possibility that Elon Musk would be able to reuse his launchers.
70
The facts have
blatantly proved them wrong: as of 2020, SpaceX has managed to safely land 70
boosters out of 80 attempts, with 20 consecutive successful recoveries; the recovered boosters have been reused on average up to four to five times, with one setting a record after being reused seven times.
Probably also thanks to these results, Morgan Stanley has estimated the potential value of the Starlink company at $50 billion, although it has not yet been set
up.
71
Obviously, Elon Musk will have to avoid the trap that caused Iridium to fail
in the twentieth century. He can do this by creating an innovative manufacturing
process to build the satellites quickly, and most importantly, by managing the data
traffic between Earth and space in competition with the telecommunications companies that dominate a trillion-dollar market.
72
In the continuous evolution of digital society, what seems stable and consolidated can suddenly change thanks to the pursuits of entrepreneurs. In recent years,
we are witnessing the beginning of a new era in which some multi-billionaires,
benefiting from previous NASA investments, are legitimately investing their capital to design new space missions. In this way, a new Space Economy could really
materialize, projecting the planet towards an entirely new economic and industrial
dimension. Of course, this may sound disturbing if we think about the risks of
technological monopolies. One might wonder whether they are doing it because
they truly dream of colonizing Mars, or because they wish to control strategic
priorities in space as well as on Earth.
70
Aviation Week & Space Technology, “NASA, CNES warns SpaceX of Challenges in flying
reusable Falcon 9 Rocket”, May 5, 2014. “… Also, among the sceptics is NASA Deputy
Administrator Dan Dumbacher, a former space shuttle engineer, who says the agency has
learned a lot from his experience with the shuttle’s reusable engines. ‘We tried to make them
reusable for 55 flights.’ He said ‘Look how long and how much money it took for us to do that,
and we still weren’t completely successful for all the parts. For the future, we will work on
production to reduce costs, keeping what we can reuse but apart from that, we will throw everything away.’ Christophe Bonnal, of the Directorate of Launchers of the French space agency
CNES, says: ‘If you reuse, you stop producing, depending on the level of reusability. So, you
end up with a permanent prototype, and to keep costs down you need to have a high rate of
production’. Bonnal said CNES even considered optimistic rates of 50 launches per year, but
ironically concluded that: ‘Under the best conditions we could save 10% or 15% of launch
costs, but then one of the most penalizing aspects for reusability the additional weight of the
hardware and of the propellant, equal to 30% of the fuel of the first stage, necessary to make it
return
intact
to
the
launch
site’.”
http://aviationweek.com/blog/
nasa-cnes-warn-spacex-challenges-flying-reusable-falcon-9-rocket.
71
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. SpaceX’s $10 Billion Starlink
Constellation Will “Change the World”. https://www.aiaa.org/Detail.aspx?id=15032391265.
72
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/telecom-market-global-briefing-2018.
Space Economy: A Business On the Launch Pad 99
70
The facts have
blatantly proved them wrong: as of 2020, SpaceX has managed to safely land 70
boosters out of 80 attempts, with 20 consecutive successful recoveries; the recovered boosters have been reused on average up to four to five times, with one setting a record after being reused seven times.
Probably also thanks to these results, Morgan Stanley has estimated the potential value of the Starlink company at $50 billion, although it has not yet been set
up.
71
Obviously, Elon Musk will have to avoid the trap that caused Iridium to fail
in the twentieth century. He can do this by creating an innovative manufacturing
process to build the satellites quickly, and most importantly, by managing the data
traffic between Earth and space in competition with the telecommunications companies that dominate a trillion-dollar market.
72
In the continuous evolution of digital society, what seems stable and consolidated can suddenly change thanks to the pursuits of entrepreneurs. In recent years,
we are witnessing the beginning of a new era in which some multi-billionaires,
benefiting from previous NASA investments, are legitimately investing their capital to design new space missions. In this way, a new Space Economy could really
materialize, projecting the planet towards an entirely new economic and industrial
dimension. Of course, this may sound disturbing if we think about the risks of
technological monopolies. One might wonder whether they are doing it because
they truly dream of colonizing Mars, or because they wish to control strategic
priorities in space as well as on Earth.
70
Aviation Week & Space Technology, “NASA, CNES warns SpaceX of Challenges in flying
reusable Falcon 9 Rocket”, May 5, 2014. “… Also, among the sceptics is NASA Deputy
Administrator Dan Dumbacher, a former space shuttle engineer, who says the agency has
learned a lot from his experience with the shuttle’s reusable engines. ‘We tried to make them
reusable for 55 flights.’ He said ‘Look how long and how much money it took for us to do that,
and we still weren’t completely successful for all the parts. For the future, we will work on
production to reduce costs, keeping what we can reuse but apart from that, we will throw everything away.’ Christophe Bonnal, of the Directorate of Launchers of the French space agency
CNES, says: ‘If you reuse, you stop producing, depending on the level of reusability. So, you
end up with a permanent prototype, and to keep costs down you need to have a high rate of
production’. Bonnal said CNES even considered optimistic rates of 50 launches per year, but
ironically concluded that: ‘Under the best conditions we could save 10% or 15% of launch
costs, but then one of the most penalizing aspects for reusability the additional weight of the
hardware and of the propellant, equal to 30% of the fuel of the first stage, necessary to make it
return
intact
to
the
launch
site’.”
http://aviationweek.com/blog/
nasa-cnes-warn-spacex-challenges-flying-reusable-falcon-9-rocket.
71
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. SpaceX’s $10 Billion Starlink
Constellation Will “Change the World”. https://www.aiaa.org/Detail.aspx?id=15032391265.
72
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/telecom-market-global-briefing-2018.
Space Economy: A Business On the Launch Pad 99