7 ms·

The New Space Race

93 points by apo 10y ago

arcanus 10y ago
NASA is listed as one of the competitors, but really, NASA is also driving a great deal of this innovation through contracting rocket use (for ISS refueling, etc.) to private companies. They are creating the market. A real question is: what is a viable business model that will necessitate these rockets? Aside from space tourism and placing satellites, what successful business ventures might exist at lower $/orbit capabilities? Even free access to orbit might not result in ancillary profitable businesses.
- petewailes 10y ago
  It's more useful to look at the current work being done as R&D for longer term missions to Mars, settlement of space, and asteroid capture/mining. There's significant value to be gained in putting things in space, but these are fundamentally long term plays.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Someone is always talking about high-speed transport. Either rich people who really need to do london-new york in under an hour, or packages that for whatever reasons cannot wait for the Fedex truck. If SpaceX really can cut costs by 99+% (imho they cannot) then rapid delivery of people/packages might be viable.
- larrydag 10y ago
  Asteroid mining. New startups like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Ventures will want to send satellites and vehicles into orbit or deep space for exploratory research.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    It is super unclear that even if you had extremely cheap access to orbit, you could make asteroid mining pay off. If cost to orbit was cheap enough, people might be interested in orbital solar power.
    - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
      Asteroid mining will pay off better if launch costs stay high. Anything produced in space has a huge cost advantage over something launched from the ground at a cost of thousands of dollars per kilogram. A kilogram of water or iron is literally worth more that its weight in gold once its in space.
      - aetherson 10y ago
        Okay, so there's a couple of dynamics that work differently here. There's asteroid mining to source materials for other stuff in space and then there's asteroid mining to source materials for the ground. If cost to orbit is low, then it becomes less worthwhile to source stuff in space for space stuff, because you could just source it from the ground for relatively cheaper. But if cost to orbit is low, it's also lower cost to actually set up an asteroid mining facility and perhaps more plausible that you might economically take stuff from asteroids down to the ground (though huge barriers remain, even for quite low costs to orbit). Also, if cost to orbit is lower, there is more plausibly other stuff actually happening in orbit that might make sense to consume space materials. Right now, the value of "a kilogram of iron" in space is essentially zero, because what you need is not raw iron but some kind of tool, and there's no way to turn raw iron into a tool in space. Water and other volatiles have some minor use, but as long as the number of people in space is, like, six, it's not that big a deal to get them water from Earth. If you had more stuff going on in space, there'd be more reason to try to get low-cost materials in space.
- vermontdevil 10y ago
  NASA also owns the SLS rocket. Granted they are not building it themselves, but it's 100% theirs. So in other words they would be competing with Falcon Heavy or the future MCT from SpaceX among others.
dkbrk 10y ago
This article has a bunch of problems and is fairly typical of mass-media reporting in this area. Suborbital vehicles such as SpaceShipTwo, New Shepard, and Lynx are lumped together with orbital launch systems. I do not think the distinction is made adequately clear in the text either; it would be very easy for a layperson to be seriously misled. Falcon 9 isn't described separately, just as a note on the Falcon Heavy. Though the Falcon Heavy has a great deal of commonality with the Falcon 9 there are substantial differences in capabilities and economics that go far beyond mere diffrent configurations of a single vehicle. This is very odd considering the outsize influence the Falcon 9 is having on the launch industry right now. Even with the Falcon Heavy flying in the near future, the Falcon 9 is capable of lifting most payloads and will continue to be the core offering from SpaceX in the near future. It's kind of important. Dragon and Crew Dragon are lumped together. One has been delivering cargo to the ISS since 2012, the other is slated for its first launch next year. They are different vehicles with different capabilities, designed for different purposes; albeit not without considerable commonalites. Antares has been flying since 2013, so evidently this article isn't just about designs which are in development, experimental, or have yet to reach operation. In which case, it is strange not to compare the listed rockets to Atlas V, Delta IV, Ariane 5 and Proton. Ariane 6 certainly deserves a mention in its own right. In most respects it is comparable to Vulcan, including plans for partial reusability (in response to SpaceX) and is of enormous political importance to the EU, ESA, and France in particular.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  Ugh, the article is so full of crap it hurts. As you've said they mix suborbital toys in there Show SLS (but no price breakdown - hint - it's going to be fucking riddiculous) And it has the fucking suicidal SRB's (they dramatically increase the risk of a critical failure) that cost more to refurbish than to build new... Antares is just... And they compare the MAX SpaceX price to MIN (theoretical!) Vulcan price I actually don't fanboy SpaceX that much (I love what they are doing (because, HEY SPACE!) but I am somewhat ambivalent about them as an actor. Plus, I'd really want to see Skylon fly...), but one has to admit, right now SpaceX seems unstoppable.
  - 10y ago
tomp 10y ago
I had no idea that Blue Origin vertically landed their rocket (New Shepard) on 2015-11-23, before SpaceX did on 2015-12-21. In addition, New Shepard rockets have already been reused. On the other hand, New Shepard is suborbital, even though it's reached the altitude of 100km.
- Lewton 10y ago
  I mean, technically spacex vertically landed a rocket in 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwwS4YOTbbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwwS4YOTbbw
  - DavidSJ 10y ago
    If you're willing to count a 40 meter hop, then 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4PEXLODw9c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4PEXLODw9c
    - walkingolof 10y ago
      C'mon, this has been done before by both private and government funded projects DC-X 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls
- simonh 10y ago
  Compared to an orbital launch, Blue Origin's flight so far are more like a tech demo. But they're one heck of a tech demo! It's a smart strategy. Take the shortest, cheapest possible route to profitability by selling flights to space tourists, all the while building experience with operating and maintaining a reusable rocket. Then build on that expertise to develop a reusable orbital launch system. I think they're by far the most interesting of SpaceX's competitors.
- 746F7475 10y ago
  Yeah... For some reason everyone who is interested in this stuff is SpaceX fanboy and when Blue Origin released their success after SpaceX's failure(s) everyone just seemed to be little them. Then SpaceX did theirs and everyone went nuts over it.
legulere 10y ago
Aren't the Ariane rockets produced commercially since the 80s?
- arethuza 10y ago
  Also what about Russian commercial launches?
partycoder 10y ago
Nobody here is mentioning ISRO. ISRO might not have the most advanced technology, true, but their cost effectiveness compensates for that. They're also catching up very quickly.
- varadg 10y ago
  This. Thank you for pointing this out.
  - partycoder 10y ago
    Then upvote
    - 746F7475 10y ago
      Begging for Internet points... shame....
      - alexhawdon 10y ago
        No, partycoder is educating is educating varadg on the correct site etiquette; the 'upvote' button should be used in place of 'I agree!' or 'This!' type comments.
        746F7475 10y ago
        Doubtful
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- vermontdevil 10y ago
  This article focuses on US companies or agencies that are involved with the Space Race. But I do get your point and agree out of the non-US, India is in excellent position to be a competitor.
11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
One metric I'd be interested in, if it could be objectively measured, is rate of technical progress in private vs. government efforts, and, total $ spent by both enterprises. Intuitively, I would say it is much faster in private industry, however, it is also more dispersed and not coordinated.
- TrevorJ 10y ago
  It's a bit more complicated than that. NASA didn't build the moon rocket or the shuttle, they use a huge number of private contractors so much of the technical progress is pretty intertwined between public and private sectors.

93 points by apo 10y ago

NASA is listed as one of the competitors, but really, NASA is also driving a great deal of this innovation through contracting rocket use (for ISS refueling, etc.) to private companies. They are creating the market. A real question is: what is a viable business model that will necessitate these rockets? Aside from space tourism and placing satellites, what successful business ventures might exist at lower $/orbit capabilities? Even free access to orbit might not result in ancillary profitable businesses.

petewailes 10y ago
It's more useful to look at the current work being done as R&D for longer term missions to Mars, settlement of space, and asteroid capture/mining. There's significant value to be gained in putting things in space, but these are fundamentally long term plays.
sandworm101 10y ago
Someone is always talking about high-speed transport. Either rich people who really need to do london-new york in under an hour, or packages that for whatever reasons cannot wait for the Fedex truck. If SpaceX really can cut costs by 99+% (imho they cannot) then rapid delivery of people/packages might be viable.
larrydag 10y ago
Asteroid mining. New startups like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Ventures will want to send satellites and vehicles into orbit or deep space for exploratory research.
- aetherson 10y ago
  It is super unclear that even if you had extremely cheap access to orbit, you could make asteroid mining pay off. If cost to orbit was cheap enough, people might be interested in orbital solar power.
  - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
    Asteroid mining will pay off better if launch costs stay high. Anything produced in space has a huge cost advantage over something launched from the ground at a cost of thousands of dollars per kilogram. A kilogram of water or iron is literally worth more that its weight in gold once its in space.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      Okay, so there's a couple of dynamics that work differently here. There's asteroid mining to source materials for other stuff in space and then there's asteroid mining to source materials for the ground. If cost to orbit is low, then it becomes less worthwhile to source stuff in space for space stuff, because you could just source it from the ground for relatively cheaper. But if cost to orbit is low, it's also lower cost to actually set up an asteroid mining facility and perhaps more plausible that you might economically take stuff from asteroids down to the ground (though huge barriers remain, even for quite low costs to orbit). Also, if cost to orbit is lower, there is more plausibly other stuff actually happening in orbit that might make sense to consume space materials. Right now, the value of "a kilogram of iron" in space is essentially zero, because what you need is not raw iron but some kind of tool, and there's no way to turn raw iron into a tool in space. Water and other volatiles have some minor use, but as long as the number of people in space is, like, six, it's not that big a deal to get them water from Earth. If you had more stuff going on in space, there'd be more reason to try to get low-cost materials in space.
vermontdevil 10y ago
NASA also owns the SLS rocket. Granted they are not building it themselves, but it's 100% theirs. So in other words they would be competing with Falcon Heavy or the future MCT from SpaceX among others.

dkbrk 10y ago

This article has a bunch of problems and is fairly typical of mass-media reporting in this area. Suborbital vehicles such as SpaceShipTwo, New Shepard, and Lynx are lumped together with orbital launch systems. I do not think the distinction is made adequately clear in the text either; it would be very easy for a layperson to be seriously misled. Falcon 9 isn't described separately, just as a note on the Falcon Heavy. Though the Falcon Heavy has a great deal of commonality with the Falcon 9 there are substantial differences in capabilities and economics that go far beyond mere diffrent configurations of a single vehicle. This is very odd considering the outsize influence the Falcon 9 is having on the launch industry right now. Even with the Falcon Heavy flying in the near future, the Falcon 9 is capable of lifting most payloads and will continue to be the core offering from SpaceX in the near future. It's kind of important. Dragon and Crew Dragon are lumped together. One has been delivering cargo to the ISS since 2012, the other is slated for its first launch next year. They are different vehicles with different capabilities, designed for different purposes; albeit not without considerable commonalites. Antares has been flying since 2013, so evidently this article isn't just about designs which are in development, experimental, or have yet to reach operation. In which case, it is strange not to compare the listed rockets to Atlas V, Delta IV, Ariane 5 and Proton. Ariane 6 certainly deserves a mention in its own right. In most respects it is comparable to Vulcan, including plans for partial reusability (in response to SpaceX) and is of enormous political importance to the EU, ESA, and France in particular.

emp_zealoth 10y ago
Ugh, the article is so full of crap it hurts. As you've said they mix suborbital toys in there Show SLS (but no price breakdown - hint - it's going to be fucking riddiculous) And it has the fucking suicidal SRB's (they dramatically increase the risk of a critical failure) that cost more to refurbish than to build new... Antares is just... And they compare the MAX SpaceX price to MIN (theoretical!) Vulcan price I actually don't fanboy SpaceX that much (I love what they are doing (because, HEY SPACE!) but I am somewhat ambivalent about them as an actor. Plus, I'd really want to see Skylon fly...), but one has to admit, right now SpaceX seems unstoppable.
- 10y ago

tomp 10y ago

I had no idea that Blue Origin vertically landed their rocket (New Shepard) on 2015-11-23, before SpaceX did on 2015-12-21. In addition, New Shepard rockets have already been reused. On the other hand, New Shepard is suborbital, even though it's reached the altitude of 100km.

Lewton 10y ago
I mean, technically spacex vertically landed a rocket in 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwwS4YOTbbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwwS4YOTbbw
- DavidSJ 10y ago
  If you're willing to count a 40 meter hop, then 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4PEXLODw9c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4PEXLODw9c
  - walkingolof 10y ago
    C'mon, this has been done before by both private and government funded projects DC-X 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls
simonh 10y ago
Compared to an orbital launch, Blue Origin's flight so far are more like a tech demo. But they're one heck of a tech demo! It's a smart strategy. Take the shortest, cheapest possible route to profitability by selling flights to space tourists, all the while building experience with operating and maintaining a reusable rocket. Then build on that expertise to develop a reusable orbital launch system. I think they're by far the most interesting of SpaceX's competitors.
746F7475 10y ago
Yeah... For some reason everyone who is interested in this stuff is SpaceX fanboy and when Blue Origin released their success after SpaceX's failure(s) everyone just seemed to be little them. Then SpaceX did theirs and everyone went nuts over it.

legulere 10y ago

Aren't the Ariane rockets produced commercially since the 80s?

arethuza 10y ago
Also what about Russian commercial launches?

partycoder 10y ago

Nobody here is mentioning ISRO. ISRO might not have the most advanced technology, true, but their cost effectiveness compensates for that. They're also catching up very quickly.

varadg 10y ago
This. Thank you for pointing this out.
- partycoder 10y ago
  Then upvote
  - 746F7475 10y ago
    Begging for Internet points... shame....
    - alexhawdon 10y ago
      No, partycoder is educating is educating varadg on the correct site etiquette; the 'upvote' button should be used in place of 'I agree!' or 'This!' type comments.
      - 746F7475 10y ago
        Doubtful
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
vermontdevil 10y ago
This article focuses on US companies or agencies that are involved with the Space Race. But I do get your point and agree out of the non-US, India is in excellent position to be a competitor.

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago

One metric I'd be interested in, if it could be objectively measured, is rate of technical progress in private vs. government efforts, and, total $ spent by both enterprises. Intuitively, I would say it is much faster in private industry, however, it is also more dispersed and not coordinated.

TrevorJ 10y ago
It's a bit more complicated than that. NASA didn't build the moon rocket or the shuttle, they use a huge number of private contractors so much of the technical progress is pretty intertwined between public and private sectors.