4 ms·

There are more than 10x as many people who can pay $1M for a launch than there are who can pay $10M. We've seen this before many times before. http://www.shir

by anamax 17y ago

There are more than 10x as many people who can pay $1M for a launch than there are who can pay $10M. We've seen this before many times before. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex... Auspex vs Network Appliance, (early) Ford vs all the luxury car makers, and so on. > And if you were to hop on a rocket, would you pick the one that had a severe failure within the past few years, or one that has been operating as engineered for the past 20-30 years? Except that that's not the choice that I have. My choice is between going up on a rocket with a 5% chance of failure or not going at all. Yes, there are folks who won't take that 5% chance, but there are a lot that will.

physcab 17y ago
Well, I think the failure rate is somewhere around 60% not 5% (I think out of the 5 Falcon 1 launches, only 2 succeeded). But over time, that figure will go down dramatically as they perfect their model (hopefully). Anyways, if you really wanted to catch a flight to space there are other options. It's reported that you can buy a seat on the Russian Soyuz which is very reliable. If you want to go for lower earth orbit, then those distances are easier and cheaper to reach, and I believe there are other commercial craft right now. One thing that is often overlooked is that I think current aerospace companies have regulated profit margins if they do business with the government. So they don't have the incentive to make cheaper space craft even if they thought it would be a good idea. I'm not sure if SpaceX are subject to those same laws and regulations. But it would be a tragedy if they were able to operate with lower standards.
- natep 17y ago
  On SpaceX's failure rate, I think I should point out that it was the first 3 that failed, and have learned from each failure. There are too few launches to do statistics on, but it doesn't seem to me that we can infer from past events that the 6th launch has a 60% failure rate. Cost plus doesn't seem to be helping the situation, but the fact that so much of American space technology is ITAR-controlled seems to be far more detrimental. For those that don't know, ITAR[1] effectively prevents critical spacecraft components from being exported to non-US persons, and even the technical details must be kept secret. All this means is that other countries design and build their own components (including software) from scratch, and American companies can't even compete with them in non-US markets. ITAR is a major hassle, but the consequences are too severe for any company or individual to try to take matters into their own hands (i.e. release ITAR stuff anyways). There needs to be legislation to fix this. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR
- anamax 17y ago
  > Anyways, if you really wanted to catch a flight to space there are other options. It's reported that you can buy a seat on the Russian Soyuz which is very reliable. Soyuz was $20M before they raised their prices. > If you want to go for lower earth orbit, then those distances are easier and cheaper to reach, and I believe there are other commercial craft right now. Virgin Space still hasn't flown so who are you thinking of?

by anamax 17y ago

physcab 17y ago

Well, I think the failure rate is somewhere around 60% not 5% (I think out of the 5 Falcon 1 launches, only 2 succeeded). But over time, that figure will go down dramatically as they perfect their model (hopefully). Anyways, if you really wanted to catch a flight to space there are other options. It's reported that you can buy a seat on the Russian Soyuz which is very reliable. If you want to go for lower earth orbit, then those distances are easier and cheaper to reach, and I believe there are other commercial craft right now. One thing that is often overlooked is that I think current aerospace companies have regulated profit margins if they do business with the government. So they don't have the incentive to make cheaper space craft even if they thought it would be a good idea. I'm not sure if SpaceX are subject to those same laws and regulations. But it would be a tragedy if they were able to operate with lower standards.

natep 17y ago
On SpaceX's failure rate, I think I should point out that it was the first 3 that failed, and have learned from each failure. There are too few launches to do statistics on, but it doesn't seem to me that we can infer from past events that the 6th launch has a 60% failure rate. Cost plus doesn't seem to be helping the situation, but the fact that so much of American space technology is ITAR-controlled seems to be far more detrimental. For those that don't know, ITAR[1] effectively prevents critical spacecraft components from being exported to non-US persons, and even the technical details must be kept secret. All this means is that other countries design and build their own components (including software) from scratch, and American companies can't even compete with them in non-US markets. ITAR is a major hassle, but the consequences are too severe for any company or individual to try to take matters into their own hands (i.e. release ITAR stuff anyways). There needs to be legislation to fix this. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR
anamax 17y ago
> Anyways, if you really wanted to catch a flight to space there are other options. It's reported that you can buy a seat on the Russian Soyuz which is very reliable. Soyuz was $20M before they raised their prices. > If you want to go for lower earth orbit, then those distances are easier and cheaper to reach, and I believe there are other commercial craft right now. Virgin Space still hasn't flown so who are you thinking of?