Re:Concern in Europe that the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets wi...
by imtringued on Tuesday March 23, 2021 @04:42AM
(#26552539)
Rocket reuse is not a panacea. There is a very real expendable cost advantage in choosing SpaceX but rocket reuse will not reduce rocket costs significantly. There might be another -50% costs to be had once they iron out all the kinks but what Elon musk promises will not happen because he always overhypes everything.
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Re:Concern in Europe that the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets wi...
by cryptonector on Tuesday March 23, 2021 @11:49AM
(#26556441)
Sure, he overhypes, but already Falcon 9 is cheaper than all others and precisely because of reuse. I don't see how to deny this. Oh sure, SpaceX is a privately held corporation so we don't really know the real numbers and maybe he's just underpricing to convince the world he's right even though he's wrong, or something. But there's a reason ULA and others are getting into the reuse game, and it's that rocket engines are unbelievably expensive, so if you just reuse those you save a huge amount on costs. The evidence is overwhelming that reusing rocket engines is a huge savings. It must follow that reusing the whole launch vehicle would be a bigger savings.