Posts by fishman 940 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jun 2007
Considering previous numbers given by DOGE were rife with errors and falsehoods any claim they make on savings probably should be divided by a factor somewhere between 10 and 100.
The IRS estimates that the disruptions in that agency by DOGE will cost $500B/year. So even using DOGE numbers DOGE is costing the US $350B/year.
About 15-20 years ago the US Navy tried to do something about the shear number of different software packages the Navy had. So they came up with a list of permissible software packages that could be purchased. This included the version number. Unfortunately the list seemed to be made up of software used in the Navy offices. I worked at a Navy R&D lab so we used many software packages not on the list so we had to write a justification and have it pass up the chain. Weeks later we would get permission to get it.
And if the software on the list came out with a new version than that shown on the list we had to get a waiver for that, too.
GPS satellites orbit about 20.000 km above the earth (12,500 mi). That works out to a maximum range of 12 degrees as seen from the moon. On earth the angle between satellites (as seen by the observer) can be much larger. Does the smaller angle from the moon result in less accurate measurements?
Few people use the raw Linux kernel - they get them from their kernel distribution and which has undergone more testing and is not bleeding edge.
Of course, I'm the sort that downloads the kernel sources and compiles them myself - something that I've been doing for 20+ years and never a problem. I get the near bleeding edge kernels - ones that have been out a few weeks and have several revisions done to it.
They don't design a new rocket for every mission. Probably 95% of the Falcon 9 non starlink missions use the standard reusable booster / standard nozzle second stage. Light energy requirements they use a smaller nozzle on the second stage engine - nozzles are expensive. Heavy energy requirements mean you aren't recovering the booster so you leave the landing equipment off (landing legs, grid fins).
It's not uncommon for an older Falcon 9 booster to have done manned missions, cargo to ISS missions, starlink missions, GEO missions, and other LEO missions over it's lifetime.
And the Falcon 9 has done GEO and interplanetary launches and recovered the booster.
SpaceX charges what the market will bear. Even before they were reusing boosters they were the lowest cost launcher.
The internal costs for launch a Falcon 9 for SpaceX is estimated to be $20M (Eric Berger) and some estimate that it is between $15M and $20M.
"SpaceX charges about $85m per seat. "
No. It's $55M per seat. And Boeing is charging $90M per seat.
"Ariane quickly spotted a huge flaw in re-usability: If a rocket can fly ten times then Ariane would have to fire 90% of their manufacturing workforce."
Ironically SpaceX builds more new boosters each year than Ariane. And then there is those 135+ second stages they will have built this year. Lotsa manufacturing going on there.......
"The $40m, or whatever it costs a Falcon second stage, will not need to be paid any more."
There have been some estimates that the internal cost for a starlink launch is around $20M. And that includes a new second stage.
When you are launching as often as SpaceX the second stage production line becomes "mass production" driving down costs per unit. They are probably building 8-10 new boosters a year between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy - that's more than most non reusable rockets. Driving down costs. Launch and test facilities have high usage which require more maintenance but spread over so many launches drives down costs per launch.
And since SpaceX hasn't reduced the price of launches for customers they are raking in massive profits. They don't need to because they are still the cheapest launch provider, have an amazing reliability record getting the payload to space (which drives down the cost of launch insurance, too) and have the excess capacity to add launches.
It's going to take more than a reusable rocket to compete with SpaceX - it will take having a large launch cadence to drive down all of the costs. Maybe Blue Origin with Kuiper or a Chinese launch provider with China's internet satellite constellation.
If I recall correctly, If they could have used an SLS to launch the Europa Clipper it would have cut the transit time significantly since it is a more powerful rocket. But there aren't any spare SLS rockets right now so the time advantage is lost in waiting, and a Falcon Heavy expended is far, far cheaper than an SLS.
" It's worth noting that this was a suborbital launch, so won't have been trying to get anything to escape velocity, either which is a mite over 11 kilometres per second."
This was an "almost orbital" launch - the speed achieved by the booster was the same as for a true orbital launch, but starship itself stopped *just* short of orbital speeds to ensure that it would reenter the atmosphere without having to restart the engines. Just a few more seconds of thrust and they would have reached it.
Back in the early 1980's we had a PDP-11/73 as the office computer, running TSX+ (a multiuser version of RT-11). I was put in charge of the computer. The editor program would timeout after a certain period of inactivity, printing a message when it would exit. I had written a program that would allow me to replace a string with another string in any type of file including an executable. So I replaced the timeout message with the message "CPU meltdown - program aborted". One user ran into my office scared that he had broken our computer......
"Earlier space efforts were built on rigor, lengthy and specific and detailed checklists that were themselves built on checklists, and everyone involved was focused on getting as close to perfection as humanly possible. It didn't hurt that governments and the populace were both literally and figuratively invested in the work and the outcomes."
This is the type of arguement Boeing used to try to cut SpaceX out of the commercial crew program. We all know how well that worked out.
"I does seem that SpaceX manages a little better than most, somehow."
SpaceX has over 200 consecutive successful booster *landings* with the Falcon 9. One can argue that the the Falcon 9 is the safest rocket ever - the current version of the Falcon 9, Block 5, has 245 consecutive launch successes.
I'd imagine that the cost to insure a satellite is going to be quite a bit cheaper if it is being launched on a Falcon 9.
Even if all three of the other rockets (Ariane 6, Vulcan and Glenn) make their initial launches "on time", there is a big difference between that and having the sort of launch cadence needed for Kuiper. Heck, can BO put out enough BE-4 engines for both New Glenn and Vulcan to meet their schedules (which also include non-Kuiper launches)? While NG's booster is to be reusable it's going to take a number of launches before they will be reflying boosters - more BE-4 engines.
I would be pleasantly surprised if all three launch providers could meet their schedules. But I expect SpaceX will get at least a dozen extra Kuiper launches to cover it.
The way to drive costs down is through reusability and a high launch cadence.
The high launch cadence means that the costs of the rocket development and the costs of the launch, landing, and test facilities can be spread over more launches. The problem for an "Ariane 7" is that they will be competing not only with the Falcon 9 but also New Glenn, Neutron, Terran R, reusable rockets from China and India, and ..... Starship. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a market for an Ariane 7, but unless someone wants to use it to deploy a massive satellite array like Starlink it will have trouble getting a high launch cadence.
"ISRO hopes the vehicle one day makes it possible to launch payloads to orbit for just $4,000/kg – well below the cost of competing launch services."
I'd assume that their launch cost estimates are for a rocket with a reusable first stage. By the time they have the full stack flying SpaceX will have Starship/Superheavy, RocketLab will have Neutron, etc - all fully reusable. But currently the Falcon 9 costs $67M and can take as much as 17,400kg to LEO in reusable mode which works out to $3850/kg.
I'm running Linux kernel 6.1.13 on Linux Mint 20. I grab the sources from the Linux kernel archive and compile it. I started doing it years ago when my wifi chipset was dropping the connection - using the latest and greatest kernel fixed it. Then later I moved to a new CPU with GPUs that weren't supported by the stock kernel.
I've got it set up such that it takes just a few minutes to set it up to compile, and then just a single command to install it once the compile has finished.
I usually take the current stable kernel but wait until it has received a number of revisions. I have never had any problems even though I've done this dozens of times.
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