5 ms·

I'm fairly bullish about Rocket Lab's chances. They're rolling their own engines, doing great work, and Peter Beck literally ate his own hat when he was wrong.

thinkcontext 5y ago
Their launch rate hasn't been increasing nearly as fast as one would have expected if they are going to make it to profitability. I wonder how much of that is due to SpaceX's rideshare offering, one would think it must have stolen a good bit of business from RL.
jacquesm 5y ago
They are an actual entrant in the space race, and compared to say Blue Origin, which I personally consider to be a vanity project, they are really making headway. But I don't see them improving on SpaceX just yet even when adjusting for the gigantic headstart SpaceX has and that is going to be the competition. Still, they have some interesting tech and appear to be really driven to become a serious player and I wish them well.
- grayrest 5y ago
  > Blue Origin, which I personally consider to be a vanity project I could see an argument for that given the time/resources invested compared to the results but ULA's future and a large fraction of Project Kupier's planned launches are tied to the success of the BE-4 so they do have immediate ambitions beyond suborbital tourist hops.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That lack of immediate ambition is exactly the problem and why I don't think they'll make it. You either go all in on something like this or you might as well not play.
    - rpmisms 5y ago
      The conventional expression is "stay hungry". Blue Origin is approximately the opposite of that adage. Bezos specifically said it would be chill.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  They have working rockets, started small, and are working their way up to the big guns. I think they have a great shot at being another player, especially outside the US. I also really enjoy their design sense, really cool to see a carbon-fiber rocket with a sense of style.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I think the fact that they could come up with a fuel innovation is the most impressive bit.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Believe me I have my share of problems with Blue and have made countless jokes but whether it is a vanity project or not. They are launching humans to sub-orbital space. They have working Ox-rich engine and such an engine has never before been built in the US. They are not SpaceX level but such a project is quite a complex under-taking. They are a contractor for ULA and the whole military is depending on them. This is pretty serious business.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Sure. But if you want to succeed in space the first thing you need is drive, and BO doesn't seem to have any. Whether it fails or succeeds it's not going to make any difference to Bezos and I think that the people who will win this kind of thing are the ones for whom it does make a difference. Sub-orbital launches are simply not useful, and a new type of engine only makes sense if it gives you a shorter path to the finish or a capability that you otherwise would not have. As for the military depending on them: SpaceX has been awarded a whole pile of contracts and the only thing that BO has going for it is to be able to ride the gravy train without delivering anything so far except for some research that may one day be useful. Instead of competing in the marketplace it seems BO is better at playing politics and competing in the courts, but the latter they've lost and the politicians will sooner or later want deliverables and without those the gravy train will sooner or later roll to a halt. Note that the engine program is now 4 years behind schedule and not a single BE-4 has flown. Even BO admits that the engine has problems, which makes me wonder if it will ever fly with the present design, and if they have to go back to the drawing board you can add a couple of years more worth of delays. Meanwhile, SpaceX launches a payload to orbit on average every 8 days for 2022 (once every 12 days in 2021), the amount of experience they are gaining alone is going to add up to a sizeable barrier.
    - DennisP 5y ago
      I recently saw some interesting speculation on reasons BO might be having such trouble with the BE4. To oversimplify, they're trying to do with one turbopump what the Raptor does with two, and it's hard to keep that one pump from taking damage from such extreme conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zjdAQef3oY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zjdAQef3oY
- huhtenberg 5y ago
  There's SpaceX, the launcher. There's RocketLab, the up-n-comer. There's Astra, sort of a launcher with all the wrong priorities. But there's also ... Pythom ... which is really something else. https://vimeo.com/690376951 https://vimeo.com/690376951 https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-its-rocket-with-questionable-safety-practices/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-i...
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Wow, errr... words fail. Ok, it didn't explode. But my safety violations meter just broke the glass and the needle is embedded in the wall. I predict a Darwin award at some point of these people don't get with the program - several programs, in fact.
    - huhtenberg 5y ago
      For me, it was the hoisting sequence that took the prize.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Yes, same here. Just looking at the stresses on that front set of legs and the incredibly bad angle which they were pulling from (not to mention: the construction of that hoist) made me physically uncomfortable just watching it. Also: afterwards the legs appear to have bent quite a bit, and you have to wonder about what kind of stresses that put on the attachment points. At least they're lucky, you can't deny them that. What gets me though: they can design and build a rocket motor but get a whole pile of very basic stuff utterly wrong. How is that even possible?
    - engineer_22 5y ago
      I thought to myself "Those folks have got more money than brains." Speaking of which. How are they funded?
      - jacquesm 5y ago

thinkcontext 5y ago

Their launch rate hasn't been increasing nearly as fast as one would have expected if they are going to make it to profitability. I wonder how much of that is due to SpaceX's rideshare offering, one would think it must have stolen a good bit of business from RL.

jacquesm 5y ago

They are an actual entrant in the space race, and compared to say Blue Origin, which I personally consider to be a vanity project, they are really making headway. But I don't see them improving on SpaceX just yet even when adjusting for the gigantic headstart SpaceX has and that is going to be the competition. Still, they have some interesting tech and appear to be really driven to become a serious player and I wish them well.

grayrest 5y ago
> Blue Origin, which I personally consider to be a vanity project I could see an argument for that given the time/resources invested compared to the results but ULA's future and a large fraction of Project Kupier's planned launches are tied to the success of the BE-4 so they do have immediate ambitions beyond suborbital tourist hops.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That lack of immediate ambition is exactly the problem and why I don't think they'll make it. You either go all in on something like this or you might as well not play.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    The conventional expression is "stay hungry". Blue Origin is approximately the opposite of that adage. Bezos specifically said it would be chill.
rpmisms 5y ago
They have working rockets, started small, and are working their way up to the big guns. I think they have a great shot at being another player, especially outside the US. I also really enjoy their design sense, really cool to see a carbon-fiber rocket with a sense of style.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I think the fact that they could come up with a fuel innovation is the most impressive bit.
panick21_ 5y ago
Believe me I have my share of problems with Blue and have made countless jokes but whether it is a vanity project or not. They are launching humans to sub-orbital space. They have working Ox-rich engine and such an engine has never before been built in the US. They are not SpaceX level but such a project is quite a complex under-taking. They are a contractor for ULA and the whole military is depending on them. This is pretty serious business.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Sure. But if you want to succeed in space the first thing you need is drive, and BO doesn't seem to have any. Whether it fails or succeeds it's not going to make any difference to Bezos and I think that the people who will win this kind of thing are the ones for whom it does make a difference. Sub-orbital launches are simply not useful, and a new type of engine only makes sense if it gives you a shorter path to the finish or a capability that you otherwise would not have. As for the military depending on them: SpaceX has been awarded a whole pile of contracts and the only thing that BO has going for it is to be able to ride the gravy train without delivering anything so far except for some research that may one day be useful. Instead of competing in the marketplace it seems BO is better at playing politics and competing in the courts, but the latter they've lost and the politicians will sooner or later want deliverables and without those the gravy train will sooner or later roll to a halt. Note that the engine program is now 4 years behind schedule and not a single BE-4 has flown. Even BO admits that the engine has problems, which makes me wonder if it will ever fly with the present design, and if they have to go back to the drawing board you can add a couple of years more worth of delays. Meanwhile, SpaceX launches a payload to orbit on average every 8 days for 2022 (once every 12 days in 2021), the amount of experience they are gaining alone is going to add up to a sizeable barrier.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    I recently saw some interesting speculation on reasons BO might be having such trouble with the BE4. To oversimplify, they're trying to do with one turbopump what the Raptor does with two, and it's hard to keep that one pump from taking damage from such extreme conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zjdAQef3oY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zjdAQef3oY
huhtenberg 5y ago
There's SpaceX, the launcher. There's RocketLab, the up-n-comer. There's Astra, sort of a launcher with all the wrong priorities. But there's also ... Pythom ... which is really something else. https://vimeo.com/690376951 https://vimeo.com/690376951 https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-its-rocket-with-questionable-safety-practices/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-i...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Wow, errr... words fail. Ok, it didn't explode. But my safety violations meter just broke the glass and the needle is embedded in the wall. I predict a Darwin award at some point of these people don't get with the program - several programs, in fact.
  - huhtenberg 5y ago
    For me, it was the hoisting sequence that took the prize.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes, same here. Just looking at the stresses on that front set of legs and the incredibly bad angle which they were pulling from (not to mention: the construction of that hoist) made me physically uncomfortable just watching it. Also: afterwards the legs appear to have bent quite a bit, and you have to wonder about what kind of stresses that put on the attachment points. At least they're lucky, you can't deny them that. What gets me though: they can design and build a rocket motor but get a whole pile of very basic stuff utterly wrong. How is that even possible?
  - engineer_22 5y ago
    I thought to myself "Those folks have got more money than brains." Speaking of which. How are they funded?
    - jacquesm 5y ago