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> Other companies should have reusable boosters soon You're way too optimistic. Starship will deliver commercial payloads, with SpaceX phasing out Falcon 9 out
by philistine 2y ago
> Other companies should have reusable boosters soon
You're way too optimistic. Starship will deliver commercial payloads, with SpaceX phasing out Falcon 9 outside of ISS launches, before anyone has a reusable Falcon 9 equivalent.
It pains me to say this, but SpaceX is in a class all its own.
- dotnet00 2y agoNew Glenn finally has flight hardware undergoing pre-flight testing. I think they're pretty likely to manage to fly in early/mid 2025, and they do aim to recover the booster in their first try.
- thinkcontext 2y agoThe Chinese could have a reusable booster before then. One of their companies is doing 10 km hop tests.
- signatoremo 2y agoSpaceX couldn’t manage the first Falcon 9 landing until 2015. The first Falcon 9 reuse wasn’t until 2018, so 3 years to achieve reusability. The Chinese prototype hasn’t yet succeeded at sub-orbital landing. I wouldn’t be surprise if it’d take them longer than 3 years to have a reusable rocket. Starship would have been routine at that time. Blue Origin plans to launch New Glenn in a month, with landing planned. They are a wild card.
- jiggawatts 2y agoI’m not saying they stole the plans through industrial espionage, I’m just wiggling my eyebrows suggestively while glancing in the direction of the suspiciously similar looking booster.
- ls612 2y agoIs this the same company that had their booster fly into the air when they were trying to static fire test it?
- jiggawatts 2y agoThey must have forgotten to steal the plans for the hold down clamps.
- m4rtink 2y agoWell, that kinda shows a potentially another speed "advantage" - less paperwork and reduced safety requirements.
- Kerb_ 2y agoI promise you the fancy technology is in the electronics, software, and implementation, and not the fact that the cylinder with legs looks like another cylinder with legs
- adastra22 2y agoIt’s a literal clone of starship, down to the flaps and grid fins.
- Tier3r 2y agoChinese startups have historically been the only ones to be able to move as fast as Musk. One very underrated ability of Tesla is they can develop new products in 2-3 years from conception to market. The only other car companies to do it at scale is BYD, Nio and Xpeng. The company he is talking about is probably LandSpace. They got from conception to hop test in what seems to be 5, maybe 4 years. SpaceX took 7.
- shirro 2y agoI think China has about 5 companies working on reusable launch and it is part of a national government strategy. People can argue about the timeline but it is inevitable.
- WalterBright 2y agoWhy does it pain you? Musk's SpaceX has produced several enormous advancements in space technology. SpaceX is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, private technology company in history.
- andrewstuart2 2y agoI think it pains some of us to say it because of the person Musk has turned out to be, which is the opposite direction I think many of us were hoping his character development would take him.
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago[dead]
- WalterBright 2y agoWhat terrible thing has Musk done?
- jiggawatts 2y agoSupported Trump.
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago[dead]
- WalterBright 2y agoThe Democrats have a sad history of denigrating Musk, which is likely why he changed from being a Democrat to a Republican.
- jiggawatts 2y agoYou don’t spend that kind of money and risk alienating your entire customer base (and future workforce!) just because of a slight. Musk is getting something from Trump: most likely protection from some legal issue.
- asadotzler 2y agoWildly incorrect. New Glenn is already here.
- mkl 2y agoNo it isn't. It might be soon in some early way: "the first launch is expected to take place no earlier than November 2024", "The booster for the flight is named So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance, alluding to the difficulty of landing a reusable booster on the first attempt." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn