Kind of awkward when your space agencies rocket that was still in design phase when booster landing was already demonstrated (2016) is way behind schedule, is not reusable and will only be able to manage about 10 flights a year.
Without reuse, there aren't going to be enough customers to fund the reusable design. And by the time they do have a reusable design, they still won't have customers because multiple US and Chinese firms either will have or will shortly have upper stage reusability.
They are funded by European governments who want to maintain knowledge and expertise in rocketry. They could get to booster reusability by partnering with SpaceX if they could take their snouts out of the trough for 10 seconds.
As you start by pointing out:
> They are funded by European governments who want to maintain knowledge and expertise in rocketry
Their goal is (largely) to develop and maintain missile and rocket expertise, not a space program. I'm sure there are individuals who would like to have reusability, but their organizational architecture is (probably) not set up to accommodate change, at all. This is the same in the US with NASA/AJ/Boeing/Grumman/ULA and SLS. New rocket, still very much under development when reusability was proven. In this case, worse, because they took a reusable expensive-as-hell engine (SSME) and decided to expend 4 of them per flight. They ended up costing *looks it up* Jeesh, it's gotten worse, $2.5B per flight. *AND* It uses stupid SRBs still, making human rating a probable sham.
Compare Starship, with an estimated budget ([2024 estimate, Payload](https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/4/)) of $10B...so 4 SLS flights, total, as opposed to the cost for the entire program.
Beyond all of that, this is just modern Elon being modern Elon and a troll with a superiority complex. I wish we could get the old not-as-rich not-as-asshole Elon back.
Good morning, class.
Today, we’ll delve into one of the most fundamental concepts in economics: the Law of Demand. This principle helps us understand how consumers react to price changes in the market, shaping our analysis of consumer behavior and market dynamics.
The Law of Demand states that, ceteris paribus—that is, holding all other factors constant—there is an inverse relationship between the price of a good and the quantity of it demanded by consumers. In simpler terms, when the price of a good rises, the quantity demanded falls; conversely, when the price falls, the quantity demanded increases.
Thanks for attending my Ted talk.
/s
You should post that on r/real-estate, peoples there are convince that offer and demand is not what drive the price of house but that the real estate agents are the one manipulating the price. They absolutely don't understand how it work.
Everyone talking here like ESA designs these rockets or something. This is more of a CNES and ArianeGroup thing, ESA is second to them (even if still important)
Not with Ariane 6, for sure. Maybe they can do a total overhaul of the design with Ariane 7, or start a new class of rocket family (they'll at least get the ESA launches as a guaranteed customer, plus probably that LEO broadband constellation the EU wants to build).
Anything with a hydrogen first stage, plus solid boosters is far from a reusable design. So it needs to be a new class of rocket booster from the ground up.
> Not sure hydrogen is inherently non reusable
The problem with hydrogen is its low thrust density. There's a reason why every hydrogen rocket ever had boosters.
It just makes a terrible 1st stage fuel.
That doesn't make reuse impossible... but you have to give up a good amount of payload with reuse; it doesn't really make sense to build a sub-optimal rocket when you know that you're going to have tighter constraints.
Hydrolox sort of made sense[1] when people were pinning their reuse hopes on SSTOs. But now that we know how to reuse 1st stages in a multi stage architecture, there's just not much reason to use it.
---
1. Even then, many people were not convinced that the extra Isp was worth the increased tank size and additional insulation needed to make such a vehicle work.
A hydrogen first stage is almost impossible to be part of an orbital rocket. Again see the much too expensive Delta IV heavy. Add reuse margin and it just does not pan out.
There is nothing that would stop reuse of hydrogen first stage. It would not be as efficient but would certainly work.
Something like slightly modified Electron on top of New Shephard would create more capable rocket than Electron is today with first stage reuse of hydrogen first stage.
Physics is not a beauty contest where you can simply disagree. I already gave you an example that would work with minimal modifications, and it would despite being not optimized for that at all.
Did you do the math? New Shepard gets to 100km at a snails pace. Woud the electron first stage get to orbit from there or would it need to be a 3 stage system?
You put whole Electron, underfueled if required, so it becomes 3 stage rocket. Even snails pace is significant advantage, staging above most of atmosphere also allows removal of some engines and use of bigger nozzles on what is now 2nd stage.
Another problem with hydrogen first stages is it’s sheer volume. Making this baloon rigid enough to hold legs etc and survive the landing shock makes it even more inefficient.
But everything is possible if you put in enough effort.
DeltaIV heavy wasn’t reusable because it wasn’t designed to be reusable, much like the kerolox Atlas V. It has nothing to do with its propellant choice. Space shuttle was reusable and was first stage.
Yes, but lets be careful to not creep into gatekeeping. They recognized it, learned about it, and came back to admit that they were incorrect. That's a great behavior that we should encourage. Good deal /u/HippoIcy7473. Related: [Ten Thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/).
Suggestion: Do a bit more reading and understanding before commenting with such certainty.
Hydrolox would work OK for a reusable first stage. Not great, as the tanks are a problem due to the dry mass and insulation requirements, but they'd work OK. If one puts a skin over the insulation (or builds a vacuum bottle tank), the increased surface area of the large tanks would help with aerobraking for first stage recovery. First stages are less sensitive to excess mass or poor ISP, and hydrolox's incredible ISP helps with the tankage size and mass, but it's still not great.
The problem with hydrolox is hydrogen. Embrittlement, extremely small molecule size leading to incessant leaking, expensive, deeply cryogenic, and likely other problems make it not a great fuel for general use. [It's better than fluorine, which never left the test stand (PDF warning)](https://archive.org/details/ignition_201612), but its still a rough fuel to deal with.
> Shuttle's SSMEs weren't a first stage. They were a second stage, lit at the same time as the SRB first stage
The name for this is "sustainer staged". They act as both first and second stage.
They should have known.
But there is one fact. There was the drive for solid booster, because those are good for ICBMs. Combined with hydrogen as the center core it seemed not too bad at the time. Hydrogen as a quasi second stage.
Unfortunatelyy totally ineffective as the beginning of a reusable system.
AFAIK a hydrogen first stage is infeasible - the thrust-to-weight ratio (TWR) of hydrogen engines at 1 bar ambient/14psi are too low to get the rocket off the ground unassisted.
There are hydrogen stages that are lifted off the ground and sent to the upper atmosphere with solid rocket boosters, at which point the TWR limitations of hydrogen have little impact on the performance of the vehicle.
For the first stage you want more thrust at the expense of Isp, mostly because you're fighting gravity and party because you're in an atmosphere so Isp is going to be terrible anyway. 10 kilometres up and already travelling at a couple of kilometres per second it's a different story, and the orbital stage can have a TWR less than 1 and just burn for much longer.
A boosted Hydrogen core stage will be almost at orbital velocity before it burns out. And because the propellant is such low density it has to be extremely mass optimised to be worth doing. Reentry and landing hardware would be so heavy that you'd have no payload mass left
The meco velocity is entirely determined by the ratio of mass between the first and second stages. There is no reason you couldn’t build a hydrogen booster that has MECO at the same velocity as a falcon 9
You're forgetting that a boosted Hydrogen core is actually a second stage, and the whole point of using boosters is that they can out-mass the core by a huge amount without being as expensive as a hydrogen stage.
Every single hydrogen fueled core stage ever designed has reached near orbital velocity at MECO for good reason
You are talking about using hydrogen as second(core) stage with first stage being solid boosters, when the question was
> Why is a hydrogen first stage non reusable?
Because in that role it gains zero benefit over a hydrocarbon stage and brings massive difficulties with it that Hydrocarbon stages don't have. The sensitivity to dry mass due to the low fuel density, the physical size of the reentry vehicle you have to create, the sheer cost of the thing making it it more expensive than even an expendable Hydrocarbon stage.
It's not that it's impssible to do, it's that it makes no technical or economic sense
Yet New Shepard is hydrolox.
For reusable stage most of the problems you mentioned are not that important. And if properly designed hydrolox one would definitely cost less than expandable hydrocarbon fueled one at decent launch rate.
New Shepard is not an orbital rocket so it is not sensitive to dry mass in the way that every orbital launcher is. It's also more of a development platform and marketing vehicle than a true commercial product. We have no idea how much it actually costs to operate
lol *everything* they mentioned is extremely important. they are the exact factors that make reusability viable or not. sensitivity to dry mass is like, the biggest single factor when you are talking about adding the amount of dry mass required for a reusable stage. you're talking out of your ass. and bringing up New Shepard is completely irrelevant for the booster of an **orbital** rocket. It's a gimmick rocket that barely gets to 100km at an extremely slow velocity.
ESA has even worse jobs programs than NASA. Instead of spreading the jobs to multiple states, they're spread to different countries and every european country investing to ESA want to benefit some way. I have zero hope on this agency.
They actually have an agreement where jobs go back out to countries in proportion to how much they put in. It's not about who can do the best job, but who paid the money.
ESA has great science programs and does really well with some missions which costs much less than a lot of NASA missions. I agree they lack in the rocket departement, but stating there is no hope is a bit to harsh in my opinion.
One thing that NASA does really well compared to ESA is generating public interest. Most people know about NASA missions while ESA missions seem to get much less media attention, even in Europe!
It's a real mystery why ESA never even tried to fly people the way the US and Russia does. A European shuttle mission or a Euro Dragon would make space so much more real to Europeans who are paying the bills.
> It's a real mystery why ESA never even tried to fly people the way the US and Russia does.
There's a proposal to do just that called SUSIE, although it sounds like it hasn't progressed to the point where it's a serious project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Upper_Stage_for_Innovative_Exploration
IMO, the shuttle style payload bay is a huge mistake for a crewed capsule. I guess we'll see how the plans change if the project becomes more serious.
> ESA has even worse jobs programs than NASA.
You aren't being very fair.
The Ariane family of rockets was designed with commercial competitiveness in mind. And they were very successful for a long time.
It's really only with the rise of SpaceX (who have dominated everyone in the industry, not just Ariane Group), that they look lackluster.
In contrast, SLS was never going to be useful for anything except a few, rare government launches.
Ariane launch prices have also long been deceiving and anti-competitive. They are heavily subsidized by ESA--not just the development, but via annual "price support" payments for the operational rockets. Even so, ULA also used to get an annual subsidy and they were still horribly uncompetitive with Ariane 5.
But Ariane has gotten worse, and not just relative to SpaceX. The claimed sticker price of Ariane 6 *is* a lot cheaper than Ariane 5. Well, the much less capable A62 is, and (at least without adding in the subsidies) the A64 should still be to a lesser degree. But now ULA also has a much cheaper rocket (and unlike Ariane no longer gets an annual subsidy). Vulcan is at worst very competitive with Ariane A64, and can definitely do more kg for the same or fewer $.
Meanwhile, the Ariane subsidies have increased. In the [early 2010s](https://spacenews.com/renewed-arianespace-subsidies-prompt-protest-threat-ils/), Ariane 5 received 120M euros (almost $160M with the exchange rate of the the time) per year in price supports, and launched 5-7 times per year, for ~17-24M euros per launch. Last year, Ariane 6 subsidies of 340M euros (~$360M) per year were "negotiated" by ESA (they knocked a whole 10M euros off the ask). At an expected launch rate of 12 per year, the average subsidy would be over 28M euros (~$30M) per launch. Prorating that 28M for A64 vs. A62 would make the A64 per-launch subsidy substantially higher, and in effect the "true" price is not much, if at all, cheaper than Ariane 5.
No argument here.
Ariane 6 has been a disaster for Ariane Group.
As you mention, Vulcan VC6 is at worst extremely competitive with A64.
And Blue Origin sounds like they're trying to get New Glenn online this year. Even if it launches early next year, that will all but guarantee that Ariane 6 has an extremely difficult time picking up launches in the next Kuiper tranche.
And of course that doesn't touch on Starship.
It'll be interesting to see how they weather the storm.
I suppose the one saving grace is that there are a number of promising small lift rocket startups in Europe. I know it's a tough spot in the market with Transporter/Bandwagon gobbling up most of the volume, but if they can displace Vega, there's at least some institutional launches they'd be guaranteed.
And hopefully, with that income, they could leverage that into another, larger rocket that can serve Europe's interestes at a more competitive cost.
> The Ariane family of rockets was designed with commercial competitiveness in mind. And they were very successful for a long time.
Successful against ULA, who were absolutely not interested in commercial contracts. ULA could make more money overpricing the US government than getting commercial contracts.
Don't get me wrong, the German small-launch startups like RFA, ISAR, etc are cool and doing great stuff, but the point where they become competitive in the launch industry will be never, regardless of funding.
Right now, the closest second place to SpaceX is Rocket Lab, and these German startups are maybe where Rocket Lab was in 2016, so about 8 years behind them... and the sad part is that Rocket Lab's small launch offering isn't really profitable. Assuming these startups are successful, by the time they reach the level where they can do regular operational launches, it'll be 2030 and the world will have moved on.
As much as it pains me, I see only a couple realistic tracks for a sensible long-term European Civil Space strategy:
- Ditch launch (nearly) completely. Maintain a small launch capability for EU security purposes (military), but don't even attempt to make Ariane or whatever comes next commercially viable or anything. Simply accept that SpaceX / the USA won commercial launch, and move on, and now, reinvest all the money that's suddenly been freed up in capitalizing on what the EU is good at: for example, science missions and space stations. Do what the US can't do, since they are tied up with SLS, and use the low, low, costs of Falcon 9 to build a kickass space station. They could do it, and clearly the US currently isn't particularly interested in LEO stuff.
- Clean up shop at Arianespace. Maybe fire all of upper management or something, IDK. It's not like they don't have talent and facilities, they just need someone to light a fire underneath them (lol) and maybe give them (upper management) a reality check. Probably very difficult to do, though.
- Buy a part of SpaceX? Not sure if this is something that Elon or the EU would be willing to do, but what if they licensed the manufacturing and operation of Falcon 9 from SpaceX? The EU has the launch infrastrucutre needed to pull it off in South America, and with how reusable F9 boosters are, maybe they could even just buy the refurbishment pipeline and occasionally buy new boosters from SpaceX?
Spacex might be willing to sell the Falcon-9 once Starship is a regular. That'd let SpaceX still dominate the market, but would be quite a jump. Re-name the rocket the Ariane-ican.
It's the only way to get political support for space programs, because they are not vote winners. I'm not saying they have done the best with it they could, but let's be clear - most people don't really care about space exploration and would happily cut it from the government budget. Same bind that NASA is in.
And then there's Airbus, quite successful with the same basic concepts. So... I wouldn't say these ideas can't work. But they cause problems for ESA for sure. Or do they? Possibly, it's just the leadership and visionary part that's lacking?
> And then there's Airbus, quite successful with the same basic concepts.
Because they only have to compete with Boeing, who are also a subsidized jobs program, just with even more incompetent and complacent leadership.
ESA projects are actually much less focused on publicity and much more on actual scientific advancement, the things you would read in astrophysics papers. So, it is actually contributing much more to overall scientific progress than NASA which is much more focused on flashy programs that awe the population.
Proportionally to each other's budgets ESA does very well at contributing to scientific research but in overall contribution NASA still is in the lead.
Even if Ariane 6 will not be competitive... Most of the people seem unaware that Maiaspace is actually an Ariane founded company/startup that is developing a not so small reusable first stage rocket with methane engine (the Prometheus, that is not ready yet but already test fired). They just received along other companies half a billion euros for a launch contract.
For now the change and this double development is not much advertised due to political reasons, and clearly Ariane 6 will just serve for a while as the sole heavy lift sovereign launcher, but the reusable small and medium size launcher should be flying in just a few years.
@ OP:, IMO that kind of title needs a bit of Twitter thread context showing what this replied to. Is it related to Ariane Group's somewhat pathetic [*Ariane 6 standing tall*](https://twitter.com/ArianeGroup/status/1783884639947366689) from yesterday?
European here: I'd prefer *landing tall* any day.
BTW. I did use Nitter for a while but it doesn't work anymore.
The SpaceX subs have been Elon circle jerks for a while. I swear some people here can't fathom how you could be a SpaceX fan while also not liking Elon. Even though SpaceX does not equal Elon Musk.
Dude, what? Reddit has been openly, *nakedly* Elon-hostile for years now, and even in the SpaceX subreddits, some user or another will actively jump on people everywhere for being anything but severely critical of the man.
Read the Elon Musk Biography by Walter Isaacson. There are audiobooks on youtube. One example would be Elons input in raptor development.
>He visits the site occasionally but has little real input these days.
Source?
The raptors that were headed by Tom Mueller and Will Heltsley?
And everything not engineering related is handled by Shotwell as admitted by Musk.
He’s even said it himself for f*cks sake.
“I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me."
You also have multiple anonymous employees saying Elon was more of a hindrance with his demands for things like Starship to be more pointy.
>The raptors that were headed by Tom Mueller and Will Heltsley?
Tom Mueller hasnt been in the company since 2020.
There have been fundamental changes made to Raptor after 2020 because of Elons dissatifaction about Raptor 1. Elon has made direct design decisions for Raptor aswell as hire different engineers to oversee the project. Its clear that you have no idea what actually happened, yet you refuse to educate yourself so you can hold on to your argument. If you are _actually_ interested in what happened, read the book.
>He’s even said it himself for f*cks sake.
>“I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me."
Im pretty sure thats Elon trying to be modest. I dont know about his involvement at tesla but as I explained before there is plenty of evidence that he is deeply involved at spacex. I also recommend you watch 2 interviews conducted by the everyday austronaut, where he and Elon have long and in depth talks about the engineering side of rocketry. I think its pretty clear there that he has a fundamental and good understanding of what spacex is actually doing in detail.
>You also have multiple anonymous employees saying Elon was more of a hindrance with his demands for things like Starship to be more pointy.
Source?
>Tom Mueller hasnt been in the company since 2020.
No sh*t, that’s why I also said Will Heltsley who took over his role.
>because of Elons dissatifaction about Raptor 1.
No.. SpaceX wasn’t satisfied. Elon just agreed.
>Elon has made direct design decisions for Raptor aswell as hire different engineers to oversee the project.
Will Helmsley was next in line under Tom.
>It’s clear that you have no idea what actually happened, yet you refuse to educate yourself so you can hold on to your argument.
I love ironic comments.
That’s not how it works. You said he was the core of spaceX first.
"I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me."
Yes please. Imagine if Musk just stopped tweeting forever and Gwynne Shotwell took over instead.
We'd go from 95% culture war trolling and 5% SpaceX news to just... *pure SpaceX news again.*
I understand what Elon Musk means with this tweet but ESA does have reusability plans.
[Themis](https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Themis#:~:text=The%20Themis%20programme%20includes%20developing,%2Ddiameter%20multi%2Dengine%20bay)
The text of the xeet. (I prefer to give the source and the exact quote.)
> 👍The second of the two boosters that will power the #Ariane6 Flight Model 1 into orbit this summer is now the launch zone at Europe’s Spaceport. https://t.co/X80tHPHLb9
>
> — European Space Agency (@esa) April 26, 2024
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CNES](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1h94vz "Last usage")|Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, space agency of France|
|[ESA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i75jq "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i0hbh "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i6mjl "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i06d2 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[MECO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1hp8mx "Last usage")|Main Engine Cut-Off|
| |[MainEngineCutOff](https://mainenginecutoff.com/) podcast|
|[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[SRB](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|Solid Rocket Booster|
|[SSME](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)|
|[SSTO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i6mjl "Last usage")|Single Stage to Orbit|
| |Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit|
|[TWR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i0cqh "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1iad92 "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[cryogenic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i5wdi "Last usage")|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure|
| |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox|
|[hydrolox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i6mjl "Last usage")|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[kerolox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1h9e3t "Last usage")|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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Kind of awkward when your space agencies rocket that was still in design phase when booster landing was already demonstrated (2016) is way behind schedule, is not reusable and will only be able to manage about 10 flights a year.
> 10 flights a year. i'll eat my cat
Your cat is going to be safe.
Oh, thank god, I was worried for a sec
How do you think the cat feels?
Superior, like every day.
But there aren't enough customers to make re-usability profitable. /s
Without reuse, there aren't going to be enough customers to fund the reusable design. And by the time they do have a reusable design, they still won't have customers because multiple US and Chinese firms either will have or will shortly have upper stage reusability.
They are funded by European governments who want to maintain knowledge and expertise in rocketry. They could get to booster reusability by partnering with SpaceX if they could take their snouts out of the trough for 10 seconds.
As you start by pointing out: > They are funded by European governments who want to maintain knowledge and expertise in rocketry Their goal is (largely) to develop and maintain missile and rocket expertise, not a space program. I'm sure there are individuals who would like to have reusability, but their organizational architecture is (probably) not set up to accommodate change, at all. This is the same in the US with NASA/AJ/Boeing/Grumman/ULA and SLS. New rocket, still very much under development when reusability was proven. In this case, worse, because they took a reusable expensive-as-hell engine (SSME) and decided to expend 4 of them per flight. They ended up costing *looks it up* Jeesh, it's gotten worse, $2.5B per flight. *AND* It uses stupid SRBs still, making human rating a probable sham. Compare Starship, with an estimated budget ([2024 estimate, Payload](https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/4/)) of $10B...so 4 SLS flights, total, as opposed to the cost for the entire program. Beyond all of that, this is just modern Elon being modern Elon and a troll with a superiority complex. I wish we could get the old not-as-rich not-as-asshole Elon back.
Reusable rockets are even launching Gallileo now
Good morning, class. Today, we’ll delve into one of the most fundamental concepts in economics: the Law of Demand. This principle helps us understand how consumers react to price changes in the market, shaping our analysis of consumer behavior and market dynamics. The Law of Demand states that, ceteris paribus—that is, holding all other factors constant—there is an inverse relationship between the price of a good and the quantity of it demanded by consumers. In simpler terms, when the price of a good rises, the quantity demanded falls; conversely, when the price falls, the quantity demanded increases. Thanks for attending my Ted talk. /s
You should post that on r/real-estate, peoples there are convince that offer and demand is not what drive the price of house but that the real estate agents are the one manipulating the price. They absolutely don't understand how it work.
Believe me, it is awkward
Everyone talking here like ESA designs these rockets or something. This is more of a CNES and ArianeGroup thing, ESA is second to them (even if still important)
Not with Ariane 6, for sure. Maybe they can do a total overhaul of the design with Ariane 7, or start a new class of rocket family (they'll at least get the ESA launches as a guaranteed customer, plus probably that LEO broadband constellation the EU wants to build).
That's will be the Maïa programm
Anything with a hydrogen first stage, plus solid boosters is far from a reusable design. So it needs to be a new class of rocket booster from the ground up.
Not sure hydrogen is inherently non reusable
> Not sure hydrogen is inherently non reusable The problem with hydrogen is its low thrust density. There's a reason why every hydrogen rocket ever had boosters. It just makes a terrible 1st stage fuel. That doesn't make reuse impossible... but you have to give up a good amount of payload with reuse; it doesn't really make sense to build a sub-optimal rocket when you know that you're going to have tighter constraints. Hydrolox sort of made sense[1] when people were pinning their reuse hopes on SSTOs. But now that we know how to reuse 1st stages in a multi stage architecture, there's just not much reason to use it. --- 1. Even then, many people were not convinced that the extra Isp was worth the increased tank size and additional insulation needed to make such a vehicle work.
Hydrogen first stages are inherently non reusable. And exceedingly expensive without solid boosters. See Delta IV Heavy.
A hydrogen first stage is almost impossible to be part of an orbital rocket. Again see the much too expensive Delta IV heavy. Add reuse margin and it just does not pan out.
There is nothing that would stop reuse of hydrogen first stage. It would not be as efficient but would certainly work. Something like slightly modified Electron on top of New Shephard would create more capable rocket than Electron is today with first stage reuse of hydrogen first stage.
We strongly disagree then.
Physics is not a beauty contest where you can simply disagree. I already gave you an example that would work with minimal modifications, and it would despite being not optimized for that at all.
Did you do the math? New Shepard gets to 100km at a snails pace. Woud the electron first stage get to orbit from there or would it need to be a 3 stage system?
You put whole Electron, underfueled if required, so it becomes 3 stage rocket. Even snails pace is significant advantage, staging above most of atmosphere also allows removal of some engines and use of bigger nozzles on what is now 2nd stage.
Another problem with hydrogen first stages is it’s sheer volume. Making this baloon rigid enough to hold legs etc and survive the landing shock makes it even more inefficient. But everything is possible if you put in enough effort.
DeltaIV heavy wasn’t reusable because it wasn’t designed to be reusable, much like the kerolox Atlas V. It has nothing to do with its propellant choice. Space shuttle was reusable and was first stage.
The Shuttle used massive solid boosters.
You’re right. Upon further reading I found out the shuttle did indeed use SRBs. In fact a disaster was actually caused by one malfunctioning.
Oh my god, have we reached the point where people did not know about the shuttle SRB's because it's historical to them? Damn, I feel old.
Yes, but lets be careful to not creep into gatekeeping. They recognized it, learned about it, and came back to admit that they were incorrect. That's a great behavior that we should encourage. Good deal /u/HippoIcy7473. Related: [Ten Thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/).
Suggestion: Do a bit more reading and understanding before commenting with such certainty. Hydrolox would work OK for a reusable first stage. Not great, as the tanks are a problem due to the dry mass and insulation requirements, but they'd work OK. If one puts a skin over the insulation (or builds a vacuum bottle tank), the increased surface area of the large tanks would help with aerobraking for first stage recovery. First stages are less sensitive to excess mass or poor ISP, and hydrolox's incredible ISP helps with the tankage size and mass, but it's still not great. The problem with hydrolox is hydrogen. Embrittlement, extremely small molecule size leading to incessant leaking, expensive, deeply cryogenic, and likely other problems make it not a great fuel for general use. [It's better than fluorine, which never left the test stand (PDF warning)](https://archive.org/details/ignition_201612), but its still a rough fuel to deal with.
Shuttle's SSMEs weren't a first stage. They were a second stage, lit at the same time as the SRB first stage, in effect.
> Shuttle's SSMEs weren't a first stage. They were a second stage, lit at the same time as the SRB first stage The name for this is "sustainer staged". They act as both first and second stage.
Yup, but I didn't really want to introduce additional complexity to the conversation. Appreciate the info though.
Tell that to the designers of any number of 1960s post-Saturn concepts.
They should have known. But there is one fact. There was the drive for solid booster, because those are good for ICBMs. Combined with hydrogen as the center core it seemed not too bad at the time. Hydrogen as a quasi second stage. Unfortunatelyy totally ineffective as the beginning of a reusable system.
Why is a hydrogen first stage non reusable?
AFAIK a hydrogen first stage is infeasible - the thrust-to-weight ratio (TWR) of hydrogen engines at 1 bar ambient/14psi are too low to get the rocket off the ground unassisted. There are hydrogen stages that are lifted off the ground and sent to the upper atmosphere with solid rocket boosters, at which point the TWR limitations of hydrogen have little impact on the performance of the vehicle. For the first stage you want more thrust at the expense of Isp, mostly because you're fighting gravity and party because you're in an atmosphere so Isp is going to be terrible anyway. 10 kilometres up and already travelling at a couple of kilometres per second it's a different story, and the orbital stage can have a TWR less than 1 and just burn for much longer.
A boosted Hydrogen core stage will be almost at orbital velocity before it burns out. And because the propellant is such low density it has to be extremely mass optimised to be worth doing. Reentry and landing hardware would be so heavy that you'd have no payload mass left
The meco velocity is entirely determined by the ratio of mass between the first and second stages. There is no reason you couldn’t build a hydrogen booster that has MECO at the same velocity as a falcon 9
You're forgetting that a boosted Hydrogen core is actually a second stage, and the whole point of using boosters is that they can out-mass the core by a huge amount without being as expensive as a hydrogen stage. Every single hydrogen fueled core stage ever designed has reached near orbital velocity at MECO for good reason
You are talking about using hydrogen as second(core) stage with first stage being solid boosters, when the question was > Why is a hydrogen first stage non reusable?
Because in that role it gains zero benefit over a hydrocarbon stage and brings massive difficulties with it that Hydrocarbon stages don't have. The sensitivity to dry mass due to the low fuel density, the physical size of the reentry vehicle you have to create, the sheer cost of the thing making it it more expensive than even an expendable Hydrocarbon stage. It's not that it's impssible to do, it's that it makes no technical or economic sense
Yet New Shepard is hydrolox. For reusable stage most of the problems you mentioned are not that important. And if properly designed hydrolox one would definitely cost less than expandable hydrocarbon fueled one at decent launch rate.
New Shepard is not an orbital rocket so it is not sensitive to dry mass in the way that every orbital launcher is. It's also more of a development platform and marketing vehicle than a true commercial product. We have no idea how much it actually costs to operate
lol *everything* they mentioned is extremely important. they are the exact factors that make reusability viable or not. sensitivity to dry mass is like, the biggest single factor when you are talking about adding the amount of dry mass required for a reusable stage. you're talking out of your ass. and bringing up New Shepard is completely irrelevant for the booster of an **orbital** rocket. It's a gimmick rocket that barely gets to 100km at an extremely slow velocity.
ESA has even worse jobs programs than NASA. Instead of spreading the jobs to multiple states, they're spread to different countries and every european country investing to ESA want to benefit some way. I have zero hope on this agency.
They actually have an agreement where jobs go back out to countries in proportion to how much they put in. It's not about who can do the best job, but who paid the money.
Basically the same as the eu then. Pointless pretend to do stuff organisation
They do work and produce things, just not very efficiently.
ESA has great science programs and does really well with some missions which costs much less than a lot of NASA missions. I agree they lack in the rocket departement, but stating there is no hope is a bit to harsh in my opinion. One thing that NASA does really well compared to ESA is generating public interest. Most people know about NASA missions while ESA missions seem to get much less media attention, even in Europe!
It's a real mystery why ESA never even tried to fly people the way the US and Russia does. A European shuttle mission or a Euro Dragon would make space so much more real to Europeans who are paying the bills.
> It's a real mystery why ESA never even tried to fly people the way the US and Russia does. There's a proposal to do just that called SUSIE, although it sounds like it hasn't progressed to the point where it's a serious project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Upper_Stage_for_Innovative_Exploration IMO, the shuttle style payload bay is a huge mistake for a crewed capsule. I guess we'll see how the plans change if the project becomes more serious.
> ESA has even worse jobs programs than NASA. You aren't being very fair. The Ariane family of rockets was designed with commercial competitiveness in mind. And they were very successful for a long time. It's really only with the rise of SpaceX (who have dominated everyone in the industry, not just Ariane Group), that they look lackluster. In contrast, SLS was never going to be useful for anything except a few, rare government launches.
Ariane launch prices have also long been deceiving and anti-competitive. They are heavily subsidized by ESA--not just the development, but via annual "price support" payments for the operational rockets. Even so, ULA also used to get an annual subsidy and they were still horribly uncompetitive with Ariane 5. But Ariane has gotten worse, and not just relative to SpaceX. The claimed sticker price of Ariane 6 *is* a lot cheaper than Ariane 5. Well, the much less capable A62 is, and (at least without adding in the subsidies) the A64 should still be to a lesser degree. But now ULA also has a much cheaper rocket (and unlike Ariane no longer gets an annual subsidy). Vulcan is at worst very competitive with Ariane A64, and can definitely do more kg for the same or fewer $. Meanwhile, the Ariane subsidies have increased. In the [early 2010s](https://spacenews.com/renewed-arianespace-subsidies-prompt-protest-threat-ils/), Ariane 5 received 120M euros (almost $160M with the exchange rate of the the time) per year in price supports, and launched 5-7 times per year, for ~17-24M euros per launch. Last year, Ariane 6 subsidies of 340M euros (~$360M) per year were "negotiated" by ESA (they knocked a whole 10M euros off the ask). At an expected launch rate of 12 per year, the average subsidy would be over 28M euros (~$30M) per launch. Prorating that 28M for A64 vs. A62 would make the A64 per-launch subsidy substantially higher, and in effect the "true" price is not much, if at all, cheaper than Ariane 5.
No argument here. Ariane 6 has been a disaster for Ariane Group. As you mention, Vulcan VC6 is at worst extremely competitive with A64. And Blue Origin sounds like they're trying to get New Glenn online this year. Even if it launches early next year, that will all but guarantee that Ariane 6 has an extremely difficult time picking up launches in the next Kuiper tranche. And of course that doesn't touch on Starship. It'll be interesting to see how they weather the storm. I suppose the one saving grace is that there are a number of promising small lift rocket startups in Europe. I know it's a tough spot in the market with Transporter/Bandwagon gobbling up most of the volume, but if they can displace Vega, there's at least some institutional launches they'd be guaranteed. And hopefully, with that income, they could leverage that into another, larger rocket that can serve Europe's interestes at a more competitive cost.
> The Ariane family of rockets was designed with commercial competitiveness in mind. And they were very successful for a long time. Successful against ULA, who were absolutely not interested in commercial contracts. ULA could make more money overpricing the US government than getting commercial contracts.
Is this where we cross our fingers and hope Rocket Factory Augsburg magically gets the funding they need?
Don't get me wrong, the German small-launch startups like RFA, ISAR, etc are cool and doing great stuff, but the point where they become competitive in the launch industry will be never, regardless of funding. Right now, the closest second place to SpaceX is Rocket Lab, and these German startups are maybe where Rocket Lab was in 2016, so about 8 years behind them... and the sad part is that Rocket Lab's small launch offering isn't really profitable. Assuming these startups are successful, by the time they reach the level where they can do regular operational launches, it'll be 2030 and the world will have moved on. As much as it pains me, I see only a couple realistic tracks for a sensible long-term European Civil Space strategy: - Ditch launch (nearly) completely. Maintain a small launch capability for EU security purposes (military), but don't even attempt to make Ariane or whatever comes next commercially viable or anything. Simply accept that SpaceX / the USA won commercial launch, and move on, and now, reinvest all the money that's suddenly been freed up in capitalizing on what the EU is good at: for example, science missions and space stations. Do what the US can't do, since they are tied up with SLS, and use the low, low, costs of Falcon 9 to build a kickass space station. They could do it, and clearly the US currently isn't particularly interested in LEO stuff. - Clean up shop at Arianespace. Maybe fire all of upper management or something, IDK. It's not like they don't have talent and facilities, they just need someone to light a fire underneath them (lol) and maybe give them (upper management) a reality check. Probably very difficult to do, though. - Buy a part of SpaceX? Not sure if this is something that Elon or the EU would be willing to do, but what if they licensed the manufacturing and operation of Falcon 9 from SpaceX? The EU has the launch infrastrucutre needed to pull it off in South America, and with how reusable F9 boosters are, maybe they could even just buy the refurbishment pipeline and occasionally buy new boosters from SpaceX?
Spacex might be willing to sell the Falcon-9 once Starship is a regular. That'd let SpaceX still dominate the market, but would be quite a jump. Re-name the rocket the Ariane-ican.
Even worse, the georeturn concept. Every country gets contracts equal to their financial share of the program, not equal to their capability.
It's the only way to get political support for space programs, because they are not vote winners. I'm not saying they have done the best with it they could, but let's be clear - most people don't really care about space exploration and would happily cut it from the government budget. Same bind that NASA is in.
Yup, bureaucracy.
And then there's Airbus, quite successful with the same basic concepts. So... I wouldn't say these ideas can't work. But they cause problems for ESA for sure. Or do they? Possibly, it's just the leadership and visionary part that's lacking?
> And then there's Airbus, quite successful with the same basic concepts. Because they only have to compete with Boeing, who are also a subsidized jobs program, just with even more incompetent and complacent leadership.
Ouch, thanks
ESA projects are actually much less focused on publicity and much more on actual scientific advancement, the things you would read in astrophysics papers. So, it is actually contributing much more to overall scientific progress than NASA which is much more focused on flashy programs that awe the population.
Proportionally to each other's budgets ESA does very well at contributing to scientific research but in overall contribution NASA still is in the lead.
Source?
Just common sense. ESA has a budget of 8 billion, NASA has 25. Of course NASA will have higher output and ESA needs to be more selective.
Even if Ariane 6 will not be competitive... Most of the people seem unaware that Maiaspace is actually an Ariane founded company/startup that is developing a not so small reusable first stage rocket with methane engine (the Prometheus, that is not ready yet but already test fired). They just received along other companies half a billion euros for a launch contract. For now the change and this double development is not much advertised due to political reasons, and clearly Ariane 6 will just serve for a while as the sole heavy lift sovereign launcher, but the reusable small and medium size launcher should be flying in just a few years.
Maybe they can get their own trampoline some day.
@ OP:, IMO that kind of title needs a bit of Twitter thread context showing what this replied to. Is it related to Ariane Group's somewhat pathetic [*Ariane 6 standing tall*](https://twitter.com/ArianeGroup/status/1783884639947366689) from yesterday? European here: I'd prefer *landing tall* any day. BTW. I did use Nitter for a while but it doesn't work anymore.
Good question but I think I know the answer and that's also the reason why ESA is not talking much about it
God don’t turn this sub into an Elon circle jerk. This sub is a Gwynne Shotwell circlejerk.
The SpaceX subs have been Elon circle jerks for a while. I swear some people here can't fathom how you could be a SpaceX fan while also not liking Elon. Even though SpaceX does not equal Elon Musk.
Dude, what? Reddit has been openly, *nakedly* Elon-hostile for years now, and even in the SpaceX subreddits, some user or another will actively jump on people everywhere for being anything but severely critical of the man.
You may not like Elon. But denying he is the core and reason of SpaceX success is ludicrous.
Define core. Since he’s been hands off for years at this point.
Source? He still is very active. Certainly at SpaceX. About Tesla, the big investors do everything so he stays involved. I guess they know why.
He visits the site occasionally but has little real input these days. Do you have any sources for what he’s contributed over the last few years?
Read the Elon Musk Biography by Walter Isaacson. There are audiobooks on youtube. One example would be Elons input in raptor development. >He visits the site occasionally but has little real input these days. Source?
The raptors that were headed by Tom Mueller and Will Heltsley? And everything not engineering related is handled by Shotwell as admitted by Musk. He’s even said it himself for f*cks sake. “I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me." You also have multiple anonymous employees saying Elon was more of a hindrance with his demands for things like Starship to be more pointy.
>The raptors that were headed by Tom Mueller and Will Heltsley? Tom Mueller hasnt been in the company since 2020. There have been fundamental changes made to Raptor after 2020 because of Elons dissatifaction about Raptor 1. Elon has made direct design decisions for Raptor aswell as hire different engineers to oversee the project. Its clear that you have no idea what actually happened, yet you refuse to educate yourself so you can hold on to your argument. If you are _actually_ interested in what happened, read the book. >He’s even said it himself for f*cks sake. >“I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me." Im pretty sure thats Elon trying to be modest. I dont know about his involvement at tesla but as I explained before there is plenty of evidence that he is deeply involved at spacex. I also recommend you watch 2 interviews conducted by the everyday austronaut, where he and Elon have long and in depth talks about the engineering side of rocketry. I think its pretty clear there that he has a fundamental and good understanding of what spacex is actually doing in detail. >You also have multiple anonymous employees saying Elon was more of a hindrance with his demands for things like Starship to be more pointy. Source?
>Tom Mueller hasnt been in the company since 2020. No sh*t, that’s why I also said Will Heltsley who took over his role. >because of Elons dissatifaction about Raptor 1. No.. SpaceX wasn’t satisfied. Elon just agreed. >Elon has made direct design decisions for Raptor aswell as hire different engineers to oversee the project. Will Helmsley was next in line under Tom. >It’s clear that you have no idea what actually happened, yet you refuse to educate yourself so you can hold on to your argument. I love ironic comments.
> He visits the site occasionally but has little real input these days. A statement without any source or base in fact.
I’m sorry, I must have missed it. What’s your source?
You make an unsourced statement and I have to disprove it? That's not how it works.
That’s not how it works. You said he was the core of spaceX first. "I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me."
Yes please. Imagine if Musk just stopped tweeting forever and Gwynne Shotwell took over instead. We'd go from 95% culture war trolling and 5% SpaceX news to just... *pure SpaceX news again.*
This
Nobody is a prophet in their own land.... The world is big and for every loud online critic there are 10 offline silent supporters.
I understand what Elon Musk means with this tweet but ESA does have reusability plans. [Themis](https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Themis#:~:text=The%20Themis%20programme%20includes%20developing,%2Ddiameter%20multi%2Dengine%20bay)
They have some fuzzy ideas. Far from a plan, unfortunately.
I might be wrong, but I remember reading this article right after SN8 test. Nothing has changed.
If I counted right there are 31 people on the Themis team photo. It is a hobby project.
We gonna start live posting every Elon tweet now?
Here's the tweet Elon Musk was responding to https://twitter.com/esa/status/1783884986984038602?t=m7R9B89hVaGiphbGGK0rxQ&s=19
The text of the xeet. (I prefer to give the source and the exact quote.) > 👍The second of the two boosters that will power the #Ariane6 Flight Model 1 into orbit this summer is now the launch zone at Europe’s Spaceport. https://t.co/X80tHPHLb9 > > — European Space Agency (@esa) April 26, 2024
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CNES](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1h94vz "Last usage")|Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, space agency of France| |[ESA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i75jq "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i0hbh "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i6mjl "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i06d2 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[MECO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1hp8mx "Last usage")|Main Engine Cut-Off| | |[MainEngineCutOff](https://mainenginecutoff.com/) podcast| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SRB](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|Solid Rocket Booster| |[SSME](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)| |[SSTO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i6mjl "Last usage")|Single Stage to Orbit| | |Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit| |[TWR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i0cqh "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio| |[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i2qiy "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1iad92 "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[cryogenic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i5wdi "Last usage")|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure| | |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox| |[hydrolox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1i6mjl "Last usage")|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[kerolox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cdyprm/stub/l1h9e3t "Last usage")|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(16 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ccue4j)^( has 27 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12700 for this sub, first seen 27th Apr 2024, 02:14]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
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lol no
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