To expand on the point, while he didn’t include it, I told Leonard in email:
The other issue is not launch reliability, but schedule reliability. SpaceX has aborted launches of the Falcon 9 when one or more of the engines was indicating performance issues on ignition. Three times as many engines means a lot higher probability of having an issue with one of them. For example, while I don’t know what the ignition reliability of a Merlin D is, suppose it’s 99% (that is, there’s a one in a hundred chance of failure to perform up to spec on ignition). For nine engines, that means the probability of a Falcon 9 aborting on the pad due to an engine issue would be one minus 0.99 to the ninth power, or about 8% per flight, or about once every dozen flights (which doesn’t seem that far off from their record). I don’t know what their flight rules will be for the Heavy, but if they have the same rule that they can’t take off with an underperforming engine, the reliability for twenty-seven engines will be one minus 0.99 to the 27th power, or 24%. That is, if they’re only 0.99 reliable per engine, and require all engines operating properly to take off, they have about a one in four chance of aborting a Falcon Heavy every single flight. That says to me that either they think Merlin reliability is greater than that (which it could well be) or that they’ll relax the rules to allow engine out from liftoff, or perhaps both.
Regardless, here’s hoping for a successful flight in less than three months.
… had its first captive carry flight in years today. I disagree that the big test is whether it can launch on an Atlas V (though there may be aero issues). Its real big test, assuming successful drop tests, will be whether it can survive entry.
It’s not a giant rabbit (and the name will likely be retired after this storm). When he’s not reporting on space, Eric Berger (a Houston resident) covers tropical storms. He says the rain outlook is grim.
This is the difference between 99% & 100% totality. Literally, night & day. So stoked I was able to capture this fleeting moment! #eclipsepic.twitter.com/v84kaug2gj
“I’ve always thought eclipse chasers—these people who spend thousands of dollars flying around the world to spend two minutes looking at a solar eclipse—were a little nutty. I mean, that’s a little extreme, right? If you want to see what a solar eclipse looks like, type solar eclipse into Google.”
I’m not going up to Vandenberg for the Formosat launch, but I’ll probably go to the beach (I’m assuming the marine layer will clear by then). I’d like to see SpaceX get to twenty flights this year, but I’d like even more to see them finally launch the heavy.
[Update a while later]
This is interesting, if true: Space will lose millions on this mission. Of course, it would have probably cost them a lot more to continue with the Falcon 1e. This is also the first time I’ve ever seen the marginal launch costs stated, at $37M. Also interesting, if correct.
Why does Trump hate him so much? Because, as Virginia Postrel points out, Bezos is the anti-Trump:
Trump, who likes his staff to have the right “look,” would never cast a wiry guy who doesn’t hide his lack of hair as a big-time businessman. How can someone only five-foot-nine intimidate people into submission? In Trumpworld, intimidation, not value-creation, is what business is all about.
Bezos also has a sense of humor, often at his own expense, and a famously raucous laugh. Trump is humorless. He certainly doesn’t laugh at himself.
Bezos speaks clearly and has amazing message discipline even by the standards of successful CEOs — something that struck me when I first interviewed him way back in 1996. Trump: not so much.
Trump grew up rich, went to private schools, and had an undistinguished college career. Bezos grew up middle-class, went to public schools, and knocked the top out of Princeton, graduating with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering and computer science. One had a rich father; the other has brains.