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I'm guessing you haven't bought a lot of rocket launches. Launches are often bought years in advance (although SpaceX is reducing that to months, it's still no

by nkoren 6y ago

I'm guessing you haven't bought a lot of rocket launches. Launches are often bought years in advance (although SpaceX is reducing that to months, it's still not days or weeks). For payloads, they need to be certified for things like ITAR compliance, mass, mass distribution, power/thermal requirements on the pad, deorbit / debris mitigation plans, etc. etc. etc. The launch provider needs to care about all these things, since they'll be on the hook for many of them. It's not a simple relationship.

gamblor956 6y ago
Almost everything you just described is handled by the launch provider. The working relationship is SpaceX asking their customer a bunch of question so they can provide the basic service being paid for and satisfy the basic compliance legally required of them. It's a complex relationship, but isn't a collaborative relationship. (I have worked for a SpaceX customer. Unless you actually work for SpaceX or another SpaceX customer, I'm pretty certain I've more experience on this matter than you.)
- nkoren 6y ago
  I co-own a company that is a supplier to both SpaceX and many of their customers. I haven't worked on a launch license myself, but between what my company does and various friends in the industry, I'm familiar enough with the process. You're right that the relationship between the launch provider and and customer is complex but not particularly collaborative. The GP point is simply that SpaceX doesn't build that complexity into their commercial pricing -- which is awesome. (Their pricing for government customers is much less transparent, precisely because the relationships are MUCH more complex and collaborative). For Waymo or other LIDAR providers, the relationship with the customer is certainly NOT more inherently complex than the relationship between a launch provider and their customers. They're being opaque about pricing for strategic purposes, which I'll avoid speculating about, since they're also one of my company's customers...
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    One of Waymo's LIDAR competitors was a client when I still worked in consulting. (Not free to say which due to non-disclosures still in effect.) You're trivializing the amount of work that has gone into both LIDARs and products integrating LIDARS. I am aware that rocket science is hard. But we reached the moon before we developed pocket calculators. Fundamentally, the math behind rocket science can be done by hand. And was. Despite RADAR being developed more than 70 years ago, LIDARs required technological breakthroughs in multiple fields of physical sciences to become viable, which is why they only began showing up in force within the past decade, and this is despite the obvious military applications driving military research for the past several decades.

by nkoren 6y ago

gamblor956 6y ago

Almost everything you just described is handled by the launch provider. The working relationship is SpaceX asking their customer a bunch of question so they can provide the basic service being paid for and satisfy the basic compliance legally required of them. It's a complex relationship, but isn't a collaborative relationship. (I have worked for a SpaceX customer. Unless you actually work for SpaceX or another SpaceX customer, I'm pretty certain I've more experience on this matter than you.)

nkoren 6y ago
I co-own a company that is a supplier to both SpaceX and many of their customers. I haven't worked on a launch license myself, but between what my company does and various friends in the industry, I'm familiar enough with the process. You're right that the relationship between the launch provider and and customer is complex but not particularly collaborative. The GP point is simply that SpaceX doesn't build that complexity into their commercial pricing -- which is awesome. (Their pricing for government customers is much less transparent, precisely because the relationships are MUCH more complex and collaborative). For Waymo or other LIDAR providers, the relationship with the customer is certainly NOT more inherently complex than the relationship between a launch provider and their customers. They're being opaque about pricing for strategic purposes, which I'll avoid speculating about, since they're also one of my company's customers...
- gamblor956 6y ago
  One of Waymo's LIDAR competitors was a client when I still worked in consulting. (Not free to say which due to non-disclosures still in effect.) You're trivializing the amount of work that has gone into both LIDARs and products integrating LIDARS. I am aware that rocket science is hard. But we reached the moon before we developed pocket calculators. Fundamentally, the math behind rocket science can be done by hand. And was. Despite RADAR being developed more than 70 years ago, LIDARs required technological breakthroughs in multiple fields of physical sciences to become viable, which is why they only began showing up in force within the past decade, and this is despite the obvious military applications driving military research for the past several decades.