Thunderf00t
8 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2021–2022
28:59 · 455K views · Feb 14, 2021
Thunderf00t's critique of SpaceX's claims, arguing its launches are not actually cheaper than competitors or the Space Shuttle. It questions the economics of reusability.
HN commenters cite it as the skeptical case against SpaceX's cost claims, mostly in critical arguments rather than as a recommendation.
8 comments from Hacker News
>The fact is SpaceX launched 50% of the global payload to Orbit, and over around 30% of all spacecraft. Again, I'm not arguing that SpaceX isn't capable of ferrying people or cargo into orbit, or that they don't have a viable business, or that they are not leaders in this market segment. That's all fine. I have no issues with Musk or SpaceX. I like seeing American companies succeeding. But perhaps Musk should dial down the hyperbole. >It my have a kernel of truth but if the 'truth' is something totally banal like 'Reusability is not a panacea.' then that doesn't actually make their arguments valid But reusability isn't a panacea for cost savings. There are real challenges with reusable rockets. This is where Thunderf00t does a real good job explaining the issues because they aren't space-specific, but rather the problem derives from first principles of Newtonian mechanics ( this video ) namely, you have to carry the fuel for return, which severely cuts into the amount of payload you can take up. Also, maintenance is expensive. But the issues are there. Tory Bruno, the CEO of ULA lays out the challenges of reusable rockets: [LINK] . Yes, he's a competitor, but his argument strikes me as honest and credible. So SpaceX hasn't proven the concept yet. They haven't made enough flights (and only the first stage boosters are actually reusable). The Space Shuttle is a good guide of how subtle the issues may be and it may take years to fully realize the flaws in the design or economics. B
So far he's... - planning to dig tiny tunnels with no ventilation or emergency egress for cars instead of, you know, trains [1] - [edit](as if the only reason we have traffic is because lanes are uncovered? maybe just put a roof over the highway as a beta test?) - he's walked back the whole hyperloop thing almost entirely [2] - some electric cars where he tried to overthrow the government of Bolivia to source lithium [3] - at a company which produces a single digit percentage as many cars as say Toyota, but is valued at the entire rest of the car industry put together - [edit] and a publicly available beta of an autopilot system that seems hell-bent on murder (including having tried to off me, a few times - btw, super fun when it's not) - some very expensive space internet [4] cat heaters [5] (although after reading this article I assume the cats are being slowly roasted in some sort of bandwidth trial) - built rockets that aren't actually less expensive than competitors - they hope to be, but presently are not, and tbh, I don't see a path (but would be happily proven wrong) [6] - and tortured a bunch of monkeys to death. 11/10. Nailed it. [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] [4] [LINK] [5] [LINK] [6] this video
>You are directly repeating the propaganda Arianespace and Russia has been pushing about SpaceX since the beginning. I would honestly advice you to rethink this before repeating stuff that is pushed by lots of Russian government channels. What a crazy accusation to make. I can't have an opinion about the business model of a company lest some doofus accuses me of what? Being a russian bot? Spreading DANGEROUS ideas? Jesus Christ. Get a handle on yourself. I have no doubt Russians are not objective observers here. SpaceX is a competitor so the criticism they level has to be seen through that lens ... but ... their criticism will have a kernel of truth. On the other side, because of Musk's cult of personality (and don't misunderstood, I like Musk), his companies don't necessarily get the same level of scrutiny either. Are you sure you're looking at it objectively? I'm not a 'space guy'. I watched video by Thunderf00t where he made some credible points against some of the claims SpaceX makes [1] especially around cost savings of reusability. [1] this video
Because of how scammy SpaceX is. Phil's points that we're just re-trodding the reusable vehicle idea from the Space Shuttle days, but somehow paying more for it, are pretty damning in my eyes [1]. It feels a lot like government-funded rocket shows. I mean, space stuff happening is fun and I like it. But if it was cheaper to do it through NASA, on even the famously expensive Space Shuttle, what's the point of all of this? Tesla's stuff is all minor in comparison. [1]: this video (Disclosure: I'm from Orlando and almost certainly somehow biased towards the shuttle program, not that I don't think it wasn't an inherently flawed idea. It was an awesome inherently flawed idea. So I actually do understand the fanboyism at play. I just liked NASA's "cool" better than Musk's "sexy." The stuff they've been pulling off remotely on other planets is more impressive than anything Musk is doing. I feel like we're picking corporate propaganda over American propaganda and I don't like it.)
> Here's a breakdown: this video I watched the first 90 seconds of this. On the cost of re-usability of a falcon 9 point, the figures are shown as from Wikipedia. So 1) not a primary source. 2) fails to calculate the percentage correctly between $62m and $50m as "around 10%". It's almost 20% on those figures. 3) and most importantly, those numbers are the cost to the customer, not SpaceX's internal cost. As they have no current competition in rocket re-usability, they are able to recoup the R&D cost for developing this technology. I don't think I'll bother watching the rest of the video.