These are only baby steps at the beginning of the adventure.

But. We are making them!

I've almost lost hope around the end of the Space Shuttle program. I thought it will be only satellites, ISS and occasional science probe launches. SpaceX single-handedly restored my faith in the future of space activities again, and with other player on the scene, we now have realistic hope of seeing an actual industry in space within our lifetimes.

I didn't think I'd say it, but after reading @Pinboard's history of a space shuttle, I'm glad we're moving past politicized too big to fail projects. http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm

Which is amusing, because @Pinboard absolutely cannot stand SpaceX and mocks them constantly.

And the amazing thing is, even if SpaceX should fail, an entire industry has started to happen.

Arianespace has spent years developing new rocket engines specifically for reusability, and has started building prototype rockets.

Bezos’ company has mastered landing, and is directly building their mars rocket.

In 5 years we’ll likely see at least 3 major companies up there with SpaceX, and true competition in space.

Yes!

Moreover, there's lots of companies in every vertical needed for bootstrapping the industry - ground services, satellites, in-space manufacturing, asteroid prospecting & mining... all in the early stage, all betting on cheaper access to space than it was just few years ago. We're in a critical moment where things suddenly start adding up and - I hope - will form something great!

And Linkspace in China are making good progress with their scale prototype too (they just posted the first untethered hop video to their twitter).

It rather looks as if the tail-landing reusable booster stage is a "steam engine" type of eureka form factor, and everyone's going to be doing it. Yay!

Falcon Heavy is 1/10th the cost of other heavy lift launchers, and able to launch 10x (or more) often, with a higher payload. This is no baby step.

Yes, that's important.

Wonder what success of FH would do to works on BFR? If BFR would be as successful as Musk writes, would SpaceX make two rockets - or optimization will lead to just one?

FH success mostly helps BFR in regards to operating a ton of engines simultaneously (27 for Heavy, 31 for BFR) and in operating heavy lift capacity rockets in general.

BFR/BFS will come online as a self-competitive offering from SpaceX initially and both lines will be out in the market together (BFR vs. F9/FH). If and when BFR attains sufficient maturity, reliability, and market trust then the Falcon line of rockets will be phased out. BFR will have much greater capabilities (higher payloads, etc.) but will be substantially cheaper because it'll be 100% reusable and the reusability longevity for its parts will be much higher than for F9/FH, so there won't really be much reason to keep Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy around.

> FH success mostly helps BFR in regards to operating a ton of engines simultaneously (27 for Heavy, 31 for BFR)

However, the FH uses RP-1-O2 Merlin engines, whereas the BFR will use Methane-O2 Raptor engines, so they might not learn too much.

Edit: RP-1 fuel.

If BFR is as successful as Musk hopes (_especially_ around the reusability aspect), I think BFR would replace the F9 and Falcon Heavy as a lift vehicle.

If BFR is actually fully reusable it would be cheaper to launch than the F9 (due to the non-reused second stage).

Musk has actually said that he expects BFR to be cheaper to fly than their original Falcon 1 ... meaning prices in the $5-10M range, as opposed to $60+M for F9.

I think that was referring to cost per kg to orbit, not cost per flight.

Yes, but seemingy pioneered by ONE MAN -- so we need to throw the masses at this problem.

Space rockets are 1960s technology, so I think we entered that era 50 years ago.

The goal back then was to make things possible. Right now, especially with SpaceX shaking the competition up a bit, the process is making things cheaper, which enables space access for uses that have been cost-prohibitive in the past. However, I guess cubesats and tiny launchers are just as much a part of that development as SpaceX' work on reusability.

And the landing shots are just damn cool.

Ok, so Musk is basically doing the job of the Chinese companies of the past: producing cheaper copy of other people's inventions.

And yet, some call him "visionary" or "genius" :)

Quantity has a quality all of its own. And quantity is only achieved through this sort of further optimisation.

It is much too easy to disparage an optimisation as unimportant compared to some hypothetical "original" idea of which it is a refinement, and we should not do this, especially to try to claim credit for people we know at the cost of those far away we've never heard of.

The "original" inventions behind recorded music, the telephone, the incandescent light bulb, and numerous other obvious examples are poor shadows of the commercially successful item that means we know them today. We honour many of the people who refined these items as "geniuses" today, often pretending to ourselves that they invented them rather than merely refining the work of others, this does everybody involved a disservice, and it disparages the real contribution of people (in China and elsewhere) optimising today's inventions. The flat panel display you're almost certainly reading this on is the product of _millions_ of such optimisations.

Very good points; I'm in general though space skeptic in the following sense. Human race as a whole always seeks more, bigger, further, faster as solution its problems. I don't think space is the solution to our earthly problems.

Maybe 1000 years from now, people look at us and say god damn it. I wish they had stayed there and learned how to live in earth well. We are now speared all over the place and we all hate hate each other; and just right now I hear Martian went ahead and annexed Venus and they also seem to be interfering in Andromeda elections.

He isn't basically doing what you're describing at all in fact. :)

The launches are cheaper because of the breakthrough in being able to reuse the rockets by landing them.

That's the exact opposite of copying.

Inventing new things so we can do the old things cheaper in an equally safe or safer way. Not basically what the Chinese do.

So, like Ford and his Model T?

Wouldn't landing rockets vertically show that we have mastered in-atmosphere conditions rather than space?

I'm not trying to be negative, just trying to understand how you came to the conclusion you did.

Most of our space travel challenges are caused by the size restrictions and cost associated with putting spacecraft into space. Currently spaceflight is still very much an aerospace (literally translated as airspace) problem.

In a theoretical world where we could just beam anything into earth orbit, unmanned interplanetary spaceflight would likely be an expensive hobby instead of something only governments attempt.

From '02 - '06 Musk dumped 100MM of his own cash into this, with uncertain outcome. Is it fair to say SpaceX was at least partially an expensive hobby, at some point?

If by "hobby" you mean "not making you money", then yes - in the same sense as just about like every startup in existence.

If by "hobby" you mean doing something for fun or personal growth, with only vague - if any - expectations of future usefulness, then no. SpaceX was aimed at getting us to Mars from the day 1; it's their entire raison d'être. Musk bootstrapped it with his own cash because he also set this goal - getting humanity to Mars.

If by "hobby" you mean doing something meaningful instead of just making moar money - then sure.

I don't know if this is really like every other startup. The amount of money involved and ambitions are far beyond the average startup.

From '02-'06 (or even '02-'017) did Musk send anything to another planet/leave Earth orbit? No.

Maybe you could argue the Falcon 1 was an expensive hobby, but interplanetary spaceflight is certainly not.