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You realize this is not how it works? SpaceX is a pioneer: they show the path, others follow. There is no dependency on innovation. Also, NASA can't do any of

by gliboc 8y ago

You realize this is not how it works? SpaceX is a pioneer: they show the path, others follow. There is no dependency on innovation. Also, NASA can't do any of this, which is why the US government is giving funds to SpaceX. Plus what about the real dependency of the NASA on political agenda and budget votes?

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
SpaceX also has a real dependency on political agenda and budget votes (as do all of Musk's companies as the case is: Tesla and SolarCity were built heavily on tax incentives from green initiatives, SpaceX depends on funding from NASA, and the Boring Company looks like it's gearing up to cash in on all those "infrastructure" promises everyone in our government's been demanding). Congress can absolutely decide to fund SpaceX less, or charge SpaceX more for use of government facilities, just as easily as they can pull the funding out from under SLS if they choose to. Elon Musk is very good at designing companies built on government handouts. ;) Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches: We've done it lots of times. The exciting part is now making space launches cheaper, regular, and more capable. SpaceX is not the only company working on doing those things.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches: We've done it lots of times. The exciting part is now making space launches cheaper, regular, and more capable. SpaceX is not the only company working on doing those things. Sure. But SpaceX is still leading a way, and is way ahead of everyone else. And before they started, literally nobody else cared. Existing launch companies were happy with their status quo. I'm not confident that the other companies currently working on cheap launches would survive if SpaceX folded, so I still believe we need SpaceX in the coming years to keep up the momentum.
- squeegee5 8y ago
  That you've received so many downvotes is indicative of HN's perpetual Musk boner. Musk is a state-sponsored winner, a Jack Ma, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or Bill Gates. He is an undeserving, decade-long recipient of government grants and contracts obtained through relationships to politicians and career bureaucrats. His sole talent is finessing the work of skilled engineers and marketing that as his personal brand. He's not even a particularly good manager, as reflected in the varied outcomes of his businesses. If the government gave a dozen fresh MBA graduates the same amount of money and influence, maybe one of them will build an incredible business that stands on its own merit like SpaceX. Another might build something like Tesla, which takes on ten billion dollars of debt and fails to turn an annual profit over fourteen years of operation. A full half, like SolarCity, will lose money for years and reach bankruptcy proceedings. And none of them will have a cousin of loose ethics that is willing to rescue a business that failed on its merits.
  - handsomechad 8y ago
    Why did you include Gates?
  - nickik 8y ago
    I will give you some examples of how everything you say is utter garbage. Lets luck at the COTS program form NASA. They selected two companies, SpaceX and Kistler. SpaceX succeeded on everything and they flew the missions at the price agree on in the contract (witch was globally competitive). Kistler was not able and so they went down. The program succeeded and the US now has the by far the cheapest ISS supply vehicle and the only one that can return cargo (SpaceX btw added this feature on top themselves, it was demand by NASA). Once the contract COTS 2 was negotiated, SpaceX again made the single best and cheapest bid and was again selected in a competitive process against companies that are far larger and have more pull in Washington. The same goes for Commercial Crew. It was a competitive process that included many companies who have far more access to politicians and career bureaucrats then SpaceX had. And yet again, SpaceX was on of the selected, BECAUSE THEIR OFFER WAS JUST SO MUCH CHEAPER THEN ANYBODY ELSE. Have you ever consider that maybe SpaceX gets these contracts because they are just far cheaper then anybody else? Many of the numbers I am talking about here are public. You can go look it up. The reality is your argument is absolute bullshit that has absolutely no bases in reality. Now that was NASA, lets look at DoD. Clearly SpaceX only gets all these contracts because they play golf with so many generals, right? Again, totally false. Its the exact opposite, ULA had long been the prime contract to the point where the launches were no longer competitively bid. It took multiple law suits against the DoD before SpaceX was even allowed to compete. Then they had to go threw a very hard certification process. Once SpaceX was allowed to compete they massively underbid the competition to the point where ULA has actually stopped even bidding because they know they have no chance at winning in a fair competition. Also, the notion that SpaceX after 2008 depended on government contracts is totally false. Only about 1/3 of SpaceX launches are for the US government and they have tons of private launches on their waiting list. All in all, your entire argument is totally false.
    - squeegee5 8y ago
      You'll note that I praised SpaceX. My denigration was reserved for Musk in particular.
- nickik 8y ago
  That is mostly false. Neither Tesla nor SpaceX depend on government funding. SpaceX absolutely does not depend on NASA for funding. The majority of SpaceX missions are not for the government. The majority of their developments and research are not directly funded by NASA. > Congress can absolutely decide to fund SpaceX less They can hurt them by telling NASA and DoD to not use SpaceX even if they are the cheapest. But that would absolutely not kill SpaceX in any way. It would also massively hurt the government since it would cost them billions. > or charge SpaceX more for use of government facilities Unless they break their contract that were already negotiated for the long term, no they can't. But that's a stupid argument, of course the US government can destroy any company in the world if they really want to. > Elon Musk is very good at designing companies built on government handouts. ;) Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. Not really. First of all, in the case of SpaceX they were not handouts, but rather competitively bid contracts that SpaceX can execute cheaper then anybody else. In fact SpaceX had to sue the government multiple times to even be allowed to bid for some of the contracts. Kistler for example was not able to execute and NASA cut their funding and they went down. These actions actually saved the government a shit-ton of money, rather then the government giving handouts to SpaceX. The same goes for Tesla, its mostly successful because it a good product. The tax cuts they get are nice, but again, any other company has access to the same tax-cuts as well. > We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches The BFR is absolutely a pineer project.Pretty much nothing like it has ever been done. Not the engines. Not the structure. Not the fuel. Not the orbital refueling. Not the full reusability. And of course then landing it on Mars and hopefully flying it back, that's absolutely a pioneer project.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Uh, most of SpaceX wouldn't exist without the $3.144 billion SpaceX was given under the Commercial Crew Program: https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-crew-program-the-essentials/ https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-crew-program-the-ess... Which, for what it's worth, SpaceX still hasn't actually delivered a result on, since they decided not to make the Dragon a crewed spacecraft after all.
    - nickik 8y ago

by gliboc 8y ago

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

SpaceX also has a real dependency on political agenda and budget votes (as do all of Musk's companies as the case is: Tesla and SolarCity were built heavily on tax incentives from green initiatives, SpaceX depends on funding from NASA, and the Boring Company looks like it's gearing up to cash in on all those "infrastructure" promises everyone in our government's been demanding). Congress can absolutely decide to fund SpaceX less, or charge SpaceX more for use of government facilities, just as easily as they can pull the funding out from under SLS if they choose to. Elon Musk is very good at designing companies built on government handouts. ;) Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches: We've done it lots of times. The exciting part is now making space launches cheaper, regular, and more capable. SpaceX is not the only company working on doing those things.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches: We've done it lots of times. The exciting part is now making space launches cheaper, regular, and more capable. SpaceX is not the only company working on doing those things. Sure. But SpaceX is still leading a way, and is way ahead of everyone else. And before they started, literally nobody else cared. Existing launch companies were happy with their status quo. I'm not confident that the other companies currently working on cheap launches would survive if SpaceX folded, so I still believe we need SpaceX in the coming years to keep up the momentum.
squeegee5 8y ago
That you've received so many downvotes is indicative of HN's perpetual Musk boner. Musk is a state-sponsored winner, a Jack Ma, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or Bill Gates. He is an undeserving, decade-long recipient of government grants and contracts obtained through relationships to politicians and career bureaucrats. His sole talent is finessing the work of skilled engineers and marketing that as his personal brand. He's not even a particularly good manager, as reflected in the varied outcomes of his businesses. If the government gave a dozen fresh MBA graduates the same amount of money and influence, maybe one of them will build an incredible business that stands on its own merit like SpaceX. Another might build something like Tesla, which takes on ten billion dollars of debt and fails to turn an annual profit over fourteen years of operation. A full half, like SolarCity, will lose money for years and reach bankruptcy proceedings. And none of them will have a cousin of loose ethics that is willing to rescue a business that failed on its merits.
- handsomechad 8y ago
  Why did you include Gates?
- nickik 8y ago
  I will give you some examples of how everything you say is utter garbage. Lets luck at the COTS program form NASA. They selected two companies, SpaceX and Kistler. SpaceX succeeded on everything and they flew the missions at the price agree on in the contract (witch was globally competitive). Kistler was not able and so they went down. The program succeeded and the US now has the by far the cheapest ISS supply vehicle and the only one that can return cargo (SpaceX btw added this feature on top themselves, it was demand by NASA). Once the contract COTS 2 was negotiated, SpaceX again made the single best and cheapest bid and was again selected in a competitive process against companies that are far larger and have more pull in Washington. The same goes for Commercial Crew. It was a competitive process that included many companies who have far more access to politicians and career bureaucrats then SpaceX had. And yet again, SpaceX was on of the selected, BECAUSE THEIR OFFER WAS JUST SO MUCH CHEAPER THEN ANYBODY ELSE. Have you ever consider that maybe SpaceX gets these contracts because they are just far cheaper then anybody else? Many of the numbers I am talking about here are public. You can go look it up. The reality is your argument is absolute bullshit that has absolutely no bases in reality. Now that was NASA, lets look at DoD. Clearly SpaceX only gets all these contracts because they play golf with so many generals, right? Again, totally false. Its the exact opposite, ULA had long been the prime contract to the point where the launches were no longer competitively bid. It took multiple law suits against the DoD before SpaceX was even allowed to compete. Then they had to go threw a very hard certification process. Once SpaceX was allowed to compete they massively underbid the competition to the point where ULA has actually stopped even bidding because they know they have no chance at winning in a fair competition. Also, the notion that SpaceX after 2008 depended on government contracts is totally false. Only about 1/3 of SpaceX launches are for the US government and they have tons of private launches on their waiting list. All in all, your entire argument is totally false.
  - squeegee5 8y ago
    You'll note that I praised SpaceX. My denigration was reserved for Musk in particular.
nickik 8y ago
That is mostly false. Neither Tesla nor SpaceX depend on government funding. SpaceX absolutely does not depend on NASA for funding. The majority of SpaceX missions are not for the government. The majority of their developments and research are not directly funded by NASA. > Congress can absolutely decide to fund SpaceX less They can hurt them by telling NASA and DoD to not use SpaceX even if they are the cheapest. But that would absolutely not kill SpaceX in any way. It would also massively hurt the government since it would cost them billions. > or charge SpaceX more for use of government facilities Unless they break their contract that were already negotiated for the long term, no they can't. But that's a stupid argument, of course the US government can destroy any company in the world if they really want to. > Elon Musk is very good at designing companies built on government handouts. ;) Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. Not really. First of all, in the case of SpaceX they were not handouts, but rather competitively bid contracts that SpaceX can execute cheaper then anybody else. In fact SpaceX had to sue the government multiple times to even be allowed to bid for some of the contracts. Kistler for example was not able to execute and NASA cut their funding and they went down. These actions actually saved the government a shit-ton of money, rather then the government giving handouts to SpaceX. The same goes for Tesla, its mostly successful because it a good product. The tax cuts they get are nice, but again, any other company has access to the same tax-cuts as well. > We are past the "pioneer" stage of space launches The BFR is absolutely a pineer project.Pretty much nothing like it has ever been done. Not the engines. Not the structure. Not the fuel. Not the orbital refueling. Not the full reusability. And of course then landing it on Mars and hopefully flying it back, that's absolutely a pioneer project.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Uh, most of SpaceX wouldn't exist without the $3.144 billion SpaceX was given under the Commercial Crew Program: https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-crew-program-the-essentials/ https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-crew-program-the-ess... Which, for what it's worth, SpaceX still hasn't actually delivered a result on, since they decided not to make the Dragon a crewed spacecraft after all.
  - nickik 8y ago