4 ms·

I agree with this, it is pretty stunning. Also ULA's inability to come up with a launch capability that is anywhere close to Falcon/Falcon Heavy in terms of cos

I agree with this, it is pretty stunning. Also ULA's inability to come up with a launch capability that is anywhere close to Falcon/Falcon Heavy in terms of cost and time to flight. The fascinating thing is that the lack of competition allowed the space launch industry to switch from "invent" mode to "monetize" mode way too early. It is also what makes the Starship work both more credible and more interesting. There are a lot of technical problems to work through on Starship between now and it being as reliable as say Falcon is, but if (when?) they get there, the ability to put 100 tons into LEO for just the cost of the propellant and some depreciation on the vehicle? That really changes the economics of having things in space in a way that is hard for folks to imagine.

SEJeff 3y ago
150T... They have been able to crank up the power of the raptors per Elon.
rtkwe 3y ago
There's also been a bit of a shift in the market for space launches. For the longest time there wasn't that much of a market for a higher volume, cheaper launcher like the Falcon as the number of launches were really limited to mostly government launches and a handful of communication satellites. Recently hardware has gotten much cheaper which combined with cheaper launches skyrockets the number of groups that could design and send up a payload because the economics on both ends finally met up.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  That was the point of Starlink. If the only capability is incredibly expensive and highly reliable, no demand that only works under cheaper and relaxed reliability exists. Luckily, the market's caught up pretty quickly.
- ChuckMcM 3y ago
  I think the nuance is different. I think there has always been demand of inexpensive access to space, what did not exist was a company willing to invest in making that true. If you lived through the "Single Stage To Orbit" (SSTO) initiatives that were kicked off by Regan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or "Star Wars" project to put "hundreds" of satellites into orbit, the idea of a cost insensitive customer willing to pay for tens of launches a year, drove a lot of investment into the market. When SDI was cancelled rocket companies bailed and investment fled. Even though billions had been invested in Iridium, and millions had been invested in Teledesic, the "establishment" could not see how having such a capability would be useful. Sort of like prognosticators suggesting that the world demand for computers might be just five from IBM in 1943. People who are stuck looking at the cost/availability in the "now" cannot imagine a future where those things are different. One of the things I've always looked for in hiring people is the ability to "unconstrain" ones thinking by "rules." Those are the kinds of people who can think about a world where we have a technology to say, "nullify gravity", and what impact that might have on what we do or how we do it. Constrained thinkers will say, "There is no way to 'nullify' gravity so it isn't worth wasting any time thinking about what we could do if we could." This capability shows me someone who is able to step into a different frame of reference with their reasoning skills intact and sharp. As a result, when there is an "unexpected" discovery or event, they waste little time in cognitive dissonance says "This can't be happening" or "That isn't possible what I'm seeing" and instead jump right to "Hmm if we can do that then <x>, <y>, and <z> could be done too!" There are a lot of things to dislike Elon for, but one thing that he shares with Steve Jobs is if he believes a thing he is "all in". Sometimes it takes that to get to the other side of an "unthinkable" change.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    While you raise a valid point you chose a terrible example as even Elon, as crazy as he is, refuses to go against the laws of physics. Even he has a limit(for now at least). I get that its just an example: its just that Elon might throw you out of his office. Its also this kind of thinking that gets people into trouble ie. completely destroying a working codebase because one only thinks in first principles and cannot map human factors(which are inherently too complex to reason mathematically) onto this other plane of thinking. There needs to be a balance between the unconstrained dreamer and the practical realist. Steve Jobs had a group of trusted confidants (Tim Cook, Ive and the other leaders) to help reel him back to reality from time to time. You could argue that Bill Gates had Ballmer to help keep in him check.
Already__Taken 3y ago
It's analogous to gigabit internet in the 90's. Why would anyone want that and what would you even do.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  I agree. Real question: What do people need gigabit internet for today? 4K UHD streaming video needs 25-50Mbps. I have been living off 100Mbps internet connection for more than a decade, and I feel no need to upgrade. To be fair, maybe gamers need super faster connections for lower latency, or game downloads.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
    Families, and reducing friction on gaming purchases. The sooner you can download a game (especially with new business models like game pass), the sooner you know whether you like it and the sooner you get positive feedback from your purchase decision. The faster that loop is the more people will impulse buy, and the faster consumers can get the games they want to play.
  - jmalicki 3y ago
    A huge part of it is less about the gigabit download, and more that gigabit fiber is symmetric and has fast uploads... In the age of being remote, several people can be on HD or even UHD webcams without much lag or hiccups. 12Mbps upload of many cable modems is a noticably worse experience.
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      Excellent point. I didn't think about video calls needing good upload bandwidth. Many broadband options have terrible upload bandwidth, so you need to buy a ridiculous plan (like 1Gbps) to get reasonable upload bandwidth.

SEJeff 3y ago

150T... They have been able to crank up the power of the raptors per Elon.

rtkwe 3y ago

There's also been a bit of a shift in the market for space launches. For the longest time there wasn't that much of a market for a higher volume, cheaper launcher like the Falcon as the number of launches were really limited to mostly government launches and a handful of communication satellites. Recently hardware has gotten much cheaper which combined with cheaper launches skyrockets the number of groups that could design and send up a payload because the economics on both ends finally met up.

ethbr0 3y ago
That was the point of Starlink. If the only capability is incredibly expensive and highly reliable, no demand that only works under cheaper and relaxed reliability exists. Luckily, the market's caught up pretty quickly.
ChuckMcM 3y ago
I think the nuance is different. I think there has always been demand of inexpensive access to space, what did not exist was a company willing to invest in making that true. If you lived through the "Single Stage To Orbit" (SSTO) initiatives that were kicked off by Regan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or "Star Wars" project to put "hundreds" of satellites into orbit, the idea of a cost insensitive customer willing to pay for tens of launches a year, drove a lot of investment into the market. When SDI was cancelled rocket companies bailed and investment fled. Even though billions had been invested in Iridium, and millions had been invested in Teledesic, the "establishment" could not see how having such a capability would be useful. Sort of like prognosticators suggesting that the world demand for computers might be just five from IBM in 1943. People who are stuck looking at the cost/availability in the "now" cannot imagine a future where those things are different. One of the things I've always looked for in hiring people is the ability to "unconstrain" ones thinking by "rules." Those are the kinds of people who can think about a world where we have a technology to say, "nullify gravity", and what impact that might have on what we do or how we do it. Constrained thinkers will say, "There is no way to 'nullify' gravity so it isn't worth wasting any time thinking about what we could do if we could." This capability shows me someone who is able to step into a different frame of reference with their reasoning skills intact and sharp. As a result, when there is an "unexpected" discovery or event, they waste little time in cognitive dissonance says "This can't be happening" or "That isn't possible what I'm seeing" and instead jump right to "Hmm if we can do that then <x>, <y>, and <z> could be done too!" There are a lot of things to dislike Elon for, but one thing that he shares with Steve Jobs is if he believes a thing he is "all in". Sometimes it takes that to get to the other side of an "unthinkable" change.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  While you raise a valid point you chose a terrible example as even Elon, as crazy as he is, refuses to go against the laws of physics. Even he has a limit(for now at least). I get that its just an example: its just that Elon might throw you out of his office. Its also this kind of thinking that gets people into trouble ie. completely destroying a working codebase because one only thinks in first principles and cannot map human factors(which are inherently too complex to reason mathematically) onto this other plane of thinking. There needs to be a balance between the unconstrained dreamer and the practical realist. Steve Jobs had a group of trusted confidants (Tim Cook, Ive and the other leaders) to help reel him back to reality from time to time. You could argue that Bill Gates had Ballmer to help keep in him check.

Already__Taken 3y ago

It's analogous to gigabit internet in the 90's. Why would anyone want that and what would you even do.

throwaway2037 3y ago
I agree. Real question: What do people need gigabit internet for today? 4K UHD streaming video needs 25-50Mbps. I have been living off 100Mbps internet connection for more than a decade, and I feel no need to upgrade. To be fair, maybe gamers need super faster connections for lower latency, or game downloads.
- lucubratory 3y ago
  Families, and reducing friction on gaming purchases. The sooner you can download a game (especially with new business models like game pass), the sooner you know whether you like it and the sooner you get positive feedback from your purchase decision. The faster that loop is the more people will impulse buy, and the faster consumers can get the games they want to play.
- jmalicki 3y ago
  A huge part of it is less about the gigabit download, and more that gigabit fiber is symmetric and has fast uploads... In the age of being remote, several people can be on HD or even UHD webcams without much lag or hiccups. 12Mbps upload of many cable modems is a noticably worse experience.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    Excellent point. I didn't think about video calls needing good upload bandwidth. Many broadband options have terrible upload bandwidth, so you need to buy a ridiculous plan (like 1Gbps) to get reasonable upload bandwidth.