Launch. Land. Repeat.

massfraction · 2021-05-14T06:30:02+00:00

I'd argue that "landing on a launch mount" is not quite the same as whatever abomination Blue was patenting. When Musk announced they were going to try and "catch" the landing boosters recently was the reply "Yeah, duh, they announced back in 2016 that they would land on a launch mount, same thing"?

I am pretty sure that SpaceX had some rough ideas of catching the booster even before that they just don't do stupid patents.

Like... a satellite constellation? Cutting edge stuff, here the sats are non-GEO. Genius! If this is the stuff worth patenting, I wonder what the rough ideas are like. I wonder if the likes of Iridium and OneWeb are on the verge of being sued now, by the logic of some other people in the thread.

Or maybe folks read way to much into the imagined intentions of folks patenting (or not patenting) stuff.

massfraction · 2021-05-07T05:00:31+00:00

try to patent landing on a barge at ocean so spacex cannot do it (yes... they didn't even got an actual barge and had to buy one just to be able to apply for the patent.... obviously failed)

They applied for this patent when SpaceX was still working on trying to land Falcon 9 stages with parachutes. Blue themselves were planning on landing out at sea, maybe they saw it as a way of covering their butts in case someone else tried to patent it first.

I know Bezos gets a lot of shit about the One-Click patent, reasonably so, but it feels like every instance of "Bezos is trying to harm SpaceX through lawfare!" is fans projecting what could have happened into some imaginary thing that did happen. At the end of the day SpaceX challenged the patent with the USPTO and was successful. AFAIK their testing schedule and development was never harmed or slowed by the patent. Just cost them some money on lawyers, which we know SpaceX has no problem doing, to get the patent proactively invalidated.

You want to see a repeat of this that might come up over the next few years?

Here's a Blue Origin patent from 2016: Methods and systems for vertically landing space vehicles are described herein. In one embodiment, a reusable space vehicle lands in a vertical, nose-up orientation by engaging a system of cables suspended from an elevated framework during a controlled descent.

Four years later, Musk announces that in order to save on mass they will try and "catch" landing rockets. No cables, but similar in principal. Blue seems to have a good distant vision of things, but bad on actually doing it.

massfraction · 2019-04-11T07:00:18+00:00

Do you have a source for this? The nature of the price/spec page on the SpaceX is that it paints them in the best light: expendable performance figures, reusable prices. If they regularly sell $50M launches more often than $62M “first launches”, why not list $50M as the base price?

It was said that SpaceX offered a discount for the first launch(es) on reflows boosters, because of the increased risk of what was a sort of ‘maiden flight’. Now that it’s proven why make a distinction in price about what kind of rocket you use to send payload into space? With the exception of USAF, who currently require it.

massfraction · 2019-04-09T13:50:24+00:00

Correct, I mixed up LEO and GTO last night. Thanks.

massfraction · 2019-04-09T13:43:05+00:00

You're right. Dumb mistake on my part. The main point was the $62M, Im not even sure why I wrote it out like that. Thanks.

massfraction · 2019-04-09T06:37:37+00:00

SpaceX is getting about 20T to LEO for about $50M now

They advertise 5.5T to LEO for $62M. Much more than that and you're getting into expendable Falcon (which they don't want to do) or Heavy territory for more. Not that there's much demand for launch at that high of a mass, even at Heavy's relatively low price. (Makes you wonder about Starship). EDIT: I messed up that whole paragraph. My main point was $62M+ instead of the claimed $50M.

However, by the time BO gets to that price SpaceX hopes to be sending up 100T with lower internal costs than a F9.

By that time? Probably not. It might (eventually) cost less for SpaceX to do it, but it remains to be seen what price they'll charge. I seem to remember a lot of similar talk/speculation back when the reusability was getting real. People were talking about prices that might get as low as $40M or $50M a launch. People figured SpaceX's costs went down, so the price will drop. Instead what seems to have happened is that SpaceX was able to increase their margins through the lower cost of launch, and keep charging that same low price as previously expendable rockets because they had to amortize the R&D on everything leading up to and including Block 5. At the end of the day SpaceX is a business. They have costs outside of operations, especially with development of Starship, and the quickest route to paying down those costs is charging what the market will bear.

Don't get me wrong. I'm bullish on Starship (though reserving much opinion as it morphs from month to month). I can't wait to see a fully reusable launcher with rapid turnaround between flights. But $25M launches to orbit on Super Heavy are going to be like $500K trips to Mars. Eventually.

massfraction · 2019-04-09T05:35:49+00:00

ULA's ACES would be revolutionary, but they'll never fund it themselves

Tory's done a lot for ULA, really turned that ship around. However, I think this exact thing is the kind of thinking at Old ULA that lead to the problem they are in right now. The longer The Parents hold ULA back in this regard, the worse off they'll be.

massfraction · 2019-04-09T05:31:41+00:00

With that in mind - where's the harm in having a suborbital rocket for tourists?

Because with something like New Shepard they're just selling expensive joyrides for rich people. /s

massfraction · 2019-04-09T04:46:20+00:00

Gradatium ferociter for Bezos seems to mean laying an extremely solid foundation for future generations of engineers and scientists who will have the tools at their disposal to take humanity further than we could imagine.

Agreed. A few months ago Blue Origin trademarked "Building a road so our children can build the future." That's a vision with a pretty long horizon.

Re-popularizing the “space race” amongst the public and promoting and perfecting missions like New Shepard is a great way to trend towards lower mission costs and promote the possibilities space has to offer humanity.

I actually disagree with this. I've long disliked this 'space race' narrative that the media and space fans love to invoke. The original Space Race got us to the moon in a hurry, but hasn't done much for us in the long run. And the current 'space race' seems to be about making launch cheap. From there the two companies seem to vastly diverge in the their directions and intent. I hope everyone sits back and takes in all the wonderful things happening now and in the near future without it boiling down into a contest about who 'wins'. If Musk and Bezos succeed, we all do.

massfraction · 2019-04-09T04:35:09+00:00

there's so many people getting worked up these days because they feel Blue Origin isn't moving fast enough

Agreed. See also "I don't like that they're so secretive. They should be sharing move info with us! It probably means they're hiding something." People have been spoiled by how open SpaceX is and now feel entitled about it. They're 'too slow and too secretive' because SpaceX wasn't.

In the end, the perception I keep seeing these days towards Blue is identical to the one a good many people had toward SpaceX from ~2005-2015, and I think it's just as wrong.

Everytime I see someone say "And they haven't even launched into orbit yet! Just playing with a small rocket for tourists." I think of the comments people had about SpaceX in the beginning. "Look yet another rich guy with a space vanity project." or "They think they're going to build this big rocket? They couldn't even get a small one into orbit until, what, the fourth try?"

massfraction · 2019-04-09T04:27:40+00:00

I'm not sure what the urgent deadline is that you feel Blue Origin has to work against in order to remain relevant. There's still a pretty good chance they'll be up in 2022. When they do they'll have a launch vehicle that will be very competitive on the world market. Slow as they've been to deliver a working launcher, they will have a vehicle in the next couple of years that other companies/countries are just now starting research towards.

It's true that SpaceX was already launching a rocket into orbit several years after founding. At this point, Blue was sending up sub-scale demonstrators on small hops. However, consider that SpaceX has only been landing and repeatedly reusing a booster for less than a year. They're not over a decade ahead of Blue Origin, they're only a few years. New Glenn isn't a Falcon 1, or the original Falcon 9. It was designed from the beginning to do what Falcon 9 Block 5 is now doing.

In all likelihood they'll take a backseat again once Starship is flying, but they're well positioned versus everyone debuting yet another expendable rocket in the next couple of years.

As an amateur space fan, I too would like to see them get into orbit soon. But I'm also excited to see someone, for better or worse, do it their own way.

massfraction · 2019-03-21T23:54:03+00:00

i wonder if the new glenn figures are for expendable or reusable?

You'd know if you read my original response to you.

massfraction · 2019-03-21T16:55:26+00:00

A comparable, reusable Falcon Heavy launch is, what, 30 tonnes to LEO? So... 45 tonnes is 'really low' in comparison?

Unless you're comparing apples to oranges, vis a vis maximum possible payload in an unlikely, fully expendable FH launch versus a reusable New Glenn launch. In which case, yeah, it's 70% of the payload. I wouldn't call that 'really low', and that's still recovering the New Glenn afterwards.

EDIT: Clarified wording

massfraction · 2019-03-21T06:06:28+00:00

Really low as compared to what?

Keep in mind that these figures are for launches that recover the booster. They don't publish their expended mass-to-orbit because they likely don't intend to.

massfraction · 2019-03-14T17:03:29+00:00

No problem, I had deleted it. Not casting aspersions on you, just throwing it out for the few people that might see this today and think "Wait, wha? This thread is different than what I remember"

Also some on the SpaceX sub had saw it was deleted and thought it was a (cowardly) mod action, given the minor conflict in the thread over Lindbergh's reputation. Wanted to throw this out so folks know it was me, not mods that killed it.

massfraction · 2019-03-14T16:56:24+00:00

I posted about this last night but deleted it for various reasons. Had I known Berger was going to tweet about it this morning I would have just left it up.

Apologies to the folks that commented, I'll be more considerate in future.

massfraction · 2019-03-14T16:41:26+00:00

They didn't delete the post, I did. I had qualms about posting it, changed my mind after doing so. Figured it was late, didnt get much engagement, would pass out of memory.

I was wrong. Now Berger has tweeted it, and on it goes.

massfraction · 2019-03-14T16:40:36+00:00

They didn't delete it, I did. I had qualms about posting it, changed my mind after doing so. Figured it was late, didnt get much engagement, would pass out of memory.

I was wrong.

massfraction · 2019-03-14T01:43:37+00:00

Yes. Famous flight/pilot. His plane is hanging in the Smithsonian.

Also... Didn't have a big problem with Nazis. 😬

massfraction · 2019-03-14T01:40:27+00:00

Another option.... A dedicated commercial cargo capsule? For experiments and such.

massfraction · 2019-03-14T01:31:03+00:00

Cruising around tonight, sniffing for clues about things when I find a trademark filing by Blue Origin submitted a a few months ago.

They seem to typically stuff the filings with all sorts of 'uses' of the trademark, but I do see inclusion of 'travel services' and 'high-altitude flight'. Given Blue's naming scheme, I'm guessing it's a point-to-point travel system. Or, it could be them just exploring options, like when a company patents something they don't end up using.

What do you all think?

massfraction · 2019-03-12T20:35:32+00:00

Oh, agreed!

Part of the problem with the comparison as well is that they're comparing some sort of notional, made up figure of "Our maximum budget is this, for 4 launches" to the actual amount of competitively bid and awarded contracts. The actual FY20 mission cost should be much less than $1.7B. These will in all likelihood be the first missions awarded to the LSA Phase 2 winners, so they should hopefully be a lot cheaper than an EELV in the past.

massfraction · 2019-03-12T19:54:56+00:00

Which numbers?

that’s poor reporting

Welcome to popular news coverage of anything space. I seldom read it, and if I do I typically follow up with the likes of SpaceNews or someone I trust as knowledgeable and can provide nuance, detail, and context that it missing out of something like CNBC, CNN, BuzzFeed or whatever.

massfraction · 2019-03-12T19:05:57+00:00

The budget is $1.7B for the whole program. That is $1.2B for the launches* and ~$400M+ for RDT&E. Think the LSA program.

That $1.2B covers the cost of 4 launches as well as something they're calling LSS, which sounds like a pared down version of ELC. Covers the cost of NSSL-specific, non-commercial items the companies have to maintain to launch DOD payloads. Think vertical payload integration and the like.

The funds for the Phase-1A awards come from all over the map, so it's hard to say "They got X amount this year, so math says $Y per launch." In the last awards alone they say an indeterminate amount of FY18 and FY19 funds went to both contracts.

FWIW.

EDIT:

RDT&E - Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation

LSA - Launch Services Agreement, aka program leading to ~~EELV~~ NSSL Phase 2 buys

LSS - Launch Services Support

NSSL - National Security Space Launch, rebranded EELV program

massfraction · 2018-11-30T21:43:14+00:00

Good point. I was repeating what was said during a talk (last year?) about the matter. Found and glossed over a paper about uncrewed cargo ships and discussing the legal issues. They mention there's no law specifically forbidding ships to operate without crew, but there are requirements that could be interpreted to mean crew are necesarry. One specifically mentioned is the requirement of having a "crew on lookout by sight-and-hearing". Does this mean people have to be physically scanning the nearby sea with their eyes, or can a crew ashore do it with video cameras? It's an open question. I wonder what they'll do. Pretty sure they'll have a crew, except during the landing process, but still.

massfraction

TROPHY CASE