What It Took For SpaceX To Become a Serious Space Company 96
An anonymous reader writes: The Atlantic has a nice profile of SpaceX's rise to prominence — how a private startup managed to successfully compete with industry giants like Boeing in just a decade of existence. "Regardless of its inspirations, the company was forced to adopt a prosaic initial goal: Make a rocket at least 10 times cheaper than is possible today. Until it can do that, neither flowers nor people can go to Mars with any economy. With rocket technology, Musk has said, "you're really left with one key parameter against which technology improvements must be judged, and that's cost." SpaceX currently charges $61.2 million per launch. Its cost-per-kilogram of cargo to low-earth orbit, $4,653, is far less than the $14,000 to $39,000 offered by its chief American competitor, the United Launch Alliance. Other providers often charge $250 to $400 million per launch; NASA pays Russia $70 million per astronaut to hitch a ride on its three-person Soyuz spacecraft. SpaceX's costs are still nowhere near low enough to change the economics of space as Musk and his investors envision, but they have a plan to do so (of which more later)."
just like all supervillians (Score:4, Funny)
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Wake me when he DOES something,
You mean something other than obscene amounts of money, right? Like, end poverty. Or, cure ebola.
Jaded hipsters (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another Musk fantasy with no hope of becoming reality. Wake me when he DOES something, rather than pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
What have you done that is so spectacular? Go ahead and dazzle us.
Elon Musk has founded several very influential companies, turning those industries upside down in the process. You actually think starting Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX is not impressive? If that doesn't impress you then you plainly don't understand what all that means. You don't have to like the guy but he's certainly earned a measure of respect for his accomplishments.
Re:Jaded hipsters (Score:4)
All because he sold questionably valuable software company in the Internet dotcom boom.
There is no question. Paypal is quite valuable - worth billions of dollars. Whether you personally like the product is of no consequence or relevance.
The rest gets easier when you have millions in capital.
Easier != Easy. There are plenty of people with the sort of capital Elon Musk has and damn few of them have accomplished anywhere close to as much. Few have even started one company as successful as Paypal, Tesla or SpaceX much less three.
I mind Slashdot's endless fellating of him more than I mind him.
Then go somewhere else and take your condescension with you. Nobody is forcing you to be here.
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Re:Easy! Fraud.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, PayPal was among the first revolutionary online-payment services that enabled the rapid expansion of e-commerce. What you know now as the "evil PayPal" is what happened after Ebay bought it.
I still can't believe it is legal, in so many ways. I mean, I don't think anybody could argue ebay is not a monopoly in the online auction space, and yet they are allowed to only permit their own payment service (so they take a percentage on top of their commission).
Then, they hold your money like a bank account and even extend credit, and yet, unlike banks, they can freeze your money with no explanation.
The PayPal situation boggles the mind, but it is not related to Musk's X.com/PayPal.
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The ebay/paypal double dipping is frustrating, and the money freezing risks are pretty sketchy, but for the most part, paypal is a useful and functional service. I have used it to buy and sell many things (both on and off ebay) without issue. I also use it to print postage for most things (their multi-order shipping thing is easier to use than any other site I have
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EBay is no more a monopoly than Google is in search.
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How are they ripping people off?
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You and I are both lucky ones, who have never had a problem with Paypal. Other people get caught in Paypal hell, where they freeze funds and simply never release them. (They don't have to - they aren't a bank!)
I'm not going to provide citations. Please use Google.
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That's often how people become rich: first you steal from the poor, then you steal from the rich.
Example: there's a guy in my neighborhood who ran one of those "cheque cashing businesses" for a while. People so poor and destitute they can't even get a bank account. So he charges them 15% or whatever, it doesn't matter because poor people can't afford lawyers and in any case it's hard to do legal research when you're hungry or too tired from a day at the warehouse. (A job where incidentally you need to bring
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No, when you have no choice because the system is rigged against you from the start, it's stealing.
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Banks don't offer bank accounts to people with bad credit, they have bad credit because they can't get a bank account... Help the people get a bank account, or charge 15% off every transaction?
I think the answer tells a lot about you as a person, and us as a creature.
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The 15% from a poor person's paycheck. Do you have to pay a 15% service fee on your paycheck?
Read it again slower if it helps.
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"They consent to the fee when they choose to cash the check at the place that tells them up-front that there's a fee for cashing the check."
That's my whole point, there is no choice.
" banks don't deny accounts to people for having bad credit."
Banks vary depending in jurisdiction.
" you also described establishing businesses as "stealing from the rich""
What do you call a 250$ shave? Or a 50$ salad?? It's consensual theft, both parties know it's not worth that amount.
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"That's not your point at all, because there is a choice. There are multiple choices."
There aren't.
"So what you're saying is that it's not in any way impossible to get a bank account on account of being "too poor"."
Sure, because they first thing a warehouse worker does on payday Friday is fly over to a place where the laws are different... What universe are you in?
"Expensive. But that's entirely different than being "stealing"."
Maybe there's a better word for it, but the whole idea is that we in the West ar
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"there are ways to get a bank account regardless"
Which I believe I addressed here "people can't afford lawyers and in any case it's hard to do legal research when you're hungry or too tired from a day at the warehouse."
There's a whole ecosystem of systemic poverty that psychopaths can exploit.
Say, why don't you open a business to help people open bank accounts for 14% of their paycheck? Should be simple and very ethical, right?
I love it when well-fed, well-rested, well-educated people pontificate about what
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"You will now continue the shrieking tantrum you have been throwing"
Hmmm....
"You will attempt to mask your impotent rage behind a facade of affected amusement, and you will continue to fail miserably."
Hmmmm....
"I did not do that"
You sure did: "They consent to the fee when they choose to cash the check"
They're not choosing. That's my whole point. They *have* no choice. That's the stealing part.
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Um logic fallacy much? Following that logic, nobody would have a bank account. People are not born with a bank account, so with that logic, they could not get any. In almost all cases where people don't have a bank account is because they have bad credit based on the plain fact that they failed to pay their dues. When you have no prior debt your credit score is plainly not so abysmal that you will not get a bank account; they won't give you a large credit though.
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Could you emulate his "success"? Of course not.
What certification means (Score:3)
They get all that done AND do all the technical documentation crap that other people pretend makes their components so expensive.
That's really not that big a deal. Being AS9100 or ISO9000 registered basically involves documenting the stuff you already have to do anyway in order to run your organization well and then actually doing what you document. It's really not all that big a deal. It doesn't mean you produce a good or bad product - it simply means you say what you do and do what you say. Pretty much any company that wants to do business in aerospace is AS9100 certified just like almost every company that works in automotive
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Anyone who claims that ISO9000 means they produce a good product is either lying or doesn't understand what ISO9000 means.
Although I agree with your assertion, the misconception comes from the fact the standard is "ISO 9000 - Quality management". The disconnect comes from the assumption that quality == good. The standards where introduced for quality management and to provide a basis to improve product quality. In addition most companies introduced ISO 9001 in the hopes to improve product and service quality. The silver bullet to solve all quality issues. What most missed is the simple fact that you need to do something with a
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In addition most companies introduced ISO 9001 in the hopes to improve product and service quality.
Most companies introduced ISO9000 (and similar) because their customers required them to do so. If you are in the supply chain for automotive and want to do business with Ford or its suppliers you will be required to be ISO9000 (or TS16949) registered. Same thing with aerospace and the AS equivalent standards. Some take it seriously and use the quality system as intended but plenty of them just regard it as a pointless bureaucratic hurdle to be circumvented whenever possible.
What most missed is the simple fact that you need to do something with all the data you collected and actually improve the production process.
I don't think they missed tha
To compete in price (Score:5, Interesting)
To compete in price against anyone you only need money. With enough money, you can set a price of $0.
The main question is "will they be able to recover the cost of that competence once they get the contracts?" and it's way too soon to know the answer to that.
It's like judging the acquisition of online "businesses". Nobody can prove the price was or wasn't right until the buyer makes that back as profit or doesn't.
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No, to compete in price against anyone you only need assets. That can be money, or it can be tangible assets, such as rocket parts that remain in serviceable condition after a launch. Probably no one here will like it, but under current law, even "intellectual property" counts as an asset.
He'll Never.. (Score:2)
find a battery charging station on Mars.
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I'm sure the solar panels from defunct rovers could provide at least a trickle charge.
And he can put a better charging station there later.
A potload of money (Score:3)
It took a ton of money and the vision of a leader looking more than 3 years into the future. Anyone with enough money and willingness to throw that money at a "problem" will be able to compete.
A big war chest isn't enough sometimes (Score:3)
Anyone with enough money and willingness to throw that money at a "problem" will be able to compete.
Just because you throw lots of money at a problem doesn't mean you'll ever make a profit. If you cannot make a profit you will eventually go out of business. A bottomless (or effectively so) checkbook isn't necessarily enough. For example Microsoft may never make back all the money they invested in trying to make the Xbox competitive. Sure they "competed" but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best.
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Has anyone indicated that SpaceX is making a profit yet? From the article it wasn't obvious that they are now or in the next couple of years.
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You don't think the videos they sometimes release are real?
but do they show the good stuff? how about technie stuff but understandably they hold this back, proprietary info. SpaceX has been known to cut the live feed when something goes wrong. And the landing of Dream Chaser when landing gear failed they cut that part out but they claim the landing test was a success (if it's so great then why not show the vid?). I heard the craft did not tumble like the M2F2 (as shown on opening of Six Milllion Dollar Man) but if they're taking govt money (tax payer) then I cry fo
Huh? (Score:2)
SpaceX's costs are still nowhere near low enough to change the economics of space as Musk and his investors envision, but they have a plan to do so (of which more later).
Long extension cord?
Blah blah Elon call me when (Score:2)
Re:Blah blah Elon call me when (Score:4)
Nonsense. It's all vaporware until they at the very least have a reasonably dense Dyson sphere around the solar system.
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By that definition, nobody has a serious space industry, not even the government players.
Actually I think I might almost agree with you, but that's not a ding against SpaceX, it's a ding against our species.
I don't agree about launching more habs that we can fill with people - I'd just like to see enough SOMETHING launched to make opportunities. I'd also like to see a second basket to keep some of our species eggs in.
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Simple really, but not easy (Score:4)
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Like Soyuz.
For all the people not appreciating Elon Musk (Score:1)
they should get Nasa to use them (Score:1)
At $4,653/kg to LEO it would cost rought 400K to push an average human to LEO which is significantly lower than what NASA pays the russians to do the exact same thing, hell they could make all their profit margins with massive room to spare by only charging NASA 1/10th what they pay Russia. Why is NASA wasting our money and boosting russias economy instead of doing this which would save massive amounts of money that could be spent otherways and would boost our local US economy by having the money re-enter
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Why is NASA wasting our money and boosting russias economy instead of doing this which would save massive amounts of money that could be spent otherways and would boost our local US economy by having the money re-enter circulation here.
Because if the astronauts die everyone has a bad day
Re:they should get Nasa to use them (Score:4, Informative)
At $4,653/kg to LEO it would cost rought 400K to push an average human to LEO
Don't forget your life support and re-entry systems.
"Prosaic" initial goal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Make a rocket at least 10 times cheaper than is possible today.
Hardly "prosaic"; Sounds pretty damn ambitious to me.
OK, they had access to some of the body of knowledge so expensively won by the Germans, USA, Russians et al, but they're still privately funded, developed in-house a working product that's much, much cheaper than the competition and employ nearly 4000 people.
Like Musk or not, he made it work so far.
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Hardly "prosaic"; Sounds pretty damn ambitious to me.
Prosaic isn't the opposite of ambitious. It's the opposite of poetic.
"To secure humanity's future in the stars." - ambitious and poetic
"To make a rocket 10 times cheaper." - ambitious and prosaic
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Referring to the goal as prosaic isn't a good usage of the word. Used correctly, the header would have been something like: "...began with a prosaic declaration: Make a rocket at least 10 times cheaper than is possible today." Nothing about the initial goal is prosaic; it is the way Elon Musk described it in his manifesto for SpaceX that was blunt and matter of fact.
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A SpaceX flyback first stage a) only resuse part of the rocket and b) has to be reintegrated with the rest of the rocket before launching again
Of course, you're ignoring that a) the first stage has most of the engines (and consequently most of cost savings) and b) SpaceX has been planning to fly the second stage back to the pad also
it seems without any further evidence that getting a Skylon prepared for reuse is simpler because you get the entire vehicle back just as it left.
Baseless assumption; you're looking exclusively at reintegration times when other factors could easily be dominant in this equation. How easy is it to clear Skylon's heat shield for another launch?
I doubt the future will be Falcon vs Skylon though. If Skylon proves viable, why wouldn't SpaceX just buy SABRE engines from reaction engines and make their own SSTO plane?
Ignoring the drawbacks of a lifting body design for a minute, why would SpaceX want to abandon their competitive edge to sim
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Skylon doesn't need to replace its heat shield. It performs a shallow re-entry that means it doesn't need nearly the same level of thermal protection as the space shuttle. No massive inspection/replacement of tiles.
So... no ceramics, no ablatives... How does it stay intact during reentry?
As for the GM argument... well, I'm from the UK. We used to have our own GM, called British Leyland. You can't buy their cars anymore. Now we assemble Nissans. Importing Japanese parts and assembling them here proved to be a better business model.
Who is "we"? Are you saying British Leyland assembles and sells cars made of Nissan parts? Or that Nissan came to the UK? Because those are two very different things, and only one of them makes any sense.
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Writing! Yuck! (Score:2)
>>"Make a rocket at least 10 times cheaper than is possible today."
Ughh! It isn't 10 times MORE of something, it's 1/10th as much of something!
Also, it's a monetary goal, not quality one. It isn't cheaper it's less expensive.
Does anyone really want to: "Make a rocket at most 1/10th the quality of what is possible today"?
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"low quality" is the third definition of cheap (according to Webster's). The first 2 are basically equivalent to "less expensive". If you want to be pedantic, do it right.
Best Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Quote from Hans Koenigsmann, early German SpaceX employee, "My German accent helps in presentations. When I say, ‘This will work,’ it is more convincing than other accents for some reason.”
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Ultimately, the success of any space enterprise seems empirically to depend on the presence of Germans.
Elon's secret (Score:1)
I don't know that much about him other than as an investor, but the thing I have noticed about Elon Musk is that he does the homework. He works the numbers and if they don't add up he does something else. So although it seems to an outsider that he is doing something wild, he is actually keeping to a dry spreadsheet.
Someone who didn't do this might have tried a newer whiz-bang battery technology for Tesla. Or maybe fuel cells. Instead he stuck with "boring" old Li-Ion battery technology because he found
A Space Pseudo-Program (Score:2)
http://www.spudislunarresource... [spudislunarresources.com]
Well at least Elon had some hardware built instead of just PPTs. But some argue commercial space companies, "To be fair, probably about 25% of New Space does have some minimal substance, but over the past decade the clear majority of them have never amount to anything beyond a press conference where they make grandiose promises