Just how important is the Space X launch of a used rocket last week?
In last year’s Academy Award-nominated film Hidden Figures, the women who did the calculating for NASA’s Mercury mission were called computers. That is what they did. The computer machine that controlled the mission, an IBM 7090 did it much faster. The tape drives required to run it filled a large room and it cost NASA $2.9 million (approximately $24 million in today’s dollars).
My Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone is 100,000 times more powerful than the 7090. Aside from computing power, the biggest difference between the two is usage. While my S6 is certainly a capable “computer” that is pretty much the last thing I use it for.
It took more than 70 years to get from the first computers to my smartphone. Here I am using by way of definition a ‘general purpose digital programmable electronic machine’ because it is the first truly analogous comparator.
The first machine to fit that description was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) invented in 1943 and completed in 1946. It was initially used to do calculations for the development of the hydrogen bomb.
It was also the first personal computer, as in designed to be operated by a single individual.
That was still a long, long way from the modern definition of personal computer, which also entails affordability, ease of use and more and more frequently portability.
There were early entries into the mass market. The first desktop computer, the Programma 101 by Olivetti was introduced to the public in 1964 at the New York World’s Fair. Early adopters, and there were 44,000 of them, could have the thing for $3,200, only $25,000 in current dollars.
It wasn’t until the late 1970s with the Apple IIs and Commodore 64s that we had what could be considered truly personal computers and even then they were of limited utility, relatively expensive and more for the enthusiast than the average person.
It would still be at least another 20 years for personal computers to truly become household items.
That is the way it goes with technology, there is a massive lag between invention, early adoption and mass acceptance.
The short answer to my original question is that it is hard to say. It has taken more than half a century to get to re-usable, or more accurately partially re-usable, rockets.
Space X has been landing the first stage, the 14-storey core, of its Falcon 9 rockets for a while, nine times to be exact. The first successfully recovered rocket is now on display at the company’s headquarters and will not be re-launched. The one re-launched last week was the second one they recovered and now has the opportunity to become the first rocket to be launched three times.
The economics are interesting. It costs around $60 million to hire Space X to carry your payload to orbit.
SES, the company who agreed to be last week’s guinea pig, got a discount, although neither company will say how much of one.
Space X has said in this proof of concept phase discounts will be on the order of 10 per cent with re-used rockets eventually allowing customers to get a 30 per cent discount. That’s a $20 million savings.
It’s still a lot of cash, though.
Meanwhile there are many other theoretical proposals for non-rocket options. These include some pretty far out concepts from static structures such as a space tower, to tensile structures such as sky hooks and space elevators, to projectile launchers such as mass drivers and railguns.
Many of these are limited by available materials, but as stronger, lighter materials become available, they could become more viable.
In the meantime, the latest Space X accomplishment is significant, but more of an incremental progression, not a game-changing milestone in the space business.
It is the difference between an Apple II and an iMac, not the difference between the ENIAC and the Galaxy S6.
