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Space is expensive. Bezos is pumping 1 billion per year into the company and the blue origin proposal was for 13 billion. Even for Bezos that's not chump change

Space is expensive. Bezos is pumping 1 billion per year into the company and the blue origin proposal was for 13 billion. Even for Bezos that's not chump change.

pmoriarty 5y ago
All the more reason to cooperate and pool resources instead of duplicating effort.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I'm not so sure, though. I think there's still an argument to be made for multiple approaches and different technology, which you're not likely to get if everyone works together. I'm not sure that "avoiding a monoculture" is important for this sort of thing, but maybe it can't hurt? Another problem when multiple independent orgs pool resources and work together is you either end up with design-by-committee (which leads to overengineering and extra expense, both of which are anti-goals for SpaceX and BO), or deadlock when the parties can't agree. And you'd better believe personalities like Musk and Bezos would clash a lot if they ever did a joint venture on something.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "you'd better believe personalities like Musk and Bezos would clash a lot if they ever did a joint venture on something" If they clash a lot it's proof they're not good at cooperating. So maybe the answer is that Musk and Bezos are good at competing, but not good at cooperating. That doesn't mean that cooperation is a losing strategy, but just that one has to be good at cooperating in order to succeed at it.
    - Meandering 5y ago
      People like to romanticize market competition as a epic battle of great minds and ideas that we all benefit from... but, in all honestly, it allows for comparative testing of diverse ideas while keeping pricing honest. Cooperation might lower the "cost" of producing similar products but, then we are producing similar products. A major goal of competition is to prevent us from putting all our eggs in one basket. I mean what if all the space companies decided to use one company's rocket engine and they failed to delivery...
- kiba 5y ago
  One company works slow, the other company works fast.
- avereveard 5y ago
  "Let's pool 9 woman and birth a 14 foot tall baby"
adrr 5y ago
It’s like an average person spending $1,000 per year for a hobby.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  And at 200bb producing 'income' it's hard to grasp how huge that is. Even at what in this market is a super conservative 5%...
_Microft 5y ago
Too much money might be part of Blue Origin's problem to deliver. SpaceX did not have the luxury to take ages, they had to build a working rocket to be able make money or die otherwise. I can only recommend Eric Berger's excellent book "Liftoff" to gain insights into SpaceX' way of working to get the Falcon 1 rocket off the ground and eventually into orbit. I cannot imagine Blue Origin having operated in a similar way at any point in their history.

Space is expensive. Bezos is pumping 1 billion per year into the company and the blue origin proposal was for 13 billion. Even for Bezos that's not chump change.

pmoriarty 5y ago

All the more reason to cooperate and pool resources instead of duplicating effort.

kelnos 5y ago
I'm not so sure, though. I think there's still an argument to be made for multiple approaches and different technology, which you're not likely to get if everyone works together. I'm not sure that "avoiding a monoculture" is important for this sort of thing, but maybe it can't hurt? Another problem when multiple independent orgs pool resources and work together is you either end up with design-by-committee (which leads to overengineering and extra expense, both of which are anti-goals for SpaceX and BO), or deadlock when the parties can't agree. And you'd better believe personalities like Musk and Bezos would clash a lot if they ever did a joint venture on something.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "you'd better believe personalities like Musk and Bezos would clash a lot if they ever did a joint venture on something" If they clash a lot it's proof they're not good at cooperating. So maybe the answer is that Musk and Bezos are good at competing, but not good at cooperating. That doesn't mean that cooperation is a losing strategy, but just that one has to be good at cooperating in order to succeed at it.
  - Meandering 5y ago
    People like to romanticize market competition as a epic battle of great minds and ideas that we all benefit from... but, in all honestly, it allows for comparative testing of diverse ideas while keeping pricing honest. Cooperation might lower the "cost" of producing similar products but, then we are producing similar products. A major goal of competition is to prevent us from putting all our eggs in one basket. I mean what if all the space companies decided to use one company's rocket engine and they failed to delivery...
kiba 5y ago
One company works slow, the other company works fast.
avereveard 5y ago
"Let's pool 9 woman and birth a 14 foot tall baby"

adrr 5y ago

It’s like an average person spending $1,000 per year for a hobby.

dillondoyle 5y ago
And at 200bb producing 'income' it's hard to grasp how huge that is. Even at what in this market is a super conservative 5%...

_Microft 5y ago

Too much money might be part of Blue Origin's problem to deliver. SpaceX did not have the luxury to take ages, they had to build a working rocket to be able make money or die otherwise. I can only recommend Eric Berger's excellent book "Liftoff" to gain insights into SpaceX' way of working to get the Falcon 1 rocket off the ground and eventually into orbit. I cannot imagine Blue Origin having operated in a similar way at any point in their history.