Alibaba signs to explore one-hour rocket deliveries Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce platform is exploring one-hour delivery by – wait for it – rocket. You read that correctly. Beijing-based startup Space Epoch used its WeChat account to reveal the plan on Sunday, detailing the 120m3 cargo cabin mounted atop its Yuanxingzhe 1 rocket. Taobao has reportedly confirmed the alliance is …
A scaled up version of Santa.
Well, let's see. A full grown adult male reindeer weighs around 200kg. Eight of those. Then there's the mass of the sleigh, harnessing, etc for eight of the propulsion engines, the weight of the fat dude pilotong the thing (What about his salary? Working on a holiday and all that. Can't be cheap). Call it 2000kg. That's quite a bit more than the SpaceX max of 831kg. But costs look to be around $294,000 +$6000/kg. So let's say $12,300,000. Plus extras of course. There's always extras, right?
No more than a modest mansion perched on an unstable, fire prone hillside in Beverly Hills or Malibu. Well within the reach of a tech billionaire or other classy individual. Hell, Donald Trump can probably write you a check for that if you just give him a minute or so to find his checkbook. (Pro-tip. Cash that check fast).
Clearly a viable project.
Also because they have a valid prior art claim...
Rockets are loaded very carefully to ensure stability in flight and take days to prepare for launch. The idea that rockets will be available to launch parcels on a whim is lovely – but not currently practical.
To be fair, that is not really what I would take issue with. Rockets are just missiles by another name, and I can assure you that there are plenty of missiles ready to launch at a moments notice. If being ready to launch at a moment's notice is your goal, then you choose propellants that will allow that, such as the common stable hypergolic propellant loads (e.g. good old dinitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine), or solid rocket motors. Preparing the payload quickly is also perfectly doable, especially in China, where dropping rockets on people's heads is not that big of a deal anyway. Just put your payload adaptor on a rig that lets you see where the centre of mass is, stack up your payload with the centre of mass zeroed out, pallet-wrap it, and cross your fingers. Solvable problems. Seriously though, look at the recent "responsive launch" missions by Firefly Aerospace for the US Space Force - 24hrs to integrate the payload, set up the rocket on the pad, and get the payload to orbit. There's provably no need for it to take days.
Personally, it's the cost that stands out as a probably insurmountable obstacle, rather than anything else. You could do it, but I just can't see the cost coming down to a level that's anywhere near practical. Even if you've got a fully re-usable rocket that can make many flights with minimal refurbishment, you've still got the cost of the launch and landing infrastructure. There's just no way it's not going to cost a fortune.
A ballistic missile albeit guided (soft) landing in a prepared silo? Only a crypto "investor" is likely to believe that.
Even an object under controlled powered flight might find landing a tube a big ask.
I guess there are no shortage of flag poles in the PRC and no shortage of lackeys to salute the unfurling of the most dubious ensigns.
I would punt for a huge robot (think Gigantor) catching these rockets at their destination a la cricket or baseball.
The "rideshare" prices are for a place on a rocket that's launching multiple customers. The dedicated launch price is a better starting point for this.
$67M a launch. For Falcon 9. (Not Heavy)
That is a 2022 price, from the "Capabilities and services" document linked at the bottom of this page: https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/falcon-9/ . SpaceX used to have a pricing page on their website, but that's not there any more.
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