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This seems like a fairly disingenuous comment. SpaceX gets credit and rightly so because they have achieved things which no national space agency nor private c

This seems like a fairly disingenuous comment. SpaceX gets credit and rightly so because they have achieved things which no national space agency nor private company has ever done before, and done it faster and at a lower budget than anyone has done before. Every other national space agency and private company had both infinitely more money, time, and engineers than SpaceX did (when founded) yet they were making zero progress on reusable rockets, cheap super heavy lift capacity to orbit, and America had no way of taking their own astronauts to the space station! Musk (hate him or love him) founded a company from nothing which has exceeded the capabilities of nasa and the us government, the European space agency, and the russian space agency, as well as ULA, Boeing, Lockheed etc. They have the first rocket ever made which can take payloads to orbit and then be reused. They have the most cost effective rocket ever made for taking loads to orbit. They have reused rockets up to 20 times! They have build the most powerful rocket ever built which is fully reusable. They have built the most efficient and powerful rocket engines ever built before. And they have done it all incredibly quickly starting from nothing. Oh and they also built a massive internet constellation providing fast and cheap satellite internet to the whole world, saving countless lives and also helping stimulate economies across the world as well as enabling more remote work etc. So much of what they have done was considered impossible or not economical or not practical or so difficult other countries or companies didn’t even TRY. So yes. Given their success it’s worth trying to understand their development methodology, which is iterate fast and fail lots and learn lots. Given how much they’ve kicked the shit out of the SLS program in capability and budget and also how they’ve crushed Blue Origin (which started earlier with more budget) who both operate in a more old fashioned way, I would certainly say it’s important to acknowledge they may be doing something right!

me_me_me 2y ago
> SpaceX gets credit and rightly so because they have achieved things which no national space agency nor private company has ever done before Such as?
- jbgt 2y ago
  Landing boosters, reducing costs etc etc
  - me_me_me 2y ago
    Is that it? Landing boosters is not saving money as of now. Because a rocket engine is not a rental bike. Hmmm I wonder if there was a tech that recovered a spacecraft and tried to reuse it to cut costs... hmmm... no, nothing comes to mind Also SpaceX is charging Nasa more than russians did when they had monopoly over space flights.
    - inemesitaffia 2y ago
      Landing boosters saves money and helps with cadence. SpaceX is charging NASA less. Even Boeing is charging NASA less than Russia.
- jve 2y ago
  Maybe this will help you see it: https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/1874191808751972447 https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/1874191808751972447 The whole world combined VS SpaceX has less mass to orbit. Either whole nations are not interested in that much mass to orbit or they don't have the capability. Or financial means/incentive to compete against that commercial entity. But they do and at least in China they start to work on reusable rockets and ULA is for sale because they don't have one.
  - me_me_me 2y ago
    I guess that's an 'achievement'?
    - Albatross9237 2y ago
      What would you consider an achievement then? The point of a rocket is to deliver mass to space.
      - me_me_me 2y ago
        Nobody credits boeing with a achievement of caring most people in planes. We credit Wright brother with creating first airplane. Cargo rockets is to elo is an old tech, a participation award for you and your convincing arguments (you and you ilk - producing numerous 'achievements' called 'etc. etc.').
tsimionescu 2y ago
The achievements you quote are highly overblown. SpaceX sells capacity to orbit somewhat cheaper than anyone else on the market, but not by some huge margin - half the cost or so, at best. They also don't have any fully reusable rockets today, and Starship is still probably a year or more from being production-ready. It remains to be seen how reusable Starship will actually be, how long it will take to refurbish and get ready for spaceflight, and how many reentries it can actually take. And it still remains to be seen how much Starship will actually gain from being fully reusable, by the way - landing a rocket costs lots of extra fuel, so it's not a no-brainer that a fully reusable rocket would have a much better cost/kg-to-orbit than a non reusable one. Especially for anything higher than LEO, Starship can't actually carry enough fuel, so it depends on expensive additional launches to refuel in orbit - a maneoveur that will probably take another year or more to finalize, and that greatly increases the cost of a Starship mission beyond LEO. Finally, Starlink is nice, but it's extremely expensive for most users outside very rich areas of the world, and has in no way had the impact you are claiming. Laying out cable internet is FAR cheaper than satellite internet can ever be, especially in rural areas, so beyond cases where cables and even wireless are completely impossible (ocean, war-torn areas), it doesn't and won't ever have any major impact. I'm also very curious where you got the idea that it "saved countless lives".
- jve 2y ago
  Feels weird to read such comments on HN. 10 years ago people were talking that landing rockets is impossible. Then whether they can be reused. Then whether there is any economical gain doing so. As for starlink - they have explosive revenue growth. Alot of businesses want one. Planes, ships, trains, military, rural areas, they are actually profiting from the operations and not loosing money and I still have to read comments like that. Btw ULA reasonable launch price of today is because of SpaceX competition > ULA was awarded a DoD contract in December 2013 to provide 36 rocket cores for up to 28 launches. The award drew protest from SpaceX, which said the cost of ULA's launches were approximately US$460 million each and proposed a price of US$90 million to provide similar launches.[16] In response, Gass said ULA's average launch price was US$225 million, with future launches as low as US$100 million. I suspect SpaceX margins are very high and they can fund the starship development. Margins/prices may change as BO reaches reusability.
cma 2y ago
> They have the first rocket ever made which can take payloads to orbit and then be reused. The space shuttle did this over 40 years ago. You can argue SpaceX have the first economical one 40 years later, but the second stage isn't reusable. Once they get starship working they might have it. Their finances aren't public but there is some stuff to go on where we can say Falcon is probably economical despite not recovering the second stage. This TED talk from Gwynne Shotwell says they will have reuse of starship so dialed in that in 3 years (from now) they will be competitive with commercial airliners and be operating for consumers in production: https://www.ted.com/talks/gwynne_shotwell_spacex_s_plan_to_fly_you_across_the_globe_in_30_minutes https://www.ted.com/talks/gwynne_shotwell_spacex_s_plan_to_f... To be safe enough for that I would have expected thousands of flawless flights by now. They said in 2020 it was still on track for 2028 but the Dear Moon project was canceled since that last update.
- saberience 2y ago
  The space shuttle lol? Are you not considering the fact that the huge external tank and the two SRBs were destroyed every time? Not to mention the insane costs of refurbishing each space shuttle, not the mention the insanely bad safety of the shuttle and the 14 astronauts who died in it! Space shuttle, while cool, was really, really bad design, bad safety, and totally uneconomical. It was definitely cooler than Soyuz, but Soyuz was cheaper and more safe. There's a reason the US abandoned space shuttle and had to beg the Russians to use Soyuz to send their astronauts to the space station.
  - cma 2y ago
    The SRBs could land in the ocean with parachutes and be recovered and refurbished. Shuttle wasn't economical as I mentioned, and definitely the space shuttle wasn't safe. What you claimed was: "They have the first rocket ever made which can take payloads to orbit and then be reused." That was known as the space shuttle. The ~$40 million tank was expendable so you are right it wasn't full reuse either. Starship jettisons parts too, I believe the hot staging ring? And the Falcon series throws away the whole upper stage.
computerex 2y ago
This reads like propaganda.

me_me_me 2y ago

> SpaceX gets credit and rightly so because they have achieved things which no national space agency nor private company has ever done before Such as?

jbgt 2y ago
Landing boosters, reducing costs etc etc
- me_me_me 2y ago
  Is that it? Landing boosters is not saving money as of now. Because a rocket engine is not a rental bike. Hmmm I wonder if there was a tech that recovered a spacecraft and tried to reuse it to cut costs... hmmm... no, nothing comes to mind Also SpaceX is charging Nasa more than russians did when they had monopoly over space flights.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Landing boosters saves money and helps with cadence. SpaceX is charging NASA less. Even Boeing is charging NASA less than Russia.
jve 2y ago
Maybe this will help you see it: https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/1874191808751972447 https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/1874191808751972447 The whole world combined VS SpaceX has less mass to orbit. Either whole nations are not interested in that much mass to orbit or they don't have the capability. Or financial means/incentive to compete against that commercial entity. But they do and at least in China they start to work on reusable rockets and ULA is for sale because they don't have one.
- me_me_me 2y ago
  I guess that's an 'achievement'?
  - Albatross9237 2y ago
    What would you consider an achievement then? The point of a rocket is to deliver mass to space.
    - me_me_me 2y ago
      Nobody credits boeing with a achievement of caring most people in planes. We credit Wright brother with creating first airplane. Cargo rockets is to elo is an old tech, a participation award for you and your convincing arguments (you and you ilk - producing numerous 'achievements' called 'etc. etc.').

tsimionescu 2y ago

The achievements you quote are highly overblown. SpaceX sells capacity to orbit somewhat cheaper than anyone else on the market, but not by some huge margin - half the cost or so, at best. They also don't have any fully reusable rockets today, and Starship is still probably a year or more from being production-ready. It remains to be seen how reusable Starship will actually be, how long it will take to refurbish and get ready for spaceflight, and how many reentries it can actually take. And it still remains to be seen how much Starship will actually gain from being fully reusable, by the way - landing a rocket costs lots of extra fuel, so it's not a no-brainer that a fully reusable rocket would have a much better cost/kg-to-orbit than a non reusable one. Especially for anything higher than LEO, Starship can't actually carry enough fuel, so it depends on expensive additional launches to refuel in orbit - a maneoveur that will probably take another year or more to finalize, and that greatly increases the cost of a Starship mission beyond LEO. Finally, Starlink is nice, but it's extremely expensive for most users outside very rich areas of the world, and has in no way had the impact you are claiming. Laying out cable internet is FAR cheaper than satellite internet can ever be, especially in rural areas, so beyond cases where cables and even wireless are completely impossible (ocean, war-torn areas), it doesn't and won't ever have any major impact. I'm also very curious where you got the idea that it "saved countless lives".

jve 2y ago
Feels weird to read such comments on HN. 10 years ago people were talking that landing rockets is impossible. Then whether they can be reused. Then whether there is any economical gain doing so. As for starlink - they have explosive revenue growth. Alot of businesses want one. Planes, ships, trains, military, rural areas, they are actually profiting from the operations and not loosing money and I still have to read comments like that. Btw ULA reasonable launch price of today is because of SpaceX competition > ULA was awarded a DoD contract in December 2013 to provide 36 rocket cores for up to 28 launches. The award drew protest from SpaceX, which said the cost of ULA's launches were approximately US$460 million each and proposed a price of US$90 million to provide similar launches.[16] In response, Gass said ULA's average launch price was US$225 million, with future launches as low as US$100 million. I suspect SpaceX margins are very high and they can fund the starship development. Margins/prices may change as BO reaches reusability.

cma 2y ago

> They have the first rocket ever made which can take payloads to orbit and then be reused. The space shuttle did this over 40 years ago. You can argue SpaceX have the first economical one 40 years later, but the second stage isn't reusable. Once they get starship working they might have it. Their finances aren't public but there is some stuff to go on where we can say Falcon is probably economical despite not recovering the second stage. This TED talk from Gwynne Shotwell says they will have reuse of starship so dialed in that in 3 years (from now) they will be competitive with commercial airliners and be operating for consumers in production: https://www.ted.com/talks/gwynne_shotwell_spacex_s_plan_to_fly_you_across_the_globe_in_30_minutes https://www.ted.com/talks/gwynne_shotwell_spacex_s_plan_to_f... To be safe enough for that I would have expected thousands of flawless flights by now. They said in 2020 it was still on track for 2028 but the Dear Moon project was canceled since that last update.

saberience 2y ago
The space shuttle lol? Are you not considering the fact that the huge external tank and the two SRBs were destroyed every time? Not to mention the insane costs of refurbishing each space shuttle, not the mention the insanely bad safety of the shuttle and the 14 astronauts who died in it! Space shuttle, while cool, was really, really bad design, bad safety, and totally uneconomical. It was definitely cooler than Soyuz, but Soyuz was cheaper and more safe. There's a reason the US abandoned space shuttle and had to beg the Russians to use Soyuz to send their astronauts to the space station.
- cma 2y ago
  The SRBs could land in the ocean with parachutes and be recovered and refurbished. Shuttle wasn't economical as I mentioned, and definitely the space shuttle wasn't safe. What you claimed was: "They have the first rocket ever made which can take payloads to orbit and then be reused." That was known as the space shuttle. The ~$40 million tank was expendable so you are right it wasn't full reuse either. Starship jettisons parts too, I believe the hot staging ring? And the Falcon series throws away the whole upper stage.

computerex 2y ago

This reads like propaganda.