Boeing Space Capsule

[job1207]

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1007/21boeing/

Boeing has decided if you cannot beat them, then copy them, or so it would seem, and ask for more money to do it.

 

[frodo1008]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Did you even bother to read the entire article? If Boeing is copying the only major copy they are making actually comes from Boeing itself!

What they are copying is the original shape of the Apollo Capsule which was originally designed by North American Aviation, which was itself bought out by Rockwell to become North American Rockwell, and then morphed into Rockwell International, which was in turn bought out by Boeing itself. So if anyone would own the design it would be Boeing and not spacex!

As for the funding, it seems to me that all these companies are private companies in themselves. You can indeed easily buy both Boeing stock and LM stock (and I think you can now also buy actual stock in spacex also) which makes them no more dependent upon the government than anyone else, including spacex.

I really grow tired of those that seem to think that in order to support such as spacex they must throw rocks at the more experienced and larger conventional companies. So, if you must support spacex in that manner, then perhaps they are not worth supporting after all?

It would also seem from this article that another of the so called alt.space companies in Bigelow Aerospace is perfectly happy using either Boeing or spacex, at least they are not prejudiced against either company, unlike some here!!

 

[job1207]

Re: SpaceX Updates

When, in the past would Boeing have considered it was possible to send ONE Astronaut to space for $25 Million. NEVER. Did you read the article? I think not. You may remember that on the FIRST round, Boeing and LMT said they would not be able to compete at those prices.

They did not have to, because they had cost plus. Now, they have competition.

Constellation is dead, long live Constellation......at a reasonable price.

Now, if it really does cost $5 Billion to develop, they will probably not be able to meet the $25 million price. We will see about that.

Also, the Orion did not carry seven passengers as this vehicle does.

 

[Valcan]

Re: SpaceX Updates

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I'm all for boeing gettin competative in the new space race i just dont want to see them get competative because they have the governments dime.

SpaceX only has to worry about space. Boeing has tons of other areas that can affect negatively there and financaly there space enterprises.

I am excited for the capsule but i like Space X because it is run by a and i mean this in all honesty and respect GEEK.
HE is excited about space and is beholden to himself. He has a goal besides money boeing wont it has to please its stockholders.

I think if Boeing wants to help they should put that considerable knowledge and skill to building designs for deep space. BECOME the leading edge.

 

[frodo1008]

Re: SpaceX Updates

The entire EELV program (much to Air Force credit) was NOT cost plus and resulted in both the Delta IV and the Atlas V. And certainly Boeing competes very well in the commercial aircraft market, and that is not cost plus either, to say nothing of the commercial satellite market where our traditional companies compete very well.

And what on Earth makes you think that spacex is going to be nearly as inexpensive as Elon Musk says it will and still make a good profit?

If you took the estimated $500 million spent so far on the Falcon series and spread it out over the next ten flights or so that it is going to take to make sure that there is a good reliability for that system, just what does that equate for a per flight performance in costs?

And I certainly do not see spacex turning down the $billions of dollars in governmental contracts for COTS either.

Now, do not get me wrong here, I fully hope that spacex will indeed be able to do at least what Elon Musk is saying they can. It would certainly be fantastic if we could be very competitive with such as the Russians in the commercial launch industry. But if spacex can do this, then so can Boeing, and Boeing has a lot more experience and resources. It just has not been that big a market for anybody, and until it is, such companies as Boeing, with shareholders constantly wanting more and more profits can not see investing in such a relatively limited area. Not an unreasonable position if you hold even a small quantity of Boeing stock!

Once again, I am not complaining about supporting what spacex is trying to do here, I just get tired of all the more traditional aerospace companies being bashed all the time.

Besides, if spacex has to go public (which last I heard they were) in order to get the necessary operating capital. As even Elon Musk himself has to admit that this is a far more expensive business than he originally thought it was, which is something that even we worker bees (and former bees such as myself) in the industry have realized for a long time.

Then just what would there be to stop Boeing or ULA itself from just buying up a controlling interest in spacex?

After all, isn't that just how the free market that all the conservatives here support, works?

Just for your info, some time ago a Delta IV Heavy placed a national security load into LEO. That load weighed in at some 59,000 lbs to LEO, and cost the government in direct contractual costs some $254 million. Now a simple calculation with my calculator makes this some $4305 per pound to LEO. Now that is not yet the somewhat magic number of about $1,000 per pound to LEO that most of us would like to see yet, but it is a long way from the estimated $20,000 per pound that the older systems (and the shuttle) have cost.

One of my last duties at Rocketdyne before my retirement in the year 2000 was to help quality assurance monitor the quality, reliability and the costs of the new RS68 engines for this system. The cost of a 565K thrust RS68 is only about some 25% of the cost of the venerable SSME's at some 500k thrust.

Combine this with the Delta IV rockets being produced using a far less expensive mass production plant in the south, and it become obvious why significant progress in costs for the government have actually already been made by even the more traditional companies.

The total cost of the EELV program to develop both the Delta IV and the Atlas V ran just about $3 billion, and that even includes the Heavies for both systems. Can you see any company, even one with as large a financial resources as Boeing, affording to do that without governmental help? Remember, these are not like commercial aircraft where the developmental costs of even $billions of dollars can be spread over hundreds or even thousands of aircraft. These are very high tech (and therefore relatively risky) launch systems with the potential of maybe flying some dozen or so flights per year. And human rated systems have even less flights per year, with a far greater price tag at the same time.

Even something with as promising a beginning as Sea Launch has not been as big a profit maker (even using the relatively inexpensive Zenit) as Boeing had hoped it would be. This IS a really tough business!

And I personally give credit to ALL the companies and even the governments of the world that have made it even as successful as it has been!

Is there any real reason why you can not see it that way also?

 

[SteveCNC]

Re: SpaceX Updates

BTW SpaceX is not public , it's privately held . Elon put his car company Tesla Motors (TSLA) on the market not long ago though .

 

[Valcan]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Look frodo the thing alot of us are afraid of is another constellation. We want something that can do the job safely and for the best amount possible. And we DEFFINATLY dont want another company to corner the US market, raise its prices and then lose out to foreign competitors.

We want successs and we want the damn thing run right. And that not been the case for a long time.

 

[frodo1008]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Sorry Valcan, but the conservative idea as put fort here by many that it is somehow evil for the US government to directly assist the industries of this country flies both in the face of history, and even common sense (especially economically).

How about a little history?

If you go back as far as the 1800's you will find the US government being the almost total support for the Great Transcontinental Railroad. Certainly both the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific companies could not even have begun to afford to build the engineering achievement of the 19th century without such direct help from the government itself. And I do not think that you could find anybody today that would not say that such an investment by the government is not now literally worth $trillions.

Moving up to the 1920's and the start up if the airline industry (and its subsequent aircraft manufacturing industry). It was NOT prizes similar to the X-prize that gave the necessary boost to those industries during the 1920's and 1930's (as much as those racing types of prizes did assisted in the development of the technology of aircraft themselves), it was again the US government and its need for very fast mail delivery that had the government not only giving out literally $millions of dollars in Air Mail contracts, but also assisting greatly in the development of airports throughout the US that really got that $trillion dollar industry off to a great start!

Finally, we come to the 1950's and the greatest single civil engineering project of all time in the federal highway system. Tell me, just how much was that fully governmental support for that effort now worth to the trucking industry of this country, let alone the traveling public?

Then there is the great electrical infrastructure and all of those governmental buildings, including such incredible museums as the Smithsonian

Heck, I am not even talking about NASA here!

The entire middle class in this country has been to a great extent a cooperative effort between private industries and the federal (and state and local governments also have had a part) government.

I would say that if you took the total amount of our National Debt that people seem so very worried about you would find that the federal governments investment in that debt allowed that government to return at least some 10 times the amount of the debt itself over the last 60 years or so!

 

[frodo1008]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Well valcan, the main reason why we have lost out on foreign commercial launches has nothing to do with the American launch industry. It has to do with:

One, foreign governments actually support their industries far more than ours does, such is the situation for both Arienspace and Airbus. How is that for ironic?

And two, the exchange rates for labor especially in such countries as Russia means that they can indeed out price the US.

If the total launch business was far larger, then I can guarantee you that Boeing, ULA etc, etc (and yes, spacex also) would be able to price their rockets much lower. More launches = more rocket launchers = lower prices per launcher, it IS that simple!

And I would be perfectly happy to find out that spacex can really do just what they say they can as that would mean that we could become more competitive, but then that also would go for such as the Atlas V and the Delta IV.

And I would also be perfectly happy to state that I did not like the designs for the rockets of the Constellation project. But those designs were from NASA itself, and NOT from their contractors.

In fact all three in Boeing, LM, and ULA had proposed using the far better (and already existing and paid for by the Air Force) and less expensive EELV's for the base for the program. But that was rejected by NASA as they wanted to keep the entire thing in house. And as much as I have been and probably always will be a NASA supporter, that was a VERY bad mistake on the part of NASA!

You could go back to the Apollo era and also find that NASA was a very great part of the design of those incredible rockets. But remember that we had the likes of Wherner Von Braun and all of those incredible and experienced Germans. Heck, Von Braun not only had the technical expertise, he even knew how to make Congress do the right things. I seriously doubt if we will see his like again!

A little known fact is that there were some that wanted to use large Solid Rocket Boosters for even the Saturn rockets, but Von Braun and others were totally against such.

Elon Musk and spacex, Boeing, LM, ULA, and just everybody else in the this business throughout the world is also intelligent enough not to want to use such rockets. To bad that NASA was so politically influenced by the powerful political elements from Utah to insist on continuing to use such rockets (even when they know that such rockets would be far too heavy for the launch transportation system)!!

In fact, the only things that NASA is now talking about saving from the Constellation disaster is the new J2X engines from Rocketdyne, and the Orion Capsule design from LM!

It is indeed sad, but it IS past, and now hopefully we can move forwards!

 

[Valcan]

Re: SpaceX Updates

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Not saying we shouldnt invest like i said i just dont want the government to create a monopoly or for boeing to become to $$$$ over this.

I have no problem with the government supporting space flight and the companies that do it.

But think about it this way. Why are the merlin engines pretty much the only engines developed in the US in the Last what 20 yrs atleast. And there more efficent than practicly any that we have. Also when the rate of launches goes up so will the price come down and the can begin trying to reuse them.

It isnt so much i dont trust companies as my government to do some stupid &*^%.

I dont want to be stuck with constellation or the shuttle again. Neither are worth it or do what they are or were supposed to do.

We dont need a Ares 1 we have them. We really dont even need a ares 2-4. The only possible thing we could need is a fatbodied Ares V. And not reuseable. CHEAP AND DUMB ROCKET . Keep it simple stupid.

And we can completely agree about the solids.

 

[frodo1008]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Well, you seem to be making an attempt to be at least somewhat less belligerent about this, and I do appreciate that.

So please do not take anything that I say as being overly critical of your viewpoints.

Just FYI, Rocketdyne has developed two new (no, now that I think of it, make that three) engines in the last 20 years or even less. One is the new RS68, which while not being quite as efficient as the SSME (which by the way from a pure performance standpoint is still far and away the most efficient rocket engine ever developed) is considerably simpler and more cost effective. And that is even though it is not at this time (but could be made to be so) a reusable engine as the SSME is.

Then there was the linear aerospike RS2000, which was designed to be used with the X33. Two big advantages of aerospike engines is that they are just as efficient at the Earth's surface as they are in space, and that can not be said for any other Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines with nozzles. Because they are also form fitting (they can be either round or linear) they can and will be eventually be far easier to use on future vehicles that can take off from any airport and go into space, and that is not possible with the Merlin or any other engine with a nozzle.

Finally, (and this one I do not know the actual Rocketdyne designation of as it has been developed since I retired) there is the new derivative of the venerable Apollo J2 engine. This new engine which was to be used on the upper stages of the Constellation project is much more powerful and efficient than even the original J2's were.

All of these engines use liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, as does the SSME. This is because this particular combination of liquid propellants has the highest ISP (something akin to miles per gallon efficiency, only for liquid rocket engines and not automobile engines) that it is practical to have in such engines.

Rocketdyne is still the premier liquid rocket engine builder in the US, and has built some 95% of all such engines powering US launches! And now that they are part of Pratt and Whitney, they are back in the business of helping to use their expertise for small liquid engines as well.

 

[job1207]

Re: SpaceX Updates

You can look up the Augustine report. An Ares 1 ALONE was going to cost 1.5 Billion to fly per LAUNCH, when you include development costs.

The Ares V would be in the Too high too count range, more than likely.

I am QUITE sure that numbers in this range are now HISTORY.

 

[frodo1008]

Re: SpaceX Updates

In that I am in agreement with you. Heck, to me it would be far cheaper to reverse engineer the great and venerable Saturn V (perhaps using later technology where it could be applied) than to actually have designed and built the Ares series of rockets!

So hopefully, the current direction will allow those at NASA (and there are those at NASA) that would search for a better way!

And that would be even if the current way is indeed somewhat muddled! :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Valcan]

Re: SpaceX Updates

In that I am in agreement with you. Heck, to me it would be far cheaper to reverse engineer the great and venerable Saturn V (perhaps using later technology where it could be applied) than to actually have designed and built the Ares series of rockets!

So hopefully, the current direction will allow those at NASA (and there are those at NASA) that would search for a better way!

And that would be even if the current way is indeed somewhat muddled! :twisted: :twisted:

The biggest draw backs for the Ares were the solid rocket boosters. Those things are HEAVY.

We dont need a heavy to launch people i HOPE Nasa and everyone in the government has figured this out.

 

[mj1]

Re: SpaceX Updates

BTW SpaceX is not public , it's privately held . Elon put his car company Tesla Motors (TSLA) on the market not long ago though .

If SpaceX does go public, there is already a place in my portfolio for their stock.

 

[job1207]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Well, in general, stock like this is hard to justify, unless you get the IPO, or you get lucky. Tesla opened at $17 and is now at 20 after UP to 30 and going DOWN to 15. Tesla does not make money yet. So, MANY people who bought Tesla in the aftermarket are under water.

Spacex does make money, and has a huge backlog. Chances are though that you can only make money if you get the IPO.

 

[SteveCNC]

Re: SpaceX Updates

One of my IRAs is a self directed roth ira that is tied up in stocks and I have a checking account through etrade I also use to buy stocks , for me any stock I buy is most likely to be held for at least a few years . So an IPO is definately not the best way to make money but if your looking for short term gains good luck . IPOs are extremely risky IMO because you never know from the initial offerring which way it will go , and unless your the day-trader type (I am not) it's hard to make quick money . I would pick up some SpaceX if it ever goes public but I would likely wait a few weeks after the IPO is released before I would buy any because I'm in it for the long haul .

 

[Valcan]

Re: SpaceX Updates

I would pick up some SpaceX if it ever goes public but I would likely wait a few weeks after the IPO is released before I would buy any because I'm in it for the long haul .

Agreed.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: SpaceX Updates

Folks, please note the subject of this topic. It is SpaceX updates, not Boeing and Lockheed. I have moved the off topic posts to their own discussion.

Thanx

Moderator Meteor Wayne