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Given that SpaceX is about to launch four people on what is more-or-less a joyride (Polaris Dawn), it's really only the government and boeing that seem to be ha

Given that SpaceX is about to launch four people on what is more-or-less a joyride (Polaris Dawn), it's really only the government and boeing that seem to be having problems.

armada651 2y ago
> it's really only the government and boeing that seem to be having problems. As we've seen these past few years, Boeing is perfectly capable of royally screwing things up on its own without the government's involvement.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
  Right, the public-sector government becomes afraid to take risks for political reasons. On the other hand, the publicly traded private sector over-optimizes for shareholder value, putting the cart of gold before the horse; Boeing. SpaceX remains a private company solely focused on their mission undeterred by outside influence which allows engineers the space to do what they do best. There’s a difference and anything that’s truly critical to our lives or human livelihood should consider delisting. Once shareholders demand your company to stray from excellence and quality in the name of raising the bottom line, it’s time to give it a hard look.
  - hackernewds 2y ago
    Private companies have shareholders as well.
    - vessenes 2y ago
      As a (very) small shareholder in SpaceX, I can tell you, it's Elon (and Gwynne's) game, full stop. I would be very surprised to learn an investor has even a tiny bit of influence at SpaceX.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  The problem isn't government meddling, but the government creating perverse incentives. Boeing has an extremely strong relationship with the government, which means they get sent endless billions of dollars with quality being only a distant concern. Because it's not like Congress cares about space - NASA is just seen as a convenient jobs/pork medium. So long as money gets redirected to the right people, they're happy. And so maintaining this relationship, and milking it for all it's worth, becomes much more profitable and reliable than trying to compete, innovate, and bring down prices. On the contrary, high prices and long development times just drive even more profit. Most of their contracts have been cost plus where the government pays for all costs and then gives them a fat chunk of profit on top. Even the fixed price contracts tend to end up getting 'adjusted' over time. Any company solely motivated by profit would probably be destroyed in this system, because the incentives created do not reward competence.
  - armada651 2y ago
    Whether it's in the public or in the private sector, the real problem is a lack of competent leadership. At some point we started respecting the person with the most profitable hustle more than the person showing actual competence and integrity.
baseballdork 2y ago
The government (NASA with their commercial space effort) is the reason there's a SpaceX and a dragon to be available as backup. The government seems to be doing alright here.
ceejayoz 2y ago
SpaceX exists because of that government's significant funding of the company and the prescient decision to award multiple (fixed-price!) Commercial Cargo/Crew contracts.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hackernewds 2y ago
  and the government should continue to fund private enterprise for innovation. much of the billions for a charger network for EVs has made <10 chargers, they could have provided that to Tesla. similarly the EV tax credits provided to private companies has fueled EV proliferation
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    The charger thing is misleading. The money hasn't been spent yet, it goes to states to use, and the goal is 2030. https://www.factcheck.org/2024/08/trump-misleads-on-the-cost-of-electric-vehicle-chargers/ https://www.factcheck.org/2024/08/trump-misleads-on-the-cost... > Just looking at the $5 billion program dedicated to building charging stations along major highways, Nigro said updated data from 10 states shows the government’s share of building each port is $150,000, on average. That works out to more than 30,000 ports and as many as 7,500 stations, assuming each has four ports (Nigro said the station number will likely be lower, since many stations will have more ports). Even more charging stations and ports can be built with the other $2.5 billion. They did Tesla an enormous favor by pushing the other car manufacturers to adopt their standard. A good use of government power, IMO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standa...
    - avsteele 2y ago
      2030 for 500K chargers is just separate political goal, it isn't connected to the $7.5B allocated by the bill. The bill allocates $7.5B over 5 years. He said most will be coming online 2027+ but seemed to admit that the expectation was for more to be online by now. While I agree the "9 stations for $7.5B" there are reasonable concerns here that the money will be well-spent. I can't even find anything on how much has been actually allocated to far and how many chargers are expected. https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/02_22_24_Letter_to_Secretary_Granholm_and_Secretary_Buttigieg_3c7296b2b5.pdf https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/02_22_24_Letter_to_Sec...
delichon 2y ago
It'll include the first commercial space walk ever. Calling that a joy-ride either trivializes an epic accomplishment or correctly describes a joy-ride of the gods. Helios' daily commute, but faster.
- trothamel 2y ago
  > correctly describes a joy-ride of the gods. Pretty much this. Polaris Dawn is happening because Jared Isaacman wanted it to. And my point is that SpaceX has gotten the price down to the point where he was able to afford multiple trips.
9659 2y ago
SpaceX will lose a vehicle. Not a question of if, rather one of when. relax! i am not saying Elon isn't the greatest engineer ever, and SpaceX is not a great company. space flight is a dangerous business.
- kuthmano 2y ago
  The Russians haven't lost a vehicle.
  - __d 2y ago
    Err ... Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 ?
lolinder 2y ago
OceanGate launched three people on a joyride to the bottom of the ocean and the sub imploded. Rich people being willing to spend buckets of money on an experience is not evidence that it is "safe" or "cost effective", it's just evidence that there are people in the world with more money than they know what to do with.
- manquer 2y ago
  > "cost effective" Jet set was a thing in 50/60s Jet travel was viewed as a play thing for the extremely rich . Even today there is staggering 80% of the world population who have never flown in airplane ever in their life[1]. From the perspective of that 80% they can say airplanes are "just evidence that there are people in the world with more money than they know what to do with". It takes a long long time for transportation to become affordable. What SpaceX has done so far is just make it a bit cheaper to make it possible for civilians to be able to even pay any money and do this. No innovation will be ever enough, that doesn't mean we demean it. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/boeing-ceo-80-percent-of-people-never-flown-for-us-that-means-growth.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/boeing-ceo-80-percent-of-peo...
  - lolinder 2y ago
    I'm not demeaning anything, I'm just pointing out that OP's argument makes no sense. There may be other evidence that SpaceX is safe and cost effective, but rich people paying them to go to space is not it.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Would the fact that the FAA granted SpaceX permission to launch civilians to space not speak towards the safety of the craft?

Given that SpaceX is about to launch four people on what is more-or-less a joyride (Polaris Dawn), it's really only the government and boeing that seem to be having problems.

armada651 2y ago

> it's really only the government and boeing that seem to be having problems. As we've seen these past few years, Boeing is perfectly capable of royally screwing things up on its own without the government's involvement.

SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
Right, the public-sector government becomes afraid to take risks for political reasons. On the other hand, the publicly traded private sector over-optimizes for shareholder value, putting the cart of gold before the horse; Boeing. SpaceX remains a private company solely focused on their mission undeterred by outside influence which allows engineers the space to do what they do best. There’s a difference and anything that’s truly critical to our lives or human livelihood should consider delisting. Once shareholders demand your company to stray from excellence and quality in the name of raising the bottom line, it’s time to give it a hard look.
- hackernewds 2y ago
  Private companies have shareholders as well.
  - vessenes 2y ago
    As a (very) small shareholder in SpaceX, I can tell you, it's Elon (and Gwynne's) game, full stop. I would be very surprised to learn an investor has even a tiny bit of influence at SpaceX.
somenameforme 2y ago
The problem isn't government meddling, but the government creating perverse incentives. Boeing has an extremely strong relationship with the government, which means they get sent endless billions of dollars with quality being only a distant concern. Because it's not like Congress cares about space - NASA is just seen as a convenient jobs/pork medium. So long as money gets redirected to the right people, they're happy. And so maintaining this relationship, and milking it for all it's worth, becomes much more profitable and reliable than trying to compete, innovate, and bring down prices. On the contrary, high prices and long development times just drive even more profit. Most of their contracts have been cost plus where the government pays for all costs and then gives them a fat chunk of profit on top. Even the fixed price contracts tend to end up getting 'adjusted' over time. Any company solely motivated by profit would probably be destroyed in this system, because the incentives created do not reward competence.
- armada651 2y ago
  Whether it's in the public or in the private sector, the real problem is a lack of competent leadership. At some point we started respecting the person with the most profitable hustle more than the person showing actual competence and integrity.

baseballdork 2y ago

The government (NASA with their commercial space effort) is the reason there's a SpaceX and a dragon to be available as backup. The government seems to be doing alright here.

ceejayoz 2y ago

SpaceX exists because of that government's significant funding of the company and the prescient decision to award multiple (fixed-price!) Commercial Cargo/Crew contracts.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hackernewds 2y ago
and the government should continue to fund private enterprise for innovation. much of the billions for a charger network for EVs has made <10 chargers, they could have provided that to Tesla. similarly the EV tax credits provided to private companies has fueled EV proliferation
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  The charger thing is misleading. The money hasn't been spent yet, it goes to states to use, and the goal is 2030. https://www.factcheck.org/2024/08/trump-misleads-on-the-cost-of-electric-vehicle-chargers/ https://www.factcheck.org/2024/08/trump-misleads-on-the-cost... > Just looking at the $5 billion program dedicated to building charging stations along major highways, Nigro said updated data from 10 states shows the government’s share of building each port is $150,000, on average. That works out to more than 30,000 ports and as many as 7,500 stations, assuming each has four ports (Nigro said the station number will likely be lower, since many stations will have more ports). Even more charging stations and ports can be built with the other $2.5 billion. They did Tesla an enormous favor by pushing the other car manufacturers to adopt their standard. A good use of government power, IMO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standa...
  - avsteele 2y ago
    2030 for 500K chargers is just separate political goal, it isn't connected to the $7.5B allocated by the bill. The bill allocates $7.5B over 5 years. He said most will be coming online 2027+ but seemed to admit that the expectation was for more to be online by now. While I agree the "9 stations for $7.5B" there are reasonable concerns here that the money will be well-spent. I can't even find anything on how much has been actually allocated to far and how many chargers are expected. https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/02_22_24_Letter_to_Secretary_Granholm_and_Secretary_Buttigieg_3c7296b2b5.pdf https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/02_22_24_Letter_to_Sec...

delichon 2y ago

It'll include the first commercial space walk ever. Calling that a joy-ride either trivializes an epic accomplishment or correctly describes a joy-ride of the gods. Helios' daily commute, but faster.

trothamel 2y ago
> correctly describes a joy-ride of the gods. Pretty much this. Polaris Dawn is happening because Jared Isaacman wanted it to. And my point is that SpaceX has gotten the price down to the point where he was able to afford multiple trips.

9659 2y ago

SpaceX will lose a vehicle. Not a question of if, rather one of when. relax! i am not saying Elon isn't the greatest engineer ever, and SpaceX is not a great company. space flight is a dangerous business.

kuthmano 2y ago
The Russians haven't lost a vehicle.
- __d 2y ago
  Err ... Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 ?

lolinder 2y ago

OceanGate launched three people on a joyride to the bottom of the ocean and the sub imploded. Rich people being willing to spend buckets of money on an experience is not evidence that it is "safe" or "cost effective", it's just evidence that there are people in the world with more money than they know what to do with.

manquer 2y ago
> "cost effective" Jet set was a thing in 50/60s Jet travel was viewed as a play thing for the extremely rich . Even today there is staggering 80% of the world population who have never flown in airplane ever in their life[1]. From the perspective of that 80% they can say airplanes are "just evidence that there are people in the world with more money than they know what to do with". It takes a long long time for transportation to become affordable. What SpaceX has done so far is just make it a bit cheaper to make it possible for civilians to be able to even pay any money and do this. No innovation will be ever enough, that doesn't mean we demean it. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/boeing-ceo-80-percent-of-people-never-flown-for-us-that-means-growth.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/boeing-ceo-80-percent-of-peo...
- lolinder 2y ago
  I'm not demeaning anything, I'm just pointing out that OP's argument makes no sense. There may be other evidence that SpaceX is safe and cost effective, but rich people paying them to go to space is not it.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Would the fact that the FAA granted SpaceX permission to launch civilians to space not speak towards the safety of the craft?