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> If private companies don't, nobody will. All these efforts are literally being paid for by NASA.

by simonh 5y ago

dylan604 5y ago
Sure, start with the easy government money, but once you get a track record, you get non-gov't customers.
- skissane 5y ago
  Are there any non-government customers for delivering 100–300 kg of cargo to the moon? That's what these landers are capable of doing. I don't think there is any commercial demand for this service right now. The first commercial use cases for lunar transport are going to be tourism and media/entertainment–both will require actually transporting people there, along with tonnes of equipment/supplies/habitats/rovers/etc, so several orders of magnitude beyond the current capabilities of these companies. Of course, maybe they can close that gap, but there are other companies – most notably SpaceX – which are much much closer to closing that gap than these companies are.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Why would you think that once a company started that they'd never grow/improve their offerings. SpaceX started with Falcon 9, grew to Falcon Heavy, and now working on Starship. Any company that starts with delivering 300kg of cargo but never improves capbilities won't be in business long.
    - skissane 5y ago
      The problem these companies face – they are competing against SpaceX Starship which is a complete solution capable of transporting over 100 tonnes of payload from the Earth to the lunar surface, with a likely passenger capacity of at least a dozen people (maybe even multiple dozens), expected to be available within the next five years. How will they scale from 300 kg to 100 tonnes? How long will that take them? And where will SpaceX be by the time they get there? SpaceX came into a market dominated by lethargic legacy space firms, and disrupted it by demonstrating a capacity for speed, innovation and cost-effectiveness which those firms are still struggling to match. These new upcoming firms have to compete, not against lethargic legacy space firms, but rather against SpaceX. Some may well succeed, but most will not. And I think many of these smaller CLPS firms, if they survive, it is most likely to be through ceding the core transportation business to others and focusing instead on value-added payloads.

> If private companies don't, nobody will. All these efforts are literally being paid for by NASA.

by simonh 5y ago

> If private companies don't, nobody will. All these efforts are literally being paid for by NASA.

dylan604 5y ago

Sure, start with the easy government money, but once you get a track record, you get non-gov't customers.

skissane 5y ago
Are there any non-government customers for delivering 100–300 kg of cargo to the moon? That's what these landers are capable of doing. I don't think there is any commercial demand for this service right now. The first commercial use cases for lunar transport are going to be tourism and media/entertainment–both will require actually transporting people there, along with tonnes of equipment/supplies/habitats/rovers/etc, so several orders of magnitude beyond the current capabilities of these companies. Of course, maybe they can close that gap, but there are other companies – most notably SpaceX – which are much much closer to closing that gap than these companies are.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Why would you think that once a company started that they'd never grow/improve their offerings. SpaceX started with Falcon 9, grew to Falcon Heavy, and now working on Starship. Any company that starts with delivering 300kg of cargo but never improves capbilities won't be in business long.
  - skissane 5y ago
    The problem these companies face – they are competing against SpaceX Starship which is a complete solution capable of transporting over 100 tonnes of payload from the Earth to the lunar surface, with a likely passenger capacity of at least a dozen people (maybe even multiple dozens), expected to be available within the next five years. How will they scale from 300 kg to 100 tonnes? How long will that take them? And where will SpaceX be by the time they get there? SpaceX came into a market dominated by lethargic legacy space firms, and disrupted it by demonstrating a capacity for speed, innovation and cost-effectiveness which those firms are still struggling to match. These new upcoming firms have to compete, not against lethargic legacy space firms, but rather against SpaceX. Some may well succeed, but most will not. And I think many of these smaller CLPS firms, if they survive, it is most likely to be through ceding the core transportation business to others and focusing instead on value-added payloads.