Space X announces 42-engine reusable rocket

[Eddie Teach]

As a bonus, mining in space has none of the enviornmentally harmful effects that mining on earth does.

I'm sure environmental groups are gonna fully agree. They don't even think we have the right to fuck up our own planet, surely they'll love for us to rape space.

The lunatic fringe, maybe, but they won't get much traction without NIMBY types.

[The Brain]

As a bonus, mining in space has none of the enviornmentally harmful effects that mining on earth does.

I'm sure environmental groups are gonna fully agree. They don't even think we have the right to fuck up our own planet, surely they'll love for us to rape space.

The lunatic fringe, maybe, but they won't get much traction without NIMBY types.

Like how the interior of Antarctica is fair game?

[Eddie Teach]

I have no idea.

But I'll note that changes to the environment in Antarctica(like the hole in ozone layer) affect the rest of the planet. Will this e true of asteroid mining? I don't know.

[Valmy]

Of course not. They are committed to saving the Earth Mother. The sexist Sky Father can go get fucked.

But speaking of saving Father Sky we might want to clean up all that space trash orbiting earth at 8 km a second before we start mining all the asteroids.

[The Minsky Moment]

The first men and the first nation that effectively exploits the resources of the solar system will grow fabulously wealthy. That's like asking "what's the point of these rich merchants investing in steam engines to the rest of us" in the mid18th century.

The first people and the first nation to exploit the resources of the Andromeda galaxy will also be fabulously wealthy.  But that doesn't mean it makes sense to invest billions of dollars into an inter-galactic mining venture now. 

It's a simple question of ROI given existing technology.  If it's there - fine, but if it's not there then the fact that someone will become fabuously wealthy in the future is irrelevant.  All that will happen now is that someone fabulously wealthy will become somewhat less fabulously wealthy - or, more likely, that they will waste a bunch of other peoples' money.

[Razgovory]

The fact that two billionaires have vanity projects and are trying to raise money from similarly-minded idle rich does not address the question of what the fuck the point would be for the rest of us.

Is this a serious question? The first men and the first nation that effectively exploits the resources of the solar system will grow fabulously wealthy. That's like asking "what's the point of these rich merchants investing in steam engines to the rest of us" in the mid18th century.

Cheap platinum group metals and rare earth minerals will lower the cost of electronics and many industrial devices, and allow engineers to design and build many technological advances that rely on those materials being cheap. As a bonus, mining in space has none of the enviornmentally harmful effects that mining on earth does.


Well if you make a mistake in earth orbit with hundred million tons of iron or platinum you might just cause a mass extinction.

[Admiral Yi]

Is this a serious question? The first men and the first nation that effectively exploits the resources of the solar system will grow fabulously wealthy. That's like asking "what's the point of these rich merchants investing in steam engines to the rest of us" in the mid18th century.

Cheap platinum group metals and rare earth minerals will lower the cost of electronics and many industrial devices, and allow engineers to design and build many technological advances that rely on those materials being cheap. As a bonus, mining in space has none of the enviornmentally harmful effects that mining on earth does.


Well if you make a mistake in earth orbit with hundred million tons of iron or platinum you might just cause a mass extinction.

It wasn't a question at all, serious or ridiculous.  It was a statement.

Second, I was responding to a post chain that, at least in my perception, was about colonizing Mars, not remote mining.

Third, see Joan's post about the relationship between getting fabulously wealthy, technology, and rate of return.

[Razgovory]

Oops.

[jimmy olsen]

The first men and the first nation that effectively exploits the resources of the solar system will grow fabulously wealthy. That's like asking "what's the point of these rich merchants investing in steam engines to the rest of us" in the mid18th century.

The first people and the first nation to exploit the resources of the Andromeda galaxy will also be fabulously wealthy.  But that doesn't mean it makes sense to invest billions of dollars into an inter-galactic mining venture now. 

It's a simple question of ROI given existing technology.  If it's there - fine, but if it's not there then the fact that someone will become fabuously wealthy in the future is irrelevant.  All that will happen now is that someone fabulously wealthy will become somewhat less fabulously wealthy - or, more likely, that they will waste a bunch of other peoples' money.

Without question it exists now. Musk has already cut the cost to orbit by 80%. The United Launch Alliance charges  the military over 400 million dollars per launch, Musk charges 90 million. And that's nearly a 50% mark up due to all the national security loops they have to go through. He charges commercial ventures 65 million.

That's not even taking into account the reusable rockets he has just developed. That's going to cut the cost to launch F9s to 30 million (a conservative estimate).

Blue Origin has likewise developed reusable rocket technology.

[jimmy olsen]

Musk on the March!

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40404201

SpaceX completes launch and landing double bill
By Jonathan Amos

BBC Science Correspondent

US rocket company SpaceX completed back-to-back launches at the weekend.

Late on Friday, it used one of its refurbished Falcon 9 vehicles to put up a Bulgarian satellite from Florida.

Then on Sunday, SpaceX lofted another 10 spacecraft for telecommunications company Iridium. This time, the rocket flew out of California.

Both missions saw the Falcon first-stages come back to Earth under control to drone ships that had been positioned out on the ocean.

It means SpaceX has now had 13 landing successes for those missions it has sought to recover the booster. That said, Friday's first-stage had a particularly hard landing, and looked bent over on the live video feed.

"Rocket is extra toasty and hit the deck hard (used almost all of the emergency crush core), but otherwise good," quipped SpaceX chief executive, Elon Musk, on Twitter.

His firm does not expect to recover every booster, because the flight profile required on many satellite launches will lead to re-entry speeds that are simply too fast to curtail with the available propellant.

Friday's mission was launched from the US East Coast, from the Kennedy Space Center's famous Apollo and shuttle pad, 39A.


The "second-hand" Falcon 9 lifted off at 15:10 local time (1910 GMT).

Its passenger, BulgariaSat-1, was dropped off in orbit, some 30 minutes later.
The spacecraft will be used to beam TV into homes in Bulgaria and Serbia.

The Falcon booster was last flown in January, to launch 10 satellites for the Iridium sat-phone and data-relay company. And it was another Iridium launch that topped out the weekend's activities.

This second mission, on a brand new Falcon, occurred on the West Coast, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Iridium is in the midst of replacing its global network of satellites. Another 10 went up on this latest flight.

SpaceX has another six launches on the books for Iridium, whose existing network of more than 60 spacecraft is now well past its design life.

Sunday's lift-off occurred at 13:25 local time (20:25 GMT). The returning booster on this occasion sported new titanium grid fins to help steer the vehicle back to its waiting drone ship.

The titanium ought to be more robust than the previous aluminium type, said Mr Musk, removing the requirement for repair or replacement. This should speed the turnaround of future boosters for re-use.

"New titanium grid fins worked even better than expected. Should be capable of an indefinite number of flights with no service," the CEO tweeted.

[jimmy olsen]

The numbers for my claim two posts up.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget-reveals-how-much-spacex-undercuts-launch-prices/?comments=1&post=33504873

SCIENTIFIC METHOD —
Air Force budget reveals how much SpaceX undercuts launch prices
Spoiler alert: It's a lot.

ERIC BERGER - 6/16/2017, 7:55 AM

A Delta IV Heavy rocket launches a national security satellite in 2016.
United Launch Alliance
In 2014, the US Government Accountability Office issued a report on cost estimates for the US Air Force's program to launch national security payloads, which at the time consisted of a fleet of rockets maintained and flown entirely by United Launch Alliance (ULA). The report was critical of the non-transparent nature of ULA's launch prices and noted that the government "lacked sufficient knowledge to negotiate fair and reasonable launch prices" with the monopoly.

At around the same time, the new space rocket company SpaceX began to aggressively pursue the opportunity to launch national security payloads for the government. SpaceX claimed to offer a substantially lower price for delivering satellites into various orbits around Earth. But because of the lack of transparency, comparing prices was difficult.

The price uncertainty was largely due to the fact that the government pays both a firm, fixed-price cost for the rocket used for each ULA launch—be it an Atlas V, Delta IV, or Delta IV Heavy—as well as a cost-plus incentive fee known as an ELC contract. This ELC contact was essentially a payment to ULA to maintain "launch readiness" for critical national security payloads. And the large-rocket company, co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, put the money to good use with a perfect launch record for the federal government. To critics, however, this large, nebulous payment amounted to an anti-competitive subsidy once SpaceX began offering the Falcon 9 rocket as a viable alternative.

Now, transparency is coming to the federal launch market, allowing lawmakers to more directly compare the costs of ULA's launch vehicles against those of new space competitors, such as SpaceX. Because of the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, the Air Force budget request must consolidate rocket launch costs into a single budget line beginning in fiscal year 2020.

A $422 million launch?

The Air Force recently released budget estimates for fiscal year 2018, and these include a run out into the early 2020s. For these years, the budget combines the fixed price rocket and ELC contract costs into a single budget line. (See page 109 of this document). They are strikingly high. According to the Air Force estimate, the "unit cost" of a single rocket launch in fiscal year 2020 is $422 million, and $424 million for a year later.

FURTHER READING
ULA executive admits company cannot compete with SpaceX on launch costs
This is a complex number to unpack. But based upon discussions with various space policy experts, this is the maximum amount the Air Force believes it will need to pay, per launch, if United Launch Alliance is selected for all of its launch needs in 2020. ULA launches about a half-dozen payloads for the Air Force in a given year, on variants of its rockets. Therefore, the 2020 unit cost likely includes a mix of mostly Atlas V rockets (sold on the commercial market for about $100 million) and perhaps one Delta rocket launch (up to $350 million on the commercial market for a Heavy variant).

One person who has reviewed the Air Force budget and is sympathetic to the new space industry said the following:

That is a tad more expensive than the amount ULA would ever tell taxpayers they are paying for one of its launches, and it illustrates the extent to which those taxpayers are forced to subsidize ULA in order to maintain the fiction that it is a competitive private sector company.

Essentially, then, while ULA has talked publicly about lowering the costs of its boosters for the commercial sector and the federal government, the US Department of Defense is suggesting in its budget that ULA's costs are as high as they have ever been. In response to a media query from Ars, a spokeswoman for the Colorado-based United Launch Alliance referred questions to the Air Force. (Update: On Friday morning the chief executive of United Launch Alliance, Tory Bruno, responded to the article on Twitter, calling it "misleading." He did not provide additional cost details, however.)

SpaceX costs are lower

The ULA monopoly ended when SpaceX began to compete for national security payloads alongside ULA, and launch them. (The California-based company's first national security launch, a National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite, came in May). And side-by-side the government's estimates for ULA launches, SpaceX's costs appear to be considerably lower.

For example, about 14 months ago, the Air Force awarded SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch a GPS 3 satellite. And in March 2017, SpaceX won a contract to launch another GPS 3 satellite for $96.5 million. These represent "all-in, fully burdened costs" to the government, and so they seem to be roughly comparable to the $422 million "unit cost" in the Air Force budget for 2020.

FURTHER READING
Citing costs, US Air Force turns to SpaceX for its next spy plane launch
SpaceX sells basic commercial launches of its Falcon 9 rocket for about $65 million. But, for military launches, there are additional range costs and service contracts that add tens of millions of dollars to the total price. It therefore seems possible that SpaceX is taking a loss or launching at little or no profit to undercut its rival and gain market share in the high-volume military launch market.

The deal appears to be a good one for taxpayers, regardless. During a congressional hearing earlier this month, new Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson acknowledged this by saying, "The benefit we're seeing now is competition. There are some very exciting things happening in commercial space that bring the opportunity for assured access to space at a very competitive price." A careful reading of the new Air Force budget provides an inkling of just how great those savings might be.

[The Minsky Moment]

Without question it exists now. Musk has already cut the cost to orbit by 80%. The United Launch Alliance charges  the military over 400 million dollars per launch, Musk charges 90 million. And that's nearly a 50% mark up due to all the national security loops they have to go through. He charges commercial ventures 65 million.

That's not even taking into account the reusable rockets he has just developed. That's going to cut the cost to launch F9s to 30 million (a conservative estimate).

What is the "it"?  My question is - what is the ROI on a asteroid mining project?  Launch to orbit is just one component of the cost of that project.  What is the cost of getting mining equipment to an asteroid, what is the cost or feasibility of doing the mining, what is the cost of extracting and transporting it back, what is the likely yield in mineral content from such a project and the revenue from that yield, what is the probability of some failure during this whole chain?

[Barrister]

Without question it exists now. Musk has already cut the cost to orbit by 80%. The United Launch Alliance charges  the military over 400 million dollars per launch, Musk charges 90 million. And that's nearly a 50% mark up due to all the national security loops they have to go through. He charges commercial ventures 65 million.

That's not even taking into account the reusable rockets he has just developed. That's going to cut the cost to launch F9s to 30 million (a conservative estimate).

What is the "it"?  My question is - what is the ROI on a asteroid mining project?  Launch to orbit is just one component of the cost of that project.  What is the cost of getting mining equipment to an asteroid, what is the cost or feasibility of doing the mining, what is the cost of extracting and transporting it back, what is the likely yield in mineral content from such a project and the revenue from that yield, what is the probability of some failure during this whole chain?

From my little experience in the mining industry, mining is incredibly cost-sensitive.  There are any number of ore bodies that have been discovered but are not being developed because they can not be done profitably.  There's no element or mineral that just can't be found on earth, or that is worth so much you would pay almost any price to obtain.

Lots of potential mines in places like Canada's north that could be developed, but the travel costs make it uneconomical.  And it's a lot easier to get to the NWT than it is the asteroid belt.

[jimmy olsen]

Without question it exists now. Musk has already cut the cost to orbit by 80%. The United Launch Alliance charges  the military over 400 million dollars per launch, Musk charges 90 million. And that's nearly a 50% mark up due to all the national security loops they have to go through. He charges commercial ventures 65 million.

That's not even taking into account the reusable rockets he has just developed. That's going to cut the cost to launch F9s to 30 million (a conservative estimate).

What is the "it"?  My question is - what is the ROI on a asteroid mining project?  Launch to orbit is just one component of the cost of that project.  What is the cost of getting mining equipment to an asteroid, what is the cost or feasibility of doing the mining, what is the cost of extracting and transporting it back, what is the likely yield in mineral content from such a project and the revenue from that yield, what is the probability of some failure during this whole chain?

From my little experience in the mining industry, mining is incredibly cost-sensitive.  There are any number of ore bodies that have been discovered but are not being developed because they can not be done profitably.  There's no element or mineral that just can't be found on earth, or that is worth so much you would pay almost any price to obtain.

Lots of potential mines in places like Canada's north that could be developed, but the travel costs make it uneconomical.  And it's a lot easier to get to the NWT than it is the asteroid belt.

They're uneconomical to mine because they don't have enough metals/minerals to make it worth it to mine.

A single 500 meter near earth asteroid has more nickel, gold, platinum group metals and rare earths than has ever been mined in history.

CNBC estimates a market cap for SpaceX of at least $75 Billion and believes that they will eventually get the cost of launch down to $5-7 million.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/26/elon-musks-spacex-more-attractive-than-tesla-or-solarcity-commentary.html

[CountDeMoney]

You and your fucking space mining.  STFU already.