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SpaceX just broke its annual launch record – and it’s only July
- eyphka 4y agoA great time to be alive. Can't wait for the bfr. Does anyone know or can link to what the general pricing has come down to for the Falcon 9?
- sschueller 4y agoI am sorry but BFR point-to-point will never ever happen. Just watch their presentation where they show cities such as Zürich, Switzerland. Zürich is extremely small, if you launch a rocket the size of the BFR you will blow out every window in the entire city. It absolute snake oil and will never ever happen. There is no way to make a rocket that size quiet enough to launch in most places in the world. Especially not near any city.
- starik36 4y agoSeeing how point-to-point is not their primary use case (or even secondary or tertiary), I don't see how this matters at all. I can see how maybe in the far future, when Starship has been perfected, they could possibly try it. Obviously not downtown Zurich, but at a space port nearby.
- modeless 4y agoYou're right. But it is interesting to ask the question, what is the use case? Starlink is the only commercial customer that can plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities right now. NASA moon missions are the only government customer so far. The government may start work on new programs that can use Starship's capabilities (e.g. fleets of bigger but cheaper space telescopes or interplanetary probes), but they haven't started yet and it will take decades for them to get going at their normal rates of progress. Elon wants to build a city on Mars but that isn't going to produce revenue for the foreseeable future and I don't think he can fund it personally despite being the richest person on Earth. Can Starlink and NASA moon missions alone pay back the cost of the Starship program? Will new commercial use cases be unlocked by Starship? Will the government commit to new programs that use Starship's unique capabilities? What will they be and how soon can they start producing revenue for SpaceX?
- starik36 4y agoA couple of things. I am not sure that they need a use case for Starship's "bigger" capabilities. If a Starship launch ends up being much cheaper than F9 (like Musk claims), then SpaceX will be using it to send payloads to orbit even for things that don't require a 1000 tons to orbit. That's a win right there. As for what payloads will utilize Starship to the max...NASA is already thinking about it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says-nasa-should-plan-for-starships-significant-capability/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says... Yes, it will take a while, but they'll get there eventually. Meanwhile, Starship can do the NASA missions to the moon and whatever F9 is doing today.
- amself 4y agoThey’re not going to be launching the whole rocket, just the second stage (Starship) for hops between cities. Also, even if they land say 20-30 km outside of the city limits and then transfer by train/hyperloop that’s still way faster than a plane, even the Concorde.
- mlindner 4y agoThis isn't really true. Starship when fully fueled can't even get off the pad under it's own power. It has a thrust-to-weight of under 1. Point to point will absolutely require the first stage, even if it needs less fuel load than normal.
- starik36 4y agoLooks like Falcon 9 is $67M and Falcon Heavy is $97M. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/spacex-raises-prices-for-launches-and-starlink-due-to-inflation.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/spacex-raises-prices-for-lau...
- modeless 4y agoI'm a bit sad that they're not calling it BFR anymore. Maybe they can reuse the name for the next one.
- Fatnino 4y agoWhy should the price come down? Who is the competition pushing spacex to lower prices?
- retrocryptid 4y agoI'm not at all an Elon fanboi, but you do have to respect that launch cadence (to the degree you have to respect anything.)
- candiddevmike 4y agoDo you really think Elon had much to do with it?
- unnecessaryuser 4y agoWe should be praising you instead, who with a bit of sarcasm demonstrates to be a world class CEO - CEO without company
- chronic729394 4y ago
- fooker 4y agoMaybe talk to people outside your bubble?
- chronic729394 4y agoCalifornia, with Hollywood and Silicon Valley, is one of the leaders of American culture. If Californians are shunning Elon, you can expect the average American to also dislike Elon in the next few years.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 4y agoIsn't it sad that Elon has been so successful with Tesla and SpaceX, revolutionary success at that, that people feel impelled to dis him? Let's face facts. Without Elon, there would be no SpaceX, and no Tesla. Musk deserves credit for two great achievements.
- _8j50 4y agoScrew this. I don't care if they succesfully send people to mars today, with the things Elon has been doing, the way they treat workers and the endless racism lawsuits I can't support this. Feds need to threaten Elon with cancelling Space X contracts unless he gets his shit together. Elon fired employees for asking him to cut out the b.s. because it is a distraction!
- kiba 4y agoCelebrate people's accomplishment and criticize when they make egregious mistakes. There's no need to be for all or totally against a company/person.
- _8j50 4y agoI agree except willful malice is not a mistake. I will not support looking the other way because of elon's accomplishments. He is not above any rules or expectations that apply to any CEO or company.
- unnecessaryuser 4y ago
- _8j50 4y agoThis isn't one bit political. Don't treat people like shit, that's all. How is that political?
- unnecessaryuser 4y ago
- _8j50 4y agoTIL! Be sure to tell minorities to have skin that is less political.
- 4y ago
- nick238 4y agoElon can sure help design some shit, but he sucks as a manager.
- WalterBright 4y agoIt takes a heluva great manager to successfully run companies like SpaceX and Tesla. As Apple eventually discovered, the CEO matters a great deal. The difference between bankruptcy and the biggest market cap in the world, in fact.
- throw1234651234 4y agoI will add to this - while Elon has a ton of flaws and is overrated by people who think he brought the tech expertise, you have to give him credit for the simple fact that without him, our space program might be dead and electric cars really might have never happened. We take them for granted now, but 15 years ago they seemed completely absurd.
- andrepd 4y agoElectric cars never happened? (1) Nearly all major auto companies had electric car programs, or even finished electric cars, before the first model S came out of a factory. And (2) it's not like electric cars will save us from whatever problems cars are currently causing, like pollution or the 2,000,000 annual dead from car crashes. Boring things like trains and re-thinking our cities for better walkability will. Not electric SUVs and tunnels for cars.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIn almost every earth in almost every multiverse, electric cars probably have more impact than thinking about how great it would be if it was easier to walk in cities.
- origin_path 4y agoHe did bring a lot of tech expertise! The guy taught himself rocket science. There's a quote from Tim Forstall somewhere, recounting an anecdote in which he happens to one night receive a call from Elon Musk, many years ago, asking about the properties of some obscure metal Forstall happens to be an expert in. Musk was researching it for use in his rockets.
- andrewcamel 4y agoWhat’s the lag time between launch orders and actual launches? Wonder if we’re looking at a 9-12 month trailing indicator of health and the broader tech reset is dampening orders in the last 2-3 months.
- staplung 4y agoThe article mentions that the majority of the launches have been for themselves (i.e. Starlink) but neglects to mention exactly how many. Does anyone know?
- aeyes 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starlink_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...
- wmf 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... I count 19 Starlink launches this year.
- sparker72678 4y agoI'm a huge space nerd, and it's amazing to me that SpaceX has managed to make first stage recovery almost boring, it's so routine (still, I try to watch every one of those launches/landings).
- dingosity 4y agoHoly crap you people like to dicker about Elon Musk.