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The funny thing is that Elon Musk promised us Mars and gave us orbit for cheaper than ever before. Boeing in its various incarnations has promised us orbit and

The funny thing is that Elon Musk promised us Mars and gave us orbit for cheaper than ever before. Boeing in its various incarnations has promised us orbit and given us nothing for just as expensive as before. Some people like to optimize for delta between promise and delivery. I think I like it when just delivery is optimized. There's really only one space company in the US today, and perhaps if there were other people like Elon Musk around there'd be more. Instead, the experts who have been doing this for half a century suck balls while the newcomer from a software engineering background who didn't stay in his lane made it.

ipnon 3y ago
I'd rather hate Elon Musk on Mars than love Boeing on Earth.
dotnet00 3y ago
SpaceX may be by far the most prominent of the new space companies, but many smaller companies, especially Rocketlab are also punching above their weight relative to the old guard. The issue was that all the incentives for Boeing were to stagnate. The government would happily sign blank checks to them as long as they kept saying "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand". It took SpaceX coming around and showing results to prove that while space is hard, it isn't as difficult and slow as old space would have liked us to continue believing.
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand" There's a fantastic clip out there where Gwynne Shotwell is asked by someone (I think in congress) how they are able to launch so cheap. Her answer was approximately "I don't know how to build a four hundred million dollar rocket."
tw04 3y ago
I don’t think that’s really a fair assessment. Yes Space-X has had the most launches and gets the most press, but the US has a very healthy launch industry. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-companies-of-2022-the-ars-technica-power-ranking/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-compan...
- AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
  The thing is, it's not even remotely close. SpaceX had 98 launches in 2023. ULA, the closest competitor, had 3. For all of these others, considering that this article is from 2022, how many of them even still exist? Don't get me wrong, I hope SpaceX gets some stiff competition because I believe that competition breeds innovation. At the moment, however, I have no idea where that is going to come from or when it might reasonably come.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches ?
    - blkhawk 3y ago
      Maybe he meant "copetitors at the same scale"- At oleast thats how I read it.
  - perilunar 3y ago
    > I hope SpaceX gets some stiff competition because I believe that competition breeds innovation They are the competition and the innovation. I don't see them slacking off until they get to Mars at least.
  - tw04 3y ago
    So you didn't click the link? Because ULA wasn't second, rocket labs had 9 launches last year and 24 scheduled this year. As I said, the launch industry in the US is robust.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      When/if SpaceX gets Starship operational, small outfits like Rocket Lab won't be able to compete. ULA will probably survive in some form though either due to being a well established in Washington (read: old trusted corruption), or through a merger with Blue Origin (read: bailed out by Bezos.)
krasin 3y ago
> There's really only one space company in the US today Rocket Lab ([1]) is very decent and has a rapid launch cadence ([2]), even though their rockets are smaller than Falcon 9 (for now). They launched 8 rockets in 2023, 5 rockets in 2024 so far and plan to launch another 15 rockets this year. 1. https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches
panick21_ 3y ago
> There's really only one space company in the US today This is just categorically false. There are many space companies. Launch isn't the only thing that happening in space. But yes, SpaceX in terms of launch and operational sats dwarfs everybody to a degree that is unprecedented. But there is a lot of money flowing in and many former SpaceXers have created lots of companies. Rocket companies, RocketLab, Firefly, Relativity, ABL. Lunar companies like Astrobotics. Transport companies like Impulse Space.

ipnon 3y ago

I'd rather hate Elon Musk on Mars than love Boeing on Earth.

dotnet00 3y ago

SpaceX may be by far the most prominent of the new space companies, but many smaller companies, especially Rocketlab are also punching above their weight relative to the old guard. The issue was that all the incentives for Boeing were to stagnate. The government would happily sign blank checks to them as long as they kept saying "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand". It took SpaceX coming around and showing results to prove that while space is hard, it isn't as difficult and slow as old space would have liked us to continue believing.

phkahler 3y ago
>> "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand" There's a fantastic clip out there where Gwynne Shotwell is asked by someone (I think in congress) how they are able to launch so cheap. Her answer was approximately "I don't know how to build a four hundred million dollar rocket."

tw04 3y ago

I don’t think that’s really a fair assessment. Yes Space-X has had the most launches and gets the most press, but the US has a very healthy launch industry. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-companies-of-2022-the-ars-technica-power-ranking/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-compan...

AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
The thing is, it's not even remotely close. SpaceX had 98 launches in 2023. ULA, the closest competitor, had 3. For all of these others, considering that this article is from 2022, how many of them even still exist? Don't get me wrong, I hope SpaceX gets some stiff competition because I believe that competition breeds innovation. At the moment, however, I have no idea where that is going to come from or when it might reasonably come.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches ?
  - blkhawk 3y ago
    Maybe he meant "copetitors at the same scale"- At oleast thats how I read it.
- perilunar 3y ago
  > I hope SpaceX gets some stiff competition because I believe that competition breeds innovation They are the competition and the innovation. I don't see them slacking off until they get to Mars at least.
- tw04 3y ago
  So you didn't click the link? Because ULA wasn't second, rocket labs had 9 launches last year and 24 scheduled this year. As I said, the launch industry in the US is robust.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    When/if SpaceX gets Starship operational, small outfits like Rocket Lab won't be able to compete. ULA will probably survive in some form though either due to being a well established in Washington (read: old trusted corruption), or through a merger with Blue Origin (read: bailed out by Bezos.)

krasin 3y ago

> There's really only one space company in the US today Rocket Lab ([1]) is very decent and has a rapid launch cadence ([2]), even though their rockets are smaller than Falcon 9 (for now). They launched 8 rockets in 2023, 5 rockets in 2024 so far and plan to launch another 15 rockets this year. 1. https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electron_launches

panick21_ 3y ago

> There's really only one space company in the US today This is just categorically false. There are many space companies. Launch isn't the only thing that happening in space. But yes, SpaceX in terms of launch and operational sats dwarfs everybody to a degree that is unprecedented. But there is a lot of money flowing in and many former SpaceXers have created lots of companies. Rocket companies, RocketLab, Firefly, Relativity, ABL. Lunar companies like Astrobotics. Transport companies like Impulse Space.