Re: commercial uses of the Dtick and the Heavy Lifter

"Ed Kyle" <edkyle99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1128460709.336594.238890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Henry Spencer wrote:
> > In article <1128435679.364735.275010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > Ed Kyle <edkyle99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > >The Falcon 9 payload is "top secret", non-standard, and
> > >one-off, so we have no way of knowing if it is essential or not.
> >
> > Again, what does "essential" mean? What matters is whether it's
important
> > enough to the customer to be worth launching.
>
> Does the payload, by itself, contribute to the
> national defense in a way that is worth the cost?
> Or is it little more than a thinly veiled
> "demosat" used to transfer funds to a startup
> launch provider?

The fact that some classified organization chose to purchase
a Falcon launch rather than an EELV launch *is* interesting.
However, there is every indication that SpaceX planned to
build a smaller launch vehicle (Falcon 5) and this customer
needed more payload capacity badly enough to drive a
requirement for a new, larger launch vehicle (Falcon 9).
Elon Musk was hinting at that before the decision to
do Falcon 9 was announced. That seems consistant with
a real spacecraft that has to meet a real mission requirement.
If it were simply a thinly veiled startup 'anchor tenant'
subsidy, why not subsidize Falcon 5?

Josh Hopkins


.

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