Which is now good for an 80% success rate. And from the video it certainly seems like an engine failure is the most likely scenario. I think if anything Musk is looking pretty vindicated now.
No comment on the unprofessionalism bit. I don't disagree, but then it's hardly uncommon in high tech either.
And of course it's ridiculous that engines like NK-33 are considered bad just because they sit in a hangar for some 40+ years :) . It's not milk, they aren't that easily spoiled. Elon just used this time reference to make the decision look good - for somebody who doesn't know better.
So factually he's right - but also misses the point. Here I should admit that Elon says more than he does - but he does quite a bit too, so kudos to his successes - Merlin-1D is a great engine.
> And of course it's ridiculous that engines like NK-33 are considered bad just because they sit in a hangar for some 40+ years
I took his comment to be more in the "that's your business model? buying and selling old Russian hardware?" vein. It's not that the hardware is bad, per se.
Although the hardware might be bad. I imagine they're looking into that...
It's not that they've been sitting in a hangar for decades so much as that we've gotten a lot better at building engines. Presumably modern designs have a lot lower catastrophic fault probability.
I think technically engines were manufactured in early '70s - like, in 1974? Definitely weren't stored in Siberia - Russia has quite sizable European part, no need to go to Siberia if you want to hide about 70 engines from nemesis Glushko's eye...
Well, if you can take 80% as a success rate at a quarter the cost per launch due to re-using old parts, and build that into your business model somehow (insurance, assurance, whatever and however it might be done), then maybe it can be viable as opposed to using new materials and expensive innovation to get a more reliable result at a higher cost.
I'm not arguing for that business strategy; I think it would not be successful. I also don't think that re-using old rocket parts actually reduces cost to orbit significantly (I haven't looked at the numbers). I also don't think that what I think matters a whole lot.
However, it's worth a discussion beyond simply rejecting the model at face value.
It's not only a cost issue - those old engines have performance characteristics that (in some areas) outperform anything that they could buy today off-shelf (as much as "off-shelf" exists for rocket engines), and developing a completely new model would likely be even less reliable than the current situation.
It was also part of a larger conversation about how little rocket and aerospace technology has advanced since the 60's because they're afraid of trying anything new.
