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Blue Origin has turtles in it's coat of arms because the strategy is slow and steady...Bezos doesn't feel the need to compete on speed here.
by troyastorino 9y ago
Blue Origin has turtles in it's coat of arms because the strategy is slow and steady...Bezos doesn't feel the need to compete on speed here.
- rl3 9y agoI'm neither an Amazon nor Bezos fan, but that ethos is something I respect. Rocketry isn't something you rush. Frankly I'm surprised SpaceX hasn't had more mishaps given the breakneck speed at which they operate.
- LoSboccacc 9y agoMost kinks of space travel were worked out in the '60s and spacex is pushing for reliability specifically, not for payload capacity - coincidentally that's where they're pushing the envelope and getting most of the failures.
- rl3 9y agoRegardless, designing a modern reusable launch platform isn't anywhere close to trivial.
- compton_effect 9y agoNot really. In the 60s we basically verified that certain rocket and engine designs work and that we could go beyond earth orbit. Creating a reliable, long lasting and reusable space rocket/vehicle is, in my opinion, orders of magnitude more difficult. Just look at the Space Shuttle failure as an example of trying to do space on the cheap. Also, remember it took about 5% of the US GDP in the 60s to put men on the moon. I believe in Musk but trying to make space cheap is just simply a difficult problem and one I wished we funded more.
- LoSboccacc 9y agoShuttle is not a rocket tho. check out Saturn V failures instead.
- taneq 9y agoEh? The shuttle absolutely was a rocket. The 'spaceplane' bit only kicked in for landings. On the way up it was 100% reaction mass driven.
- planteen 9y agoA reliable, long use rocket is not exactly new either. Delta II first launched in 1989, 153 launches, 151 successes. There will be another launching this fall for JPSS-1.
- valuearb 9y agoAt a slower cadence and prices 3-4x that of SpaceX
- sidlls 9y agoThe vast majority of SpaceX's current success is attributable to government funded research and experiments (the entire space program for the last several decades) and government funding (currently) that Musk is taking advantage of. They don't have more mishaps because the innovations they're undertaking are small relative to the existing body of research and experiment, and built on a solid foundation that already exists. It's popular in some circles (not directed to your comment, here) to lionize Musk as some exemplar of how the government sucks and to promote privatized space exploration but that's just not in line with reality as it actually is.
- valuearb 9y agoThe vast majority of government research for space launches was done by the Nazis. Everyone has access to that and NASAs research, yet... SpaceX is currently launching space shuttle sized payloads for a price that is over 40 times less than the shuttle, and less than half the cost of other private competitors, and at a cadence none of them have ever achieved. Re-use is the key launch technology of the future and its greatest and only commercial application has been done by SpaceX.
- Pica_soO 9y agoThe key is to no longer take the fuel with you up there.
- sidlls 9y agoThey're a private company the same way any company that is effectively funded by government contract is. Technically it's true, but they haven't demonstrated actual viability in the private market (much less profitability). And the achievements you note have little or nothing to do with their status as a private company and almost everything to do with taking advantage of government research from the past half-century. The bit about Nazis is entirely irrelevant.
- MattRix 9y agoMaybe you missed the part about it being 1/40th the cost.
- BlackjackCF 9y agoSpaceX also operates at a seemingly breakneck speed because they've taken a lot of production in-house. A lot of places contract out in order to get things manufactured, and that takes a lot of time and money because you're going back and forth instead of being able to directly take a design and go to a technician for manufacturing.
- valuearb 9y agoWell he's not competing on anything here, not yet.
- MPSimmons 9y agoIt seems that's the case. It was founded two years before SpaceX.