6 ms·

It's remarkable that, for a bunch of young people who don't know what they're doing, they've completely decimated any competitors - both public and private.

renewiltord 2y ago
These guys are idiots, fucking morons, and can’t get anything right. Somehow they’re also outcompeting us on everything. It isn’t clear why, but it must be because we are smarter.
- ben_w 2y ago
  China very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing despite this being deliberately made difficult by ITAR, suggests there's a lot of room for the American (and ESA) competitors to be structurally inept without needing Musk's staff to be demonstrating an unusual (as opposed to industry standard) degree of genius.
  - emusan 2y ago
    They have copied the external look of the rockets (which is, for obvious reasons, not protected by ITAR), but to my knowledge no one, China or otherwise, has managed to match the internal engineering prowess nearly a decade later. To say that China is "very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing" is quite the stretch.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Blue Origin has finally turned it around and is getting close to matching SpaceX.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        I sure hope so, but also caution (admittedly as an outsider, your posts suggest greater familiarity than I have) that there's not enough evidence yet to be confident of that — finally getting to launch is really impressive, but their first orbital capable rocket is still a sample size of 1. (Counter point is that New Glenn's one orbital launch is more impressive than all of the Starship launches combined, as SpaceX is willing to burn hardware during tests and they have many more Starship tests to go).
        adastra22 2y ago
        I know people at SpaceX, but I don't know anyone at Blue Origin. We're all very curious to know what has changed, as they very clearly have made changes. There was a large shakeup in company management there in late 2023, and the turnaround on timeline was stunning. They are certainly moving very, very fast now.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    China is the world's largest economy by large (in terms of their internal costs - PPP), have 1.4 billion people meaning a proportionally larger share of extremely capable outliers, a highly capable technocratic orientated leadership with defacto authoritarian powers to get things done, and they are highly motivated to demonstrate successes in space. And a lot of SpaceX's 'secret sauce' isn't really secretive. For instance that Starship is made out of stainless steel is a big deal, but now provably correct. And rapid reuse/landing is again now obviously viable and a very good idea, which was not at all apparent for many years. In spite of all of this they are still a very distant 2nd place behind SpaceX. If anything ITAR hurts more than helps SpaceX since it means their talent pool is strictly limited to strictly domestic talent. They seriously have something "special" going on.
    - verzali 2y ago
      Are they behind? China has a space station and they have done a sample return from the Moon. They've landed on Mars as well. If you stick to a narrow definition of rockets, there's a case to put SpaceX ahead. But overall, they are closing the gap with the US very quickly. I would not be surprised if they put humans on the Moon before Artemis or SpaceX.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        Yeah I'm definitely only speaking in terms of rockets. In terms of achievements I think China is probably #1 overall, but it's close -- SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission puts them well ahead in terms of human spaceflight. That said if we just dropped the whole SLS nonsense and started dedicating NASA's $20 billion+ per year to actually doing stuff, our achievements would rapidly surpass given the edge in rocketry. Artemis definitely isn't going to be putting anybody on the Moon. It again relies on the SLS which is just an endless money pit. But I do think it'll be interesting to see if SpaceX gets there before China. But I think the big picture is on Mars. I expect whoever gets their first will probably foretell who dominates space for the next century. Because once you can put men on Mars, the entire Solar System starts to viably become your playground.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Damn, all these fucking morons and idiots are not structurally inept and everyone else somehow is. It must be because we are very intelligent that these morons are successful.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I'm not entirely clear who you're mocking here; Boeing, trying to understand why SpaceX and China are doing well? If so, we're on the same page.
dastbe 2y ago
all the other competitors are unserious and/or treating it as a money siphoning scheme. in particular, the public contractors siphoning money from the government and blue origin siphoning money from bezos. It would be surprising if spacex wasn't just awful at paying things on time, as there's no reason they should have actual financial difficulties.
adastra22 2y ago
I don't know what the person you are replying to is talking about. They clearly don't know anyone who works at SpaceX. The age there does trend young, but think 24-year-old flight controller for Apollo, not intern that doesn't know anything. I have friends who work at SpaceX and gripe about how difficult it is to hire people. But not for lack of applicants--their standards are just so high. Nearly everyone working at SpaceX is cracked.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  > 24-year-old flight controller for Apollo E.g. intern that knows nothing From the perspective of a crusty old man anyway.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    The average age of everyone in the room at Mission Control during Apollo 11 was 28. The managers in the room were outliers (e.g. Gene Kranz was 36), which drew the average up. The median age was younger. The Manhattan Project was made possible by similarly young grad students. You can be as crusty as you like, but the reality is that young smart people can be extraordinarily effective under the right conditions.
    - verzali 2y ago
      Flight controllers execute the mission, but they also rely on the engineers who built the things and wrote the procedures. Flight controllers often are young, even today and even in control centres outside SpaceX. The engineers designing and building the systems tend to be a bit older.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        Not in the Apollo days they weren't. They were almost all straight out of engineering school.
- verzali 2y ago
  I know a few people working at SpaceX. Most are good. But a few I wonder how they ever got hired there. As a customer of SpaceX, though, I have to say their customer service is barebones. It is almost a relief when I work with another launch provider since they provide a much better service and support. I always compare it to a low cost airline in my head, like flying Spirit instead of Emirates kind of thing.
lmm 2y ago
They've outcompeted by improving their designs faster, by being willing to take risks and do stuff that might work, rather than requiring 9000 levels of process for everything. To my mind that's completely consistent with the kind of company that might lose track of some invoices and not pay until a supplier kicks up enough of a fuss.

renewiltord 2y ago

These guys are idiots, fucking morons, and can’t get anything right. Somehow they’re also outcompeting us on everything. It isn’t clear why, but it must be because we are smarter.

ben_w 2y ago
China very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing despite this being deliberately made difficult by ITAR, suggests there's a lot of room for the American (and ESA) competitors to be structurally inept without needing Musk's staff to be demonstrating an unusual (as opposed to industry standard) degree of genius.
- emusan 2y ago
  They have copied the external look of the rockets (which is, for obvious reasons, not protected by ITAR), but to my knowledge no one, China or otherwise, has managed to match the internal engineering prowess nearly a decade later. To say that China is "very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing" is quite the stretch.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Blue Origin has finally turned it around and is getting close to matching SpaceX.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I sure hope so, but also caution (admittedly as an outsider, your posts suggest greater familiarity than I have) that there's not enough evidence yet to be confident of that — finally getting to launch is really impressive, but their first orbital capable rocket is still a sample size of 1. (Counter point is that New Glenn's one orbital launch is more impressive than all of the Starship launches combined, as SpaceX is willing to burn hardware during tests and they have many more Starship tests to go).
      - adastra22 2y ago
        I know people at SpaceX, but I don't know anyone at Blue Origin. We're all very curious to know what has changed, as they very clearly have made changes. There was a large shakeup in company management there in late 2023, and the turnaround on timeline was stunning. They are certainly moving very, very fast now.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  China is the world's largest economy by large (in terms of their internal costs - PPP), have 1.4 billion people meaning a proportionally larger share of extremely capable outliers, a highly capable technocratic orientated leadership with defacto authoritarian powers to get things done, and they are highly motivated to demonstrate successes in space. And a lot of SpaceX's 'secret sauce' isn't really secretive. For instance that Starship is made out of stainless steel is a big deal, but now provably correct. And rapid reuse/landing is again now obviously viable and a very good idea, which was not at all apparent for many years. In spite of all of this they are still a very distant 2nd place behind SpaceX. If anything ITAR hurts more than helps SpaceX since it means their talent pool is strictly limited to strictly domestic talent. They seriously have something "special" going on.
  - verzali 2y ago
    Are they behind? China has a space station and they have done a sample return from the Moon. They've landed on Mars as well. If you stick to a narrow definition of rockets, there's a case to put SpaceX ahead. But overall, they are closing the gap with the US very quickly. I would not be surprised if they put humans on the Moon before Artemis or SpaceX.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      Yeah I'm definitely only speaking in terms of rockets. In terms of achievements I think China is probably #1 overall, but it's close -- SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission puts them well ahead in terms of human spaceflight. That said if we just dropped the whole SLS nonsense and started dedicating NASA's $20 billion+ per year to actually doing stuff, our achievements would rapidly surpass given the edge in rocketry. Artemis definitely isn't going to be putting anybody on the Moon. It again relies on the SLS which is just an endless money pit. But I do think it'll be interesting to see if SpaceX gets there before China. But I think the big picture is on Mars. I expect whoever gets their first will probably foretell who dominates space for the next century. Because once you can put men on Mars, the entire Solar System starts to viably become your playground.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Damn, all these fucking morons and idiots are not structurally inept and everyone else somehow is. It must be because we are very intelligent that these morons are successful.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I'm not entirely clear who you're mocking here; Boeing, trying to understand why SpaceX and China are doing well? If so, we're on the same page.

dastbe 2y ago

all the other competitors are unserious and/or treating it as a money siphoning scheme. in particular, the public contractors siphoning money from the government and blue origin siphoning money from bezos. It would be surprising if spacex wasn't just awful at paying things on time, as there's no reason they should have actual financial difficulties.

adastra22 2y ago

I don't know what the person you are replying to is talking about. They clearly don't know anyone who works at SpaceX. The age there does trend young, but think 24-year-old flight controller for Apollo, not intern that doesn't know anything. I have friends who work at SpaceX and gripe about how difficult it is to hire people. But not for lack of applicants--their standards are just so high. Nearly everyone working at SpaceX is cracked.

Aeolun 2y ago
> 24-year-old flight controller for Apollo E.g. intern that knows nothing From the perspective of a crusty old man anyway.
- adastra22 2y ago
  The average age of everyone in the room at Mission Control during Apollo 11 was 28. The managers in the room were outliers (e.g. Gene Kranz was 36), which drew the average up. The median age was younger. The Manhattan Project was made possible by similarly young grad students. You can be as crusty as you like, but the reality is that young smart people can be extraordinarily effective under the right conditions.
  - verzali 2y ago
    Flight controllers execute the mission, but they also rely on the engineers who built the things and wrote the procedures. Flight controllers often are young, even today and even in control centres outside SpaceX. The engineers designing and building the systems tend to be a bit older.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Not in the Apollo days they weren't. They were almost all straight out of engineering school.
verzali 2y ago
I know a few people working at SpaceX. Most are good. But a few I wonder how they ever got hired there. As a customer of SpaceX, though, I have to say their customer service is barebones. It is almost a relief when I work with another launch provider since they provide a much better service and support. I always compare it to a low cost airline in my head, like flying Spirit instead of Emirates kind of thing.

lmm 2y ago

They've outcompeted by improving their designs faster, by being willing to take risks and do stuff that might work, rather than requiring 9000 levels of process for everything. To my mind that's completely consistent with the kind of company that might lose track of some invoices and not pay until a supplier kicks up enough of a fuss.