5 ms·
Great. First Musk, now Masten. I'm incredibly hopeful that entrepreneurs will keep challenging the massive, monolithic companies/contractors. Their ability to c
by DarkTree 11y ago
Great. First Musk, now Masten. I'm incredibly hopeful that entrepreneurs will keep challenging the massive, monolithic companies/contractors. Their ability to compete with these companies show that increased size often leads to a lot of waste both within the company and in the bureaucratic decision structure. Large isn't inherently bad, until the only competitors are also large. It then becomes the bigger the better. Now that smaller guys are able to successfully enter the field, it make them reevaluate their structure. In the end, not size, but efficiency is key. Funding still remains the medium to get there.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoMusk, Masten, Blue Origin, Firefly, XCOR. There's really quite a lot of innovative rocket companies out there now. A lot of them are working on similar or complementary problems, and innovating while they do it. I'm excited to see not only what they produce but what fruits are born from follow-on innovators.
- kelvin0 11y agoYeah, remember when Armadillo used to be a cool kid on the block?
- 6stringmerc 11y agoNot sure if you caught the interview but John Carmack recently said he'd still love to re-visit it, but he held firm to his "10 years, that's it" plan. He said it was "binary" - didn't make it, close it down. If you did catch that, then sorry for being redunant!
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y agoHeh. Still have an Armadillo Aerospace sweatshirt in my closet. Wonder if it'll be a "collectors item" someday like those SF magazines that are worth a whopping $5 more than I paid for them 30 years ago :-)
- avmich 11y agoExtremely different companies. Blue Origin founded, IIRC, before SpaceX - yet has comparatively little to show, even though it had money of Bezos. Masten "graduated" from Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society - erps.org - from San Jose, CA area; the group still has projects going on!
- Symmetry 11y agoWell, you can't expect a company that's motto is "Gradatim Ferociter" to move quickly. But they have flown a single stage rocket to the edge of space and their engines are going to be in ULA's new rocket.
- avmich 11y agoThe latter remains to be seen, the former is good - and the number of flights they had to achieve that is quite odd. Looks like Bezos is a follower of quite different development philosophy than e.g. John Carmack. Blue Origin way of doing things isn't clear - may be by design.
- MrJagil 11y agoDon't forget http://copenhagensuborbitals.com/ http://copenhagensuborbitals.com/ Is there anyone else to add to the list? The news we had "recently" on Indian rocket science was not about private endeavours, was it?
- heisenzombie 11y agohttp://www.rocketlabusa.com/ http://www.rocketlabusa.com/ is a scrappy contender from New Zealand. (Not the same goals -- they're focusing on being super cheap way to get small payloads to LEO)