/sci/ - Science & Math

yes they are a gimmick, as reusable planes and cars are as well.

>>12676155
Gimmick. Rocket equation makes real space expansion basically impossible.

They need the price of launch to be lower or else space travel will never be practical.

>>12676155
They don't actually make space travel affordable in the way that some like to advertise, but they are a necessary step in lowering launch costs if space is ever going to become industrialized

>>12676171
Condoms too.

>>12676202
> Doesn't make space travel affordable
> Just lowers launch costs
???

>>12676217
Meaning it doesn't make it cheap enough to colonize space with humans and it never will

>>12676217
Barely does so. Musk subsidizes all the rocket launches, and used shitty parts with no redundancies. The actual lowering you get from the reusability is very debatable.

>>12676171
yea I know, I'm glad I'm not the only one who throws his car out into the ocean after every trip

>>12676245
Space has always been subsidized because the insane capital costs. Dumb burger.

>>12676155
They are the future obviously

>>12676287
Yes but by subsidizes I mean generates virtually 0 profit so that the face-value price tag of each launch, including the reusable ones, is lower than would be otherwise

>>12676287
This.

In the end the State of California subsidizes SpaceX because through the Tesla-carbon-credit scheme.

>>12676245
>The actual lowering you get from the reusability is very debatable.
You are retarded

>>12676173
>They need the price of launch to be lower or else space travel will never be practical.

Or you know, think of something other than archaic technology from medieval times....

>>12676325
>"Noo, but this doesn't apply to the Muskyboo boosters!!!!"
>nth rocket blows up on launch bc shitty components and cut costs on refurbishment

>>12676334
science fiction

>>12676245

>>12676552
Musket rockets blow up God laughs

>>12676347
The space shuttle was bullshit because of the tiles and retarded completely. The falcons are putting satellites up for pennies in comparison. This is why you are retarded because you are using information that is over a decade old to describe a new industry changing process. Also the shuttle boosters were not reuseable

>>12676155
$2 Million launch
vs
$2 Billion launch

>>12676588
>"Noo, but this doesn't apply to the Muskyboo boosters!!!!"
>nth rocket blows up on launch bc shitty components and cut costs on refurbishment

>>12676155
All rockets are a meme as long as they use ch*mical propulsion

>>12676639
You don't know what you're talking about. It literally doesn't apply to the falcon 9, they just turned one around in under a month with a small team of people in a hangar. Turning the shuttle around took 6-8 months minimum and required a massive team of people in multiple specialized buildings to cater to it's fragile engines, heat shield, and aluminum spaceframe structure that needed constant fatigue inspection. The falcon 9 appears to require some component checks that can be done by a small site team in under a month, and some engine changes that (based on what we see at boca chica) can be done in less than a day. SpaceX also has a buffer of literally hundreds of mass-produced merlin engines sitting around.

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Equating the postflight processing of the shuttle and the falcon 9 is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Go back.

Pic related is a comparison of the shuttle processing facility and the falcon 9 processing facility.

>>12676666
FUCKING CHECKEM

>>12676666
that guy is retarded to argue that reusable rockets are pointless, but they still aren't making space truly accessible like musk acts like

>>12676711
For now. The peripheral effects of launch costs dropping ~70% due to F9 caused a boom in the off-the-shelf space parts industry (price of making and launching cubesat in 2005 versus now is insanely different, both in launch price and in price of components) and starship is likely to drop the price by another factor of 5-10 when fully operational. I personally think the $2 million per launch number is still very aspirational, but even at $10 million per launch it's a complete game changer.

Also, checked

>>12676737
>>12676711
>>12676666
>SpaceX has already changed the game!
I'm not going to trust SpaceX or Musk announcements.
Refurbishing boosters is cheap because Musk cuts costs by using shitty parts and procedure. $10 mil per launch is a complete fucking meme.

>>12676759
Well, I'll see you in 10 years and we'll see what starship costs. Hint: You will be wrong.

>>12676155

imho too much stress on the materials makes this not viable

The only thing humanity should be investing into is a space elevator. The sooner the better.

>>12676763
You've had literally half a century to get orbital infrastructure in place.

>>12676765
with modern day materials that is a meme

>>12676772
Materials aren't gonna advance either. Good luck trying to mass-produce nanorods.

>>12676769
What are you talking about? Who is "you?"

>>12676765
SpaceX has already reused boosters 8 times and their most recent turnaround was 27 days

if passenger airliner fuselages can go through thousands of hard landings and pressure cycles, i think we can make a rocket stage last 100 times

>>12676778
Spacetards

>>12676772

it is but it should be extensively researched as it constitutes a far better long-term investment than rockets

we're reaching a point where we'll be able to nano-design materials with whatever properties are necessary. it stands to reason that preliminary work on such a project should be well underway

rockets are simply not viable because of the stress on materials. they will never be viable and it requires way too many resources and money to keep them going and build them over and over again with a very small payload they can actually deliver

a fully operational space elevator, even a rudimentary one, would make costs of moving something into space trivial

>>12676780

it's fundamentally different because airplanes do not go through the same material stress as rockets do due to launches

>>12676786
Which is why I prescribed fatigue cycles an order of magnitude lower for rockets.

>>12676783
How was I supposed to glean that from what you said? Take your meds.

>>12676769
>>12676778
He is a slant eyed ricenigger and has been shitting up these threads constantly

>>12676245
Why, if he uses shitty parts with no redundancies, does his falcon 9 have the best measured reliability in the industry?

>>12676759
You realize that spreadsheet is garbage, right

>>12676957
why

>>12676784
Starship will be cheaper than a space elevator, and it'll go to a more useful orbit (there is absolutely zero reason to go out to GEO)
Space elevators might be cool on the moon though

>>12676958
You get reuses + 1 flights out of your rocket, and also Tory is a nigger.

>>12676969
that doesn't seem like it will affect the math to the point where your reuse index is lower than 1.

>>12676347
NASA has always been extremely inefficient. This is why they hand contracts to spaceX

>>12676985
Yeah but but spacex is little better, it's the other end of the stick: you get "efficiency" at the expense of reliability, human readiness, proper testing, quality-assured parts ...

>>12676245
Not sure if retarded or just drank too much oldspace Koolaid. SpaceX is the dominant launch provider in the USA and arguably globally, boasting very high reliability, payload capacity and even private launch of astronauts. No other space company or government agency is even close, except ironically Roscosmos, but they are getting worse every year due to lack of R&D and no more skilled and motivated workers.

>>12676245

>>12676996
you're talking out of your asshole and you're too young to remember all of NASA's rocket failures in the early days

>>12677107
I think these are the same people who see some "test to destruction" footage of facebook and start making retard comments

>>12677114
Such people are what is referred to as background noise. The echoes from the crab bucket left in the basement.

>>12676662
opposed to mechanical propulsion? electrical? nuclear? dood, what the fuck are you on about, we cant use any alternatives in the atmosphere, they are either providing any significant delta v on surface level, or are even more hazardous. you are one of these "its 2021, by now we should already have an alternative for sure" retards

>>12676171
fpbp
/thread

>>12676347
The shuttle had a pretty shitty design and the carbon fiber parts needed constantly to be substituted at a huge price (subcontractors etc.)

>>12676711
>truly accessible
Define this term.

>>12677120
This supports my private theory that what Musk is *really* doing is developing a platform-agnostic, modular propulsion system.

Waste of tax payer money. Research on them should be banned for some unspecified period to prevent speculation because it's reaching crazy proportions already.

>>12677107
This is the whole fleet? I'm surprised they don't have more

>>12676347
>using the space shuttle as example

>>12677136
don't bother arguing with /scifi/ retards

>>12676786
The forces that rockets experience are pretty mild compared to fighter jet.

The main issue is engine reliability, however jet engines started out with operational lives of only 20 hours.
Up till Merlin, booster engines generally weren't designed to fire more than a couple of times and they had no restart capability.
Ultimately I don't see why this problem cannot be solved, a rocket engine is basically just a big pump.

>>12678114
There is also the issue of heat shield re-usability in some proposed vehicles...

>>12678019
there is not a single tax payer dollar involved, its all space x money

>>12676171
>cars and planes are subjected to the same forces and conditions as rockets

>>12678372
that's not true btw

>>12677107
Why do they look different ? (not talking about color).

>>12678380
SpaceX is no more funded by the US government than Ford is funded by you when you purchase a car. Tax payers are not funding their RnD.

>>12678382
I'm dumb. Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy

>>12676155
It's a meme, we should have been investing on vacuum airships instead

>>12678393
spacex has received hundreds of millions from NASA, mostly for developing Dragon. That's less than spacex has spent of their own money on the program, though

>>12678409
actually, I take that back. It's billions

>>12678393
Here's a NASA analysis of return on investment in the COTS program, page 7 has an overview of what they've spent on each company
>https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008895.pdf

>>12676347
>>12676563

Hey moron how many Falcon 9 rockets have blown up unintentionally since that one in 2016? Hmm?

>>12678409
>>12678413

>NASA is customer for human spaceflight
>Puts out contract requesting new human spaceflight vehicle
>Part of the contract includes costs for R&D since it's only fair, a company has no financial incentive to develop a space capsule from scratch and THEN win a contract, that would just be fucking stupid, right?
>SpaceX wins contract, as part of contract gets funds for R&D
>Execute contract and deliver, creates arguably the most successful LEO vehicle program since Soyuz
>Retards like you: No hE uSEd GOvErMent MonEY!

>>12678482
>blown up unintentionally since that one in 2016?
not even that one blew up unintentionally, it was aborted automatically. it might have continued to go to orbit, but the computer said "nuh, better not" and pushed the detonate button

>>12676666
ngl left looks comfy tho