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A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

arstechnica.com

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Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#31

Post by [deleted] »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #25
justtopost wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the space people I talk to, many in the very recent past harbored this notion that SpaceX was irresponsible with their early move-fast methods. However, as predicted, that all slowed down to a similarly glacial pace once they became entrenched in the red tape machine. Parity in that reguard is rapidly approaching. And a nitpick, NASA was the pioneer, and pushed hard during the cold war to develop ICBM tech, the…

None of this is correct. NASA had the most deaths from the Space Shuttle, nothing to do with ICBMs. Nothing they did was to prevent WW3; their current goals are the same as the were four decades ago. SpaceX is still moving at a rapid and successful pace, as is evidenced by reading the news about them.

[deleted]

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#32

Post by hef19898 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #22

The underlying message is that Boeing isn't confident they'll beat Crew Dragon to orbit. They've already stacked the deck with more funding due to their "legacy overhead" but apparently even that isn't enough.

I dug into SpaceX a little bit deeper the last couple of days, mainly to get an answer to the question whether reusabel launchers are financially feasible or not. I did not find an answer to that question, instead I found some other intriguing data.

The development sure is cheaper at SpaceX compared to Arianespace, so I assume the same is true for Boeing. On the launch costs, taken everything into account, including the WSJ article using SpaceX internal data up to 2015, there is not much of a difference between SpaceX and Arianespace on average. It seems that SpaceX is undercutting the commercial competition with government contracts. Also, Google most likely saved SpaceX from bancruptcy in 2016. That ULA, as a historical DoD monoplist, plays in different league all together is a different story. I am not yet finished, so yes I might be mistaken with my conclusion so far.

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#33

Post by chaostheory »

bovermyer wrote: post #8

Short version of the article: One op-ed article attacking SpaceX's safety practices appears in the newspapers of several space-industry-oriented cities. The article is not written by the person it is attributed to, but rather by two people apparently affiliated with a PR firm in Washington, DC. One of the three main clients of said PR firm is Boeing, SpaceX's direct competitor.

Submarine PR http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

The most common version of it says good things about your own company.

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#34

Post by greglindahl »

hef19898 wrote: post #32
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #22

The underlying message is that Boeing isn't confident they'll beat Crew Dragon to orbit. They've already stacked the deck with more funding due to their "legacy overhead" but apparently even that isn't enough.

I dug into SpaceX a little bit deeper the last couple of days, mainly to get an answer to the question whether reusabel launchers are financially feasible or not. I did not find an answer to that question, instead I found some other intriguing data. The development sure is cheaper at SpaceX compared to Arianespace, so I assume the same is true for Boeing. On the launch costs, taken everything into account, including…

Seems like you believe a lot of rumors you read on the Internet! SpaceX is a private company with very little financial data available.

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#36

Post by hef19898 »

greglindahl wrote: post #34
hef19898 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dug into SpaceX a little bit deeper the last couple of days, mainly to get an answer to the question whether reusabel launchers are financially feasible or not. I did not find an answer to that question, instead I found some other intriguing data. The development sure is cheaper at SpaceX compared to Arianespace, so I assume the same is true for Boeing. On the launch costs, taken everything into account, including…

Seems like you believe a lot of rumors you read on the Internet! SpaceX is a private company with very little financial data available.

Well, there was the internal data zhe wall Street journal reported on in 2017. And the SpaceX comments made in the follow up. And the funding history is available as well, how reliable crunchbase is for that I don't know.

So there is no complete vacuum. Also, you have advertised costs on SpaceX website. It is at least enough to get a first idea of things. I don't have the numbers in front of me rigjt now, but I am more than happy to share them. Because my whole thought process and thus analysis was wrong it would really help to know that.

EDIT: The rumors I read have been the reason I tried to chase down as much numbers and information I could by myself.

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#37

Post by greglindahl »

hef19898 wrote: post #36
greglindahl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you believe a lot of rumors you read on the Internet! SpaceX is a private company with very little financial data available.

Well, there was the internal data zhe wall Street journal reported on in 2017. And the SpaceX comments made in the follow up. And the funding history is available as well, how reliable crunchbase is for that I don't know. So there is no complete vacuum. Also, you have advertised costs on SpaceX website. It is at least enough to get a first idea of things. I don't have the numbers in front of me rigjt now, but I am mo…

I'm glad you convinced yourself, but this situation has been argued over for years by a lot of people on Reddit, and I really doubt you can bring any hard facts to the argument that aren't well-known.

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#39

Post by hef19898 »

greglindahl wrote: post #37
hef19898 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there was the internal data zhe wall Street journal reported on in 2017. And the SpaceX comments made in the follow up. And the funding history is available as well, how reliable crunchbase is for that I don't know. So there is no complete vacuum. Also, you have advertised costs on SpaceX website. It is at least enough to get a first idea of things. I don't have the numbers in front of me rigjt now, but I am mo…

I'm glad you convinced yourself, but this situation has been argued over for years by a lot of people on Reddit, and I really doubt you can bring any hard facts to the argument that aren't well-known.

See, I am not convinced at all. It is reasonable to assume that SpaceX has lower development cost (it would be hard to be more expensive than Ariane and ULA so). Which means SpaceX reaches the program break-even point earlier. Launch costs on the other hand are driven by production cost mainly. And there I don't see any systematic advantage that would explain the lower prices SpaceX is advertising.

I know that there is no such thing as a "standard" launch, but all numbers that are available point at higher prices than the $ 62M a Falcon 9 is advertised for.

Reusable launchers are different story. And SpaceX is giving 30% discounts for them (source: SpaceX, Gwynn Shotwell).

So yeah, if you can point out wrong assumptions or errors, I'm more than happy because I am not convinced of my analysis so far myself.

EDIT: Typos... man, typing on the phone really is suboptimal for sentences with more than three words...

Re: A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities

#40

Post by madrox »

This is somewhat tangential to the topic, but having worked in PR/marketing agency environments and heard stories from friends, I've found them to be the most amoral places to work at.

The agency where I worked (social media marketing) would make outrageous claims and give a lot of "smoke and mirror" presentations to both land clients and give them the impression they were getting more for their money than they were. They'd engage in astroturf, fake views, and generally do whatever it took to deliver on the number they promised. It made me uncomfortable, but I was young in my career and thought that's just how the world worked. Thankfully I didn't have to stay there long enough for it to really rub off on me. I've heard enough stories from others over the years to know this wasn't an isolated experience.

Most agencies only have a few big customers paying everyone's paychecks, and it's far easier to retain a client than land a new one. As a result, they're highly incentivized to do whatever it takes to keep them. It's probably the biggest dark side of a directly incentivized culture.

Hearing that an agency for Boeing did this doesn't surprise me. What might be worse is it's quite possible Boeing is finding out through this reporting.

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