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I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail Starship reusability. The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while tha

I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail Starship reusability. The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. Arguably Starlink is possible now and wouldn't have been before, but there are other similar (fewer satellites) constellations not relying on F9 being that much cheaper. Also arguably there are more smallsats going into orbit, but I think RocketLab has done roughly as much for them as the F9 has so far. As for other providers, ULA hasn't got a lot of re-usability built in, at least not to the extent that Starship (theoretically) or maybe even F9 has. RocketLab is starting reusability work, but is a way off anything good. Blue Origin are continuing to... well... who knows. I don't think anyone other than SpaceX are going to have usefully reusable rockets for another decade. I'm also not sure SpaceX are going to be more than 8 years ahead anyway because I don't think Starship will be delivering on its promises for at least another few years.

chroma 4y ago
> The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. SpaceX's charges around $1,200/lb to low earth orbit. Soyuz costs around $8,000/lb. The space shuttle was $30,0000/lb. Because of SpaceX's lower launch costs, they now put more mass into LEO than the rest of the world combined.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
Does anyone know what's up with Blue origin? Bezos pumps a solid billion into them every year but it doesn't seem like they're anywhere?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  BO has a more traditional approach to design than SpaceX's iterative process. They spend more time on simulation and analysis than on real world testing. Right now it appears that the SpaceX approach returns better results though they do have to deal with the peanut gallery using tests that end in explosions as an opportunity to attack the company instead of acknowledging that it's part of the process. If Blue Origin has a rocket explode, that's a much bigger blow to them as RUDs are not a significant part of their process. It also means their process is far less observable to outsiders, so a year or two from how, they might have New Glenn rockets in regular operation and for most, that will seemingly come out from nowhere.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    SpaceX also does a lot of simulation. They are known to have really good simulation team. And were very early on doing simulation on GPUs and such. And that was 10 years ago. By now they are likely far further along. > so a year or two from how, they might have New Glenn rockets in regular operation and for most, that will seemingly come out from nowhere. They will be lucky to have launched their rocket more then once in the next 2 years.
  - chasd00 4y ago
    I don't think SpaceX's iterative approach would work without extremely efficient production lines and know-how. In software everyone can take an iterative approach because you're just typing on a keyboard, you don't have to produce a physical laptop at the end of every sprint. IMO SpaceX brought a lot of the production lessons learned from Tesla and applied it to rocket and engine production. That knowledge and wisdom from making Tesla production lines work isn't available at Blue Origin so I don't think a SpaceX rapid dev approach could work there.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  By now Bezos is spending more then 1 billion per year. BlueOrigin is a huge company already, and the basically make no money what so ever. 1 billion might cover labor cost. But given the infrastructure they are building and the actual rockets and so on, it has to be significantly more then 1 billion. Well they are making slow progress on a hugely complex rocket, New Glenn. The might fly it in the next 2 years.
- antoniuschan99 4y ago
  BE-4 engine delay. It delayed New Glenn and also ULA Vulcan. Vulcan is slated to start launching Amazon Kuiper Sats. And Rocketlabs Peter Beck is saying these constellations are slated to start going up en masse starting ~2026
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Vulcan is not slated for Amazon launches. Amazon bought the rest of the Atlas 5 launches.
jcfrei 4y ago
They will definitely have a monopoly for the next 10 years. But beyond that I doubt it - economies of scale don't matter that much (yet) in rockets which gives other companies a chance to grow.
- chasd00 4y ago
  one thing SpaceX did that doesn't get a lot of intention is reignite innovation in aerospace. If SpaceX gets overtaken by a competitor imagine the technology that had to be developed to accomplish dethroning SpaceX. Many of these launch companies sprouting up wont make it for one reason or the other but it won't be because of lack of inspiration.
MangoCoffee 4y ago
>I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail Starship reusability NASA gave contracts to BlueOrigin, ULA and others beside SpaceX. ULA was the only rocket provider to Pentagon for a long time before SpaceX come along. Jeff is as rich as Elon and he did pump money into BlueOrigin every year. if SpaceX did a better job then SpaceX deserved the market shares.
- George83728 4y ago
  > Jeff is as rich as Elon and he did pump money into BlueOrigin every year. And notably, Blue Origin has been in business for two years longer than SpaceX, but has far less to show for it.
panick21_ 4y ago
No we are not. Because players like Amazon literally just spend like 5 billion on launches for SpaceX competitors. And many other constellation will do the same. The government already is forced to have at least 2 providers and they want more not less. Other governments, Europe, India and China will not simply give up. And while talking about entities with absurd money, Bezos has spend a decade now funding Blue origin he will not just give up. Venture capitalist are still funding many new rocket companies.

chroma 4y ago

> The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. SpaceX's charges around $1,200/lb to low earth orbit. Soyuz costs around $8,000/lb. The space shuttle was $30,0000/lb. Because of SpaceX's lower launch costs, they now put more mass into LEO than the rest of the world combined.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

Does anyone know what's up with Blue origin? Bezos pumps a solid billion into them every year but it doesn't seem like they're anywhere?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
BO has a more traditional approach to design than SpaceX's iterative process. They spend more time on simulation and analysis than on real world testing. Right now it appears that the SpaceX approach returns better results though they do have to deal with the peanut gallery using tests that end in explosions as an opportunity to attack the company instead of acknowledging that it's part of the process. If Blue Origin has a rocket explode, that's a much bigger blow to them as RUDs are not a significant part of their process. It also means their process is far less observable to outsiders, so a year or two from how, they might have New Glenn rockets in regular operation and for most, that will seemingly come out from nowhere.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  SpaceX also does a lot of simulation. They are known to have really good simulation team. And were very early on doing simulation on GPUs and such. And that was 10 years ago. By now they are likely far further along. > so a year or two from how, they might have New Glenn rockets in regular operation and for most, that will seemingly come out from nowhere. They will be lucky to have launched their rocket more then once in the next 2 years.
- chasd00 4y ago
  I don't think SpaceX's iterative approach would work without extremely efficient production lines and know-how. In software everyone can take an iterative approach because you're just typing on a keyboard, you don't have to produce a physical laptop at the end of every sprint. IMO SpaceX brought a lot of the production lessons learned from Tesla and applied it to rocket and engine production. That knowledge and wisdom from making Tesla production lines work isn't available at Blue Origin so I don't think a SpaceX rapid dev approach could work there.
panick21_ 4y ago
By now Bezos is spending more then 1 billion per year. BlueOrigin is a huge company already, and the basically make no money what so ever. 1 billion might cover labor cost. But given the infrastructure they are building and the actual rockets and so on, it has to be significantly more then 1 billion. Well they are making slow progress on a hugely complex rocket, New Glenn. The might fly it in the next 2 years.
antoniuschan99 4y ago
BE-4 engine delay. It delayed New Glenn and also ULA Vulcan. Vulcan is slated to start launching Amazon Kuiper Sats. And Rocketlabs Peter Beck is saying these constellations are slated to start going up en masse starting ~2026
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Vulcan is not slated for Amazon launches. Amazon bought the rest of the Atlas 5 launches.

jcfrei 4y ago

They will definitely have a monopoly for the next 10 years. But beyond that I doubt it - economies of scale don't matter that much (yet) in rockets which gives other companies a chance to grow.

chasd00 4y ago
one thing SpaceX did that doesn't get a lot of intention is reignite innovation in aerospace. If SpaceX gets overtaken by a competitor imagine the technology that had to be developed to accomplish dethroning SpaceX. Many of these launch companies sprouting up wont make it for one reason or the other but it won't be because of lack of inspiration.

MangoCoffee 4y ago

>I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail Starship reusability NASA gave contracts to BlueOrigin, ULA and others beside SpaceX. ULA was the only rocket provider to Pentagon for a long time before SpaceX come along. Jeff is as rich as Elon and he did pump money into BlueOrigin every year. if SpaceX did a better job then SpaceX deserved the market shares.

George83728 4y ago
> Jeff is as rich as Elon and he did pump money into BlueOrigin every year. And notably, Blue Origin has been in business for two years longer than SpaceX, but has far less to show for it.

panick21_ 4y ago

No we are not. Because players like Amazon literally just spend like 5 billion on launches for SpaceX competitors. And many other constellation will do the same. The government already is forced to have at least 2 providers and they want more not less. Other governments, Europe, India and China will not simply give up. And while talking about entities with absurd money, Bezos has spend a decade now funding Blue origin he will not just give up. Venture capitalist are still funding many new rocket companies.