4 ms·

The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in

The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. They even managed to get through COVID unscathed. The main danger of relying on a single provider is them taking advantage of that position and charging unreasonable rates, exactly like Boeing/Lockheed have been doing for decades (two companies, exact same issues - go figure). But SpaceX is ideologically motivated and minimizing the costs of spaceflight, as they have now been doing for decades, is a fundamental part of their goal. To use an obvious example, we didn't build out two identical Apollo programs. Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight, and Boeing is now left struggling even with the latter. China has a highly advanced space program and have successfully launched/manned their own space station, and much more. Yet even they are technologically far behind SpaceX - the same is true of Russia. I don't actually understand why this is, as it's not like SpaceX is relying on any sort of just extremely well guarded secrets, but whatever the reason, it is what it is. And so with this context, I don't think there's any realistic chance of Boeing "getting its act together" anytime in the foreseeable future. So it turns these gestures into little more than lighting tens of billions of dollars on fire. And that's a pretty big fire.

ijustlovemath 3y ago
COVID was a single DARPA grant cycle in length. These companies move at glacial paces compared to the SaaS plays that the typical HN dev is familiar with. I'm guessing COVID never really threatened big programs like Starliner.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Your guess would be incorrect. Boeing felt they were in risk of collapse during COVID and immediately went to the government asking for a $60 billion bailout. The government wanted equity in exchange for this bailout, which Boeing didn't want to offer. So they ended up offering Federal Reserve facilitated 'Boeing bonds', and took in about $25 billion to stay afloat. [1] Amusingly a big part of the reason they ended up in such catastrophic danger is that they'd been dumping all their cash reserves into buying their own stock, to try to bring its flagging price up. [2] [1] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-rescued-by-the-fed-without-a-bailout/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-res... [2] - https://archive.is/eO3FJ https://archive.is/eO3FJ (WaPo archive)
  - arresin 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - wtfwhateven 3y ago
      ?
fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
Don’t say the chance is zero unless you have a mathematical proof or something. Would the odds be zero if they lose of a crew of astronauts?
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Definitely. I'd actually go one step further and say that they will eventually lose a crew of astronauts. Perhaps to the ISS, but most definitely to Mars. The Falcon is the most reliable rocket ever made with some 335 successes for 2 failures contrasted against e.g. 133 and 2 for the Space Shuttle, but that failure rate is still extremely high relative to something like an airplane. And the overwhelming majority of all space flights are for "simple" repetitive tasks. As we increase the number of manned missions, as well as their complexity - the eventual loss of crewed missions is an absolute certainty. Something like 3% of all astronauts have died 'on the job' making it likely the single most dangerous profession in existence. Space remains extremely complex and dangerous, and it's likely to only become even more so in the decades to come as we increase the complexity of tasks carried out. The reason NASA's failures were such a huge deal is because they shouldn't have happened. In both cases you had issues with the managerial layer ignoring the engineering layer, and moving ahead in high risk scenarios - that was particularly stupid in Challenger, where they also had a high profile civilian aboard. In SpaceX the managerial layer and the technical layer are largely the same thing, and they also have a system where any flight engineer can independently cancel a flight, for any reason, at his own discretion. So the chances of a flight moving forward with a predictable risk is quite low. So what will most likely happen when they lose a crewed flight is an investigation to ensure it was not caused by systemic errors, some effort to ensure that whatever did happen does not happen again, and then a return to flight.
  - foobarbecue 3y ago
    The point of "redundancy" here is so you can don't have to evacuate the space station while Dragon is grounded during the investigation you describe. Nobody is saying a failure would result in the end of Dragon or SpaceX.
  - Beldin 3y ago
omgwtfbyobbq 3y ago
I think it's because SpaceX is more influenced by engineering/design/cost than their competitors. Other companies, like Toyota, have intermittently focused mostly on engineering/design/cost, but they went back to their old habits after gaining market dominance instead of using their position to push the market forward in some other way. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1995235_1995384_1995781,00.html https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28...
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  Even still having Toyota around is great because they are absolutely killing it (Americans want hybrids because you can't plug in a car so easily if you live in the big city, live in an apartment, etc).
- tim333 3y ago
  I'm not sure I get the 'intermittently' thing? They always seem to have been much the same, maybe with more emphasis on reliability and customer satisfaction rather than flashiness than some of their competitors. They also seem to stick to making good cars rather than doing mergers and acquisitions unlike say GM or VW.
namirez 3y ago
“ Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight” Not true! The challenges are different but space is in a sense simpler since the reliability requirements for space are not as stringent.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  That's an odd assertion. Sure, we have a somewhat higher tolerance for risk for unmanned spaceflights, but we don't have particularly high requirements for unmanned drones either. But the reliability requirements for something like Starliner are ridiculously high and that's why it's taken a decade for the first manned flight.
  - namirez 3y ago
    A starliner is not nearly as reliable as a Boeing 777. Just look at what happened to the space shuttle. That’s also why Russians had reliable launch vehicles but not so reliable jetliners.
    - resolutebat 3y ago
      Those "unreliable" jetliners still complete orders of magnitude more flights between crashes than "reliable" launch vehicles. Angara A5, Russia's latest and greatest, had 1 failure out of 4 launches so far.
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        You're completely correct, but I think using the Angara A5 is a bit misleading. That's still in testing, and the one failure was because the exact part they were testing (the upper stage system) failed - it's more akin to something like the Starship, even if nowhere near as ambitious. It'd be more reasonable to compare something like the Soyuz-U, which has successfully sent hundreds of people to the ISS. Yet its overall failure rate is still dramatically higher than an airplane with 765 successful launches and 22 failures. If airplanes had the same failure rates as even the most reliable rockets in existence, we'd be seeing tens to hundreds of crashes per day. Of course it's not because rockets are "allowed" to fail more regularly, but because this is the best we can currently manage.
golol 3y ago
> I don't actually understand why this is, as it's not like SpaceX is relying on any sort of just extremely well guarded secrets It's good management.
- newsclues 3y ago
  I think it’s incentives. Boeing is not incentivized, nor has it been for a long, to do a good job.
- sdwr 3y ago
  From a macro view, competence requires growth, right? Look at the 60s - there's tremendous excitement about space, astronauts are heroes, everyone is putting in 10x effort to get over the finish line. What Boeing is being asked to do now is replicate this every few years, except all the attention, all the excitement, all the growth is gone. They have to recreate the miracle, but nobody cares! SpaceX comes in and says - we have a new heroic mission. Do the same thing, but make it repeatable and efficient and stupid easy.
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  Have you ever worked with ex-spacex middle management? It's not good management.
quartesixte 3y ago
SpaceX’s key insight was that the hardest part about building rockets was components manufacturing and attacked that problem aggressively, bringing in as much in-house as possible vs. outsourcing to a nationwide supply chain. And there is no real secret to a lot of their manufacturing methods either. They just attacked hard problems aggressively with really smart people and clear leadership.
thenaturalist 3y ago
Most likely the same reason as for industry espionage by said countries: Conceptually designing a spacecraft and assuming certain physics properties is a long stretch away from actually manufacturing components with materials that stand up to the stress of a launch. The “secret” to reliable components which can be produced at scale is very much not generally out there.
- quartesixte 3y ago
  I will say, some of the techniques that live in the brains of machinists/welders/technicians is borderline alchemy, and sometimes highly specific to the worker themselves. Can’t really scale that. And good luck doing corporate espionage outside of physically kidnapping them.
mschuster91 3y ago
> The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. Financially, there is almost zero chance for SpaceX to go under at the point they're at - every launch is profitable for them and the margin goes up with each time they can re-use any component, for boosters their record holder was at 19 launches until it was taken out by bad weather during transport [1]. The real danger for SpaceX is Elon Musk, plain and simple. Either he does something really stupid, something even more dumb than playing personal CSR for neo-Nazis, and the US government says "okay, that's f...ing enough now" as a result, or he goes completely against the US government: push for Mars because he finds out he has some sort of cancer or whatnot and wants to die there while the US government wants to first focus on the moon, or turn off services to Ukraine and instead provide services to Russia... or sell critical information to Russia, China or whatever just to stick the finger to the US government (aka, follow the Trumpian way of "I do what I want, what do they wanna do lol"). Yes, the US government can always go and nationalize SpaceX if need be, so it's not too high of a risk for SpaceX to go completely belly-up, but it would mean years upon years of nasty judicial fights. [1] https://interestingengineering.com/culture/falcon-9-spacexs-record-breaking-booster-topples-over-sea-breaks-apart https://interestingengineering.com/culture/falcon-9-spacexs-...
- melodyogonna 3y ago
  [dead]
- somenameforme 3y ago
  The only thing that's particularly unique about Elon is that he voices his actual opinions on topics instead of what he thinks will be most well received. It's a throw back to times long since past, where you will find highly visible individuals often had views starkly different than those of the government. It's not that that's changed - if anything I expect there's far less support for government decisions than in the past. But what has changed is that the government has grown absolutely massive. This growth has created a dependency relationship from many major companies, as falling out of favor with an oft retaliatory government could be ruinous to their margins. Vice versa, the government is not only excessively generous with companies that play ball, but also often turns a blind eye to their offenses. This has driven a culture of widespread self censorship and feigned never-ending approval. If anything I think Elon voicing his genuine opinions on matters, right or wrong, is one of the most patriotic things he could be doing, because loyalty to a country does not mean loyalty to a government - and often it's the exact opposite. Even in military oaths, for instance, this reality is observed. Officers swear oaths of loyalty not to the government, the President, or even their chain of command, but to the US Constitution. [1] There's endless great quotes from the Founding Fathers on this topic. A few random ones: -------- - "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison - "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." - Thomas Jefferson - "If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams -------- I think the world, and especially our democracy, would work vastly better if everybody just spoke honestly. Right or wrong, smart or stupid. People freely and openly expressing themselves is the only way a democracy can really function. There is a reason that the 1st Amendment is at the top of the Bill of Rights. And right now we live in a time where this is probably more true than ever. Opposing never-ending wars, rapidly trending towards WW3, and the grossly out of touch and seemingly delusional politicians driving us there, does not demonstrate disloyalty. If anything, the path we're currently on could very well lead to ruin, yet so few are willing to observe that the Emperor has no clothes. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Servic...
whoitwas 3y ago
It's all lighting money on fire. All the funding is our tax dollars given to private industry.
- yellow_postit 3y ago
  While I’d like to see the alternative NASA get more funding — for low orbit work I don’t see why we shouldn’t be boot strapping private industry. Eventually though those subsidies will need to wind down but there’s too few competitors at this point.
jajko 3y ago
If musk will have another of his egomaniacal bouts and takes reigns, very bad stuff can happen. He is totally unpredictable at this point in any direction, does outright stupid childish decisions, being bipolar/borderline or whatever is exactly his diagnosis can be a disaster in right conditions for everybody and everything around him. But yes as long as he keeps actually skilled and stable people managing his stuff it should be fine, more than fine.
travisporter 3y ago
While I agree with almost everything, I disagree with the "zero". Musk's perceived pettiness can easily handicap spaceX. The goal to colonize Mars is noble but not profitable. Gwynne Shotwell could one day say to to his ideas, she and her top level management team could get canned, and I would say that would be an irrecoverable error. Second, redundancy is good, although I wish the other provider was not Boeing. even Dragon at one point exploded, and at that time starliner and dragon had very different perceived trajectories. Of course, with Eric Berger's new article on ars technica on Boeing, it's a wonder Starliner even exists.

ijustlovemath 3y ago

COVID was a single DARPA grant cycle in length. These companies move at glacial paces compared to the SaaS plays that the typical HN dev is familiar with. I'm guessing COVID never really threatened big programs like Starliner.

somenameforme 3y ago
Your guess would be incorrect. Boeing felt they were in risk of collapse during COVID and immediately went to the government asking for a $60 billion bailout. The government wanted equity in exchange for this bailout, which Boeing didn't want to offer. So they ended up offering Federal Reserve facilitated 'Boeing bonds', and took in about $25 billion to stay afloat. [1] Amusingly a big part of the reason they ended up in such catastrophic danger is that they'd been dumping all their cash reserves into buying their own stock, to try to bring its flagging price up. [2] [1] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-rescued-by-the-fed-without-a-bailout/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-res... [2] - https://archive.is/eO3FJ https://archive.is/eO3FJ (WaPo archive)
- arresin 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - wtfwhateven 3y ago
    ?

fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago

Don’t say the chance is zero unless you have a mathematical proof or something. Would the odds be zero if they lose of a crew of astronauts?

somenameforme 3y ago
Definitely. I'd actually go one step further and say that they will eventually lose a crew of astronauts. Perhaps to the ISS, but most definitely to Mars. The Falcon is the most reliable rocket ever made with some 335 successes for 2 failures contrasted against e.g. 133 and 2 for the Space Shuttle, but that failure rate is still extremely high relative to something like an airplane. And the overwhelming majority of all space flights are for "simple" repetitive tasks. As we increase the number of manned missions, as well as their complexity - the eventual loss of crewed missions is an absolute certainty. Something like 3% of all astronauts have died 'on the job' making it likely the single most dangerous profession in existence. Space remains extremely complex and dangerous, and it's likely to only become even more so in the decades to come as we increase the complexity of tasks carried out. The reason NASA's failures were such a huge deal is because they shouldn't have happened. In both cases you had issues with the managerial layer ignoring the engineering layer, and moving ahead in high risk scenarios - that was particularly stupid in Challenger, where they also had a high profile civilian aboard. In SpaceX the managerial layer and the technical layer are largely the same thing, and they also have a system where any flight engineer can independently cancel a flight, for any reason, at his own discretion. So the chances of a flight moving forward with a predictable risk is quite low. So what will most likely happen when they lose a crewed flight is an investigation to ensure it was not caused by systemic errors, some effort to ensure that whatever did happen does not happen again, and then a return to flight.
- foobarbecue 3y ago
  The point of "redundancy" here is so you can don't have to evacuate the space station while Dragon is grounded during the investigation you describe. Nobody is saying a failure would result in the end of Dragon or SpaceX.
- Beldin 3y ago

omgwtfbyobbq 3y ago

I think it's because SpaceX is more influenced by engineering/design/cost than their competitors. Other companies, like Toyota, have intermittently focused mostly on engineering/design/cost, but they went back to their old habits after gaining market dominance instead of using their position to push the market forward in some other way. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1995235_1995384_1995781,00.html https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28...

throwawaymaths 3y ago
Even still having Toyota around is great because they are absolutely killing it (Americans want hybrids because you can't plug in a car so easily if you live in the big city, live in an apartment, etc).
tim333 3y ago
I'm not sure I get the 'intermittently' thing? They always seem to have been much the same, maybe with more emphasis on reliability and customer satisfaction rather than flashiness than some of their competitors. They also seem to stick to making good cars rather than doing mergers and acquisitions unlike say GM or VW.

namirez 3y ago

“ Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight” Not true! The challenges are different but space is in a sense simpler since the reliability requirements for space are not as stringent.

resolutebat 3y ago
That's an odd assertion. Sure, we have a somewhat higher tolerance for risk for unmanned spaceflights, but we don't have particularly high requirements for unmanned drones either. But the reliability requirements for something like Starliner are ridiculously high and that's why it's taken a decade for the first manned flight.
- namirez 3y ago
  A starliner is not nearly as reliable as a Boeing 777. Just look at what happened to the space shuttle. That’s also why Russians had reliable launch vehicles but not so reliable jetliners.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    Those "unreliable" jetliners still complete orders of magnitude more flights between crashes than "reliable" launch vehicles. Angara A5, Russia's latest and greatest, had 1 failure out of 4 launches so far.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      You're completely correct, but I think using the Angara A5 is a bit misleading. That's still in testing, and the one failure was because the exact part they were testing (the upper stage system) failed - it's more akin to something like the Starship, even if nowhere near as ambitious. It'd be more reasonable to compare something like the Soyuz-U, which has successfully sent hundreds of people to the ISS. Yet its overall failure rate is still dramatically higher than an airplane with 765 successful launches and 22 failures. If airplanes had the same failure rates as even the most reliable rockets in existence, we'd be seeing tens to hundreds of crashes per day. Of course it's not because rockets are "allowed" to fail more regularly, but because this is the best we can currently manage.

golol 3y ago

> I don't actually understand why this is, as it's not like SpaceX is relying on any sort of just extremely well guarded secrets It's good management.

newsclues 3y ago
I think it’s incentives. Boeing is not incentivized, nor has it been for a long, to do a good job.
sdwr 3y ago
From a macro view, competence requires growth, right? Look at the 60s - there's tremendous excitement about space, astronauts are heroes, everyone is putting in 10x effort to get over the finish line. What Boeing is being asked to do now is replicate this every few years, except all the attention, all the excitement, all the growth is gone. They have to recreate the miracle, but nobody cares! SpaceX comes in and says - we have a new heroic mission. Do the same thing, but make it repeatable and efficient and stupid easy.
throwawaymaths 3y ago
Have you ever worked with ex-spacex middle management? It's not good management.

quartesixte 3y ago

SpaceX’s key insight was that the hardest part about building rockets was components manufacturing and attacked that problem aggressively, bringing in as much in-house as possible vs. outsourcing to a nationwide supply chain. And there is no real secret to a lot of their manufacturing methods either. They just attacked hard problems aggressively with really smart people and clear leadership.

thenaturalist 3y ago

Most likely the same reason as for industry espionage by said countries: Conceptually designing a spacecraft and assuming certain physics properties is a long stretch away from actually manufacturing components with materials that stand up to the stress of a launch. The “secret” to reliable components which can be produced at scale is very much not generally out there.

quartesixte 3y ago
I will say, some of the techniques that live in the brains of machinists/welders/technicians is borderline alchemy, and sometimes highly specific to the worker themselves. Can’t really scale that. And good luck doing corporate espionage outside of physically kidnapping them.

mschuster91 3y ago

> The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. Financially, there is almost zero chance for SpaceX to go under at the point they're at - every launch is profitable for them and the margin goes up with each time they can re-use any component, for boosters their record holder was at 19 launches until it was taken out by bad weather during transport [1]. The real danger for SpaceX is Elon Musk, plain and simple. Either he does something really stupid, something even more dumb than playing personal CSR for neo-Nazis, and the US government says "okay, that's f...ing enough now" as a result, or he goes completely against the US government: push for Mars because he finds out he has some sort of cancer or whatnot and wants to die there while the US government wants to first focus on the moon, or turn off services to Ukraine and instead provide services to Russia... or sell critical information to Russia, China or whatever just to stick the finger to the US government (aka, follow the Trumpian way of "I do what I want, what do they wanna do lol"). Yes, the US government can always go and nationalize SpaceX if need be, so it's not too high of a risk for SpaceX to go completely belly-up, but it would mean years upon years of nasty judicial fights. [1] https://interestingengineering.com/culture/falcon-9-spacexs-record-breaking-booster-topples-over-sea-breaks-apart https://interestingengineering.com/culture/falcon-9-spacexs-...

melodyogonna 3y ago
[dead]
somenameforme 3y ago
The only thing that's particularly unique about Elon is that he voices his actual opinions on topics instead of what he thinks will be most well received. It's a throw back to times long since past, where you will find highly visible individuals often had views starkly different than those of the government. It's not that that's changed - if anything I expect there's far less support for government decisions than in the past. But what has changed is that the government has grown absolutely massive. This growth has created a dependency relationship from many major companies, as falling out of favor with an oft retaliatory government could be ruinous to their margins. Vice versa, the government is not only excessively generous with companies that play ball, but also often turns a blind eye to their offenses. This has driven a culture of widespread self censorship and feigned never-ending approval. If anything I think Elon voicing his genuine opinions on matters, right or wrong, is one of the most patriotic things he could be doing, because loyalty to a country does not mean loyalty to a government - and often it's the exact opposite. Even in military oaths, for instance, this reality is observed. Officers swear oaths of loyalty not to the government, the President, or even their chain of command, but to the US Constitution. [1] There's endless great quotes from the Founding Fathers on this topic. A few random ones: -------- - "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison - "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." - Thomas Jefferson - "If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams -------- I think the world, and especially our democracy, would work vastly better if everybody just spoke honestly. Right or wrong, smart or stupid. People freely and openly expressing themselves is the only way a democracy can really function. There is a reason that the 1st Amendment is at the top of the Bill of Rights. And right now we live in a time where this is probably more true than ever. Opposing never-ending wars, rapidly trending towards WW3, and the grossly out of touch and seemingly delusional politicians driving us there, does not demonstrate disloyalty. If anything, the path we're currently on could very well lead to ruin, yet so few are willing to observe that the Emperor has no clothes. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Servic...

whoitwas 3y ago

It's all lighting money on fire. All the funding is our tax dollars given to private industry.

yellow_postit 3y ago
While I’d like to see the alternative NASA get more funding — for low orbit work I don’t see why we shouldn’t be boot strapping private industry. Eventually though those subsidies will need to wind down but there’s too few competitors at this point.

jajko 3y ago

If musk will have another of his egomaniacal bouts and takes reigns, very bad stuff can happen. He is totally unpredictable at this point in any direction, does outright stupid childish decisions, being bipolar/borderline or whatever is exactly his diagnosis can be a disaster in right conditions for everybody and everything around him. But yes as long as he keeps actually skilled and stable people managing his stuff it should be fine, more than fine.

travisporter 3y ago

While I agree with almost everything, I disagree with the "zero". Musk's perceived pettiness can easily handicap spaceX. The goal to colonize Mars is noble but not profitable. Gwynne Shotwell could one day say to to his ideas, she and her top level management team could get canned, and I would say that would be an irrecoverable error. Second, redundancy is good, although I wish the other provider was not Boeing. even Dragon at one point exploded, and at that time starliner and dragon had very different perceived trajectories. Of course, with Eric Berger's new article on ars technica on Boeing, it's a wonder Starliner even exists.