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It's very likely that if Michael Griffin and Elon Musk had never met, Elon Musk would not be in the space business at all and Michael Griffin would have induced
by mcpackieh 3y ago
It's very likely that if Michael Griffin and Elon Musk had never met, Elon Musk would not be in the space business at all and Michael Griffin would have induced some other person to play the same role. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX both exist to make "proliferated" LEO constellations possible. He founded one and had his fingers all over the founding of the other. He's gone above and beyond to keep both these companies afloat.
Considering the nature and role of the LEO constellation Michael Griffin wants to build, remember Elon Musk's talk about "preventing extinction". Ostensibly he's talking about making a 'backup' population of humanity on Mars, but that makes zero sense. Serious customers for Mars colonization don't actually exist and SpaceX hasn't invested in the development of Mars habitat technology themselves. What they're actually doing is developing boosters capable of launching proliferated LEO constellations for feasible amounts of money (a capability SpaceX is now demonstrating with Starlink.)
- panick21_ 3y agoOk mister smarty pants. How do you create a program for Mars colonialisation without first solving the problem of price to LEO launches. You act as if there was some short cut around that. There isnt. So your argument just fundamentally doesnt work. What would SpaceX invest in refueling if LEO is all they cared about?