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SpaceX was completely unrealistic. Like we in the aerospace industry thought it was a joke and sat smugly with their string of spectacular failures in the mid '
by starpilot 8y ago
SpaceX was completely unrealistic. Like we in the aerospace industry thought it was a joke and sat smugly with their string of spectacular failures in the mid '00s. My friend at NASA JSC launch operations especially. Now, he does launch ops at SpaceX.
- philliphaydon 8y agoI don't know a lot about SpaceX but I think I read somewhere he wanted to buy a rocket, and the price given to him was insane, so he looked up how to make a rocket and figured he could do it for less than the cost of buying one, and then after reducing costs decided it also needed to be reusable.
- icelancer 8y agoThat's more or less what happened. The supplier of the rockets were Russian and they basically screwed with him. And now, SpaceX.
- megablast 8y agoIf you can't beat them?
- dx034 8y agoThe sector before solely consisted of a few government agencies. He showed that a private company can operate successfully in that space, which many doubted before. That he can be cheaper is then not much of a surprise, government agencies have little incentive to be as efficient as possible. Tunnels are different, it's already done solely by private companies and there is some competition. Beating a Swiss company will be harder than a EU or US government agency.
- dingaling 8y ago> The sector before solely consisted of a few government agencies. Not at all. This seems to be a common misconception. NASA, the USAF and the Navy have never built a launcher themselves. The US Army did, in the late 40s and 50s.
- nickik 8y agoULA wa s private but government supported. They coild have competet in the international launch market but largly didnt. While tunneps are private, not many pivate companies come up with new transportation systems.