to make the first large scale mass production automobile that used Li-ion battery cells. They are also still being used for laptops, smoke detectors, toy R/C cars & airplanes, game controllers, flashlights, and a whole bunch of other things including storage devices for solar panels. The market for these batteries exists well beyond the application of energy storage for automobiles.
What is true though is that between Tesla, Nissan, and a couple other electric automobile manufacturers they are outstripping almost all other demand for these kind of battery cells where it seems like the only application is to put them into automobiles and that is definitely driving their current price. You might end up with a cheaper Oyua or completed Raspberry Pi as a result too.
Actually Tesla does own the IP to their batteries. Panasonic manufactures them and provided some IP, but Tesla has their own unique chemistry and cell design.
I'd like to learn more about this. Seriously.
I know for a fact that the Model S and definitely the Roadster battery packs used standard Lithium-ion batteries like are found inside of my laptop that I'm using for a response to this post and went out of their way to make sure they used "commodity" battery cells from multiple sources including Chinese manufacturing companies and many other places. They did sign a contract the Panasonic,but as far as I knew it was just for a steady supply of the standard cells.
I'm not dismissing that Tesla could be getting into the R&D side of cell manufacturing, but a unique chemistry for the cells was not one of the things they got into with at least their earlier automobiles. What Tesla accomplished was to make a really good large scale battery pack that could power an automobile as opposed to a mere laptop or R/C toy car. It definitely took a skilled electrical engineer to come up with a design for putting 10k cells together as a single unit and not have them all burn up at the same time.
The largest problem that Tesla is facing is simply trying to get enough of the battery cells as they are purchasing a sizable quantity of the global market. So many in fact that the idea of even purchasing "standard" cells from multiple suppliers isn't nearly enough to meet their demand nor that of other electric automobile manufacturers doing the same thing. If Tesla was using some sort of exotic new chemistry, their supply problems would be even more pronounced and problematic than it currently is at the moment.
This is a law that was originally intended to be used exclusively by General Motors (put forward by the "W" Bush administration) to help with the EV-1 and supposedly the next generation of GM electric automobiles too. So as to not make the law so blatant in pointing out a specific company, and because the members of congress didn't think anybody else would qualify (neither Ford nor Chrysler were interested), they wrote the language of the legislation in a more generic fashion so any serial production automobile manufacturer based in America could qualify for the same loan.
It turns out that Tesla qualified under the language of the law, so Telsa also submitted an application for this loan program that was otherwise unused (GM had quit production of the EV-1 by this point in time). It was mere coincidence that the loan program was invoked by Tesla at the same time a whole bunch of other stuff was going on with the TARP program and other massive federal subsidies even though the Tesla loan had no part of any of that.
You really should show some credit to a company that was able to cut into a program that should have gone exclusively to GM in the first place. Not only that, but that even after the loan was taken out, Telsa repaid the loan early and had the federal bureaucrats scrambling to figure out what to do with all of the returned money and how to calculate the interest owed by Tesla since they didn't have the money out for the full duration of the loan.
The UK is hardly one to be complaining about crony capitalism. Just starting with the Statutes of Queen Anne and you get all sorts of ugly copyright and patent laws including a copyright on the King James edition of the Bible that still stands even to this day.... a law that made it illegal to publish the Bible in America until after the American Revolutionary War. This was so some merchants in London could earn a bunch of money off of publishing the Bible themselves under royal decree.
If the USA has crony capitalism, it was put here by the UK originally. Thank you England!
The original intention of Tesla was to simply buy the Lotus Elise without a drive train and to buy an electric propulsion unit from AC Propulsion. They were also supposed to make a production line of just 50 or so automobiles too. Elon Musk encouraged the other co-founders to think a bit bigger and to consider a full production automobile, which is where the Roadster came from.
While Lotus did make the bodies of the Roadster (hence the term "glider"), it was most definitely not the Elise but a completely custom design by Tesla done jointly with Lotus. About the only part in common was the headlights and a few other very minor parts. The factory for the Elise was remarkable because it could simultaneously manufacture multiple kinds of automobiles on the same production line even with different parts and different tools needed for assembly. This is some real credit to Lotus as well for coming up with those manufacturing techniques. They aren't the only company to do something like this, but Lotus definitely has done a good job with designing its production line and still remain profitable at lower production runs than some companies.
AC Propulsion was written out of the equation even earlier where Tesla built its own motors in-house, although the Achilles' Heel of the vehicle was the transmission system that pretty much should have bankrupted the company. That is what got Martin Eberhard fired as the CEO.
BTW, I consider that Wikipedia article to be factually wrong in the first place to even call them a Lotus Elise glider. A "Lotus" glider, perhaps as Lotus made the "glider" (aka the vehicle without a drive train), but not an Elise. Lotus engineers did help with designing the basic chassis of the Roadster though even though Tesla did hire some pretty competent automotive engineers of their own that were involved with the design too, so there is definitely room to give some credit to Lotus.
Also, what would be the demand for such batteries if Tesla stopped manufacturing cars?
The presumption is that with the way Tesla has already shown to be a viable business model, other companies will follow the current lead and make electric automobiles, airplanes, ships, and other vehicles with these batteries that Tesla will be manufacturing. There has been a global demand for these batteries to the point they are in and of themselves considered a commodity even before Tesla was formed. Instead you will also get really cheap laptop computers and perhaps other even more exotic markets that will really soak up the production like storage systems for solar panels that would dwarf battery demand even from automobiles as well.
There really is far more demand for these batteries than the market can supply, and a highly elastic demand so far as a minor price reduction from improved manufacturing techniques will also result in a huge increase in demand and more products that could use these energy storage cells.
The funny thing is that Telsa was originally founded on the idea they would purchase drop-in replacement power trains from AC Propulsion and put them into Lotus bodies as an integrator. That was their original goal, but it didn't quite work out the way they intended and it turned out they needed to get their hands dirty on a whole bunch of other manufacturing just to get even that to work out.
One thing I admire about Elon Musk is that he is able to see some inefficiencies in his companies and root out a way to make them much more efficient. That is definitely how Tesla has been able to turn a profit from a company that simply should have gone bankrupt a couple of times in the past. His way of rooting out inefficiencies is usually by not cutting corners with employees or feeding them shit in a mushroom management system, but rather by looking for components that are costing far too much compared to the raw materials price and taking over the manufacturing of those components in a vertical integration of manufacturing. Every one of his companies that he is currently running is now making much more stuff in-house than was the case even a year ago.
Mr. Musk once started to complain about the cost of raw Aluminum and IMHO Alcoa ought to be concerned he might just start a Bauxite mining & processing operation.
While other rockets had some potential redundancy with their rocket engines, I believe it is a record on the CRS-1 flight when the RUD event (tongue-in-cheek slang for "rapid unscheduled disassembly" or in other words the engine fell apart/exploded/ceased to function) took out one of the engines not much longer than after it cleared the tower. It still was able to complete the primary mission and had permission been granted by NASA it would have even completed the secondary mission too. I don't even blame NASA as a bad guy as they had their reasons for denying permission (the OrbComm satellite had the potential of smashing into the ISS if they had gone through with the anticipated trajectory adjustment), but those who cite this flight as a failure is digging themselves into a very deep hole they can't get out of in terms of logical arguments. The record I'm suggesting was set here is that the RUD event took place so early in the flight.
Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody else has the capability of pulling off a similar kind of loss of engine situation at literally any point of a launch and complete its mission. The Space Shuttle had the capability of an engine out with the later part of its mission (and actually did happen on a couple missions including an "abort to orbit" event), and Apollo 13 also had a loss of engine failure for the 1st stage at the end of its burn. Some rockets even deliberately shut down engines prior to MECO simply to reduce acceleration forces on the payload.
Again, getting a cheaper factory doesn't get the employees you need to make the factory work. I think you are underestimating the recruiting job that it would take to get something like this to happen, not to mention convincing those who are currently employed by the company to move somewhere else.
Again, perhaps you can find some investors who will follow your business plan and make a rocket launching company which can compete with SpaceX. I just don't think it is so obvious as you are suggesting.
The interesting thing will be what SpaceX is going to do in Texas. They've been quietly buying up a whole bunch of real estate in Texas over the past couple of years with what amounts to be full-time real estate agents who do nothing buy buy properties for the company. If I had to bet, SpaceX might move some or all of its workforce to Texas eventually, including the vehicle construction stuff.
The real plum deal that needs to be considered is that SpaceX needs to build a new factory if they are going to get their MCT rocket built. It will also need a brand new launch pad (pad 39A at KSC is too small), so the launch site is also going to be up for grabs. There is a possibility that a group of determined state officials from Florida could convince SpaceX that they have a better deal for the company and can offer workers and engineers capable of being able to build these rockets. In this case, I do think an armchair hobbyist and pundit can make a huge difference without really investing much money and only a little bit time talking to these government officials and acting as a one-man lobbying group. It does take knowing a little bit about the political makeup of the area where you live, but well timed and placed phone calls can make a huge difference. Since the MCT factory hasn't been built, we aren't talking past tense about this stuff either.
I really think the future of space is going to be something of various flight regimes, where you will have separate entry/launch craft for each planet and some completely different point to point travel vehicles for destinations within the Solar System.
It certainly seems really stupid and foolish to haul a capsule that is useful only to enter the Earth's atmosphere all of the way to Mars and back again. That is just a horrible waste of energy if you are stuck with the rocket equation, much less that having a spacecraft survive for several years is an iffy proposition for atmospheric entry afterward. Furthermore, the vehicles you need to land on Mars are very different than you need to land on the Moon or the Earth. In fact, other than perhaps a generic small asteroid landing craft, I don't see a general purpose landing vehicle anywhere that would be useful. There is even a difference between landing on Mercury vs. the Moon vs. Jovian Moons (especially the big Galilean moons).
How all of the infrastructure needed for moving from place to place in the Solar System will get built is not very clear right now, and the pioneering flights are certainly going to be different than what will exist decades or centuries later.
I also agree with you that we need to use the resources of space itself in order to be successful at doing stuff in space. Again, that pesky rocket equation just gets in the way of doing useful stuff if everything you need must be brought from a launch pad close to sea level on the Earth. 1 liter bottles of water certainly don't need to be shipped from Florida @ $20k each and can't be shipped at that price if mankind is going to be doing anything in space.
I would say it is more like 1968 and after the Apollo 8 trip around the Moon. Perhaps some finger crossing and uncertainty about the actual landing, but most of the major details have been already worked out and not really any concern about how the whole thing is going to happen. Uncertainty because nothing is completely proven, but all of the major components have in fact been tested.
In order to do this soft landing over the ocean, the legs needed to deploy, the turn around sequence needed to happen, the reverse trajectory burn needed to happen, and the final burn at precisely the proper timing also needed to occur. It appears that SpaceX also solved the slosh issue that they encountered on the
The Grasshopper has has more than two or three reuses though, and the Falcon 9R test vehicle is going on an aggressive test program this summer which will get very close to that 40 reuse limit and may even need additional engines swapped out into that test vehicle. The F9R has already been used more than a couple of times.
Furthermore, SpaceX has a test stand where they hook up fuel tanks to the engines and run them at full throttle. To use your laptop analogy, it would be like a ruggized laptop manufacturer (they do exist) who set up a test rig to smash up a laptop by having a sledge hammer pound the laptop and push it off of a test table a few hundred times and then presume you doing the same thing at home would have similar or less damage. The SpaceX test stands run the engines for a full mission duration burn, all that is missing is actually pushing something into space. When SpaceX says they can get 40+ reuses of their engines, it is proclaiming that they have in fact fired up several of their engines for more than 40 times with little or no refurbishing. I know for a fact that the SSME never had that kind of test performed at its test stand.
While no doubt there were military missions with the Shuttle, the Shuttle program had many other factors going into its development and your rationale here simply doesn't express reality.
I could say more, but refuting conspiracy nuts is more than I can stomach at the moment.
They did fund enough of the initial R&D to be creditable, since then NASA has been writing the checks.
Not even close. NASA funding didn't happen until after the Falcon 1 had flown a couple of times. Some DARPA funding happened early on with the Falcon 1 development, but that was to take some paper studies and put some projects on actual spaceflight hardware.
The only people who got screwed by all of that was a class of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy who lost their satellite when the Falcon 1 failed to deliver. IMHO it would be a wonderful gesture for SpaceX to send aloft another project by a future USAFA class, but I'm not in charge of PR opportunities for things like that either.
Regardless, what DARPA paid for was some payloads at rock bottom prices that they (meaning the U.S. Department of Defense) had no reasonable expectation would even go into space at all.
If SpaceX wants to develop a reusable rocket that's their business. If they expect NASA or other countries to pay for it they will have to play by another set of rules.
Who said NASA even paid a dime for the reusable Falcon 9 program? So far as I can see, everything that SpaceX has done with this is internal funding alone and certainly isn't a part of any NASA program.
The only NASA funded reusable spacecraft program under development that I'm aware of is Project Morpheus. That is a damn cool project too, but has absolutely nothing at all to do with SpaceX but rather Armadillo Aerospace instead. There is of course the Space Shuttle, but this whole topic post has comparisons between the Falcon 9 and the Space Shuttle ad nauseum. The DC-X program is perhaps a little closer to what SpaceX is doing, but SpaceX never received funding from DC-X as well.
In other words, I sure hope you are willing to let SpaceX foot their own bill as you are claiming.
No doubt that SpaceX has put a whole lot of effort into making this work, but it amazes me that people who are otherwise knowledgeable about this kind of stuff can't stand looking at actual results rather than assuming this is just random musings.
So, where are the actual results they can't stand looking at? How many engines has SpaceX reflown even once let alone forty plus times?
How about just as starters the Grasshopper engine as well as the current Falcon 9R test vehicle?
This is bent metal territory that SpaceX is in, not just some paper study that I was talking about. SpaceX also was successful last week with a soft landing that could have been recovered had the weather been more cooperative and the landing zone not out in the middle of the ocean... done because it is admittedly in a testing phase where both SpaceX and the FAA-AST aren't comfortable with them getting much closer to populated areas.
What sort of technological barrier do you see in what SpaceX is currently doing that will prevent them from being able to simply land that same spacecraft on land and reuse the engines? All I see is an incremental engineering program of additional refinement of existing processes to get the job done. Not trivial by any means, but the primary challenges have already been accomplished, which was my point.
SpaceX certainly has tested the engines themselves on their test stands for multiple restarts including multiple full mission burns. While perhaps not precisely the same as the kind of experience you get from actual flights, it certainly should be sufficient to be able to determine the statistical likelihood of failure with these engines. If you read the article, SpaceX hasn't claimed how many times they can cycle the 1st stage, but they do have some pretty good data about the flight performance of their engines including several dozen engines that have flown successful missions.
If SpaceX gets the per flight price (not even cost) down to $7 million as they've been suggesting at several recent industry conferences, this weekly flight potential for astronauts may in fact become reality.
It didn't help that NASA violated its own rules by flying that morning with the Challenger. It is even funnier that NASA's own crewed spaceflight guidelines prohibited NASA from using the Space Shuttle even when it was flying.
Guess who issued "waivers" for both of these issues? It wasn't engineers who understood the situation.
It's not condemning them. It's not blinding taking on faith the on-paper theory of one company over the practical experience of multiple multi-billion dollar attempts to do the same over the course of multiple rocket programs.
I might accept your argument if it wasn't for the fact that SpaceX isn't merely making paper studies about this idea. The 1st stage for the Falcon 9 performed a soft landing last week, so it is more practical experience talking from a company who has done it being compared to a company who hasn't been able to do it and in some ways pretending as if the first company didn't actually succeed.
I put the credibility of the responses in this situation more akin to those who deny the Moon landings ever happened.
One of the long-term goals of developing the Methane/LOX engine is that you can manufacture Methane on Mars (as well as make LOX there too). Robert Zurbin has done some studies on that particular topic (he even built some actual hardware to prove the concept could be done). If you don't need to haul the propellant needed for returning to the Earth, it drastically changes the rocket equation so far as what resources you need here on the Earth before you travel to Mars.
Methane has a few interesting challenges as it is still a cryogenic fuel (compared to Kerosene that isn't), but it also falls in a sweet spot where it can be warmer than a similar amount of Delta-v gained from a LOX/LH2 system.
I think it is very likely that even the Falcon 9 will eventually be converted into a Methane/LOX engine. Unfortunately that requires some basic engineering R&D that SpaceX hasn't had the luxury until recently to be able to perform.
It has been a mixed message from NASA in part because there hasn't been a uniform policy on the issue too as well as both strong supporters of what SpaceX is doing and people who were definitely in bed with some traditional rocket manufacturers. It gets real funny when you see press conferences or better yet an academic conference with NASA officials and that sort of schizophrenic love/hate toward SpaceX becomes even more apparent. Sometimes even by the same official, but I've also seen verbal fights break out between two or more "camps" within NASA about "new space" (aka more recent companies involved with commercial spaceflight) in general and SpaceX in particular.
Many of those who are NASA employees are doing their job because they want America to be on the leading edge of exploring space and getting people out to the final frontier. Because they see SpaceX making progress in actually meeting those goals, certainly SpaceX has some fans within NASA. More than a few "nasa.gov" computers stream the live broadcasts of SpaceX on launch day, even when those payloads have nothing to do with NASA at all.
Yes you do need the talent at the factory. Not everything you need to learn about building a rocket is taught at a university, and some of the most talented technicians who know how to bend aluminum and work it into shapes needed for flight are found there too.
If you think it is so damn better and you can do a better job than Elon Musk to figure this kind of thing out, go start up your own company for crying out loud.
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That was the business model of Fisker. I guess that worked out real well.
The Baker Electric cells are still being used a century after their original manufacturing was done and the factory which built them has since been bulldozed down. I think you would be hard pressed to find a cell that was easier to service although most companies would be wary of such longevity for cell chemistry like that.
Even if a Japanese cell manufacturer has been able to make a major breakthrough in storage technology, it will still take a couple of decades for that to work up to hundreds of billions of cells being produced each year to satisfy demand like is currently being done with Li-ion cells at the moment.
That is also why Telsa built their factory for batteries, as the rest of the manufacturers from around the world going at full production still couldn't keep up with the demand for them that Tesla and Nissan (also trying to get into using Li-ion cells) are needing for their respective automobiles.
When you need billions of dollars, you choice is not to go to a nearby bank but rather raise the capital on Wall Street or from the U.S. Federal government.
I'm glad that Tesla chose Wall Street over Capitol Hill.
This isn't really true. The Li-ion batteries have been used by laptop manufacturers for years before Tesla even got started. Tesla wasn't even the first electric automobile designer to use them in electric automobiles.
What Tesla did was to make the first large scale mass production automobile that used Li-ion battery cells. They are also still being used for laptops, smoke detectors, toy R/C cars & airplanes, game controllers, flashlights, and a whole bunch of other things including storage devices for solar panels. The market for these batteries exists well beyond the application of energy storage for automobiles.
What is true though is that between Tesla, Nissan, and a couple other electric automobile manufacturers they are outstripping almost all other demand for these kind of battery cells where it seems like the only application is to put them into automobiles and that is definitely driving their current price. You might end up with a cheaper Oyua or completed Raspberry Pi as a result too.
Actually Tesla does own the IP to their batteries. Panasonic manufactures them and provided some IP, but Tesla has their own unique chemistry and cell design.
I'd like to learn more about this. Seriously.
I know for a fact that the Model S and definitely the Roadster battery packs used standard Lithium-ion batteries like are found inside of my laptop that I'm using for a response to this post and went out of their way to make sure they used "commodity" battery cells from multiple sources including Chinese manufacturing companies and many other places. They did sign a contract the Panasonic,but as far as I knew it was just for a steady supply of the standard cells.
I'm not dismissing that Tesla could be getting into the R&D side of cell manufacturing, but a unique chemistry for the cells was not one of the things they got into with at least their earlier automobiles. What Tesla accomplished was to make a really good large scale battery pack that could power an automobile as opposed to a mere laptop or R/C toy car. It definitely took a skilled electrical engineer to come up with a design for putting 10k cells together as a single unit and not have them all burn up at the same time.
The largest problem that Tesla is facing is simply trying to get enough of the battery cells as they are purchasing a sizable quantity of the global market. So many in fact that the idea of even purchasing "standard" cells from multiple suppliers isn't nearly enough to meet their demand nor that of other electric automobile manufacturers doing the same thing. If Tesla was using some sort of exotic new chemistry, their supply problems would be even more pronounced and problematic than it currently is at the moment.
This is a law that was originally intended to be used exclusively by General Motors (put forward by the "W" Bush administration) to help with the EV-1 and supposedly the next generation of GM electric automobiles too. So as to not make the law so blatant in pointing out a specific company, and because the members of congress didn't think anybody else would qualify (neither Ford nor Chrysler were interested), they wrote the language of the legislation in a more generic fashion so any serial production automobile manufacturer based in America could qualify for the same loan.
It turns out that Tesla qualified under the language of the law, so Telsa also submitted an application for this loan program that was otherwise unused (GM had quit production of the EV-1 by this point in time). It was mere coincidence that the loan program was invoked by Tesla at the same time a whole bunch of other stuff was going on with the TARP program and other massive federal subsidies even though the Tesla loan had no part of any of that.
You really should show some credit to a company that was able to cut into a program that should have gone exclusively to GM in the first place. Not only that, but that even after the loan was taken out, Telsa repaid the loan early and had the federal bureaucrats scrambling to figure out what to do with all of the returned money and how to calculate the interest owed by Tesla since they didn't have the money out for the full duration of the loan.
The UK is hardly one to be complaining about crony capitalism. Just starting with the Statutes of Queen Anne and you get all sorts of ugly copyright and patent laws including a copyright on the King James edition of the Bible that still stands even to this day.... a law that made it illegal to publish the Bible in America until after the American Revolutionary War. This was so some merchants in London could earn a bunch of money off of publishing the Bible themselves under royal decree.
If the USA has crony capitalism, it was put here by the UK originally. Thank you England!
The original intention of Tesla was to simply buy the Lotus Elise without a drive train and to buy an electric propulsion unit from AC Propulsion. They were also supposed to make a production line of just 50 or so automobiles too. Elon Musk encouraged the other co-founders to think a bit bigger and to consider a full production automobile, which is where the Roadster came from.
While Lotus did make the bodies of the Roadster (hence the term "glider"), it was most definitely not the Elise but a completely custom design by Tesla done jointly with Lotus. About the only part in common was the headlights and a few other very minor parts. The factory for the Elise was remarkable because it could simultaneously manufacture multiple kinds of automobiles on the same production line even with different parts and different tools needed for assembly. This is some real credit to Lotus as well for coming up with those manufacturing techniques. They aren't the only company to do something like this, but Lotus definitely has done a good job with designing its production line and still remain profitable at lower production runs than some companies.
AC Propulsion was written out of the equation even earlier where Tesla built its own motors in-house, although the Achilles' Heel of the vehicle was the transmission system that pretty much should have bankrupted the company. That is what got Martin Eberhard fired as the CEO.
BTW, I consider that Wikipedia article to be factually wrong in the first place to even call them a Lotus Elise glider. A "Lotus" glider, perhaps as Lotus made the "glider" (aka the vehicle without a drive train), but not an Elise. Lotus engineers did help with designing the basic chassis of the Roadster though even though Tesla did hire some pretty competent automotive engineers of their own that were involved with the design too, so there is definitely room to give some credit to Lotus.
Also, what would be the demand for such batteries if Tesla stopped manufacturing cars?
The presumption is that with the way Tesla has already shown to be a viable business model, other companies will follow the current lead and make electric automobiles, airplanes, ships, and other vehicles with these batteries that Tesla will be manufacturing. There has been a global demand for these batteries to the point they are in and of themselves considered a commodity even before Tesla was formed. Instead you will also get really cheap laptop computers and perhaps other even more exotic markets that will really soak up the production like storage systems for solar panels that would dwarf battery demand even from automobiles as well.
There really is far more demand for these batteries than the market can supply, and a highly elastic demand so far as a minor price reduction from improved manufacturing techniques will also result in a huge increase in demand and more products that could use these energy storage cells.
The funny thing is that Telsa was originally founded on the idea they would purchase drop-in replacement power trains from AC Propulsion and put them into Lotus bodies as an integrator. That was their original goal, but it didn't quite work out the way they intended and it turned out they needed to get their hands dirty on a whole bunch of other manufacturing just to get even that to work out.
One thing I admire about Elon Musk is that he is able to see some inefficiencies in his companies and root out a way to make them much more efficient. That is definitely how Tesla has been able to turn a profit from a company that simply should have gone bankrupt a couple of times in the past. His way of rooting out inefficiencies is usually by not cutting corners with employees or feeding them shit in a mushroom management system, but rather by looking for components that are costing far too much compared to the raw materials price and taking over the manufacturing of those components in a vertical integration of manufacturing. Every one of his companies that he is currently running is now making much more stuff in-house than was the case even a year ago.
Mr. Musk once started to complain about the cost of raw Aluminum and IMHO Alcoa ought to be concerned he might just start a Bauxite mining & processing operation.
While other rockets had some potential redundancy with their rocket engines, I believe it is a record on the CRS-1 flight when the RUD event (tongue-in-cheek slang for "rapid unscheduled disassembly" or in other words the engine fell apart/exploded/ceased to function) took out one of the engines not much longer than after it cleared the tower. It still was able to complete the primary mission and had permission been granted by NASA it would have even completed the secondary mission too. I don't even blame NASA as a bad guy as they had their reasons for denying permission (the OrbComm satellite had the potential of smashing into the ISS if they had gone through with the anticipated trajectory adjustment), but those who cite this flight as a failure is digging themselves into a very deep hole they can't get out of in terms of logical arguments. The record I'm suggesting was set here is that the RUD event took place so early in the flight.
Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody else has the capability of pulling off a similar kind of loss of engine situation at literally any point of a launch and complete its mission. The Space Shuttle had the capability of an engine out with the later part of its mission (and actually did happen on a couple missions including an "abort to orbit" event), and Apollo 13 also had a loss of engine failure for the 1st stage at the end of its burn. Some rockets even deliberately shut down engines prior to MECO simply to reduce acceleration forces on the payload.
Again, getting a cheaper factory doesn't get the employees you need to make the factory work. I think you are underestimating the recruiting job that it would take to get something like this to happen, not to mention convincing those who are currently employed by the company to move somewhere else.
Again, perhaps you can find some investors who will follow your business plan and make a rocket launching company which can compete with SpaceX. I just don't think it is so obvious as you are suggesting.
The interesting thing will be what SpaceX is going to do in Texas. They've been quietly buying up a whole bunch of real estate in Texas over the past couple of years with what amounts to be full-time real estate agents who do nothing buy buy properties for the company. If I had to bet, SpaceX might move some or all of its workforce to Texas eventually, including the vehicle construction stuff.
The real plum deal that needs to be considered is that SpaceX needs to build a new factory if they are going to get their MCT rocket built. It will also need a brand new launch pad (pad 39A at KSC is too small), so the launch site is also going to be up for grabs. There is a possibility that a group of determined state officials from Florida could convince SpaceX that they have a better deal for the company and can offer workers and engineers capable of being able to build these rockets. In this case, I do think an armchair hobbyist and pundit can make a huge difference without really investing much money and only a little bit time talking to these government officials and acting as a one-man lobbying group. It does take knowing a little bit about the political makeup of the area where you live, but well timed and placed phone calls can make a huge difference. Since the MCT factory hasn't been built, we aren't talking past tense about this stuff either.
I really think the future of space is going to be something of various flight regimes, where you will have separate entry/launch craft for each planet and some completely different point to point travel vehicles for destinations within the Solar System.
It certainly seems really stupid and foolish to haul a capsule that is useful only to enter the Earth's atmosphere all of the way to Mars and back again. That is just a horrible waste of energy if you are stuck with the rocket equation, much less that having a spacecraft survive for several years is an iffy proposition for atmospheric entry afterward. Furthermore, the vehicles you need to land on Mars are very different than you need to land on the Moon or the Earth. In fact, other than perhaps a generic small asteroid landing craft, I don't see a general purpose landing vehicle anywhere that would be useful. There is even a difference between landing on Mercury vs. the Moon vs. Jovian Moons (especially the big Galilean moons).
How all of the infrastructure needed for moving from place to place in the Solar System will get built is not very clear right now, and the pioneering flights are certainly going to be different than what will exist decades or centuries later.
I also agree with you that we need to use the resources of space itself in order to be successful at doing stuff in space. Again, that pesky rocket equation just gets in the way of doing useful stuff if everything you need must be brought from a launch pad close to sea level on the Earth. 1 liter bottles of water certainly don't need to be shipped from Florida @ $20k each and can't be shipped at that price if mankind is going to be doing anything in space.
I would say it is more like 1968 and after the Apollo 8 trip around the Moon. Perhaps some finger crossing and uncertainty about the actual landing, but most of the major details have been already worked out and not really any concern about how the whole thing is going to happen. Uncertainty because nothing is completely proven, but all of the major components have in fact been tested.
In order to do this soft landing over the ocean, the legs needed to deploy, the turn around sequence needed to happen, the reverse trajectory burn needed to happen, and the final burn at precisely the proper timing also needed to occur. It appears that SpaceX also solved the slosh issue that they encountered on the
The Grasshopper has has more than two or three reuses though, and the Falcon 9R test vehicle is going on an aggressive test program this summer which will get very close to that 40 reuse limit and may even need additional engines swapped out into that test vehicle. The F9R has already been used more than a couple of times.
Furthermore, SpaceX has a test stand where they hook up fuel tanks to the engines and run them at full throttle. To use your laptop analogy, it would be like a ruggized laptop manufacturer (they do exist) who set up a test rig to smash up a laptop by having a sledge hammer pound the laptop and push it off of a test table a few hundred times and then presume you doing the same thing at home would have similar or less damage. The SpaceX test stands run the engines for a full mission duration burn, all that is missing is actually pushing something into space. When SpaceX says they can get 40+ reuses of their engines, it is proclaiming that they have in fact fired up several of their engines for more than 40 times with little or no refurbishing. I know for a fact that the SSME never had that kind of test performed at its test stand.
Bullshit.
While no doubt there were military missions with the Shuttle, the Shuttle program had many other factors going into its development and your rationale here simply doesn't express reality.
I could say more, but refuting conspiracy nuts is more than I can stomach at the moment.
They did fund enough of the initial R&D to be creditable, since then NASA has been writing the checks.
Not even close. NASA funding didn't happen until after the Falcon 1 had flown a couple of times. Some DARPA funding happened early on with the Falcon 1 development, but that was to take some paper studies and put some projects on actual spaceflight hardware.
The only people who got screwed by all of that was a class of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy who lost their satellite when the Falcon 1 failed to deliver. IMHO it would be a wonderful gesture for SpaceX to send aloft another project by a future USAFA class, but I'm not in charge of PR opportunities for things like that either.
Regardless, what DARPA paid for was some payloads at rock bottom prices that they (meaning the U.S. Department of Defense) had no reasonable expectation would even go into space at all.
If SpaceX wants to develop a reusable rocket that's their business. If they expect NASA or other countries to pay for it they will have to play by another set of rules.
Who said NASA even paid a dime for the reusable Falcon 9 program? So far as I can see, everything that SpaceX has done with this is internal funding alone and certainly isn't a part of any NASA program.
The only NASA funded reusable spacecraft program under development that I'm aware of is Project Morpheus. That is a damn cool project too, but has absolutely nothing at all to do with SpaceX but rather Armadillo Aerospace instead. There is of course the Space Shuttle, but this whole topic post has comparisons between the Falcon 9 and the Space Shuttle ad nauseum. The DC-X program is perhaps a little closer to what SpaceX is doing, but SpaceX never received funding from DC-X as well.
In other words, I sure hope you are willing to let SpaceX foot their own bill as you are claiming.
So, where are the actual results they can't stand looking at? How many engines has SpaceX reflown even once let alone forty plus times?
How about just as starters the Grasshopper engine as well as the current Falcon 9R test vehicle?
This is bent metal territory that SpaceX is in, not just some paper study that I was talking about. SpaceX also was successful last week with a soft landing that could have been recovered had the weather been more cooperative and the landing zone not out in the middle of the ocean... done because it is admittedly in a testing phase where both SpaceX and the FAA-AST aren't comfortable with them getting much closer to populated areas.
What sort of technological barrier do you see in what SpaceX is currently doing that will prevent them from being able to simply land that same spacecraft on land and reuse the engines? All I see is an incremental engineering program of additional refinement of existing processes to get the job done. Not trivial by any means, but the primary challenges have already been accomplished, which was my point.
SpaceX certainly has tested the engines themselves on their test stands for multiple restarts including multiple full mission burns. While perhaps not precisely the same as the kind of experience you get from actual flights, it certainly should be sufficient to be able to determine the statistical likelihood of failure with these engines. If you read the article, SpaceX hasn't claimed how many times they can cycle the 1st stage, but they do have some pretty good data about the flight performance of their engines including several dozen engines that have flown successful missions.
If SpaceX gets the per flight price (not even cost) down to $7 million as they've been suggesting at several recent industry conferences, this weekly flight potential for astronauts may in fact become reality.
It didn't help that NASA violated its own rules by flying that morning with the Challenger. It is even funnier that NASA's own crewed spaceflight guidelines prohibited NASA from using the Space Shuttle even when it was flying.
Guess who issued "waivers" for both of these issues? It wasn't engineers who understood the situation.
It's not condemning them. It's not blinding taking on faith the on-paper theory of one company over the practical experience of multiple multi-billion dollar attempts to do the same over the course of multiple rocket programs.
I might accept your argument if it wasn't for the fact that SpaceX isn't merely making paper studies about this idea. The 1st stage for the Falcon 9 performed a soft landing last week, so it is more practical experience talking from a company who has done it being compared to a company who hasn't been able to do it and in some ways pretending as if the first company didn't actually succeed.
I put the credibility of the responses in this situation more akin to those who deny the Moon landings ever happened.
One of the long-term goals of developing the Methane/LOX engine is that you can manufacture Methane on Mars (as well as make LOX there too). Robert Zurbin has done some studies on that particular topic (he even built some actual hardware to prove the concept could be done). If you don't need to haul the propellant needed for returning to the Earth, it drastically changes the rocket equation so far as what resources you need here on the Earth before you travel to Mars.
Methane has a few interesting challenges as it is still a cryogenic fuel (compared to Kerosene that isn't), but it also falls in a sweet spot where it can be warmer than a similar amount of Delta-v gained from a LOX/LH2 system.
I think it is very likely that even the Falcon 9 will eventually be converted into a Methane/LOX engine. Unfortunately that requires some basic engineering R&D that SpaceX hasn't had the luxury until recently to be able to perform.
It has been a mixed message from NASA in part because there hasn't been a uniform policy on the issue too as well as both strong supporters of what SpaceX is doing and people who were definitely in bed with some traditional rocket manufacturers. It gets real funny when you see press conferences or better yet an academic conference with NASA officials and that sort of schizophrenic love/hate toward SpaceX becomes even more apparent. Sometimes even by the same official, but I've also seen verbal fights break out between two or more "camps" within NASA about "new space" (aka more recent companies involved with commercial spaceflight) in general and SpaceX in particular.
Many of those who are NASA employees are doing their job because they want America to be on the leading edge of exploring space and getting people out to the final frontier. Because they see SpaceX making progress in actually meeting those goals, certainly SpaceX has some fans within NASA. More than a few "nasa.gov" computers stream the live broadcasts of SpaceX on launch day, even when those payloads have nothing to do with NASA at all.
Yes you do need the talent at the factory. Not everything you need to learn about building a rocket is taught at a university, and some of the most talented technicians who know how to bend aluminum and work it into shapes needed for flight are found there too.
If you think it is so damn better and you can do a better job than Elon Musk to figure this kind of thing out, go start up your own company for crying out loud.