3 ms·
The economics are probably analogous to the cruise ship business, which somehow makes it viable to build and maintain these behemoth machines: https://en.wikipe
by motohagiography 5y ago
The economics are probably analogous to the cruise ship business, which somehow makes it viable to build and maintain these behemoth machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cruise_ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cruise_ships A space version of The World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_The_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_The_World) is something you will probably see in your lifetime.
Btw, if James Cameron is reading this, maybe it's time to reshoot Titanic as a space opera? Thing hits space junk starts crashing toward earth, burning up in atmosphere, involves a Baumgartner level skydive from an escape pod, Tom Cruise does his own stunts. Call me.
- matthewdgreen 5y agoThe Arthur C. Clarke novel "Islands in the Sky" covers something similar, including a reckless actor who decides to do his own stunts. Things don't go well. Still a fun book, though probably more aimed at kids.
- panick21_ 5y agoThe economics is basically 'hope NASA pays for part of it and is a base user'.
- _joel 5y agoSet the bid really high, get the knock back, then complain to the authorities, then get a rerun on the tender with a magically cheaper price submitted for the same thing.
- panick21_ 5y agoNASA has been good at running the contracts (mostly). When the new Head of Human Spaceflight tried to give Boeing insider information he was strictly fired. BlueOrigin has endlessly complained about SpaceX selection of HLS but so far nothing. This strategy doesn't work when a better and cheaper competitor exists.
- _joel 5y agoLast week the senate requested that 2 projects be funded, thanks to lobbying by the consortiums. Team Dynetics pulled out of the GAO contesting as they knew they'd get another support contract for future Artemis project missions. edit for link: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/senate-budget-committee-tells-nasa-to-select-two-developers-for-lunar-lander-program/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/senate-budget-committee-te...