Is it just me thinking that Spacenews.com should be renamed OldSpacenews.com?

OldSpaceNews.com seems to doubt, damn with faint praise, and mislead on anything SpaceX. To be fair, OldSpaceNews does provide accurate information, but you have to learn how to dodge the incessant OldSpace spin to get to it.

Consider this recent article from SpaceNews "SpaceX’s new price chart illustrates performance cost of reusability" http://spacenews.com/spacexs-new-price-chart-illustrates-performance-cost-of-reusability/

The title itself is stating the obvious and well-known but with negative effect. A quote...

"SpaceX has said it needs to thoroughly examine several Falcon 9 first stages on their return to the drone ships or ground landing pads before settling on a pricing structure. Final prices will also depend on SpaceX’s ability to ramp up its launch rhythm."

Translation: Can SpaceX land more boosters? Can SpaceX ramp up its launch rhythm?

"For the Falcon 9 Full Thrust, SpaceX said the same rocket that in its fully expendable version can lift up to 8,300 kilograms of payload to geostationary transfer orbit — the destination of most telecommunications satellites, which constitute the vast majority of the commercial market — is limited to 5,500 kilograms in its reusable version."

Comment: Falcon 9 reusable configuration is limited in GTO. No mention that the 5,500 kg is something like a 15%-20% improvement over the Falcon 9 performance just a few weeks/months ago.

"The Falcon Heavy is three Falcon 9 first stages strapped together with an upper stage on the center stick. SpaceX envisions returning all three first stages to landing areas – a scenario that’s likely to provide many hours of risk analysis for U.S. Air Force range-safety authorities."

Comment: SpaceX is plunging into the unknown, booster land landings are inherently unsafe, USAF range-authorities will have to work to finesse the approval for these land landings.

"The expendable Falcon Heavy’s performance is slightly more than double the target performance of Europe’s future Ariane 6 rocket, to debut in 2020. Ariane 6 designers have said their initial, conservative estimates – like SpaceX, they will need to see actual performance before raising the ceiling – are that the higher-power Ariane 64 version will place more than 10,500 kilograms into geostationary orbit.

The Ariane 6 has a price target to customers of 90 million euros — $101.8 million at current exchange rates — for the heavier Ariane 64 variant, which is likely to be the workhorse commercial vehicle."

Comment: WTF does powerpoint-deck Ariane 6 have to do with anything? OldSpaceNews seems to be promoting the Ariane 6 as a more reliable? acceptable? predictable? economical? alternative to Falcon Heavy...which is kinda funny, since the Ariane 6 is will be (when?) a more direct competitor to the F9 than the FH).

Anyway, review OldSpaceNews history of articles on SpaceX, and tell me I'm imagining things...

http://spacenews.com/?s=spacex&orderby=date-desc

/r/spacex Thread Link - spacenews.com