> I like seeing American companies succeeding. But perhaps Musk should dial down the hyperbole.
We need to make difference between hyperbole about SpaceX and its mission and much more specific claims by SpaceX leadership about Falcon 9 and its re-usability.
> But reusability isn't a panacea for cost savings.
Yes, it isn't, literally nobody ever said it was a panacea, it requires carful engineering in terms of the system you use and do a lot of careful operational engineering. And iterate on both of those things.
> This is where Thunderf00t does a real good job explaining the issues because they aren't space-specific
I refuse to watch any more Thunderf00t videos, all that I have watch have been full of such gross characterizations and misinformation that I believe he is neither credible nor acting in good faith.
I rather react to what Tory is saying, I will not give him clicks.
> you have to carry the fuel for return, which severely cuts into the amount of payload you can take up. Also, maintenance is expensive. But the issues are there. Tory Bruno, the CEO of ULA lays out the challenges of reusable rockets: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/ftstmv/tony_o... . Yes, he's a competitor, but his argument strikes me as honest and credible.
I addressed all of these things and I have addressed most of them in my first post.
I like Tory and he is a good guy, but as you said he is competitor and he sees it as he sees it. Lets also remember that his predecessor was fired partly because he publicly said they couldn't compete with SpaceX, so we know what happens if Tory said something different.
But let me offer a couple of points. He literally only list the negatives as he sees it. He ignores all potential positives as well.
The ability to improve the design over time from inspection, reduce over-engineering, lower tolerances, replace high risk parts and so on. These things have allow SpaceX to increase the performance by a quite a lot. A reusable Falcon 9 now, launches way more then a Falcon 9 in 12 did without re-usability. And at least part of that is because SpaceX learned so much about the design of their engines.
He mentions some parts that might be replaced, but he doesn't mention that some of those parts could very likely also fly 100 or more times. So you need to consider the upside as well. If do pass that threshold he mentions, the downside he mentions, must equally be applied to the upside as well (and he clearly isn't doing that).
The potential of having a large set of ready rockets. ULA was literally paid a billion $ in subsidies (but Tory would not call them that) so they were launch ready for the military. SpaceX now offers that same service for literally no extra cost.
Tory argues this was perfectly fair money that ULA received (but it didn't help them compete in the private market apparently) but then he assigns no value to the large availability of launch ready rockets.
His assumptions are also based on what he things cost are, and it has been demonstrated many times now, that just because industry insiders believe cost are a certain way, turns out SpaceX can do them for much less. So why would I know believe him on how high these costs are.
He also ignores that re-usability can increase your launch rate and thus divide your fix cost over a much larger amount of flights. ULA right now is spending many 100s of millions on pad upgrades. These upgrades are virtually the same even if you launch 2x as much.
He also makes no point about margin. If you have a 5% margin, and it cost you 5% to achieve re-usability then its not worth it. But if you have a 50-100% margin, then a 5% extra cost means incredibly high winnings.
He also doesn't account for shared infrastructure and development. Landing software and technology required for landing on earth will partly apply to landing for all other NASA missions. ULA might see maintain a team of landing engineers as a cost, rather then an opportunity. SpaceX will use this development forward for many projects and its not a cost, rather then a strategic capability for the spaceflight company, not just a thin launch provider.
He also ignores the increase efficiency of your launch team, if you can launch once a week, you are simply forced to have processes that enable that. Having an efficient team, with efficient processes that can quickly educate new people is a huge benefit.
Consider ULA still launching the Delta 4 Heavy in comparison, the knowledge can be used very few times. It will be better with Vulcan but not comparable to Falcon 9. Again, this is less team utilization, less efficient processes and less knowledge sharing and development.
Also, it is short sighted. He sights many technological problems that simply need to be overcome, as re-usability is clearly right in the long run. Saying we only invest in something once its 100% proven and there is basically 0 risk will simply lead you to being a government only specialty contract that for a time can depend on the government funding because you have no competition. They would not even have done a new rocket if not for SpaceX.
SpaceX is proven the case right now with what they are doing, even if you believe Tory very high estimate of 10 flights, SpaceX has basically shown that this is possible with the current design. Sure their avg is not 10 yet, and of course you could then say 'see its not 100% proven' but simply closing your eyes and waiting until it is literally undeniable is not required for most of the world (basically non SpaceX competitors).
Basically all credible future SpaceX competitors (that don't have fancy government monopolies)
have announced working on a re-usable vehicles because they knew there is simply no other economical way to compete and they don't feel the need to deny that SpaceX has cracked it and its either respond or die. The RocketLab CEO literally at his hat.
Consider also this ULA literally had a launch monopoly, in addition to getting absurdly high launch prices for a decade plus, and in addition getting an absurd amount of subsidies (sorry I mean launch readiness guarantees for 900M a year). Despite that, they also got another almost billion to develop their new launch vehicle. Despite that they have not even attempted to implement any even remotely innovative ideas in the last 2 decades. Taking a company like that seriously in terms of their analysis in future technology and how profitable it could be is not credible.
Now, if you actually listen to SpaceX team, and admittedly they are bias in the other direction. They claim operationally even only flying it once would still be worth doing. This is not just Elon Musk but other of the leadership as well. I think that excludes the development cost however. They are closing in on proving that 10 is viable with pretty fast turn around already, and the turn-around avg has been decreasing constantly.
The have also said there is no indication that 10 is end of life and very likely more is very achievable.
At the end of the day, re-usability simply allows you to do things that would otherwise be possible and that alone has a gigantic worth, potentially more then anything. And of course Tory as CEO of ULA only looks at launch because they are a government created (literally) and government funded launch provide, they have no power to invest any of their profits in themselves. Tory is the CEO, but don't think just because he is the CEO, he has anywhere close to the freedom Musk has.
There is simply no way SpaceX could launch every 2 weeks if they had to build all those rockets and rocket engine from scratch and there is no way you could go beyond that.
tl:dr; Even using the most conservative approach advocated by a competitor, SpaceX is close to even jumping that threshold. By any realistic approaches from independent annalists, they have jumped it already.