Comments by "Fredinno" (@innosam123) on "Is Spacex facing bankruptcy?!" video.

  1.  @jessejamesmoore1443  Hey, V1 and V2 actually succeeded (in flying and being a weapon- not in winning the war, nothing could do that at this point) and were technological masterpieces - so much so that they arguably inspired a generation of sci-fi.
    6
  2. No it's not. Wikipedia says 5, most being government military launches except 1, where the satellite operator is literally just paying extra for extra fuel and Psyche, where ULA failed to get the contract because Vulcan isn't proven yet. Also, Elon has said before that Falcon Heavy could use a larger fairing if demand arises. Where did that promise go?
    3
  3. Also note that JWST cost less than Hubble ($15B cost) to build, while being much more advanced and larger (6m aperture.) Space is hard.
    3
  4.  @jonasmanuel  Yeah. And 1 didn’t need to use Falcon Heavy (and yet another may not be using Falcon Heavy, so we can’t add that to the list.) 2022 is a bit of an abnormal year. 2023 sees 1 Falcon Heavy launch (so far). Most of the customers after that are government customers, and most of THOSE payloads were originally on SLS (secondary or primary) until Block II was pushed back and Clipper was moved off. The story is complicated, but originally the Gateway was supposed to use excess capacity on SLS Block II and IB to launch logistics and components. Note that as this used excess capacity on SLS, not new SLS launches, the savings aren’t particularly obvious. (If existent.) NASA will be paying for Block II anyways, the only difference is when the money is spent (Block I and IB rely on Shuttle heritage booster segments that aren’t being built anymore. Note the boosters have had few real upgrades since the 70s, and Grumman has put USAF and its own money into developing new boosters for OmegA.) SLS was never competing for Pysche, it was competing against Vulcan. I would imagine that Vulcan Heavy would be able to properly compete against FH once Vulcan Medium flies a few times, which would explain the abnormal 2022 flight rate. They have no competitors. Temporarily. Well, save money or time? Time is money too. We’d have had a Europa Lander for years now if Cassini and Galileo didn’t have to fly around Venus and Earth so many times, since outer planet missions tend not to get new funding until the previous ones send data back. SLS (even Block I) is oversized for Psyche (approx payload to Jupiter is 5mT for Block I, about double the mass of the probe- and Psyche isn’t going to Jupiter...) SLS was never on the table for Psyche. The only possibly is if Clipper and Psyche were on the same launcher, but that’s probably not worth the effort (bad timing). Also, the RS-25 cost estimates cited for that figure include production restart costs as well as development costs for the new engine version. They literally just divided the contract by the number of engines. The same sort of accounting gives a cost number of $53M per F-1 engine, while Rocketdyne estimated a per-engine cost of $30M (Space Review, not sure if links work here, I’ll give them if you want them.) So the simple division is a really bloated cost estimate that’s not fair to the RS-25. Aerojet Rocketdyne refuses to give real cost of the engine, but that’s pretty much never given out in the industry (aside from Raptor, which is apparently a disaster if the leaks are to be believed). The usual cost estimate for RS-25 before those leaks is $40 Million, which is also an uncited number tossed around the internet.
    2
  5.  @CraneArmy  Elon has really succeeded only with the Falcon and Dragon, and has completely failed in making reuse profitable (as Thunderfoot shows). The move to Starship implies they’ve simultaneously given up on that goal for the Falcon, and are doubling down for the Starship- basically simultaneously admitting failure while doubling down on the failure. Falcon’s reuse is depicted as a success despite getting nowhere near either its time or performance/cost goals. That was Thunderfoot’s point. People should give him shit for this. Grumman has gotten plenty of criticism for JWST, you don’t follow the space community well.
    2
  6.  @CraneArmy  15:30 in this video, Thunderfoot brings up the predictions of the cost of reusable F9 as being 5-7M, which is an order of magnitude lower than their current costs.
    2
  7.  @CraneArmy  Umm, WSJ did an expose showing SpaceX was losing money… in 2017. Before their massive capital expenditures in Starship and StarLink. Also, Vulcan and Ariane 5 (and possible H-3) are expected to be competitive on a cost/kg basis (especially to higher energy orbits.) Also, The costs to build F9 were borne largely by NASA. If you’re talking about the costs to make it reusable, that’s part of the problem . Worse, SpaceX’s website says $62M for ‘up to’ 5.5mT to GTO. Aka- $62M for a reusable F9. It’s not $50-60M. Thunderfoot is actually doing a rare thing and understating the costs of the F9.
    2