81–90 of 259 posts
Why can't they cooperate instead of compete? It's not like they don't already have all the money they'd ever need or could use, and wouldn't the world be better off if they worked together than against each other?
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Blue Origin isn't vaporware. They have engines, they have rocket bodies, they have tooling, etc. But they are, apparently, firmly in development hell, with no public indication of trying to change that.
The definition of vapoware is things that are delayed continously after they should have been released. The BE-4 fits into that.
It's really a shame what has happened to Blue Origin. They've gone from a promising space startup to yet another purveyor of perpetual vaporware. Where is the BE-4 engine? Delayed, again and again. New Glenn, the rocket that could actually go into orbit? Same. So far their only functioning hardware (New Shephard) is, in effect, a glorified amusement park ride. Considering that SpaceX has actually made it to orbit mul…
Slow and steady wins the race. I'm not counting them out, Bezos is so immensely wealthy that if he wants Blue Origin to succeed then it will succeed.
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This is an incredibly small minded perspective. Difficult challenges require new technologies, new processes and new ways of thinking. More specifically, technologies developed through the race to land on the moon (and space flight generally) are integral to almost every aspect of 'your' life and define what most of us consider human flourishing. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#:~:t..…
These companies are just trying to shoot rockets further then each other. They're not science pr research companies. We're not learning more about space and the universe thanks to the them. What spin off tech have we gotten from them?
SpaceX uses that money to lower the price of space flight for everybody and enables a whole lot of other companies to do new things in space.
SpaceX themselves does things like Starlink.
SpaceX also shares materials tech with Tesla that get used in their products.
It will also anable real exploration of Mars and the outer Solar System.
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All the more reason to cooperate and pool resources instead of duplicating effort.
I'm not so sure, though. I think there's still an argument to be made for multiple approaches and different technology, which you're not likely to get if everyone works together. I'm not sure that "avoiding a monoculture" is important for this sort of thing, but maybe it can't hurt? Another problem when multiple independent orgs pool resources and work together is you either end up with design-by-committee (which lea…
If they clash a lot it's proof they're not good at cooperating.
So maybe the answer is that Musk and Bezos are good at competing, but not good at cooperating.
That doesn't mean that cooperation is a losing strategy, but just that one has to be good at cooperating in order to succeed at it.
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SpaceX is a functioning business that actually launches things into space at a lower cost than competitors. Basically every successful company has a massive amount of ego behind it but the question is if they actually achieve anything tangible and, eventually, profitable.
"SpaceX is a functioning business that actually launches things into space at a lower cost than competitors." This might actually lead to a greatly increased risk of creating an impenetrable field of space junk if the thousands more satellites that SpaceX launches collide in to one another. If that happens expect SpaceX supporters to start singing a different tune.
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Blue Origin was founded in 2000, SpaceX 2002. SpaceX achieved orbit in 2008. Blue Origin is still sub orbital yet planning on a moon mission. At this point Bezos might be better off starting over with a new team.
They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. BE-4 has been delayed, true, but if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago. I think 2022 will clear up lots of things for everyone. SLS, BE-4, New Glenn, etc... Till then there is no sense of dooming anything.
It's really a shame what has happened to Blue Origin. They've gone from a promising space startup to yet another purveyor of perpetual vaporware. Where is the BE-4 engine? Delayed, again and again. New Glenn, the rocket that could actually go into orbit? Same. So far their only functioning hardware (New Shephard) is, in effect, a glorified amusement park ride. Considering that SpaceX has actually made it to orbit mul…
Forget orbit, SpaceX has paid for it's ISS contract about 3x in savings over Soyuz. Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now.
I don't think SpaceX would be as strong if not that early NASA funding. "SpaceX contracted with the US government for a portion of the development funding for the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which uses a modified version of the Merlin rocket engine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_SpaceX
So by your thinking, they could have only invested in old-school-reliable-expensive rocket companies, because less risk is involved...
So funding a space company that doesn't yet have required capability but can be helped to get there - is not dumb.
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"SpaceX is a functioning business that actually launches things into space at a lower cost than competitors." This might actually lead to a greatly increased risk of creating an impenetrable field of space junk if the thousands more satellites that SpaceX launches collide in to one another. If that happens expect SpaceX supporters to start singing a different tune.
Such complete nonsense. Just admit that you have personal problems with those people, because your technical arguments are total nonsense.