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Space X 'getting competition'? You do realize the 'old' rocket companies haven't gone anywhere. Yes, Space X:s success is astounding but let's not get myopic a

by fsloth 10y ago

Space X 'getting competition'? You do realize the 'old' rocket companies haven't gone anywhere. Yes, Space X:s success is astounding but let's not get myopic about it.

DavidSJ 10y ago
They are competition for the present market, but they are not even trying to compete for the (possibly illusory) market opened up by (also possibly illusory) 100x cheaper spaceflight.
nickik 10y ago
They haven't gone anywhere but none of them can compete in price. Even the new vehicles, ULA Vulcan and Arianspace Arian 6 will be vastly overpriced, even if they reach the goal price they have set for themselfes. For SpaceX reuse and the price saving are already a reality, ULA and Arianspace are only in the concept phase for these things. Their rockets are only planned for first flight in 2020 and maybe reuse a couple of years after that. The only reason Arianspace can compete at all is that they don't amortize the development of the rocket.
- sandGorgon 10y ago
  Yeah well - there are others who can compete on price as well. http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/15/india-launches-record-breaking-104-satellites-from-single-rocket https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/15/india-launch...
  - mrkgnao 10y ago
    They'd certainly be served better with fewer (at least not ~90%) old "management"-looking people on their webcasts, which could've looked like they were made in the last five years (and less misleading people with talk of "hundreds of satellites" that in reality, IIRC, weigh just about the conventional PSLV cargo capacity[0]). The reason I'm not very gung-ho right now is because there is, just maybe, a future in which ISRO isn't just "one of the space agencies that have made it into orbit", but as important to the future of space as NASA was a decade or two earlier, and getting there involves not just doing good work, but being ambitious at the scale of SpaceX and such. ISRO is being funded well right now, but if they can't "make it" in the next decade, with NASA in a slightly precarious position and private companies with no history of going into space doing all manner of remarkable things, they are going to miss this shot, and that can be dangerous in a political climate where the "can such a poor country really afford to go into space" types might drown out more reasonable people and shutter things for good. I'm enthusiastic about ISRO being able to compete on price -- and it looks like they can go much further, considering that their labor costs are far less than they are for a private American space company, who I doubt can afford not to pay typical SF-style salaries to their engineers and designers. Good promotional material attracts talent: I seem to remember someone from SpaceX saying "our webcasts are actually recruitment propaganda", and, well, they work! Maybe the first step towards making young engineers want to work at ISRO is to not, e.g. name the Mars mission, of all things, "Mars Vehicle" in Hindi? [0]: Around 1.5 tons, and, no, I'm not discounting the challenges of actually releasing that many microsatellites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSLV-C28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSLV-C28
    - sandGorgon 10y ago
      > They'd certainly be served better with fewer (at least not ~90%) old "management"-looking people on their webcasts, which could've looked like they were made in the last five years (and less misleading people with talk of "hundreds of satellites" that in reality, IIRC, weigh just about the conventional PSLV cargo capacity[0]). Which is why they made this video highlighting the Indian women who powered the mars mission. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/isro-pslv-women-mars-orbiter-mission-stem-lifest/1/885386.html http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/isro-pslv-women-mars-orbi... they are all "management looking". You do realize that ISRO is the third space agency in the world to have a mars capable launch right ? and did it at a tenth the cost ? The only others are US, EU and Russia. We have a word for this in India - jugaad. It sort of means "duct tape". And we are very proud of it.
      - kamaal 10y ago
        >>We have a word for this in India - jugaad. It sort of means "duct tape". And we are very proud of it. Oh yes we are. But Jugaad isn't exactly frugal engineering. Its more like badly put together hack. Also frugal engineering only helps when you have specific goals and you wish to achieve only them. Larger culture of quality consciousness, innovation, precision engineering etc requires larger investments in time and money. Which is why you might eventually do a moon mission, but landing a man on moon will be that harder. The real problem now for ISRO is mars mission and moon mission satellites are basically the advanced low hanging fruit versions of space work, not easy to pluck but if you jump a little harder you absolutely can. Anything beyond this like say landing rovers, especially big rovers will be very very hard. Or manned missions for that matter or something like a Hubble or James Webb Space Telescope, or the Voyager missions. You not only need bigger rockets, but the engineering and technology challenge there is just a whole lot degree higher. Getting to that requires building the equivalent of MIT's and Harvard's in India. I think the USA or the western world can build the equivalent of PSLV quite easily. They just don't because there isn't much engineering challenge left in building a slightly larger ICBM. And then compete for profits there. While you can make the same money easily by selling satellite services. Also though we should be proud of a diverse culture. Very few women are actually in any hard engineering roles there. Most are collect and report kind of jobs, or some management position, or some other desk jobs. Although that definitely counts as being a part of the project. But most of the real hard work that builds competency still sees very little involvement from women. A lot of people come in through reservations and remain dormant because of pension and other government benefits.
  - nickik 10y ago
    Those are cool things but they don't have the rockets with the size and launch cadence to compete in the same market as SpaceX, ULA and Arianspace is right now. Maybe in the further away future they can do it.
  - valuearb 10y ago
    Their mars mission was amazing, not only was it cheap but they did it in a super short timeline and still managed it with such great attention to detail that it succeeded, and lot of martian missions fail. One of the ways they made it for only $75M was the spacecraft was only 3,000 lbs, so they could use a relatively small rocket to launch with. But the Falcon 9 can put 8,000 lbs in martian orbit for only $65M. That doesn't include the spacecraft, so more expensive obviously, but not much. India's space program is amazingly economical when compared to NASA. But they aren't as cheap per kg or as capable as SpaceX. They are "cheaper" in that they are launching much smaller rockets than SpaceX. The GSLV can put 5,000 kg in LEO for around $36M. The PSLV puts 3,800 kg in LEO for around $15M. The Falcon 9 puts 22,000 kg in LEO for around $65M, re-usable is estimated around $45M for probably 15,000ish kg.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      SpaceX's quoted $62M is for the first launch of a recoverable rocket. SpaceX does not have a published price for expendable launches.
      - valuearb 10y ago
        Their price has been around $65M for years, even before they ever recovered a rocket. Either way it doesn't make a big difference, even if SpaceX was charging $85M for an expendable launch it's still cheaper per pound than virtually everyone.
- piquadrat 10y ago
  They may not be able to compete on price, but they sure can when it comes to reliability and launch cadence (current strike action in French Guiana notwithstanding). Ariane 5 is currently on a 77 successful missions streak. SpaceX has a long way to go to reach those numbers. If you're trying to get a $250 million satellite into space, price savings of $20-30 million can easily be outweighed by a long history of successful, on-time launches.
  - Tepix 10y ago
    There are no fundamental reasons to believe that SpaceX can and will not reach a similar level of reliability.
    - ckastner 10y ago
      Optimism regarding future performance is not the same as a proven record.
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        Is this a jab at SpaceX or Ariane? One of these has a proven record in conventional launches and the other has a track record of innovating. Only one of these is required today.
    - nolok 10y ago
      There are no fundamental reasons to believe that Ariane space and others can and will not reach a similar level of cost cutting by the time Space X gets anywhere near them in reliability level.
      - nickik 10y ago
        Yes there is. We know the target that they are planning for it. Those targets are for 2020 and beyond and its already more then you pay for a F9 now. Yes, maybe sometime after 2025ish they might have their so far completely theoretical re-usability plan in action. Even then, they are still throwing away far more stuff then SpaceX. They throw away a very expensive upper stage, solid fuel boosters and most of the core itself. Additionally and that is not talked about enough, Arianspace can only compete on price at this level with Arian 6 because the development cost is majority funded by ESA (and co). They don't have to put that in their launch price. So Arianspace is essentially completely unable to compete with SpaceX in terms of cost. As long as the Arian 6 flies, it well simply never be competitive in cost with the Falcon 9. Even in price it will not be competitive. The architecture of Arian 6 as currently planed is just not designed for it.
- pyrale 10y ago
  > For SpaceX reuse and the price saving are already a reality Let's not get carried away... SpaceX has done one reuse until now, and there is no way to know exactly how much savings it will net them in the long run. I appreciate the endeavour they started, but the HN fan service for Musk and his projects is cultish sometimes...
  - prestonh 10y ago
    Obviously any discussion of the future of space will entail speculation since it's a volatile business by nature. But Shotwell recently stated that the savings of refurbishing a first stage over fabricating a new one was significantly over half, and the first stage itself comprises ~2/3 of the total hardware costs of an F9. It seems like that is a good starting place to estimate future savings, and other companies don't seem to have a competitive answer. Aside from that, in my experience the anti-Musk is less rational than the pro-Musk group... We have a guy here that's started amazing companies that otherwise probably wouldn't exist. In the past year we saw the first orbital-class rocket landing on the Earth, a landing on an autonomous drone ship on the ocean, first launch and landing of a reused rocket first stage, and we heard about a private company's plans to send tourists around the moon, and eventually, settlers to Mars. Without SpaceX, none of that would be on the table right now. We'd still be waiting on NASA. I think the cult following is totally warranted.
  - valuearb 10y ago
    Optimism around spaceX should be driven by it's current pricing and performance, which is pretty amazing. Even if they never improve their reliability and struggle to lower costs through re-usablity, they are still far cheaper for anyone who doesn't need the absolute best in reliability (certainly any payloads under $500B in value).
- gozur88 10y ago
  They have the design expertise they need to compete. They're definitely behind, but they will respond. Besides, at least for awhile they have a quality advantage and they don't have such a huge backlog you can't get your satellite up for years.
paulsutter 10y ago
Yes - you summed it up nicely. They really haven't gone anywhere, haven't made an ounce of progress. https://youtu.be/WCSt6Kobvzs https://youtu.be/WCSt6Kobvzs
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
paulgerhardt 10y ago
One of their own executives said as much [1]. Yes, he may have lost his job for it but it's not myopic when ULA drops out of a competition leaving SpaceX as the only bidder and then announce a program to transistion to Blue Origin's systems. [1] http://www.denverpost.com/2016/03/17/ula-executive-resigns-after-inaccurate-remarks-made-at-cu-boulder/ http://www.denverpost.com/2016/03/17/ula-executive-resigns-a...
- fsloth 10y ago
  Incumbents count as competition as long as they are in the same market. If we just look at NGO:s the list of competitors becomes shorter, of course. Falcon 9 launches (8 in 2016) were 9.5 % of the total global launches in 2016 (85) [0]. When appraising the future of spaceflight, It would be quite misleading to ignore e.g. Indian and Chinese efforts in this sphere, government funded or not. This is not to say I'm not silently cheering each time a Space X launch succeeds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_in_spaceflight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_in_spaceflight
  - nickik 10y ago
    Most of the launches are simple not competitive. SpaceX can not bid on Government contracts in China. The actual commercial market for launches is getting taken over by SpaceX. The only thing that holding them back is launch cadence and their government contract requiring them to make launches (COTS, Commercial Crew, USAF and so on). They are building more launch sites as well, so they are really just pulling away from the competition in that area.
Shivetya 10y ago
pretty sure China will become the most important competitor to Space X.
- nickjarboe 10y ago
  Elon Musk believes this as well. In a 2012 interview by Chris Anderson published in Wired[1] on why SpaceX does not patent anything: Anderson: So what have all your creative people come up with, then? What’s different in your basic technology versus 50 years ago? Musk: I can’t tell you much. We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China—if we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/

by fsloth 10y ago

Space X 'getting competition'? You do realize the 'old' rocket companies haven't gone anywhere. Yes, Space X:s success is astounding but let's not get myopic about it.

DavidSJ 10y ago

They are competition for the present market, but they are not even trying to compete for the (possibly illusory) market opened up by (also possibly illusory) 100x cheaper spaceflight.

nickik 10y ago

They haven't gone anywhere but none of them can compete in price. Even the new vehicles, ULA Vulcan and Arianspace Arian 6 will be vastly overpriced, even if they reach the goal price they have set for themselfes. For SpaceX reuse and the price saving are already a reality, ULA and Arianspace are only in the concept phase for these things. Their rockets are only planned for first flight in 2020 and maybe reuse a couple of years after that. The only reason Arianspace can compete at all is that they don't amortize the development of the rocket.

sandGorgon 10y ago
Yeah well - there are others who can compete on price as well. http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/15/india-launches-record-breaking-104-satellites-from-single-rocket https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/15/india-launch...
- mrkgnao 10y ago
  They'd certainly be served better with fewer (at least not ~90%) old "management"-looking people on their webcasts, which could've looked like they were made in the last five years (and less misleading people with talk of "hundreds of satellites" that in reality, IIRC, weigh just about the conventional PSLV cargo capacity[0]). The reason I'm not very gung-ho right now is because there is, just maybe, a future in which ISRO isn't just "one of the space agencies that have made it into orbit", but as important to the future of space as NASA was a decade or two earlier, and getting there involves not just doing good work, but being ambitious at the scale of SpaceX and such. ISRO is being funded well right now, but if they can't "make it" in the next decade, with NASA in a slightly precarious position and private companies with no history of going into space doing all manner of remarkable things, they are going to miss this shot, and that can be dangerous in a political climate where the "can such a poor country really afford to go into space" types might drown out more reasonable people and shutter things for good. I'm enthusiastic about ISRO being able to compete on price -- and it looks like they can go much further, considering that their labor costs are far less than they are for a private American space company, who I doubt can afford not to pay typical SF-style salaries to their engineers and designers. Good promotional material attracts talent: I seem to remember someone from SpaceX saying "our webcasts are actually recruitment propaganda", and, well, they work! Maybe the first step towards making young engineers want to work at ISRO is to not, e.g. name the Mars mission, of all things, "Mars Vehicle" in Hindi? [0]: Around 1.5 tons, and, no, I'm not discounting the challenges of actually releasing that many microsatellites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSLV-C28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSLV-C28
  - sandGorgon 10y ago
    > They'd certainly be served better with fewer (at least not ~90%) old "management"-looking people on their webcasts, which could've looked like they were made in the last five years (and less misleading people with talk of "hundreds of satellites" that in reality, IIRC, weigh just about the conventional PSLV cargo capacity[0]). Which is why they made this video highlighting the Indian women who powered the mars mission. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/isro-pslv-women-mars-orbiter-mission-stem-lifest/1/885386.html http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/isro-pslv-women-mars-orbi... they are all "management looking". You do realize that ISRO is the third space agency in the world to have a mars capable launch right ? and did it at a tenth the cost ? The only others are US, EU and Russia. We have a word for this in India - jugaad. It sort of means "duct tape". And we are very proud of it.
    - kamaal 10y ago
      >>We have a word for this in India - jugaad. It sort of means "duct tape". And we are very proud of it. Oh yes we are. But Jugaad isn't exactly frugal engineering. Its more like badly put together hack. Also frugal engineering only helps when you have specific goals and you wish to achieve only them. Larger culture of quality consciousness, innovation, precision engineering etc requires larger investments in time and money. Which is why you might eventually do a moon mission, but landing a man on moon will be that harder. The real problem now for ISRO is mars mission and moon mission satellites are basically the advanced low hanging fruit versions of space work, not easy to pluck but if you jump a little harder you absolutely can. Anything beyond this like say landing rovers, especially big rovers will be very very hard. Or manned missions for that matter or something like a Hubble or James Webb Space Telescope, or the Voyager missions. You not only need bigger rockets, but the engineering and technology challenge there is just a whole lot degree higher. Getting to that requires building the equivalent of MIT's and Harvard's in India. I think the USA or the western world can build the equivalent of PSLV quite easily. They just don't because there isn't much engineering challenge left in building a slightly larger ICBM. And then compete for profits there. While you can make the same money easily by selling satellite services. Also though we should be proud of a diverse culture. Very few women are actually in any hard engineering roles there. Most are collect and report kind of jobs, or some management position, or some other desk jobs. Although that definitely counts as being a part of the project. But most of the real hard work that builds competency still sees very little involvement from women. A lot of people come in through reservations and remain dormant because of pension and other government benefits.
- nickik 10y ago
  Those are cool things but they don't have the rockets with the size and launch cadence to compete in the same market as SpaceX, ULA and Arianspace is right now. Maybe in the further away future they can do it.
- valuearb 10y ago
  Their mars mission was amazing, not only was it cheap but they did it in a super short timeline and still managed it with such great attention to detail that it succeeded, and lot of martian missions fail. One of the ways they made it for only $75M was the spacecraft was only 3,000 lbs, so they could use a relatively small rocket to launch with. But the Falcon 9 can put 8,000 lbs in martian orbit for only $65M. That doesn't include the spacecraft, so more expensive obviously, but not much. India's space program is amazingly economical when compared to NASA. But they aren't as cheap per kg or as capable as SpaceX. They are "cheaper" in that they are launching much smaller rockets than SpaceX. The GSLV can put 5,000 kg in LEO for around $36M. The PSLV puts 3,800 kg in LEO for around $15M. The Falcon 9 puts 22,000 kg in LEO for around $65M, re-usable is estimated around $45M for probably 15,000ish kg.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    SpaceX's quoted $62M is for the first launch of a recoverable rocket. SpaceX does not have a published price for expendable launches.
    - valuearb 10y ago
      Their price has been around $65M for years, even before they ever recovered a rocket. Either way it doesn't make a big difference, even if SpaceX was charging $85M for an expendable launch it's still cheaper per pound than virtually everyone.
piquadrat 10y ago
They may not be able to compete on price, but they sure can when it comes to reliability and launch cadence (current strike action in French Guiana notwithstanding). Ariane 5 is currently on a 77 successful missions streak. SpaceX has a long way to go to reach those numbers. If you're trying to get a $250 million satellite into space, price savings of $20-30 million can easily be outweighed by a long history of successful, on-time launches.
- Tepix 10y ago
  There are no fundamental reasons to believe that SpaceX can and will not reach a similar level of reliability.
  - ckastner 10y ago
    Optimism regarding future performance is not the same as a proven record.
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      Is this a jab at SpaceX or Ariane? One of these has a proven record in conventional launches and the other has a track record of innovating. Only one of these is required today.
  - nolok 10y ago
    There are no fundamental reasons to believe that Ariane space and others can and will not reach a similar level of cost cutting by the time Space X gets anywhere near them in reliability level.
    - nickik 10y ago
      Yes there is. We know the target that they are planning for it. Those targets are for 2020 and beyond and its already more then you pay for a F9 now. Yes, maybe sometime after 2025ish they might have their so far completely theoretical re-usability plan in action. Even then, they are still throwing away far more stuff then SpaceX. They throw away a very expensive upper stage, solid fuel boosters and most of the core itself. Additionally and that is not talked about enough, Arianspace can only compete on price at this level with Arian 6 because the development cost is majority funded by ESA (and co). They don't have to put that in their launch price. So Arianspace is essentially completely unable to compete with SpaceX in terms of cost. As long as the Arian 6 flies, it well simply never be competitive in cost with the Falcon 9. Even in price it will not be competitive. The architecture of Arian 6 as currently planed is just not designed for it.
pyrale 10y ago
> For SpaceX reuse and the price saving are already a reality Let's not get carried away... SpaceX has done one reuse until now, and there is no way to know exactly how much savings it will net them in the long run. I appreciate the endeavour they started, but the HN fan service for Musk and his projects is cultish sometimes...
- prestonh 10y ago
  Obviously any discussion of the future of space will entail speculation since it's a volatile business by nature. But Shotwell recently stated that the savings of refurbishing a first stage over fabricating a new one was significantly over half, and the first stage itself comprises ~2/3 of the total hardware costs of an F9. It seems like that is a good starting place to estimate future savings, and other companies don't seem to have a competitive answer. Aside from that, in my experience the anti-Musk is less rational than the pro-Musk group... We have a guy here that's started amazing companies that otherwise probably wouldn't exist. In the past year we saw the first orbital-class rocket landing on the Earth, a landing on an autonomous drone ship on the ocean, first launch and landing of a reused rocket first stage, and we heard about a private company's plans to send tourists around the moon, and eventually, settlers to Mars. Without SpaceX, none of that would be on the table right now. We'd still be waiting on NASA. I think the cult following is totally warranted.
- valuearb 10y ago
  Optimism around spaceX should be driven by it's current pricing and performance, which is pretty amazing. Even if they never improve their reliability and struggle to lower costs through re-usablity, they are still far cheaper for anyone who doesn't need the absolute best in reliability (certainly any payloads under $500B in value).
gozur88 10y ago
They have the design expertise they need to compete. They're definitely behind, but they will respond. Besides, at least for awhile they have a quality advantage and they don't have such a huge backlog you can't get your satellite up for years.

paulsutter 10y ago

Yes - you summed it up nicely. They really haven't gone anywhere, haven't made an ounce of progress. https://youtu.be/WCSt6Kobvzs https://youtu.be/WCSt6Kobvzs

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

paulgerhardt 10y ago

One of their own executives said as much [1]. Yes, he may have lost his job for it but it's not myopic when ULA drops out of a competition leaving SpaceX as the only bidder and then announce a program to transistion to Blue Origin's systems. [1] http://www.denverpost.com/2016/03/17/ula-executive-resigns-after-inaccurate-remarks-made-at-cu-boulder/ http://www.denverpost.com/2016/03/17/ula-executive-resigns-a...

fsloth 10y ago
Incumbents count as competition as long as they are in the same market. If we just look at NGO:s the list of competitors becomes shorter, of course. Falcon 9 launches (8 in 2016) were 9.5 % of the total global launches in 2016 (85) [0]. When appraising the future of spaceflight, It would be quite misleading to ignore e.g. Indian and Chinese efforts in this sphere, government funded or not. This is not to say I'm not silently cheering each time a Space X launch succeeds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_in_spaceflight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_in_spaceflight
- nickik 10y ago
  Most of the launches are simple not competitive. SpaceX can not bid on Government contracts in China. The actual commercial market for launches is getting taken over by SpaceX. The only thing that holding them back is launch cadence and their government contract requiring them to make launches (COTS, Commercial Crew, USAF and so on). They are building more launch sites as well, so they are really just pulling away from the competition in that area.

Shivetya 10y ago

pretty sure China will become the most important competitor to Space X.

nickjarboe 10y ago
Elon Musk believes this as well. In a 2012 interview by Chris Anderson published in Wired[1] on why SpaceX does not patent anything: Anderson: So what have all your creative people come up with, then? What’s different in your basic technology versus 50 years ago? Musk: I can’t tell you much. We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China—if we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/