Googaw responded: Is what they are doing to cut costs such a deep dark secret, or so heavily patented, that it can’t be repeated by others?

No-one repeated Alexander of Macedonia’s short life’s work in 2,300 years … though many autocrats have tried. Perhaps Elon Musk is that once-in-ever Frankenstorm of an entrepreneur-engineer that only happens once. In my book/story that makes him worth supporting.

You could immediately test your theory by trying to use Kickstarter to raise the price of a ticket to the ISS to do some privately funded science … personally I don’t think there will be many takers, but I could be wrong.

Speculating on alternative ways to foot the bill, I think Tesla Motors will succeed in growing to the size of at least Porsche in the next decade, making Elon Musk a multi-billionaire independent of SpaceX. He’s signed the Giving Pledge (http://givingpledge.org) committing to give away the majority of his wealth philantropically. Also in the next decade I think that SpaceX will succeed in building a super-heavy lifter for a fraction of the development and operational cost of the SLS, though who pays for that remains to be seen.

Combined, that will put Musk in a position to philantropically get the ball rolling and at least partly fund a first Mars mission, possibly with international governments putting in matching funds in order to participate. Such a mission is likely to be the biggest media event ever resulting in at least some sponsorship and media rights revenues for the mission.

Is what they are doing to cut costs such a deep dark secret, or so heavily patented, that it can’t be repeated by others?

While SpaceX benefits from fat NASA contracts for the same rocket, the flip side is that they are getting seriously distracted with all their various side projects in search of more NASA contracts. Although must of what people think they are doing is far more marketing hype than serious project. But if a competitor can recreate their costs reductions for satellite launch without getting bogged down in the bells, whistles, and safety dances of NASA astronaut contracts, Space X will have fierce competition for a long time to come, and indeed may become just another government contracting zombie (there you go Coastal! Just in time for Halloween!) like Orbital Sciences while a more nimble competitor wins their real commerce market.

However, I think we are reaching the point in our space exploration history where NASA and other federal space agencies would be better as consultants rather than managers. The same thing happened to the satellite telecommunications industry when Intelsat privatized in 2001, and business has never been better in that sector.

With the continued rise of publicly funded technology projects on sites like Kickstarter, it’s only a matter of time until prospective astronauts are successfully funding their missions online. So, when do you think it will happen and who will foot the bill?

Adam Brinckerhoff
Development Engineer
SpaceUnited

“A Mars mission will have to have a spinning section, lest the astronauts bones turn to jello.”

It is a six month trip to Mars with conventional chemical rocket propulsion. We know astronauts will not turn to jello in six months. If they land on Mars, we do not know if 1/3 gravity is enough to do a reset and recondition the human body enough that the 6 month trip home will prove detrimential. I would like to see a centrifuge section developed and tested at the ISS though.

“Will SpaceX price and reliability be able to exert such influence that they end up virtually the only game in town?”

So far satellite owners are still placing backup orders in case their prime service providers (like SpaceX) have a problem. But is that enough to keep healthy competition going in that market?

Satellite owners also don’t want to depend on monopolies, so I think we’ll see some sort of strategy emerge as they try to monetize the savings that SpaceX offers while keeping competition in the launch market.

“Can SpaceX grow at the rate necessary to handle all the potential business keeping in mind price and reliability above?”

They are certainly in the phase of a company where many companies have stumbled, and that could still happen with them. The good thing for them is that they only have to get the Falcon v1.1 going in order to protect the vast amount of their future business. The Falcon Heavy only has one order, Dragon for crew is a development program based on existing elements, Falcon 4/5 for Stratolaunch, and the Grasshopper is a test program – all side programs that the company could survive without if something happened.

As to price, they own the low end of the market, so they could raise prices by significant amounts and still be the low-cost leader. However I think the goal Musk is going for is to lower the amount of money that it takes to get mass to orbit, not to maximize the amount of profit SpaceX can make, so I would think he would resist raising prices unless he has to.

“Certainly ESA (Germany and France predominantly) is now scrambling to find a compromise for Arienne 5 mid-life upgrade or nebbie 6.”

In some ways SpaceX has spoiled the low-cost launch market for everyone else. Their motive isn’t based purely on protecting jobs in a country (i.e. ESA), exercising national will (i.e. China), or generating gobs of profit from a customer with nowhere else to go (i.e. ULA), SpaceX wants to lower costs for the market so the pricing stalemate is broken.

It’s hard to compete against someone who already has a proven product AND whose #1 priority is making humanity a multi-planetary species – how does a normal commercial company compete with that?

Even though SpaceX has shown the way to go for anyone that wants to build a low-cost rocket system, they have also locked up the customers that were willing to take risks with newbie launch companies, so any new companies that want to do take the same path won’t find the same type of initial customers that SpaceX found. Quite a conundrum.

The private sector is not demanding the creation of both a product and service that currently does not exist. What part of this do you keep failing to understand?

The Federal government has ordered a federal agency, NASA, to procure both a DOMESTIC product and service that does not exist.

Maybe we will have to drag out a chalkboard so we can draw some flow charts so even you can understand this.

Here is the concept .. the Federal government wants to buy something domestically. A product and service. But .. that product does not exist. The government does not care if the provider of this product and service ALSO SELLS to commercial customers, all the government is concerned with is that there is multiple suppliers for the federal agency NASA.

I would think even someone with a such a limited understanding could grasp this concept but apparently it is just beyond your reasoning capabilities.

Certainly ESA (Germany and France predominantly) is now scrambling to find a compromise for Arienne 5 mid-life upgrade or nebbie 6.
DoD may resort to relying on a single provider – they virtually have until now although they have 2 EELVs. But SpaceX could end up with NASA and certainly most of the commercial business.
China’s on record as saying they don’t think they can match SpaceX price. What happens if SpaceX manages to produce a viable FH?
So many questions – so few answers!! Interesting times alright!

A Mars mission will have to have a spinning section, lest the astronauts bones turn to jello. A Mars craft will also weight much less than 10^6 lbs.

Next, why are you making the assumption that the US can afford to do manned Mars flight alone?

Because we went to moon alone. Would I mind exploring with Europe or Japan? No. They need to pull their weight. But I see no reason to reward our enemies Russia and China.

Finally, even if we could afford to go it alone, as a a matter of national policy, should we?