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The first successful landing of the F9 was in December 2015 so we're only five years and a handful of months since then and the Starship has just had its first
by sunstone 5y ago
The first successful landing of the F9 was in December 2015 so we're only five years and a handful of months since then and the Starship has just had its first mostly successful landing. Sure not from orbit but they are experimenting with the hardest part now.
SpaceX's competitors must be just crying in their beer knowing that launching on the Starship will eventually (sooner than you think) be even cheaper than the F9.
Progress in rocketry has now blinked into warp drive.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoMost of those guys have very profitable businesses designing and building satellites. SpaceX has made launching those satellites very cheap, so the demand for satellites is up. They're not crying.
- dwaltrip 5y agoCheap launches means means satellite prices will go down. Satellites were expensive before because why bust your ass to shave a few million off here and there when you are paying $200 million to launch the damn thing? I believe this has already started happening. Of course, improvements in electronics technologies in general have played a huge role as well.
- myself248 5y agoAnd as a result of the extreme cost of launches, extreme care is taken to make the satellites themselves incredibly reliable. Which is part of why we're not in a full-on Kessler cascade yet. I wonder, if cheaper launches lead to downward pressure on satellite price and complexity, will that also involve downward pressure on testing and reliability? Will that lead to more dead satellites in orbit, more collisions, and a sudden end to the good old days? Does that suggest a need for regulatory requirements for reliability and control, which had previously been enforced by simple market dynamics?