[Maymayfor]

That's the entire human race, Sn00py. Not so many then.

[heinz_1966]

No, I still think 5000 is a lot. By now it must be a pretty standard procedure. We should know what works and what won't work.

[chootsonege]

Originally posted by Sn00py
No, I still think 5000 is a lot. By now it must be a pretty standard procedure. We should know what works and what won't work. Perhaps we should. But the fact is that we don't. There's a pretty consistent 4% failure rate.

There are those in the private sector who are working on this problem. But they aren't ready to launch yet.

SpaceX should be much safer than the 4% failure rate, once they get the kinks worked out of their system.

[ziIReIGS]

Originally posted by DanS


Not particularly profitable. However, the profit has been guaranteed, since they have done cost plus contracts. What incentive does SpaceX have to try to reinvent this very expensive wheel then?

[EzekelEnzino]

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, confirmed that the rocket was lost. He says that this was a good day for the company nonetheless, since they demonstrated quite a few capabilities. The first stage performed well. The stages separated. The second stage ignited and burned. And the fairing was jettisoned successfully.

[lh88gFzI]

/me whistles

There's your answer, Geronimo.

[beethyday]

$7 million is considered extremely low pricing.

That was my point.

Who knows how much it actually cost.

You don't think it costs more, do you? This doesn't seem to be an industry where you can up for negative margins with volume...

[Aozenee]

Lost? As in they can't find it or it blew up or what?

Hey maybe NASA sabotaged it?

[Optipitle]

Maybe it landed in your front yard. Have you checked?

They'll have to get the radar tracking information from the range to know where it landed.

[indartwm]

Originally posted by DanS


670 kg to Low Earth Orbit.

It should be noted that SpaceX priced the rocket believing that they may be able to reduce the price, once they get a good handle on whether they can reuse the first stage. The first stage that flew tonight will be picked up by a ship and brought back to California for inspection.

Also, to have a small rocket that is more cost-effective than a big rocket is a novelty. meaning the current price assumes it is reusable or that the current price assumes it not reusable?

[swwatch]

I wonder how profitable the Russian rocket industry is. If spaceX succeeds in making this thing reliable perhaps the Russians could put them out of business simply by dropping their prices further still.

[Cajlwdvx]

It looks like they made about 300 km -- well into space. But they never made orbital velocity.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...lc1_test2.html

Elon Musk is positioning this as a 95% successful exercise. That seems like taking some liberties, but I think they should be happy nonetheless about lots of successes on the day. We now know that the rocket mostly works.

For sure, nobody has ever fired the engine, experienced an anomaly, shut down the engine, unfueled, refueled, and then launched an hour later. Such capabilities are new in space launch.

[Edwardthe_third]

Originally posted by DanS
It looks like they made about 300 km -- well into space. But they never made orbital velocity.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...lc1_test2.html

Elon Musk is positioning this as a 95% successful exercise. That seems like taking some liberties, but I think they should be happy nonetheless about lots of successes on the day. We now know that the rocket mostly works.

For sure, nobody has ever fired the engine, experienced an anomaly, shut down the engine, unfueled, refueled, and then launched an hour later. Such capabilities are new in space launch. Does it appreciably add to their launch costs when they shut down, unfuel, refuel, delay, etc?

[ecosportpol_ru]

I don't know what the figures are, but the weeks-long and months-long delays have to be killer expensive -- if not in dollar figures, then at least in schedule compression and loss of good will from customers. Customers will stay with rocket companies that launch on time. Customers' confidence is increased by launching on time.

As far as I know, rocket companies pay an hourly rate to range employees. Then you probably rent radar, telemetry and communications resources. And SpaceX pays for the barge to recover the first stage. If you delay much, I'm sure the costs add up in ways that might not be readily apparent.

If you always launch on schedule, there's a positive reinforcement loop. Working from the Marshall Islands, the costs probably aren't that expensive. There is little human activity in the environs of the Marshall Islands. But at Cape Canaveral, the most expensive launch range, all sorts of restrictions are in place. Airline flights up and down the East coast are restricted during potential launch times, cops have to patrol the sea and beaches to make sure ships and beach bums don't come within the hazard zone, etc. All of those costs must add up something fierce.

Launch on time and you only have to pay once. If you are able to launch in all weather, that must be a great advantage. I seriously doubt that the Space Shuttle would have launched with the weather in the Marshall Islands yesterday, even though it looked pretty good from the webcast. On the YouTube clip, as the Falcon 1 passed through the clouds, there was lots of water on the rocket. The Falcon 1 can launch with 40 knots of wind so that delays are minimized, etc.

[Obenuearema]

Yes, that's a very good point. The solution seems to be to front-load the government customers, if they are willing to take on the risk. DARPA is the designated risk-taker for the U.S. Government. The U.S. government will need launch services until the end of time, so they can make up the cost with price differentials on future launches.

For SpaceX, that means the first private customer will be the 6th launch. MDA of Canada (the folks who built the Canadarm for the Space Station) will be the customer for that launch. The Malaysian space agency is the first non-U.S. Government customer and will take on the 4th launch.

Overall, this problem would go away if there were a private customer that launched frequently. They would be willing to accept some risk on each individual launch, knowing that they would more than make up the difference as they enjoy the price reduction on future launches.