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As long as they dont hamstring themselves by demanding they launch on only their own launch vehicles, this has some possibility. Better that they spin it out in

As long as they dont hamstring themselves by demanding they launch on only their own launch vehicles, this has some possibility. Better that they spin it out into a separate company that would give them the freedom of being launch provider agnostic.

malfist 4y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if they pivot, but the new glenn does look promising. Not as promising as starship, but starship's numbers are still Elon numbers, which aren't to be trusted
- meepmorp 4y ago
  Musk and SpaceX parting ways would be great, imo.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    Agree. Shotwell at the helm would be fantastic.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Based on what? Do you just hold everything else constant and remove Musk. Is there any evidence that this would be the case? Seems to me that all evidence points in the opposite direction, and all companies not led by Musk are not nearly as ambitious, goals oriented and successful. If Musk had left the company in 2014, do you think Starship and Starlink would be what they are now? Because I think that is pretty unlikely.
      - mlindner 4y ago
        Indeed if you go back in history at any point of SpaceX's past and simply pluck out Elon, lots of things that SpaceX does now simply wouldn't have happened.
      - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
        To be clear I have not yet perfected my time machine. I am not suggesting Musk be replaced in 2014, but now. Starship has all the momentum it needs and I have plenty of confidence in Shotwell to stabilize that program and ensure its success. She seems equally committed to getting humanity to Mars but she might be a better face for the company, and is certainly competent.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        panick21_ 4y ago
        But what about the next thing. There will always be the next big challenge. There are many big challenges left to actually make Mars happen. And even if the Mars thing happens, what's next? One could have made the argument that Musk should have gone after the Falcon 9 was reusable as well. Shotwell is certainty competent and would likely do a good job as you suggest. But the best thing is if they just continue to work together as they have, that seems to have worked the best and I wouldn't want to mess with it.
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      Isn't it basically Shotwell at he helm right now? Sure, Elon is the one giving factory tours, being visionary and playing a big role in R&D, but internally Shotwell seems to do everything you would expect from a CEO. Maybe you could argue who's more in charge of strategic direction at SpaceX, but on the other hand SpaceX seems to be doing great in that division.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - mlindner 4y ago
        You should check out her own words on this from 2021. https://archive.ph/p4Nkz https://archive.ph/p4Nkz > Shotwell: The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit. This of course is slightly old because Shotwell has done another shift and has taken (at least temporary) control of Starship. Generally if it's something interacting with the US government, Shotwell handles it.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    Don't fix it if it ain't broke. Despite Elon Musk behaving stupidly in many other aspects and areas, SpaceX is still working well. Whatever dynamic Musk and Shotwell have between them, it's obviously working out well. So don't "fix" it if it ain't broke.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    That would be horrible for the future of SpaceX. Shotwell would run it well but she doesn't do pushing boundaries of things like Elon. SpaceX would indeed be very successful under Shotwell but you could forget them ever landing humans on Mars under her leadership, at least not without going hand in hand with some eventual NASA plan in the 2050s or something (by which point she might have retired anyway as she's 8 years older than Elon). Also maybe it's simply being a good corporate leader, but I've seen her stick her neck out and defend Elon many times against criticism. They obviously like each other and get along with each other. They're both needed.
- skykooler 4y ago
  New Glenn looks promising on paper, but seven years later we haven't seen any hardware and the first launch is perpetually "next year". In that time, Starship has been redesigned twice, done flight and landing tests, and is preparing for a full orbital test, and even the perpetually-delayed SLS has flown once.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    The problem with New Glenn is that its basically a 'government rocke't. It exists because Blue Origin is dropping 2 billion $ a year in loses. New Glenn will never even remotely pay back its investment and at best they can maybe fly it with profitable operations. But until then Blue Origin has basically no actual revenue beyond a very small amount of BE-4 sales. Are we expecting Bezos just to continue to drop billions of $ into Blue Origin for unlimited amount of time? Because non of the projects they have will ever make this company profitable.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      > Are we expecting Bezos just to continue to drop billions of $ into Blue Origin for unlimited amount of time? To be fair, he's been shoveling money into this unproductive dumpster fire for more than 20 years already.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        Well but for the first 10 years it was not really a real company, more a hobby project. Then it got bigger and bigger, but only in the mid 2010s did the company seriously start to grow. He was dropping 1 billion per year towards the end of 2010s but the company has been ramping up even more over the last 3-5 years. By now the HR cost alone are probably going towards 2 billion $ a year, they are not so much smaller then SpaceX with no revenue.
  - ohitsdom 4y ago
    > preparing for a full orbital test Rocket delays are inevitable. But since you mentioned New Glenn's perpetual delays, let's also be fair and note that Starship's orbital test has been teased by Elon for quite awhile now [0]. I happen to think an April/May launch is possible, but we'll see. And also good to note that this is still very much a "pathfinder" vehicle, in SpaceX's style of iterative design & test. So not at all the same as whenever New Glenn's first launch will be. [0] https://twitter.com/ESGhound/status/1622680306342891536 https://twitter.com/ESGhound/status/1622680306342891536
- panick21_ 4y ago
  > which aren't to be trusted Its always funny when people say that. Musk has been the longest serving CEO in both the Space and the Automotive industry. With both companies having an almost absurdly good track record of execution. And yet somehow it isn't trust worthy? Based on what? Comments on twitter?
  - hectorlorenzo 4y ago
    > Comments on twitter? Yes. Mostly his.
  - malfist 4y ago
    Before you pull out the pitchforks, look at what I said. I said his numbers weren't to be trusted. Elon has a well documented track record of saying X will be ready by Y date and cost Z amount, and all those numbers be wrong. From the very first model 3, to full self drive, to cybertruck, to the boring company, to the starship itself. All of those were/are later than the dates that he gave, and cost more (for the ones that are for sale) than he said they'd cost. He was saying the orbital launch for starship was weeks away more than a year ago. It's still not happened. Elon makes his own propaganda
    - bpodgursky 4y ago
      Sure, you're not wrong on general principle but Starship is literally going to attempt an orbital launch in a couple weeks (they just did a full test fire), and we don't need to take anyone's promises to check the numbers. If it succeeds, New Glenn is going to be superfluous and starting at a massive timing disadvantage.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      I understood your comment more as Starship wont happen rather then it will be late.
  - waitwhatuh 4y ago
    > With both companies having an almost absurdly good track record of execution. Musk has consistently produced the wrong numbers. Some examples (and there are many, many more): Number of teslas in 2018? Musk: 500k Actual: 35K Tesla base price objective, 2016: Musk $35k Actual: Much more Self Driving Cross Country Trip: Musk: in 2017 Actual: NaN Financing Rounds: Musk (2011) "We will never need another financing round" Actual: there were many more Supercharging cost: Musk (2013) "Always free" Actual: Definitely not free Tesla Semis Production Line Date: Musk: "2019" Actual: Not yet happened Gigafactory placement: Musk (2017) "Two to four more" Actual: Only one operational Hyperloop NY-Phil-Balt-DC: Musk (2017) "I have verbal approval, 29 minutes NY-DC" Actual: This appears to be made up Mars Missions: Musk: "Every launch window from 2024 onward" Actual: TBD, maybe 2029? Neurallink: Musk: "Human trials in 2021" Actual: "Lots of dead monkeys" Covid-19 Ventilators: Musk "Our factories will produce them" Actual: Musk sent 1,000 cpap machines Updated Tesla Roadster: Musk: "It exists!" Actual: "It doesn't" There are so, so so many more of these. There's nothing remotely close to an "absurdly good track record". SpaceX is doing well because of Shotwell, not Musk, and Tesla has been plagued with build quality and recall issues from day 1. (To say nothing of absurd repair costs and issues with FSD.)
- moralestapia 4y ago
  There's two Musks for me, Tesla (and everyday) Musk and SpaceX Musk. The latter has greatly exceeded my expectations!
  - kibwen 4y ago
    The success of SpaceX appears to be in minimizing the amount of damage that Elon is capable of doing with his relentless and short-sighted micromanaging.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      SpaceX and Tesla are some of the must successful firms in two of the most difficult industries on the plant. Musk is the longest running CEO in these industries. There is lots of evidence that his micro-managing as you call, is actually really, really successful. And there is also a huge amount of evidence that Musk is actually not short-sighted, but in fact thinks far ahead of the competitors. In 2014, the Gigafactory was considered crazy and a car company investing so much of its own capital in something that suppliers were supposed to do, was seen as idiotic. Now this model is literally copied by everybody. In the meantime, Tesla was a tiny car company in 2017, still seen as somewhat of a joke. But even then they were already starting to transition into a battery company and now Tesla makes it own batteries, based on its own chemistries in its own battery factory that is run with its in-house designed and manufacturing machines. So while GM and its partner is still trying to get its first own Gigafactory online (and suffering serious delays), Tesla has moved past that and is literally building its own factories with its own chemistry. We could go threw countless other examples. People love to pick out cases where things didn't work and ignore all the other cases where it did work.
      - kibwen 4y ago
        > now Tesla makes it own batteries, based on its own chemistries in its own battery factory that is run with its in-house designed and manufacturing machines It's entirely unclear to me whether or not Tesla's battery manufacturing is bearing any fruit in practice. Here's the most recent article I found, from September: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside-teslas-drive-keep-musks-battery-promise-2022-09-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside... The sources predict that Tesla will find it difficult to fully implement the new dry-coating manufacturing process before the end of this year, and perhaps not until 2023. Stan Whittingham, a co-inventor of lithium-ion batteries and a 2019 Nobel laureate, believes Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has been overly optimistic on the time frame for commercializing the new technique. [...] Tesla acquired the know-how in 2019 when it paid over $200 million for Maxwell Technologies, a company in San Diego making ultracapacitors, which store energy for devices that need quick bursts of electricity, such as camera flashes. [...] "They can produce in small volume, but when they started big volume production, Tesla ended up with many rejects, too many," one of the sources with ties to Tesla told Reuters. Production yields were so low that all the anticipated cost savings from the new process were lost, the source said. This sounds exactly like Elon Musk's usual MO: 1) acquire a company and then take credit for their inventions in order to paint himself as a visionary, 2) overpromise and underdeliver, counting on his legions of blind faithful to keep stock prices irrationally high in the process, and 3) base all profitability on the availability of government handouts, in this case the tax incentives for US-sourced batteries.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Starship numbers constantly change based on what works in tests, how the engines evolve as their production scales up and the design gets simplified, etc. New Glenn is still lacking all these insights. Both projects are delayed, but if I had to bet which one is going to deliver closer to the currently promised performance and launch date I'd bet on the one that has scaled up prototype production and has performed test launches.
- gene-h 4y ago
  Blue Origin might already be pivoting. They recently acquired Honeybee robotics, a company which is focused on making robots for space and other worlds[0]. Honeybee Robotics has also done extensive work on In-Situ Resource Utilization(ISRU), aka, living off the land. [0]https://www.honeybeerobotics.com/news-events/honeybee-robotics-to-join-blue-origin/ https://www.honeybeerobotics.com/news-events/honeybee-roboti...
trollerator23 4y ago
Found the BO hater!
- mlindner 4y ago
  I'm not a "BO" hater. I want to see them make some real hardware besides buildings. They're very good at building buildings. Fly something already, into orbit. More so, at least get cash flow positive.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Blue Origin, for now, is limited to a passion project of Jeff Bezos. He's welcome to spend his money how he sees fit, but I'd love to see Blue Origin, or any other company for that matter, compete with SpaceX. Once there's a good competitor to SpaceX then launch costs will continue to go down. Right now SpaceX has priced themselves to the point they can beat most other companies unless those companies engage in losses to get customers. They're making lots of profit as well. With a competitor SpaceX would lower prices even further, further opening up the industry more than SpaceX has already done (which is already revolutionary).
  - trollerator23 4y ago
    Your comment was irrelevant to the topic at hand.
- irjustin 4y ago
  Downvoted. Not sure how this is a "BO hater". I've been waiting for..... 10 years? for something from BO to get into orbit. 5 if I'm being nice. I want SpaceX to have competition and for a few years BO was going to give it - such was the dream.

malfist 4y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if they pivot, but the new glenn does look promising. Not as promising as starship, but starship's numbers are still Elon numbers, which aren't to be trusted

meepmorp 4y ago
Musk and SpaceX parting ways would be great, imo.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Agree. Shotwell at the helm would be fantastic.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Based on what? Do you just hold everything else constant and remove Musk. Is there any evidence that this would be the case? Seems to me that all evidence points in the opposite direction, and all companies not led by Musk are not nearly as ambitious, goals oriented and successful. If Musk had left the company in 2014, do you think Starship and Starlink would be what they are now? Because I think that is pretty unlikely.
    - mlindner 4y ago
      Indeed if you go back in history at any point of SpaceX's past and simply pluck out Elon, lots of things that SpaceX does now simply wouldn't have happened.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      To be clear I have not yet perfected my time machine. I am not suggesting Musk be replaced in 2014, but now. Starship has all the momentum it needs and I have plenty of confidence in Shotwell to stabilize that program and ensure its success. She seems equally committed to getting humanity to Mars but she might be a better face for the company, and is certainly competent.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        But what about the next thing. There will always be the next big challenge. There are many big challenges left to actually make Mars happen. And even if the Mars thing happens, what's next? One could have made the argument that Musk should have gone after the Falcon 9 was reusable as well. Shotwell is certainty competent and would likely do a good job as you suggest. But the best thing is if they just continue to work together as they have, that seems to have worked the best and I wouldn't want to mess with it.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    Isn't it basically Shotwell at he helm right now? Sure, Elon is the one giving factory tours, being visionary and playing a big role in R&D, but internally Shotwell seems to do everything you would expect from a CEO. Maybe you could argue who's more in charge of strategic direction at SpaceX, but on the other hand SpaceX seems to be doing great in that division.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mlindner 4y ago
      You should check out her own words on this from 2021. https://archive.ph/p4Nkz https://archive.ph/p4Nkz > Shotwell: The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit. This of course is slightly old because Shotwell has done another shift and has taken (at least temporary) control of Starship. Generally if it's something interacting with the US government, Shotwell handles it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  Don't fix it if it ain't broke. Despite Elon Musk behaving stupidly in many other aspects and areas, SpaceX is still working well. Whatever dynamic Musk and Shotwell have between them, it's obviously working out well. So don't "fix" it if it ain't broke.
- mlindner 4y ago
  That would be horrible for the future of SpaceX. Shotwell would run it well but she doesn't do pushing boundaries of things like Elon. SpaceX would indeed be very successful under Shotwell but you could forget them ever landing humans on Mars under her leadership, at least not without going hand in hand with some eventual NASA plan in the 2050s or something (by which point she might have retired anyway as she's 8 years older than Elon). Also maybe it's simply being a good corporate leader, but I've seen her stick her neck out and defend Elon many times against criticism. They obviously like each other and get along with each other. They're both needed.
skykooler 4y ago
New Glenn looks promising on paper, but seven years later we haven't seen any hardware and the first launch is perpetually "next year". In that time, Starship has been redesigned twice, done flight and landing tests, and is preparing for a full orbital test, and even the perpetually-delayed SLS has flown once.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  The problem with New Glenn is that its basically a 'government rocke't. It exists because Blue Origin is dropping 2 billion $ a year in loses. New Glenn will never even remotely pay back its investment and at best they can maybe fly it with profitable operations. But until then Blue Origin has basically no actual revenue beyond a very small amount of BE-4 sales. Are we expecting Bezos just to continue to drop billions of $ into Blue Origin for unlimited amount of time? Because non of the projects they have will ever make this company profitable.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    > Are we expecting Bezos just to continue to drop billions of $ into Blue Origin for unlimited amount of time? To be fair, he's been shoveling money into this unproductive dumpster fire for more than 20 years already.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Well but for the first 10 years it was not really a real company, more a hobby project. Then it got bigger and bigger, but only in the mid 2010s did the company seriously start to grow. He was dropping 1 billion per year towards the end of 2010s but the company has been ramping up even more over the last 3-5 years. By now the HR cost alone are probably going towards 2 billion $ a year, they are not so much smaller then SpaceX with no revenue.
- ohitsdom 4y ago
  > preparing for a full orbital test Rocket delays are inevitable. But since you mentioned New Glenn's perpetual delays, let's also be fair and note that Starship's orbital test has been teased by Elon for quite awhile now [0]. I happen to think an April/May launch is possible, but we'll see. And also good to note that this is still very much a "pathfinder" vehicle, in SpaceX's style of iterative design & test. So not at all the same as whenever New Glenn's first launch will be. [0] https://twitter.com/ESGhound/status/1622680306342891536 https://twitter.com/ESGhound/status/1622680306342891536
panick21_ 4y ago
> which aren't to be trusted Its always funny when people say that. Musk has been the longest serving CEO in both the Space and the Automotive industry. With both companies having an almost absurdly good track record of execution. And yet somehow it isn't trust worthy? Based on what? Comments on twitter?
- hectorlorenzo 4y ago
  > Comments on twitter? Yes. Mostly his.
- malfist 4y ago
  Before you pull out the pitchforks, look at what I said. I said his numbers weren't to be trusted. Elon has a well documented track record of saying X will be ready by Y date and cost Z amount, and all those numbers be wrong. From the very first model 3, to full self drive, to cybertruck, to the boring company, to the starship itself. All of those were/are later than the dates that he gave, and cost more (for the ones that are for sale) than he said they'd cost. He was saying the orbital launch for starship was weeks away more than a year ago. It's still not happened. Elon makes his own propaganda
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    Sure, you're not wrong on general principle but Starship is literally going to attempt an orbital launch in a couple weeks (they just did a full test fire), and we don't need to take anyone's promises to check the numbers. If it succeeds, New Glenn is going to be superfluous and starting at a massive timing disadvantage.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    I understood your comment more as Starship wont happen rather then it will be late.
- waitwhatuh 4y ago
  > With both companies having an almost absurdly good track record of execution. Musk has consistently produced the wrong numbers. Some examples (and there are many, many more): Number of teslas in 2018? Musk: 500k Actual: 35K Tesla base price objective, 2016: Musk $35k Actual: Much more Self Driving Cross Country Trip: Musk: in 2017 Actual: NaN Financing Rounds: Musk (2011) "We will never need another financing round" Actual: there were many more Supercharging cost: Musk (2013) "Always free" Actual: Definitely not free Tesla Semis Production Line Date: Musk: "2019" Actual: Not yet happened Gigafactory placement: Musk (2017) "Two to four more" Actual: Only one operational Hyperloop NY-Phil-Balt-DC: Musk (2017) "I have verbal approval, 29 minutes NY-DC" Actual: This appears to be made up Mars Missions: Musk: "Every launch window from 2024 onward" Actual: TBD, maybe 2029? Neurallink: Musk: "Human trials in 2021" Actual: "Lots of dead monkeys" Covid-19 Ventilators: Musk "Our factories will produce them" Actual: Musk sent 1,000 cpap machines Updated Tesla Roadster: Musk: "It exists!" Actual: "It doesn't" There are so, so so many more of these. There's nothing remotely close to an "absurdly good track record". SpaceX is doing well because of Shotwell, not Musk, and Tesla has been plagued with build quality and recall issues from day 1. (To say nothing of absurd repair costs and issues with FSD.)
moralestapia 4y ago
There's two Musks for me, Tesla (and everyday) Musk and SpaceX Musk. The latter has greatly exceeded my expectations!
- kibwen 4y ago
  The success of SpaceX appears to be in minimizing the amount of damage that Elon is capable of doing with his relentless and short-sighted micromanaging.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    SpaceX and Tesla are some of the must successful firms in two of the most difficult industries on the plant. Musk is the longest running CEO in these industries. There is lots of evidence that his micro-managing as you call, is actually really, really successful. And there is also a huge amount of evidence that Musk is actually not short-sighted, but in fact thinks far ahead of the competitors. In 2014, the Gigafactory was considered crazy and a car company investing so much of its own capital in something that suppliers were supposed to do, was seen as idiotic. Now this model is literally copied by everybody. In the meantime, Tesla was a tiny car company in 2017, still seen as somewhat of a joke. But even then they were already starting to transition into a battery company and now Tesla makes it own batteries, based on its own chemistries in its own battery factory that is run with its in-house designed and manufacturing machines. So while GM and its partner is still trying to get its first own Gigafactory online (and suffering serious delays), Tesla has moved past that and is literally building its own factories with its own chemistry. We could go threw countless other examples. People love to pick out cases where things didn't work and ignore all the other cases where it did work.
    - kibwen 4y ago
      > now Tesla makes it own batteries, based on its own chemistries in its own battery factory that is run with its in-house designed and manufacturing machines It's entirely unclear to me whether or not Tesla's battery manufacturing is bearing any fruit in practice. Here's the most recent article I found, from September: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside-teslas-drive-keep-musks-battery-promise-2022-09-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside... The sources predict that Tesla will find it difficult to fully implement the new dry-coating manufacturing process before the end of this year, and perhaps not until 2023. Stan Whittingham, a co-inventor of lithium-ion batteries and a 2019 Nobel laureate, believes Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has been overly optimistic on the time frame for commercializing the new technique. [...] Tesla acquired the know-how in 2019 when it paid over $200 million for Maxwell Technologies, a company in San Diego making ultracapacitors, which store energy for devices that need quick bursts of electricity, such as camera flashes. [...] "They can produce in small volume, but when they started big volume production, Tesla ended up with many rejects, too many," one of the sources with ties to Tesla told Reuters. Production yields were so low that all the anticipated cost savings from the new process were lost, the source said. This sounds exactly like Elon Musk's usual MO: 1) acquire a company and then take credit for their inventions in order to paint himself as a visionary, 2) overpromise and underdeliver, counting on his legions of blind faithful to keep stock prices irrationally high in the process, and 3) base all profitability on the availability of government handouts, in this case the tax incentives for US-sourced batteries.
wongarsu 4y ago
Starship numbers constantly change based on what works in tests, how the engines evolve as their production scales up and the design gets simplified, etc. New Glenn is still lacking all these insights. Both projects are delayed, but if I had to bet which one is going to deliver closer to the currently promised performance and launch date I'd bet on the one that has scaled up prototype production and has performed test launches.
gene-h 4y ago
Blue Origin might already be pivoting. They recently acquired Honeybee robotics, a company which is focused on making robots for space and other worlds[0]. Honeybee Robotics has also done extensive work on In-Situ Resource Utilization(ISRU), aka, living off the land. [0]https://www.honeybeerobotics.com/news-events/honeybee-robotics-to-join-blue-origin/ https://www.honeybeerobotics.com/news-events/honeybee-roboti...

trollerator23 4y ago

Found the BO hater!

mlindner 4y ago
I'm not a "BO" hater. I want to see them make some real hardware besides buildings. They're very good at building buildings. Fly something already, into orbit. More so, at least get cash flow positive.
- mlindner 4y ago
  Blue Origin, for now, is limited to a passion project of Jeff Bezos. He's welcome to spend his money how he sees fit, but I'd love to see Blue Origin, or any other company for that matter, compete with SpaceX. Once there's a good competitor to SpaceX then launch costs will continue to go down. Right now SpaceX has priced themselves to the point they can beat most other companies unless those companies engage in losses to get customers. They're making lots of profit as well. With a competitor SpaceX would lower prices even further, further opening up the industry more than SpaceX has already done (which is already revolutionary).
- trollerator23 4y ago
  Your comment was irrelevant to the topic at hand.
irjustin 4y ago
Downvoted. Not sure how this is a "BO hater". I've been waiting for..... 10 years? for something from BO to get into orbit. 5 if I'm being nice. I want SpaceX to have competition and for a few years BO was going to give it - such was the dream.