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SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

nytimes.com

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Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#191

Post by LoSboccacc »

compton_effect wrote: post #188
LoSboccacc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most kinks of space travel were worked out in the '60s and spacex is pushing for reliability specifically, not for payload capacity - coincidentally that's where they're pushing the envelope and getting most of the failures.

Not really. In the 60s we basically verified that certain rocket and engine designs work and that we could go beyond earth orbit. Creating a reliable, long lasting and reusable space rocket/vehicle is, in my opinion, orders of magnitude more difficult. Just look at the Space Shuttle failure as an example of trying to do space on the cheap. Also, remember it took about 5% of the US GDP in the 60s to put men on the moo…

Shuttle is not a rocket tho. check out Saturn V failures instead.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#192

Post by nabla9 »

walshemj wrote: post #181
nabla9 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe is exactly how you come to dominate retail business and become monopoly power online. Amazon's reference point is Wal-Mart. They are in ever expanding price cutting small margin business. Another good comparison in Microsoft in 80's and 90's. MS dominated over IBM, Apple and others several decades with sup-par product everybody hated by attacking and destroying potential competitors, not by improvin…

Do you think NT4 was a worse product that netware ?

You remember only the end.

MS-NET, LAN Manager and MS/IBM joint effort with OS/2 LAN Server were all inferior to Netware. MS battled decades against Novell with inferior products and shady market practices eating their profits. Finally Novell was taken down and crumbled when networking became a core system component in PC operating systems.

Throwing money against to superior product from smaller competitor until you can eat their lunch is proven tactic.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#193

Post by golergka »

gpawl wrote: post #105
skinnymuch wrote: post #85

Forbes seems to have always been wrong about Musk's net worth unless I'm missing how it works. By my estimations, now he should be worth around $23B. $11B from Tesla. $11.5B from SpaceX. Obviously they haven't updated for this news yet, but they still won't be at $23B. Regardless, going from having invested all is PayPal money by 08 and in dire straits to being $20B+ 9 years later is awesome. And depending on what na…

Whence this myth that Musk doesn't love money, just because he makes his money making cool tech? http://variety.com/gallery/elon-musk-buys-fifth-bel-air-home... http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mclaren-f1-hypercar... wrecked-it-2015-6

He could've bought it all with his PayPal money.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#194

Post by golergka »

gaius wrote: post #107

It makes me sad that SpaceX, a company that actually invents and makes stuff, is mentioned alongside Uber whose only product is evading taxes and regulations

Uber (and its competitors) have significantly improved lives of millions of people around the world. SpaceX only promises to do so.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#195

Post by golergka »

adrianN wrote: post #177
sumedh wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is a fair comparison, Uber has revolutionized the transport industry. It has direct impact on you and me right now. Space X does not have such a direct impact for the rest of us.

How has Uber revolutionized the transport industry? I could call a Taxi just fine before Uber.

Did you expect it to turn up in 3 minutes, be clean and responsible and cost half of what it used to?

I sometimes feel as if people who criticize Uber didn't ever use taxi services in the pre-Uber times.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#196

Post by adrianN »

golergka wrote: post #195
adrianN wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has Uber revolutionized the transport industry? I could call a Taxi just fine before Uber.

Did you expect it to turn up in 3 minutes, be clean and responsible and cost half of what it used to? I sometimes feel as if people who criticize Uber didn't ever use taxi services in the pre-Uber times.

I don't know where you live, but here in Berlin taxis come quickly, are clean, and you pay what the meter states. I never had trouble with a driver. They could be cheaper, but I don't think that lowering prices by increasing competition is revolutionary.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#197

Post by taneq »

rainmouse wrote: post #161
EduardoBautista wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has a load of terrible products. Even their store is getting worse and worse. The fire phone was a complete flop. Amazon cloud drive and music are not at all at the same level as their competitors. Google Home is looking as though it's going to surpass the Echo. Amazon is successful because they are fine with taking losses, only just recently making a small amount of profit compared to their scale.

Not sure Google home is looking to surpass the Echo from here. http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/59123ef6dd089554...

Maybe, but how can you tell from that chart? It lists an overall delta and the current breakdown. There's no way to know the relative deltas.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#198

Post by nickik »

Libbum wrote: post #148
nickik wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an absurd claim. They were not to stupid to understand how to get to orbit. The made the choice to focus on a sub-orbital tourist effort first.

Absurd in the orbital mechanics portion but not the rest. It seems that spacex has chosen the waffle cone, ice cream scoop and add sprinkles later approach whereas BO has focused solely on the sprinkles.

They do it more step by step. But with the BE-4 and BE-3/BE-3U they have developed two fantastic engines that they can both potentially sell for use in orbital rockets.

They are also already far into the development and production of a orbital rocket themselves.

They focus on the cone, and slowly build up. By 2021 they will fly the third biggest rocket in the world with some unique capability.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#199

Post by taneq »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #191
compton_effect wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. In the 60s we basically verified that certain rocket and engine designs work and that we could go beyond earth orbit. Creating a reliable, long lasting and reusable space rocket/vehicle is, in my opinion, orders of magnitude more difficult. Just look at the Space Shuttle failure as an example of trying to do space on the cheap. Also, remember it took about 5% of the US GDP in the 60s to put men on the moo…

Shuttle is not a rocket tho. check out Saturn V failures instead.

Eh? The shuttle absolutely was a rocket. The 'spaceplane' bit only kicked in for landings. On the way up it was 100% reaction mass driven.

Re: SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

#200

Post by kbart »

golergka wrote: post #195
adrianN wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has Uber revolutionized the transport industry? I could call a Taxi just fine before Uber.

Did you expect it to turn up in 3 minutes, be clean and responsible and cost half of what it used to? I sometimes feel as if people who criticize Uber didn't ever use taxi services in the pre-Uber times.

Not everywhere around the world taxis are so awful as in USA. In my town, for example, Uber is both slower and usually more expensive than taxis.
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