From a technical standpoint, it's tough.
From a technical standpoint, it's tough. You've got big expensive machinery that operates at or past any reasonable limits in extreme conditions and moreover gets destroyed with every test if you make the slightest mistake. I know that when I end up with an iteration interval of an hour it seems like development takes forever. SpaceX is able to test, what, every couple months? But the economics is probably more important. The incumbents have such sky-high development costs that reusability seemed like an impossible task to do economically. Last time anyone tried they came up with STS, which was highly capable but ultimately dangerous and ruinously expensive. A new reusable system seemed like it would take half a trillion dollars in development, and would probably never have the flight rate to make it worthwhile. Elon thought that he could do it better. NASA believes designing a reusable system would be too expensive for them. They're probably both right.
Posted by jccooper on Apr 16, 2015, 3:46 AM
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- its like owning a personal computer in 1986.
- Not at all, actually.
- A car battery with reduced range is still perfectly useable as a storage battery for a PV system.
- Here in Argentina we are in permanent summer time GMT-3 since a long time, but we should be in GMT-4.
- You should do some basic research yourself.
- Well, actually not.
Raise real-world problems, find people facing the same issue, and discuss solutions.7,000 issues0 comments
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its like owning a personal computer in 1986.
NewNot at all, actually.
NewA car battery with reduced range is still perfectly useable as a storage battery for a PV system.
Here in Argentina we are in permanent summer time GMT-3 since a long time, but we should be in GMT-4.
You should do some basic research yourself.
Well, actually not.
I have a 2022 mini that I use constantly.
Two observation: 1.
From a technical standpoint, it's tough.
From a technical standpoint, it's tough. You've got big expensive machinery that operates at or past any reasonable limits in extreme conditions and moreover gets destroyed with every test if you make the slightest mistake. I know that when I end up with an iteration interval of an hour it seems like development takes forever. SpaceX is able to test, what, every couple months? But the economics is probably more important. The incumbents have such sky-high development costs that reusability seemed like an impossible task to do economically. Last time anyone tried they came up with STS, which was highly capable but ultimately dangerous and ruinously expensive. A new reusable system seemed like it would take half a trillion dollars in development, and would probably never have the flight rate to make it worthwhile. Elon thought that he could do it better. NASA believes designing a reusable system would be too expensive for them. They're probably both right.
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