[AR] Re: Re spacex falcon 9 landing
- From: David McMIllan <skyefire@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2015 00:13:08 -0500
On 12/27/2015 10:37 PM, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
I would not be surprised if the balance for Falcon 9 turns out to be,
lower stage reuse is profitable, upper stage reuse is not.
Short term, almost certainly correct. Longer term... hm. I
suspect that, on a pure cost analysis, that is likely to hold true for
quite some time, barring any sudden new developments in propulsion or
materials. But I wonder... what if the market shifts? Right now, there
seems to be a meme that riding on a "used" rocket is riskier than riding
a brand-new expendable, but that doesn't really make sense, from a
broader perspective. What happens if the market starts to*prefer*
"broken in" rockets? Might externalities like lower insurance costs and
regulatory hurdles close the business case for a reusable upper stage?
Too early to say, but it'll be very interesting to see how the market
shifts over the coming decade, as we get experience with actual
recovered/refurb'd/reused booster stages.
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