[HN Gopher] A Convo with Rocket Lab's Peter Beck on Reusability,...
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A Convo with Rocket Lab's Peter Beck on Reusability, Launch Demand,
and More
Author : aml183
Score : 41 points
Date : 2022-04-11 15:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (payloadspace.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (payloadspace.com)
| NortySpock wrote:
| Disclosure: long on Rocket Lab
|
| Another recent interview with Peter Beck, as a podcast
|
| https://www.wemartians.com/podcasts/118-planetary-exploratio...
|
| It is clear from Rocket Lab's purchases of space hardware
| companies that they are well aware of SpaceX's downward pressure
| on launch prices, and are diversifying and vertically integrating
| their business, to include satellite design and build, as well as
| selling satellite components off the shelf like star trackers and
| (momentum) reaction control wheels.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/18/rocket-lab-acquires-solaer...
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/15/rocket-lab-acquires-planet...
|
| https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-acquires-software-company-a...
|
| https://www.rocketlabusa.com/space-systems/satellite-compone...
| onphonenow wrote:
| In terms of lack of launch on demand side. One thing that would
| solve this almost immediately is to re-purpose money from legacy
| science / launch efforts.
|
| For example, take 4B/year from SLS. You could fund just an
| incredible amount of activity with that.
| fireflymetavrse wrote:
| It's not that simple from any point of view. First you cannot
| just replace a single SLS with 100 Electrons.
| onphonenow wrote:
| Correct. The math is actually about 500 electron launches.
|
| That is to replace the cost of launching one SLS. If you
| include development costs cancelling out SLS now would easily
| save $4B per launch + 10B+ of dev costs.
|
| I think the proposal would be to open up funding for both
| additional launches AND additional science missions. For the
| let's say $6B/year or so, you could do a huge amount.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I'm fairly bullish about Rocket Lab's chances. They're rolling
| their own engines, doing great work, and Peter Beck literally ate
| his own hat when he was wrong.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They are an actual entrant in the space race, and compared to
| say Blue Origin, which I personally consider to be a vanity
| project, they are really making headway. But I don't see them
| improving on SpaceX just yet even when adjusting for the
| gigantic headstart SpaceX has and that is going to be the
| competition.
|
| Still, they have some interesting tech and appear to be really
| driven to become a serious player and I wish them well.
| grayrest wrote:
| > Blue Origin, which I personally consider to be a vanity
| project
|
| I could see an argument for that given the time/resources
| invested compared to the results but ULA's future and a large
| fraction of Project Kupier's planned launches are tied to the
| success of the BE-4 so they do have immediate ambitions
| beyond suborbital tourist hops.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That lack of immediate ambition is exactly the problem and
| why I don't think they'll make it. You either go all in on
| something like this or you might as well not play.
| rpmisms wrote:
| The conventional expression is "stay hungry". Blue Origin
| is approximately the opposite of that adage. Bezos
| specifically said it would be chill.
| rpmisms wrote:
| They have working rockets, started small, and are working
| their way up to the big guns. I think they have a great shot
| at being another player, especially outside the US.
|
| I also really enjoy their design sense, really cool to see a
| carbon-fiber rocket with a sense of style.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I think the fact that they could come up with a fuel
| innovation is the most impressive bit.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| There's SpaceX, the launcher.
|
| There's RocketLab, the up-n-comer.
|
| There's Astra, sort of a launcher with all the wrong
| priorities.
|
| But there's also ... Pythom ... which is really something
| else.
|
| https://vimeo.com/690376951
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-
| tests-i...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Wow, errr... words fail. Ok, it didn't explode. But my
| safety violations meter just broke the glass and the needle
| is embedded in the wall.
|
| I predict a Darwin award at some point of these people
| don't get with the program - several programs, in fact.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| For me, it was the hoisting sequence that took the prize.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, same here. Just looking at the stresses on that
| front set of legs and the incredibly bad angle which they
| were pulling from (not to mention: the construction of
| that hoist) made me physically uncomfortable just
| watching it.
|
| Also: afterwards the legs appear to have bent quite a
| bit, and you have to wonder about what kind of stresses
| that put on the attachment points.
|
| At least they're lucky, you can't deny them that.
|
| What gets me though: they can design and build a rocket
| motor but get a whole pile of very basic stuff utterly
| wrong. How is that even possible?
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| That's terrifying, but compelling. To zoom in on one
| feature:
|
| Back when I was a barely supervised teenage boy we tried
| that strategy of pulling a 20+ foot structure upright with
| a truck, and managed to limit injuries one participant
| getting a bad rope burn. It seemed sketchy even to us, I
| can't guess at the thought process that lead to a bunch of
| grown literal rocket scientists trying it.
|
| To be honest I'm jealous that they're still at it. You
| think they're hiring?
| jacquesm wrote:
| > You think they're hiring?
|
| Think of the lawsuits...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Believe me I have my share of problems with Blue and have
| made countless jokes but whether it is a vanity project or
| not.
|
| They are launching humans to sub-orbital space. They have
| working Ox-rich engine and such an engine has never before
| been built in the US. They are not SpaceX level but such a
| project is quite a complex under-taking.
|
| They are a contractor for ULA and the whole military is
| depending on them. This is pretty serious business.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Sure. But if you want to succeed in space the first thing
| you need is drive, and BO doesn't seem to have any. Whether
| it fails or succeeds it's not going to make any difference
| to Bezos and I think that the people who will win this kind
| of thing are the ones for whom it _does_ make a difference.
|
| Sub-orbital launches are simply not useful, and a new type
| of engine only makes sense if it gives you a shorter path
| to the finish or a capability that you otherwise would not
| have. As for the military depending on them: SpaceX has
| been awarded a whole pile of contracts and the only thing
| that BO has going for it is to be able to ride the gravy
| train without delivering anything so far except for some
| research that may one day be useful.
|
| Instead of competing in the marketplace it seems BO is
| better at playing politics and competing in the courts, but
| the latter they've lost and the politicians will sooner or
| later want deliverables and without those the gravy train
| will sooner or later roll to a halt. Note that the engine
| program is now 4 years behind schedule and not a single
| BE-4 has flown. Even BO admits that the engine has
| problems, which makes me wonder if it will ever fly with
| the present design, and if they have to go back to the
| drawing board you can add a couple of years more worth of
| delays.
|
| Meanwhile, SpaceX launches a payload to orbit on average
| _every 8 days_ for 2022 (once every 12 days in 2021), the
| amount of experience they are gaining alone is going to add
| up to a sizeable barrier.
| DennisP wrote:
| I recently saw some interesting speculation on reasons BO
| might be having such trouble with the BE4. To
| oversimplify, they're trying to do with one turbopump
| what the Raptor does with two, and it's hard to keep that
| one pump from taking damage from such extreme conditions.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zjdAQef3oY
| jacquesm wrote:
| Interesting. That's not going to be an easy fix. By the
| way, that SpaceX turbo pump shaft is a real work of art.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Their launch rate hasn't been increasing nearly as fast as one
| would have expected if they are going to make it to
| profitability. I wonder how much of that is due to SpaceX's
| rideshare offering, one would think it must have stolen a good
| bit of business from RL.
| pstuart wrote:
| Never heard of this company -- SpaceX seems to have sucked the
| publicity oxygen out of the room.
|
| > There's gonna be a lot of launch vehicles sitting on a pad
| waiting for payloads in the next few years.
|
| It wasn't clear if that was because the demand pipeline was
| "done" or it was a chicken and egg scenario of businesses not
| having that locked in to develop on, which raises an interesting
| question of how much business there is for satellites even if
| launching was cheap and trivial.
| lattalayta wrote:
| Everyday Astronaut has some videos about rocket lab [0] and
| small sat launch demand [1]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcuOSXjevGs [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Sfw58jApo
| jccooper wrote:
| It's because a large number of new entrants, all started within
| a similar time window having seen the same market opportunity,
| are going to start flying soon. While demand for small launch
| may be growing, payloads are not multiplying at the same rate
| as launchers. And this is not a surprise; everyone knows
| there's no way the market supports 100 small launch companies.
| They just hope to be one of the several who will survive.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Yeah, but unlike all those small startups Rocketlabs have
| been launching for almost 5 years now - 25 launches
| gameswithgo wrote:
| ultramegachurch wrote:
| I'm looking forward to ~5 years from now when hopefully a lot of
| these small launch companies have gone under. They suck up insane
| amounts of venture capital and engineering talent. A few
| companies will certainly rise to the top, Rocket Lab likely being
| one of them.
|
| My company (non-aerospace) just had a couple engineers leave for
| a different small launcher. I wish them success, but also wish
| their talent could be applied elsewhere. I say this as someone
| who just left the space industry.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| That's a strange take, since I personally see space tech as a
| useful endeavour, versus ... ad-tech, building yet another chat
| app, social network apps, another financial service, another
| way to sell eyeballs, another way to scam people with NFTs.
| ultramegachurch wrote:
| I work at a clean energy startup, which is an industry that
| desperately needs the talent that aerospace often grabs. I
| wholeheartedly agree that space is a useful endeavor.
| the_duke wrote:
| There are billions going into extremely boring software
| startups all the time. The amounts raised by these "New Space"
| startups is relatively modest in comparison.
|
| Sure, there is no way that the launch market will need
| Rocketlab, Astra, Firefly, Relativity and Blue Origin on top of
| ULA and SpaceX. Especially if Starship is successful ( a big
| Starship rideshare + in-orbit shutteling services will be
| almost impossible to beat if that rocket ends up being actually
| reusable).
|
| It will definitely put a downward pressure on prices. And even
| if they go under, the know how and the talent will still be
| useful.
|
| In any case, building an orbital rocket is certainly a lot more
| interesting than building the umpteenth webapp or SasS.
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