Cheap(er) access to space

Onebadhawk
Shop deals on ebay
Wildman Rocketry
The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
There’s a lot not said in this article; the price of the rocket is $5 million but there’s no price for the actual launch.

Payload is given at 110 kilos less than 250lbs. Then it states that the “Average price for lofting a satellite is $133 million but doesn’t give the average weight of said average satellites so there is no way to actually compare costs.

I suspect that IF they can actually build their rocket for the estimated $5 million US and the launch costs can be held to a reasonable amount they will indeed cut by a large amount the price for putting small satellites into LEO and this is by and large a “Good thing”.

But even at $5 million for 250lbs that’s still $20,000 per pound. Let’s see; gold is currently around $1,300 per ounce x 16 oz per lb = 20,800. So if the cost of sending beach sand into orbit was $20K per pound and said sand was magically transformed into 100% pure gold and if the recovery costs were ZERO you would break even.

Now this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be putting satellites into orbit but it does demonstrate that even with this dramatic cut in prices the idea of going into space for resources is, at least with present technology, beyond ludicrous. Or the idea that we could establish and support a permanent research station on the Moon or Mars; what’s that phrase? Pipe dream.

With all that said I wish them luck in their venture. We need all the good ides we can come up with and who knows maybe one of the folks involved in this company will be the person that develops the tech that allows us to put tons into orbit for the prices we now pay for pounds. Stranger things have happened.
 
boomtube said:
There’s a lot not said in this article; the price of the rocket is $5 million but there’s no price for the actual launch.

Payload is given at 110 kilos less than 250lbs. Then it states that the “Average price for lofting a satellite is $133 million but doesn’t give the average weight of said average satellites so there is no way to actually compare costs.

I suspect that IF they can actually build their rocket for the estimated $5 million US and the launch costs can be held to a reasonable amount they will indeed cut by a large amount the price for putting small satellites into LEO and this is by and large a “Good thing”.

But even at $5 million for 250lbs that’s still $20,000 per pound. Let’s see; gold is currently around $1,300 per ounce x 16 oz per lb = 20,800. So if the cost of sending beach sand into orbit was $20K per pound and said sand was magically transformed into 100% pure gold and if the recovery costs were ZERO you would break even.
Click to expand...
If they actually succeed, they'll just lower the lowest-end cost for putting a satellite in orbit, one that for some reason needs a dedicated launch vehicle. Ride sharing on a SpaceX booster would be much, much cheaper per unit of mass.
 
I too wasn't sure exactly where the cost savings were coming from, and I think maybe the comparisons are apples to oranges. It seems like it is basically saying that if you want to launch a very small satellite, then this option to use a small rocket is much more economical and flexible than buying an inappropriately huge rocket or piggybacking on someone else's launch. Is that what this really is? A way to service the small-satelite niche, or is it really a much cheaper way to launch?
 
boomtube said:
There’s a lot not said in this article; the price of the rocket is $5 million but there’s no price for the actual launch.

Payload is given at 110 kilos less than 250lbs. Then it states that the “Average price for lofting a satellite is $133 million but doesn’t give the average weight of said average satellites so there is no way to actually compare costs.

I suspect that IF they can actually build their rocket for the estimated $5 million US and the launch costs can be held to a reasonable amount they will indeed cut by a large amount the price for putting small satellites into LEO and this is by and large a “Good thing”.

But even at $5 million for 250lbs that’s still $20,000 per pound. Let’s see; gold is currently around $1,300 per ounce x 16 oz per lb = 20,800. So if the cost of sending beach sand into orbit was $20K per pound and said sand was magically transformed into 100% pure gold and if the recovery costs were ZERO you would break even.

Now this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be putting satellites into orbit but it does demonstrate that even with this dramatic cut in prices the idea of going into space for resources is, at least with present technology, beyond ludicrous. Or the idea that we could establish and support a permanent research station on the Moon or Mars; what’s that phrase? Pipe dream.

With all that said I wish them luck in their venture. We need all the good ides we can come up with and who knows maybe one of the folks involved in this company will be the person that develops the tech that allows us to put tons into orbit for the prices we now pay for pounds. Stranger things have happened.
Click to expand...

Don't confuse the dreamers with facts... it just upsets them... LOL:)

Later! OL JR :)
 
I can tell you this is going to happen. A friend of mine who steered the 1st Space X Dragon to the ISS has left Space-X and is working with the NX space program. He says its way less stress and a lot like building and flying extra large HPR rockets.
 
luke strawwalker said:
Don't confuse the dreamers with facts... it just upsets them... LOL:)

Later! OL JR :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I should have known better than trust press releases without doing the math myself. I'm, justifiably, a natural skeptic on everything, so that was out of character.
 
Winston said:
Yeah, I should have known better than trust press releases without doing the math myself. I'm, justifiably, a natural skeptic on everything, so that was out of character.
Click to expand...

LOL:)

I just hear SO much of this pie-in-the-sky stuff-- asteroid mining, lunar helium 3, Mars and Moon colonies, MOST "commercial space ventures", MOST "dirt cheap launch costs" projects, etc... There's been enough people over the last 20 years who've said that they were a year away from "revolutionizing space launch costs" and all sorts of other stuff that my BS detector instantly pegs "off scale high" until PROVEN OTHERWISE. These sorts of people talk as if it's a FOREGONE CONCLUSION that they'll be successful, that whatever they're proposing will work as advertised, that they'll get the funding or capitalization they need to build a system, can pull the technology together in a way that works reliably and sustainably for the costs they're talking about, etc... Like SAYING it somehow means they can "will" it into reality...

Sorta like Hitler said, "Tell a lie often enough, and everyone will believe it." It might not be an intentional lie, but saying something doesn't make it so necessarily. Abraham Lincoln said it best, after his general-of-the-moment-in-charge Joe Hooker was explaining exactly how he planned to defeat Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Confederacy as if it were a foregone conclusion and would all come off exactly as he planned it, like it was foreordained-- "The hen is the wisest of God's creatures... for she does not cackle until the egg is laid..."

Reagan promised back in the early-mid 80's a "Orient Express to space" with the NASP program. NASA promised to revolutionize space launch with X-33 and Venturestar (and too many other programs to bother listing). There's been LITERALLY too many "commercial" space launch operators that have come and gone to list... from Roton to Conestoga to Beal, and at least a dozen others... some run by ex-NASA luminaries from Apollo, and they STILL failed. The only ones that have had a good measure of success have been Orbital Sciences Corporation and SpaceX... Only they have backed up stuff they've said with ACTUAL HARDWARE that WORKS AS ADVERTISED.

That's my litmus test for these "claims" that get shouted from the rooftops in the press about this or that new commercial space venture that's going to "revolutionize the space industry"... Until I see some ACTUAL OPERATING HARDWARE WORKING AS ADVERTISED OR DEMONSTRATING PROGRESS, it's all just a bunch of hot air IMHO...

So, my attitude is, "we'll see"...

Later! OL JR :)
 
How many “Single Stage to Orbit” concepts have come a crapper in the past few decades?

Shipwrecked on the rocks of reality?


Double the power/efficiency of the engines while simultaneously cutting the vehicles weight in half; then talk to me about SSTO.

Or just develop “Upsidaisium”.
 
boomtube said:
How many “Single Stage to Orbit” concepts have come a crapper in the past few decades?

Shipwrecked on the rocks of reality?


Double the power/efficiency of the engines while simultaneously cutting the vehicles weight in half; then talk to me about SSTO.

Or just develop “Upsidaisium”.
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure this rocket has two stages.
 
BLKKROW said:
I am pretty sure this rocket has two stages.
Click to expand...

Three stages as per the info on rocketlabusa.com:

Nominal Payload 110kg
Nom. Sun Sync. Orbit 500km
Stages 3
Diameter 1m
Height 18m
PriceUSD 4.9m

This is a conventional rocket. No "unobtanium" required. Just funding, which usually is unobtanable - or at least very volatile.

Jeroen.
 
Jeroen_at_CTI said:
Three stages as per the info on rocketlabusa.com:

Nominal Payload 110kg
Nom. Sun Sync. Orbit 500km
Stages 3
Diameter 1m
Height 18m
PriceUSD 4.9m

This is a conventional rocket. No "unobtanium" required. Just funding, which usually is unobtanable - or at least very volatile.

Jeroen.
Click to expand...

Thats interesting, I did not see the three there. I just same them showing the first and second stage that is where the mistake happened.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top