July 17, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- ULA switches Amazon’s first test Kuiper satellites from Vulcan to an Atlas-5 launching in September
Apparently the customer, Amazon, could no longer tolerate the delays with Vulcan. It has to launch soon, because its license requires it to place a minimum of 1,600 satellites in orbit by 2026. Amazon also probably wanted off that first Vulcan launch because of the risks. Better to launch on the established and very reliable Atlas-5.
- Based on Amazon’s required statements outlining the financial deals it has with Jeff Bezos’ other company, Blue Origin, the launch cost for New Glenn can be estimated to be $100 million
If this estimate is even close to accurate, than New Glenn is a very expensive rocket, as that cost is twice what SpaceX generally charges for a Falcon 9 launch. The cost however will drop if Blue Origin’s plans to reuse the first stage succeed.
The cost won’t drop, however, if New Glenn never flies. And based on Blue Origin’s track record, this cynicism is not an unreasonable position.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- ULA switches Amazon’s first test Kuiper satellites from Vulcan to an Atlas-5 launching in September
Apparently the customer, Amazon, could no longer tolerate the delays with Vulcan. It has to launch soon, because its license requires it to place a minimum of 1,600 satellites in orbit by 2026. Amazon also probably wanted off that first Vulcan launch because of the risks. Better to launch on the established and very reliable Atlas-5.
- Based on Amazon’s required statements outlining the financial deals it has with Jeff Bezos’ other company, Blue Origin, the launch cost for New Glenn can be estimated to be $100 million
If this estimate is even close to accurate, than New Glenn is a very expensive rocket, as that cost is twice what SpaceX generally charges for a Falcon 9 launch. The cost however will drop if Blue Origin’s plans to reuse the first stage succeed.
The cost won’t drop, however, if New Glenn never flies. And based on Blue Origin’s track record, this cynicism is not an unreasonable position.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
How is it that SpaceX is so far ahead of every other rocket company in the world? Are SpaceX engineers prohibited from working elsewhere? It is otherwise odd that SpaceX engineers have not split off and formed rocket companies of their own.
And what is the problem with Blue Origin? – Bezos has done a brilliant job innovating and building Amazon.
But especially China. No doubt they have a printed copy of all of the specifications used to build Falcon 9. Yet they still are not recovering and reusing their first stage?
Steve,
They have. There are a number of start ups that came from ex-SpaceX employees. This is like Silicon Valley of the past, you need to find venture capitalists to fund these start ups.
These workers can go as they please, but they all signed NDAs when they joined SpaceX, and they will be sued into oblivion if they violate it by making their own copies. You can work for your rivals if you want. You just can’t disclose the intellectual property you worked on at the previous company. U.S. courts have knocked down exit contracts saying that you cannot work for a rival in the same location or you cannot work in the field for x amount of time.
Example: The VP of Kuiper, Amazon’s version of Starlink, came from Starlink. Both offices are only eight mile apart outside of Seattle.
As for China, I see three companies, they are really state run companies- hence Bob’s term pseudo-company, who are all saying that they will launch a reusauble by 2024. Each one of their designs look like a Falcon-9. I do read their engine test numbers and one thing that always shows up is their engines are not as powerful or as light as SpaceX’s Merlin and Raptor engines.
Do you want to know the secret why? They may be able to copy how something works, but their metallurgy is not that good. We talk about this at my work, and it shows up many times in other technologies the Chinese copy, especially jet engines.
No, but China is hungry for space. Bezos on the other hand…
Steve Richter—check out Stoke Space. Ex-SpaceX propulsion guy running that company with a pretty neat concept.
Steve Richter asked: “How is it that SpaceX is so far ahead of every other rocket company in the world?”
In a word: reusability.
In the 1990s, commercial satellite operators were begging the launch providers to reduce the cost of access to space. If the price came down to $2,000 per pound, they said, then there would be a boom in demand for launches. These satellite operators compared rocket launches to airline flights, in that if an airliner were thrown away at the end of each flight, then the price of a ticket would be prohibitive, but by reusing airliners, the airline companies were able to offer affordable flights.
As it turns out, by keeping the airliner, they have an airplane to fly passengers again, taking passengers and cargo back and forth and to many destinations, flying the airplane fleet thousands of times a day. SpaceX has shown that it is similar with launch vehicles. By reusing the boosters, they have boosters available for scores of launches each year, and the reduced price to go to space (somewhere around $2,000 per pound) has developed a boom in demand for launches.
Not only does SpaceX have the low price but the company has the launch vehicles to keep up with the growing demand.
“Are SpaceX engineers prohibited from working elsewhere?”
In a word: no.
Not only are they starting up their own companies, as Jay and Concerned noted, but you can find some that are highly placed in existing companies, and some are hired by existing startups. It is almost as though SpaceX has become a training ground for space engineers and managers.
“And what is the problem with Blue Origin?”
Blue Origin was innovative and bold, just a decade ago, bragging that they were the first to land a booster. Robert Zimmerman has suggested in the past that they became less innovative and less bold when they hired ULA executive Bob Smith. ULA has done things in the old ways of heritage space companies, not innovative and not bold. It looks like Blue Origin, under Smith, has taken up a similar philosophy of playing it so safe that little gets done, and if it does get done, it is slowly.
We can only wonder as to why Smith didn’t anticipate the need to mass produce the BE-4 engine. Apparently, he is not experienced with mass production, so did not think of that as a need. Had he been more insightful, then maybe they would have done better concurrent engineering and incorporated quality, manufacturability, and mass production into the first design and manufacturing plant.
Why is SpaceX ahead of every other rocket company? In a word: rapid development. Two words. SpaceX has taken a different philosophy than Bob Smith’s Blue Origin. SpaceX gets to market faster and with lower development costs.
Why is SpaceX ahead of every other rocket company? In a word: flexibility. SpaceX consciously chose to make a rocket specifically for the commercial market, which is why SpaceX was able to take so much business from Arianespace. This helped reduce the cost of a launch. The government market wasn’t exactly an afterthought for them, but the government’s special requirements make those launches generally more expensive than the more generic and economical commercial launches. ULA had designed their rockets to cater to the government’s needs, so their rockets tend to be more expensive, even for the commercial launches.
Why is SpaceX ahead of every other rocket company? In a word: business model. Two words, again. SpaceX’s mission is to reduce costs, to innovate reusability, and to use what it learns on its earlier rockets on it Mars rocket. The business model is less to get payloads into orbit and more to get mankind onto Mars, which requires the low launch costs. Putting payloads into orbit helps to pay the bills until the Mars colonization begins.
No, SpaceX isn’t trying to reduce costs….they believe in putting real funding behind things.
Do they streamline? Yes—but unlike Musk, they are willing to bring bank to infrastructure.
Musk is therefore like Soviet Chief Designers in that he can bark orders and can get people to jump.
Tumlinson, Hudson, and Simberg had this believe in privatization….but nobody bit.
Musk was willing to operate at a loss because he believes spaceflight is an end unto itself. That’s not capitalism—but patronage.
Libertarians think Elon is the rule….I see him as the exception.
The default reaction of moneymen is to flee from up-front costs from aerospace as we saw with VLJ/air taxis.
Maybe Musk can open their eyes on some things.
But the moneymen might be right to question his Mars focus. Bezos at least TALKS space industry—but drags his feet.
That’s why I still want big old-space efforts.
I want SLS to evolve into Energiya to have a Buran like Shuttle 2.
An orbiter that can glide, not have big SSMEs…have turbojets.
Core stays in space for wet workshops.
When it flies to any airport as a plane capable of flight like any other plane…and shows a payload full of goods, then I can get a moneymen by the scruff of his neck, shove his nose into the payload…and he will see unique products. Maybe his trophy wife finds a zero-g fountain of youth or something.
Until bushels of unique products are brought to some trade show…the moneymen will page through the WSJ…pause at a Musk entry….nod their heads a bit….and go right on flipping.
“I think I’ll invest more in Chevron.”
You need to woe them.
That or roll a canister of phosgene gas into the NYSE (I’ll volunteer for that)—and their starry eyed sons (who inherit everything) will likely invest in Musk since most of his fans are younger.