They're all military people from different countries; andsoitis's link has links to all their profiles. So it might be a commercial flight, but it's not random people.
Italy, Sweden and Turkey are paying their way. They are all military pilots. They are just paying for seats with Axiom directly rather than bartering for seats with NASA.
Tbh this seems good for all of those countries (and good for Axiom!)
Feels pretty win/win. I have some trepidation about letting capitalism decide our priorities in space, but so far it is helping us make really exciting progress
> Businesses like SpaceX and Blue Origin are really prestige/passion projects, not normal capitalist enterprises which are all just about making a buck.
Maybe that's true of Blue Origin, but you're going to need a lot more evidence to back up that claim in regards to SpaceX.
The best estimate is that they make a >50% gross margin on Falcon 9 launches (at least for external customers). And while they spend a lot on Starlink launches, they're also making quite a lot of Starlink revenue at this point.
It's certainly true that they're dumping a lot of R&D money into Starship. But that strategy is how they earned their current medium/heavy lift launch market dominance, so I can't really fault them for that. And if Starship does work out, it could set them up for a functional monopoly on launch for decades. Not to mention dramatically decreasing their internal Starlink costs.
With SpaceX, colonizing Mars is the passion / prestige project. Elon and his people are extraordinarily good at finding ways to make all the dependent sub-projects profitable while working toward the larger goal. Which is as impressive as the engineering.
Cynicism like this is tiring. To you, the moon landing must have been just marketing until Neil Armstrong stepped off the last ladder rung, but there was a decade of intense engineering effort leading up to that. You are seeing that intense engineering effort toward a Mars landing now. One does not build the largest and most powerful rocket ever constructed simply to deliver packages.
Cynicism like this is tiring. To you, the moon landing must have been just marketing until Neil Armstrong stepped off the last ladder rung, but there was a decade of intense engineering effort leading up to that. You are seeing that intense engineering effort toward a Mars landing now. One does not build the largest and most powerful rocket ever constructed simply to deliver packages.
Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a profit. Especially if you're not being stupidly short sighted.
Plus, other companies are having a hard enough time competing already (even small launch is facing tough competition from the F9 rideshares), if SpaceX dropped their prices too low, it'd quickly run most of the launch market out of business, which is not in the interests of a company that wants to improve accessibility to space.
This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing options for the specific payload.
> Being a passion project doesn't preclude making a profit. Especially if you're not being stupidly short sighted.
OK. But the comment I responded to call it a passion/prestige project and contracted it with a normal profit driven business.
> This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing options for the specific payload.
Yeah. SpaceX hasn't said anything, but I tend to believe that they'll move to a capabilities based pricing model where customers pay by the KG and/or m^3. That way they can compete for small payloads while getting paid appropriately for large ones.
OK. But the comment I responded to call it a passion/prestige project and contracted it with a normal profit driven business.
If you want to just make money, there are far easier and less risky industries you can invest your money in than launch services and rockets. You can even just invest your wealth in an index fund and earn a return that is basically risk-free.
I completely agree! I think it's generally related to the ai alignment problem, fwiw
The trick is that we need to ban fraud aggressively and then reduce the profits from endeavors we want to discourage (not sure if there are good general mechanisms. I mean we use taxes for this sometimes. Imagine if one wanted to reduce the collection of user data if instead of gdpr you created a data tax!)
I'm also very interested to hear what projects you think might be good candidates to do this with!
For Blue Origin it is true, they are not making money and a privately funded.
For SpaceX it just so hilariously wrong. SpaceX did get seed money from Musk, about 90 million. The rest is venture funded just like every other successful company.
SpaceX is a very normal capitalist company. Musk has not invested more of his own money into it. SpaceX is making money and raising money to fund future projects.
One could maybe make an argument that Musk longer has ambitions to do passion projects, but he has never perused these without building the company in a capitalist way first. Because he knows that if the company isn't successful, non of the long term plans are possible.
> not normal capitalist enterprises which are all just about making a buck
Every capitalist enterprise has owners, the owners decide what they should do. Often but not always this is 'making a buck'.
> They are just paying for seats with Axiom directly rather than bartering for seats with NASA.
To be fair to those countries, it's typically ESA that barters with NASA, not the individual member countries. And it seems like astronauts are selected in rough proportion to national contribution (generally in line with the National Return policy).
Paying for a private seat may be a more efficient way for smaller countries to get people into space.
Is Turkey even an ESA member? I don't think it's clear they'd be welcomed. This seems like a sensible way for them to dip their toes into having a space program.
The Turkish one is essentially for propaganda, being "the first Turk in space" right before the elections(although he is supposed to run some experiments for the Turkish Universities). It's still nice though, maybe will inspire some kids to pursue careers in science but there's an ongoing debate in Turkey if he is just a space tourist(it's complicated).
A fun thing is, He is from the secular demographic and his firsts words were to commemorate Ataturk and the islamists and seculars instantly switched place; Now the pro-government people say He is a space tourist and the secular opposition says he is a hero :)
This is an understatement. He was purged from the military and jailed by Islamists/Gülenists/Erdoğan using fabricated evidence and cultist judges, for "attempting a secularist coup".
I don't think it is "essentially" for propaganda. This would happen regardless, propaganda is just a side-benefit. Saying that he's "just a space tourist" would be like calling scientists that go to Antarctica for experiments "polar tourists". It is definitely overblown by the government media though.
The setup with the Axiom flights is that it's private access to a space station and associated capabilities before Axiom's own modules are ready (which are intended to start off as part of the ISS, eventually detaching and leaving their own private space station).
Idea being that this way Axiom has some revenue and is able to gain some operational experience.
Since the ticket is expensive and at least one seat is taken up by someone with spaceflight experience and AFAIK has high demand relative to the number of flights available, the people going up are doing at least something productive.
I'm not sure about the others, but the Swedish guy was "selected" from lots of different people, so just saying that "they're paying their way" seems slightly reductive:
> He was selected in November 2022 from over 22,500 applicants to join a new European astronaut group of 17 lucky recipients.
That page has lots of useful information about the project itself (although in Swedish, may DeepL et al help you), like:
> One of the two Swedish projects involves stem cell research and is led by Elena Kozlova, Professor of Regenerative Neurobiology at Uppsala University. Stem cells have previously been sent into space by sounding rockets and exposed to a few minutes of microgravity, showing that stem cells have a greater capacity to divide and develop into mature cells than they do under normal conditions on Earth. Now Marcus Wandt is taking stem cells into space for two weeks.
> In the project, Orbital Architecture, researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology want to investigate how people's physical and mental health is affected by staying in confined spaces for long periods of time. The researchers will analyze Marcus Wandt's stress, cognitive performance, heart activity and movements and compare data collected from different parts of the space station to understand how the design of space environments affects the astronauts' thinking and stress levels.
To elaborate, the Swedish astronaut, Marcus Wandt, is part of ESA's "reserve astronaut" pool; the ESA press release [1] mentions that this "is composed of astronaut candidates who were successful throughout the entire selection process but cannot be recruited at this point in time."
ESA announced Wandt's selection in November 2022. Now he's in orbit, less than 15 months later! This is the fastest time between selection and orbit in history that I know of. No doubt there are full-time ESA astronauts announced with Wandt who are now dumbfounded that a backup is flying before them, not to mention those in earlier batches.
This sort of thing has happened in the US, too. When NASA began flying payload specialists <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_specialist> on the shuttle, that program included people who had been turned down by the NASA astronaut program, like Charles Walker and Byron Lichtenberg. They got to fly before many who had been selected in the same intakes they themselves had been rejected from! Walker flew three times (!) in fifteen months, and Lichtenberg flew twice. (Walker was selected for his first shuttle flight in May 1983 and the first attempt to launch was in June 1984, so he would have been the record holder had that happened; he went up in August.)
Ars Technica's article [1] has more background. The commander is a former NASA astronaut with a lot of experience who now works for Axiom; the three passengers are military officers whose governments have contracted with Axiom.
Axiom, like the space ship in Wall-e? Heck, why not I guess...
Considering the crew, and who actually pays for the launch, I guess commercial or sub-contracted are bettwr terms to discribe the mission. Private space mission aoinda way to much like rich dudes space tourism. Military astronauts and a selected scientist using a non-government launch and space craft, commanded by a proper, and experienced, mission commander is a different sport all together.
To be fair to reporters, Axiom does both; their first mission had three space tourists as passengers, their second mission had one space tourist and two passengers from the Saudi government (a military pilot and a biomedical researcher).
Even if it was private space tourism, what's the problem? They'd be spending their massive wealth funding further development of space technology. This isn't a virgin galactic style technological dead end death trap.
As prices come down for access to space, there is obviously going to be a point between only being affordable by governments and being affordable by everyone, where only governments and particularly rich people can afford it.
Well, your opinion is not grounded in reality. Nearly every item in space that is man-made was put there for commercial purposes. The space race may have started out with government/exploration, but it was vastly propelled by commercial interests seeking to deliver services around the planet.
Rounding up to 30000 objects in orbit (not even in space), that would mean 0.3 objects weren't made by capitalism. 1 object put up by government invalidates OP.
Starlink has a little over 5,000 satellites in orbit currently, with expansion planned up to 42,000 in the future.
At the end of 2022, there was only 6,718 active satellites[1] in space - total.
The amount of government objects (from any country, of any kind, station, spy satellite, probe, rover, etc) is dwarfed by commercial interests. This just illustrates the sheer volume of commercial objects in space...
In fact, here's a list of all publicly acknowledged satellites launched by the USAF since 1984[2]. It shows 331 in total, counting inactive satellites.
It is impossible to know however, if large economies under different systems than capitalism would not have made for instance satellite phones a priority 40 years ago rather than landlines and cell towers. Capitalism didn’t because it was more expensive but a central planner might well have because they thought it was cooler.
So it’s kind of unreasonable to be adamant that only because of capitalism we have stuff in space.
Which centrally planned economy can/could afford to operate a constellation for phones?
The initial Iridium constellation is estimated at around $5 Billion in 1998 money (~$9 Billion today), and it nearly killed the company in the process. That was just initial constellation expenses - monthly subscriptions are still cost prohibitive for majority of the population/general use, and ongoing maintenance is very expensive.
The point is - it's not only cheaper to do land-based communications, but it's more reliable.
There doesn't seem to be any reality where a centrally planned economy would take this sort of project on just for funsies...
The Soviet Union operated all sorts of uneconomical undertakings because they felt they needed to.
All that is needed is motivated labour that gets fed and housed. There is no magical law that you have to pay “market rates” so people can buy themselves gadgets.
Now to be clear I am not advocating for the Soviet Union or central planning, far from it.
I am only saying that there is no inherent reason why you’d need capitalism to fill space up with stuff.
It is obviously a very powerful system but it is not the only possible system or necessarily the best.
Again I very much like regulated and properly taxed market capitalist economies and want to keep living in one.
> we don’t turn economic systems into religious beliefs.
Sure, I agree entirely with this statement.
> Was ancient Egypt capitalist and the pyramids a commercial enterprise?
Slave Labor is difficult to beat, eh? This is a strange way to make a point about government spending vs. commercialism.
The overall point was the incentive for someone to make a profit is what motivates many if not all of the risky endeavors. If governments were solely in charge of launching rockets, then there would be no push by SpaceX to develop cheaper alternatives (and therefore win contracts, therefore make money).
The government being solely in charge of any particular industry has rarely if ever resulted in innovations and ultimately a better service/product. The incentives are just not aligned under those circumstances.
> Slave Labor is difficult to beat, eh? This is a strange way to make a point about government spending vs. commercialism.
If we’re being brutally honest a lot of today’s economy depends on slave-like conditions for workers. Not necessarily in the “developed” world although people debate that, but definitely in poorer areas of the world.
> The overall point was the incentive for someone to make a profit is what motivates many if not all of the risky endeavors. If governments were solely in charge of launching rockets, then there would be no push by SpaceX to develop cheaper alternatives (and therefore win contracts, therefore make money).
I don’t entirely agree with that statement. Of course the profit motive is powerful and it does matter to people but that is largely because of the capitalist system itself.
So if that is changed the profit motive ceases to be as strong.
The case could be made that many of the greatest companies were founded by people motivated by strong vision and the desire to make an impact, much rather than profit motive. However in order to be able to do anything under capitalism they needed to focus on things that could be made profitable.
And certainly taken too far the incentives of the system are not at all aligned with making ordinary people’s lives better, but rather that they keep buying or subscribing to your stuff. See social media motives and incentives for instance.
Sure, but the flag on the moon is, along with rovers, along with the moon space cart, along with voyager 1 & 2 and many other things. 10 years ago, nearly all of it was put up by government funded vehicles. Even SpaceX wouldn't be where it is today without Government funding (might not even exist).
I think they were counting NASA as "because of capitalism". If you disagree with that, then that's a much better line of argument than going after the exact percentage.
I don't know if you are referring to communications satellites, but only with the advent of Starlink have comms birds outnumbered reconnaissance birds.
If we're being particular about definitions, then I wouldn't say that space tourism or any kind of tourism market is promoting capitalism.
I think the criticism upthread was aimed more generally at large undertakings for the sake of profit with barely anyone getting goods/services out of the deal, which does fit space tourism.
NASA forced Axiom to have the mission commander be an ex-NASA Astronaut for safety purposes. The first mission had 4 guys running around the ISS not knowing what's up.
A previous Ars article gives some additional perspective on the crew's relationship with ESA. Axiom is also partnered with Thales for a commercial space station, so other links already exist.
By filling this astronaut reserve pool, ESA seems to have created a market for Axiom Space, a move that might raise questions given the agency’s purpose is to promote the European space sector. In fact, the ESA’s founding Convention enshrines the principle of geo-return, which grants member states at least an 80 percent return on their contributions into ESA’s budget in the form of research and development contracts. Although the cost of the Axiom missions is paid through ESA, most of this money goes to the Texas-headquartered Axiom Space and its launch provider, SpaceX.
The mission is private, but it's sponsored by industry (notably Saab from what I've seen). The astronauts seem to be reasonably professional, and the mission goal oriented. It doesn't seem to be one of these stunts where rich people go to space and pretend to hold a test tube to give a dimension above "I had too much money so I burnt the GDP of a small country and its carbon emissions to spend a vacation in space".
> The article says they’re paying their way but also that they’ll be doing experiments?
When I worked at Apple we "hired" the ISS. Astronauts were trained and scheduled and would work for us. The work was not anything science related. I'm not sure how common this is, though.
Turkish guy is part of Turkish Space Program efforts run by Turkish Space Agency. He is a military pilot selected among many applicants to be first astronaut from Turkey. Also they are running to be the sixth country to land on moon with the help of SpaceX.
I missed this because they've moved the launches to . I don't think to look on there - the rest of the content I consume is either on YouTube or Twitch. A "me" problem, I know.
It was on several YouTube channels: Axiom, ESA, I think NASA even. Granted, not the SpaceX channel, but it was just the SpaceX feed on all these channels.
To also be fair, I don't watch nearly so many launches as I use to for the same reason as you. I've been off Twitter/X for many years and SpaceX streams aren't enough to change that.
SpaceX's problem as a private company is that they've been so successful that they're a victim of their own success; they've captured a market that isn't necessarily a growth sector by itself, they need people to have a reason to launch payloads. It's one of the reasons they're in Starlink; making their own payloads justifies continued development and operation of their rocketry sector.
So a space hotel would be a huge justification of their continued existence as a private concern.
I could definitely imagine SpaceX launching another company's station, like what Axiom has in mind. I don't know if SpaceX would want to build a crewed orbital station themselves and operate it; I don't think they want to get into that business, but they might eventually want a research platform for developing Mars missions, testing out life support systems and the like.
I wonder how that's going to fare with the clamshell configuration of the starship in its reusable configuration. If there is one advantage to traditional rockets, its that you can get away with really bulbous disposable fairing configurations needed to fit something large and cumbersome like a station component.
Well I mean it still has a bigger payload bay than the space shuttle, at 56x26 feet vs 60x15 feet for the shuttle. It can lift roughly 3.5x the volume and 4x the mass as the shuttle into orbit.
There are literally only three organizations on earth capable of putting humans in orbit:
1. SpaceX
2. China
3. Russia
I say "SpaceX" instead of America or NASA because the Axiom missions show that SpaceX can launch people independent of NASA.
India may develop their own capability to put humans in orbit before Europe does, which is amazing to me. [Though admittedly that's only because Europe has different priorities--not necessarily a lack of ability.]
Probably not as much as you'd expect. Launches are out of Kazakhstan. Russia still sends cosmonauts to fly on dragon. This remains probably the most robust point of diplomatic contact between the two countries, especially since rogozin allegedly lost his penis (not a joke -- the anti USA rhetoric of roscosmos has decreased since he departed? from his post). I wouldn't be surprised if musk is instructed to at least publically not be too pro-ukraine to preserve this line of communication (I also wouldn't be surprised if musk is just being dumb).
Edit: ok this is slightly incorrect, rogozin was dismissed from roscosmos and then he got injured on the front, not the other order around
NASA hasn't been able since the Shuttle got retired in 2011. They've been relying first on Russian rockets and then on SpaceX ever since. There are several alternatives in development but nothing human-rated yet.
Boeing's Starliner is now expected to have a crewed flight test in April (after two shaky uncrewed test flights, the first nearly disastrous). Of course, by the standards being applied to SpaceX here, that could be described as "relying on Boeing"...
I definitely wouldn't volunteer to be on that first crewed flight of Starliner. Boeing has had some questionable engineering decisions in the last decade and it has shaken my confidence in the ability of their engineers to press back against management when there is an inconvenient truth.
Starliner is not cost-plus. It's under the same program as SpaceX.
> After several rounds of competitive development contracts within the Commercial Crew Program starting in 2010, NASA selected the Boeing Starliner, along with SpaceX Crew Dragon, for the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract round.
> ...While the company had received $18 million under the NASA Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) contract by 2010 for early design work, substantial Boeing private funds would be required to complete development, even with Boeing competing for additional NASA contracts. This exposed Boeing to ordinary business financial risk that had not been a large part of traditional cost-plus contracting that Boeing had previously done for work on space capsules.
In all fairness, NASA provides oversight for the Commercial Crew Program. This is better than the previous arrangements because there is incentive for companies to perform the contracted work on behalf of NASA rather than NASA taking on all the risk.
Good point. I was responding to the question above but at this point, NASA can legitimately consider SpaceX as part of their manned flight program. It makes way more sense to do it this way.
I defined it (implicitly) as "have they actually put humans in orbit". That's a pretty simple and objective definition.
If you want to include SLS/Orion and Starliner, you have to define the point at which a system becomes "capable". Is it when they designed it? When they approved the budget? When they tested it uncrewed? When it's less than 1 year from launching with humans?
Depending on your definition, India might already be "capable" of launching astronauts now.
Note also that both Orion and Starliner are working through technical problems. Are they very likely to resolve them in <1 year? Sure. But there's still a non-zero chance that they will delay for 1 year, 2 years, or even more.
You're being a little obfuscatory here. In 2022 SLS flew a capsule around the moon that was human-rated, except that it had mannequins in the seats instead of people. Adding oxygen and some granola bars to this setup is not a big technical leap; the hard part is done. I'm not a fan of either SLS or Orion, but it's pretty clear that they will have no difficulty putting a human crew into space whenever their schedule and budgetary drama allows it.
This is why everybody who talks about space should spend a few hours with Kerbal Space Program just to get a sense of the difference in scale between a suborbital hop and actually putting something into orbit.
> Being able to shoot straight up and fall back down isn't anywhere near as useful or hard as orbit.
Being able to reach space at all is the hard part: so many pieces have to be developed and work well together. Achieving orbit is more evolutionary than from going from 0 to 1. Orbit seems like a such an arbitrary line, amd I suspect once BO achieves it, the bar is going to be arbitrarily raised to "Heavy-lift rockets are the hard part, and only 2 organizations on Earth can achieve it"
> Being able to reach space at all is the hard part
No its not. Teenagers can get to space with model rockets and simple fuels. You can reach space simply by throwing something really really hard, but it will come right back down.
> You can reach space simply by throwing something really really hard, but it will come right back down.
Is there anything special about boosters, second or third stages or vacuum motors that's tough to crack for an organization that has already managed to reach space under its own steam?
Bigger tanks, more engines and/or higher specific-impulse-fuels are tractable problems to organizations that have already reached space - they know how to do R&D, integration and operations. Getting to space ab initio is harder, and is where most - if not
all - failed launch companies have failed.
You ask whether there is something special about orbit vs reaching space. This is a good question.
To be in orbit, a rocket must move extremely fast. The source below says that the energy needed to go to space is only 3% of the energy needed to go to orbit. That means orbit is about 30 times harder than space.
And it gets worse than that because of the rocket equation: to get twice as much kinetic energy requires more than twice the amount of fuel, because you are not just accelerating your capsule, but also the fuel it will need along the way.
So yes, there is a huge difference between being able to reach space and being able to reach orbital velocity.
It took about a decade of work to go from the first suborbital rockets to orbit, and even that was in the context of a competitive arms race. It actually took more than a decade but it’s not completely fair to count all of that time since there wasn’t a continuous effort between the V-2 and the US and Soviet rocket programs.
I'd love to fly on Virgin Galactic's space plane, but I think its maximum speed is around Mach 3. To get into orbit you need to reach a speed of at least 27,000 km/h (Mach 22). Huge difference!
My argument wasn't on the orbital potential of suborbital vehicles - rather, I think the odds of Virgin successfully developing an orbital vehicle are better than even. Or more succinctly
Sorry but no, reaching space is not particularly hard. “Space” is an arbitrary line where the atmosphere is really really thin, and it’s defined pretty arbitrarily by what seems like a round number in an arbitrary system of units (100 kilometers). Orbit is qualitatively different and much less arbitrary to define: it’s when your flight path that no longer intersects the earth’s surface. It’s also the first milestone to actually doing anything useful. And it’s significantly harder than just reaching 100.0000001 km of altitude.
Isn't having a private entity be able to do what previously required a nation a good sign for that nation? The idea that the USA cannot re-obtain that capability again seems silly to me and there are a lot of pros for having private companies pushing the state of art forward.
it puts the concentration of power into fewer individuals hands, which makes me nervous.
The gov is slow b/c it requires sign off from hundreds of people. (For example, congress approving NASA's budget).
As a private entity, maybe 20 or 50 people are required to approve or reject missions. This lets them move faster, but if a certain CEO doesn't want to provide services for a war, they can mess with the contract.
The government is still in control. They could nationalize the project tomorrow or stop issuing launch licencees.
Why taking rides to orbits should require some massive jumping threw hops doesn't really make sense to me. If the launch and landing are secured what the problem or danger with people going to LEO?
That's a prime example of cognitive dissonance. In the media he's an idiot but he puts rockets into space. Here's a wild idea: maybe, JUST MAYBE, the media presenting him in an negative light.
I don't remember claiming the guy doesnt have a day job?
Even if it was relevent, firing rockets into space doesnt somehow mean the moronic shitposts you make suddenly don't exist.
And finally "i'm" not saying anything, the guy sharts every other thought into his twitter megaphone. I'm just taking that feed at face value. Unless of course you now claim to speak for and translate on behalf of old Elon.
I hope the first sentence refers to your own comment, because it indeed is a prime example of cognitive dissonance. I couldn't think of a better one.
You can be a rich idiot and delegate the actual work to smart people, that isn't a contradiction.
What you are demonstrating is cognitive dissonance, because it is Elon Musk himself that is presenting himself in a negative light and then you somehow pin his own public behaviour on the media.
These responses always confuse me. Musk doesn't design or build the rockets. It's fascinating to see SpaceX succeed while Twitter fails, because the former has management in place to keep things on the rails, while the latter has Musk unchecked.
He does appear to be good at raising money, through a mixture of government subsidies and making things up to pump valuations. It's just that instead of Tesla's "self driving cars are coming next year" it's about missions to Mars. (You could argue that this is similar Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, except... Apple actually delivered.)
But even if Musk had a hand in things, professional success does validate unwell behavior. Howard Hughes was a successful aircraft engineer despite, but clearly suffered from severe mental illness. The difference is that Hughs lived out his decline in private, while Musk is live-tweeting his unraveling.
You're illustrating my point. Your formula is: if SpaceX does well then Elon Musk has nothing to do with it. If Twitter/X fails it's Elon Musk's fault. BUT if something unexpected happens with a SpaceX launch all of a sudden it's Elon Musk's fault again. This is the game.
Then people pretend his behavior is "unwell" or "unhinged". Then I ask them "how is he unhinged" and I get a long confusing rant about nonsense. Personally I prefer progress over a popularity. Nerds are just bullying nerds at this point.
I just explained the difference between the two companies. At Twitter he has the clearance to do whatever he wants. At SpaceX, there are constraints.
I never mentioned a failed SpaceX launch.
Imagine describing Musk’s behavior to a stranger while leaving out a name: Impulsively buying a beleaguered business, then destroying its only revenue through further impulsivity. Would a well person in his situation give the recent, “Go Fuck Yourself” speech to advertisers?
You seem to want to argue with someone else who is not me. Again, I never mentioned failed SpaceX launches, and now you’re telling me what I will say next.
I don’t see how Valve is analogous. Perhaps if they were in a financial nosedive, and turned around and told software publishers to go fuck themselves?
> Musk doesn't design or build the rockets. It's fascinating to see SpaceX succeed while Twitter fails, because the former has management in place to keep things on the rails, while the latter has Musk unchecked.
This is just factually wrong.
Musk has been leading and controlling SpaceX for literally 20 years now. He has always been in full control and made pretty much all the most important decisions. He hired and recruited all of the leadership team. And he did work on the design and and helped build the rocket too. Since when is leading a team not important? Those are simple facts. Go read about about Falcon 1.
Its Twitter where Musk only recently started on, and Twitter had lots of issues before Musk took over, and Twitter where he has put a CEO in place.
So the fact is, Musk is far more deeply involved in SpaceX compared to Twitter. The same for Tesla, Musk has just as much power there and its also very successful.
The whole 'its all fund raising and government' doesn't actually hold up either.
> Apple actually delivered
Being the most successful space company in history. Having the most rocket launches, the biggest rocket, the most reliable engine, the most advanced engine, the most sats and the most launched human isn't good enough for you? Hasn't even deliver on the most complex project in human history. What a loser.
Granted its not exactly as complex as having a computer with a nice user-interface ...
> while Musk is live-tweeting his unraveling.
Musk is fine, he lives on, he does the same things he has been doing for 20+ years, SpaceX and Tesla continue to do fine and he is continuing to lead them. Twitter, exists and works fine. If that is 'unraveling' then I don't think you know what that words means.
All that has actually happened because of this 'unraveling' is that Twitter lost some of its value. Not ideal but also not really a big deal either.
Essentially calling somebody mentally ill because you don't like how they handle a company is really is more a reflection on you not Musk.
Factually wrong? Are you saying that Musk designs and builds the rockets?
> Musk has been leading and controlling SpaceX for literally 20 years now.
I think his behavior has very clearly changed over the past 20 years. There's a theory the pandemic did something to him, but I suspect it predates that.
> Being the most successful space company in history. Having the most rocket launches, the biggest rocket, the most reliable engine, the most advanced engine, the most sats and the most launched human isn't good enough for you? Hasn't even deliver on the most complex project in human history. What a loser.
I didn't call him a loser, and I'm not sure why you're equating criticism with an ad-hominem attack. I genuinely think he is grappling with mental health issues, though it doesn't excuse his behavior.
Anyway, I don't think it's relevant to dig into SpaceX's engineering any more than Tesla's battery tech.
If I hire a contractor to renovate my bathroom, and the results are good, is it because I had a hand in it? For all you know, I could have changed my mind about the tiles halfway through and demanded they start over, making the project harder than it needed to be. I could have hurled abuse at the laborer and the stiffed him for the bill.
> Musk is fine, he lives on, he does the same things he has been doing for 20+ years, SpaceX and Tesla continue to do fine and he is continuing to lead them.
Howard Hughes' companies did fine through his mental decline and death.
> Twitter, exists and works fine. If that is 'unraveling' then I don't think you know what that words means.
Twitter has lost its only major source of revenue, most of the people I followed there have moved on, and it's facing so many lawsuits that I've lost count. That doesn't seem fine.
The important detail is that all of this was self inflicted. The company wasn't doing great, but it was chugging along. He grabbed the wheel and drove it straight into a wall.
> Essentially calling somebody mentally ill because you don't like how they handle a company is really is more a reflection on you not Musk.
I think that when someone acts mentally ill, they tend to be mentally ill. The only counterargument seems to boil down to, "But he has a lot of money."
> Factually wrong? Are you saying that Musk designs and builds the rockets?
Yes he did help to design and build the rockets. By literally any definition. His impact on the final products of SpaceX is clearly larger then anybody else at SpaceX. And if you actually read the books on the topic, listen to talks with people who worked with him rather then some anti-space socialists on twitter.
> I think his behavior has very clearly changed over the past 20 years.
Many people change over 20 years ... but he didn't really fundamentally. Buying twitter came at the end of years of talking about speech and so on.
> If I hire a contractor to renovate my bathroom, and the results are good, is it because I had a hand in it?
Containing with the nonsense of 'he is just the finance' guy. Again, just nonsense. Honestly, inform yourself.
> most of the people I followed there have moved on
Its called selection bias.
> and it's facing so many lawsuits that I've lost count
Welcome to america.
> but it was chugging along.
And it still is.
> He grabbed the wheel and drove it straight into a wall.
How about we judge the company 5 or 10 years after he takes control. Tesla was a shitshow when he took over as well.
Twitter will likely never have the absurd valuation it had before, but to claim it 'drove into a wall' just isn't accurate.
> I think that when someone acts mentally ill, they tend to be mentally ill.
Again, I love to know what he has actually done that constitutes 'act mentally ill'. You can point to lots of things that make him not very like-able, but those aren't the same thing.
Literally your only argument seems to be 'twitter is now worth less then when he bought it'. So you think any company that gets acquired and doesn't justify its value means the CEO who bought it is mentally ill? Was Balmer mentally ill when he bought Nokia?
But go to now that you are professional therapist who can make medical diagnosis.
> The only counterargument seems to boil down to, "But he has a lot of money."
That's literally zero % of the argument but I guess that is what you need to tell yourself for your reasoning to make sense. He is rich because he is rich, and he is crazy because he wastes money on things you don't find important.
> Yes he did help to design and build the rockets. By literally any definition. His impact on the final products of SpaceX is clearly larger then anybody else at SpaceX.
Do you think he had a greater impact than Tom Mueller? I'd expect the guy who was lead on the TR-106, and already developing liquid-fueled rocket engines, had more technical impact at a space company than a guy who worked in e-payments.
> And if you actually read the books on the topic, listen to talks with people who worked with him rather then some anti-space socialists on twitter.
I find it fascinating that you use "books" in the plural, like a totally normal person would read multiple books on Elon Musk.
From my survey of the material, Elon Musk books fail to consider anything he does from a critical perspective. Perhaps that's a requirement of getting access to interviews, or perhaps the authors know their audience are parasocial fans. Are there any books that you recommend that take a critical look?
> How about we judge the company 5 or 10 years after he takes control. Tesla was a shitshow when he took over as well.
Was it? It seems Tesla was any early-stage company. When he took over Twitter, it was already making revenue and even reached profitability in 2019. I don't understand the endgame of driving advertisers away.
> Again, I love to know what he has actually done that constitutes 'act mentally ill'.
It's hard to pick just one, but I'd start with the Twitter acquisition. Specifically, the part where he felt insulted by the CEO, so he initiated a hostile takeover. Then he put together a contract that he couldn't back out of. Then he spent much of the year trying to back out of that contract by just making up silly excuses.
Following the transition, he has cultivated an image and a platform that no sane advertiser would touch with a ten foot pole. Would a person grounded in reality tell a room full of advertisers, "Go fuck yourself," and then pause for applause that never come?
Then there's all the behavior in his personal life. I'm an open minded person, so if you want to have children with two women at the same time... and everyone is a consulting adult... good luck? But not telling both women what was going on seems unwell.
If you described this behavior to someone while leaving out the names, they'd probably describe it as self-destructive.
> But go to now that you are professional therapist who can make medical diagnosis.
It doesn't take a medical professional to watch bizarre episodes by Kanye West, Charlie Sheen or Britney Spears, and know something is up. I won't venture to say Elon is bipolar or has a drug problem, but if the news came out, most people would react with, "Sounds right."
> Don't fall all over yourself moving the goal post. That's dangerous.
I don't think you know what moving the goal post means.
In my original post, I said, "Musk doesn't design or build the rockets."
You just said, "His impact on the final products of SpaceX is clearly larger than anybody else at SpaceX," and you claimed, "And he did work on the design and and helped build the rocket too."
I asked if that includes Tom Mueller, the person with professional experience designing rockets. Because going from "fired by an e-payments company" to "designing rockets" is quite a pivot.
> Books on EV, rockets, SpaceX, Tesla ...
What books do you recommend?
> But thanks for admitting that you are not actually informed.
I like to think I'm informed because I listen to both the praise and criticism of Musk and then make up my own mind.
> You have one, its bad business choices. Bad business choices don't imply mentally ill.
Are you saying that driving away all the advertisers, in the way that he did, was a business choice? Can you explain what he hoped to accomplish?
Rocketry, no, but Twitter, yes. Watching him go in and do the dumbest imaginable things, then make up excuses for his stupid decisions, then watching fans buy those excuses without an ounce of critical thinking… well, it raises a lot of questions in my head about his other ventures.
So you don’t like his opinions therefore he’s dumb but he founded a company that designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. And you have no personal experience in aerospace. You don’t have to like him but do you see what I’m saying?
I said he made the dumbest possible decisions at Twitter. If you disagree, please explain the benefits of destroying revenue by driving away advertisers.
What I see is a mountain of evidence you can't argue with, so your only hope is an appeal to authority.
I think I asked a pretty straightforward question, but I’ll try to make it clearer: can you explain why a mentally-well person would drive away advertisers at a company he just acquired, destroying the majority of its revenue?
What’s loaded? Do you disagree that he drove away advertisers? Do you disagree that it destroyed revenue? Because I thought these were accepted facts. Maybe they’re facts that make you uncomfortable, but that doesn’t make them loaded.
You believe he is smart. I presented an example of a stupid act. Now you’re supposed to explain why he did that. I’d think the only explanation would be a genius strategy I’m missing, but you seem to have trouble explaining it.
I disagree with your simplistic perspective. Everything you say is loaded and passive aggressive. It's typical. Frame everything in a negative light and then demand people give you answers then act aloof, obtuse, and intransigent. You're impotent. Social media is clogged with this kind of rhetoric. It's pathetic.
I've read over 2000 years of western philosophy and you sir are no Socrates. What you're doing is more like the tactic Jeff Winger uses to outsmarts Annie Edison in that later episode of Community when he's teaching law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcuOGkgtj-k
I missed the launch. Was only a 3 hour drive for me. Last time I went there, the people who lived in Titusville, FL told me it was so routine to see rocket launches, it’s become normal part of their life.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadFeels pretty win/win. I have some trepidation about letting capitalism decide our priorities in space, but so far it is helping us make really exciting progress
Maybe that's true of Blue Origin, but you're going to need a lot more evidence to back up that claim in regards to SpaceX.
The best estimate is that they make a >50% gross margin on Falcon 9 launches (at least for external customers). And while they spend a lot on Starlink launches, they're also making quite a lot of Starlink revenue at this point.
It's certainly true that they're dumping a lot of R&D money into Starship. But that strategy is how they earned their current medium/heavy lift launch market dominance, so I can't really fault them for that. And if Starship does work out, it could set them up for a functional monopoly on launch for decades. Not to mention dramatically decreasing their internal Starlink costs.
That's more just a out there goal to motivate people who are motivated by that. Still have had zero launches to Mars.
Plus, other companies are having a hard enough time competing already (even small launch is facing tough competition from the F9 rideshares), if SpaceX dropped their prices too low, it'd quickly run most of the launch market out of business, which is not in the interests of a company that wants to improve accessibility to space.
This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing options for the specific payload.
OK. But the comment I responded to call it a passion/prestige project and contracted it with a normal profit driven business.
> This is also why even if Starship's cost targets pan out, they'll likely just charge slightly lower than competing options for the specific payload.
Yeah. SpaceX hasn't said anything, but I tend to believe that they'll move to a capabilities based pricing model where customers pay by the KG and/or m^3. That way they can compete for small payloads while getting paid appropriately for large ones.
If you want to just make money, there are far easier and less risky industries you can invest your money in than launch services and rockets. You can even just invest your wealth in an index fund and earn a return that is basically risk-free.
The trick is that we need to ban fraud aggressively and then reduce the profits from endeavors we want to discourage (not sure if there are good general mechanisms. I mean we use taxes for this sometimes. Imagine if one wanted to reduce the collection of user data if instead of gdpr you created a data tax!)
I'm also very interested to hear what projects you think might be good candidates to do this with!
For SpaceX it just so hilariously wrong. SpaceX did get seed money from Musk, about 90 million. The rest is venture funded just like every other successful company.
SpaceX is a very normal capitalist company. Musk has not invested more of his own money into it. SpaceX is making money and raising money to fund future projects.
One could maybe make an argument that Musk longer has ambitions to do passion projects, but he has never perused these without building the company in a capitalist way first. Because he knows that if the company isn't successful, non of the long term plans are possible.
> not normal capitalist enterprises which are all just about making a buck
Every capitalist enterprise has owners, the owners decide what they should do. Often but not always this is 'making a buck'.
Please develop this further, what Italy has to win? other than the scientific breakthrough that is to spend tax payer money to "buy a seat"
> is helping us make really exciting progress
us? you meant the USA?
progress? like?
I don't recall Italy working on any similar projects, how will these seats help italians get a return of investment?
Sounds like an attempt at masking subsidies from the EU, at the expense of ESA
I wonder who's in the lobby
"SpaceX accuses Arianespace of unfair competition" - https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/exclu...
"Elon Musk's company complains about subsidies from France and Europe, and calls on Washington to act."
> I have some trepidation about letting capitalism decide our priorities in space, but so far it is helping us make really exciting progress
Oh, the irony!
In the meantime:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station
- https://consumer.huawei.com/za/community/details/Huawei-Mate...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog...
- https://www.space.com/china-landspace-ready-for-reusable-roc...
2) click on the Italian flag
3) read about all the experiments, who funds them, why they will be run/what they hope to learn
4) go to 2 and change flag for the other countries
you will find both public and private experiments/initiatives in there
To be fair to those countries, it's typically ESA that barters with NASA, not the individual member countries. And it seems like astronauts are selected in rough proportion to national contribution (generally in line with the National Return policy).
Paying for a private seat may be a more efficient way for smaller countries to get people into space.
A fun thing is, He is from the secular demographic and his firsts words were to commemorate Ataturk and the islamists and seculars instantly switched place; Now the pro-government people say He is a space tourist and the secular opposition says he is a hero :)
This is an understatement. He was purged from the military and jailed by Islamists/Gülenists/Erdoğan using fabricated evidence and cultist judges, for "attempting a secularist coup".
I don't think it is "essentially" for propaganda. This would happen regardless, propaganda is just a side-benefit. Saying that he's "just a space tourist" would be like calling scientists that go to Antarctica for experiments "polar tourists". It is definitely overblown by the government media though.
Idea being that this way Axiom has some revenue and is able to gain some operational experience.
Since the ticket is expensive and at least one seat is taken up by someone with spaceflight experience and AFAIK has high demand relative to the number of flights available, the people going up are doing at least something productive.
> He was selected in November 2022 from over 22,500 applicants to join a new European astronaut group of 17 lucky recipients.
https://www.rymdstyrelsen.se/upptack-rymden/bloggen/2024/01/...
That page has lots of useful information about the project itself (although in Swedish, may DeepL et al help you), like:
> One of the two Swedish projects involves stem cell research and is led by Elena Kozlova, Professor of Regenerative Neurobiology at Uppsala University. Stem cells have previously been sent into space by sounding rockets and exposed to a few minutes of microgravity, showing that stem cells have a greater capacity to divide and develop into mature cells than they do under normal conditions on Earth. Now Marcus Wandt is taking stem cells into space for two weeks.
> In the project, Orbital Architecture, researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology want to investigate how people's physical and mental health is affected by staying in confined spaces for long periods of time. The researchers will analyze Marcus Wandt's stress, cognitive performance, heart activity and movements and compare data collected from different parts of the space station to understand how the design of space environments affects the astronauts' thinking and stress levels.
[1] https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Ex...
This sort of thing has happened in the US, too. When NASA began flying payload specialists <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_specialist> on the shuttle, that program included people who had been turned down by the NASA astronaut program, like Charles Walker and Byron Lichtenberg. They got to fly before many who had been selected in the same intakes they themselves had been rejected from! Walker flew three times (!) in fifteen months, and Lichtenberg flew twice. (Walker was selected for his first shuttle flight in May 1983 and the first attempt to launch was in June 1984, so he would have been the record holder had that happened; he went up in August.)
[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/all-european-crew-take...
Considering the crew, and who actually pays for the launch, I guess commercial or sub-contracted are bettwr terms to discribe the mission. Private space mission aoinda way to much like rich dudes space tourism. Military astronauts and a selected scientist using a non-government launch and space craft, commanded by a proper, and experienced, mission commander is a different sport all together.
As prices come down for access to space, there is obviously going to be a point between only being affordable by governments and being affordable by everyone, where only governments and particularly rich people can afford it.
I don't think everyone is as excited to have capitalism take over our priorities in space, after seeing what it has done to Terra.
edit:
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/05/The_increa...
Rounding up to 30000 objects in orbit (not even in space), that would mean 0.3 objects weren't made by capitalism. 1 object put up by government invalidates OP.
At the end of 2022, there was only 6,718 active satellites[1] in space - total.
The amount of government objects (from any country, of any kind, station, spy satellite, probe, rover, etc) is dwarfed by commercial interests. This just illustrates the sheer volume of commercial objects in space...
In fact, here's a list of all publicly acknowledged satellites launched by the USAF since 1984[2]. It shows 331 in total, counting inactive satellites.
[1] https://blog.ucsusa.org/syoung/how-many-satellites-are-in-sp...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites
So it’s kind of unreasonable to be adamant that only because of capitalism we have stuff in space.
The initial Iridium constellation is estimated at around $5 Billion in 1998 money (~$9 Billion today), and it nearly killed the company in the process. That was just initial constellation expenses - monthly subscriptions are still cost prohibitive for majority of the population/general use, and ongoing maintenance is very expensive.
The point is - it's not only cheaper to do land-based communications, but it's more reliable.
There doesn't seem to be any reality where a centrally planned economy would take this sort of project on just for funsies...
All that is needed is motivated labour that gets fed and housed. There is no magical law that you have to pay “market rates” so people can buy themselves gadgets.
Now to be clear I am not advocating for the Soviet Union or central planning, far from it. I am only saying that there is no inherent reason why you’d need capitalism to fill space up with stuff.
It is obviously a very powerful system but it is not the only possible system or necessarily the best. Again I very much like regulated and properly taxed market capitalist economies and want to keep living in one.
Which cements my point... commercialism is the only way these sorts of activities can exist.
Was ancient Egypt capitalist and the pyramids a commercial enterprise?
Again I am not advocating for anything except that we don’t turn economic systems into religious beliefs.
Sure, I agree entirely with this statement.
> Was ancient Egypt capitalist and the pyramids a commercial enterprise?
Slave Labor is difficult to beat, eh? This is a strange way to make a point about government spending vs. commercialism.
The overall point was the incentive for someone to make a profit is what motivates many if not all of the risky endeavors. If governments were solely in charge of launching rockets, then there would be no push by SpaceX to develop cheaper alternatives (and therefore win contracts, therefore make money).
The government being solely in charge of any particular industry has rarely if ever resulted in innovations and ultimately a better service/product. The incentives are just not aligned under those circumstances.
If we’re being brutally honest a lot of today’s economy depends on slave-like conditions for workers. Not necessarily in the “developed” world although people debate that, but definitely in poorer areas of the world.
> The overall point was the incentive for someone to make a profit is what motivates many if not all of the risky endeavors. If governments were solely in charge of launching rockets, then there would be no push by SpaceX to develop cheaper alternatives (and therefore win contracts, therefore make money).
I don’t entirely agree with that statement. Of course the profit motive is powerful and it does matter to people but that is largely because of the capitalist system itself. So if that is changed the profit motive ceases to be as strong.
The case could be made that many of the greatest companies were founded by people motivated by strong vision and the desire to make an impact, much rather than profit motive. However in order to be able to do anything under capitalism they needed to focus on things that could be made profitable.
And certainly taken too far the incentives of the system are not at all aligned with making ordinary people’s lives better, but rather that they keep buying or subscribing to your stuff. See social media motives and incentives for instance.
Pyramids weren't built by slaves.
2. If we do want to be pedantic, they said "in space" and sputnik is not in space anymore.
Totalitarian regimes in space haven't gotten us very far, and frankly sound very depressing for the future of humanity.
That would be the market economy, not capitalism. Since we have state capitalism as well as other varieties that aren't free markets.
I think the criticism upthread was aimed more generally at large undertakings for the sake of profit with barely anyone getting goods/services out of the deal, which does fit space tourism.
By filling this astronaut reserve pool, ESA seems to have created a market for Axiom Space, a move that might raise questions given the agency’s purpose is to promote the European space sector. In fact, the ESA’s founding Convention enshrines the principle of geo-return, which grants member states at least an 80 percent return on their contributions into ESA’s budget in the form of research and development contracts. Although the cost of the Axiom missions is paid through ESA, most of this money goes to the Texas-headquartered Axiom Space and its launch provider, SpaceX.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/axiom-and-spacex-are-d...
The mission is private, but it's sponsored by industry (notably Saab from what I've seen). The astronauts seem to be reasonably professional, and the mission goal oriented. It doesn't seem to be one of these stunts where rich people go to space and pretend to hold a test tube to give a dimension above "I had too much money so I burnt the GDP of a small country and its carbon emissions to spend a vacation in space".
When I worked at Apple we "hired" the ISS. Astronauts were trained and scheduled and would work for us. The work was not anything science related. I'm not sure how common this is, though.
To also be fair, I don't watch nearly so many launches as I use to for the same reason as you. I've been off Twitter/X for many years and SpaceX streams aren't enough to change that.
SpaceX's problem as a private company is that they've been so successful that they're a victim of their own success; they've captured a market that isn't necessarily a growth sector by itself, they need people to have a reason to launch payloads. It's one of the reasons they're in Starlink; making their own payloads justifies continued development and operation of their rocketry sector.
So a space hotel would be a huge justification of their continued existence as a private concern.
India may develop their own capability to put humans in orbit before Europe does, which is amazing to me. [Though admittedly that's only because Europe has different priorities--not necessarily a lack of ability.]
Edit: ok this is slightly incorrect, rogozin was dismissed from roscosmos and then he got injured on the front, not the other order around
> After several rounds of competitive development contracts within the Commercial Crew Program starting in 2010, NASA selected the Boeing Starliner, along with SpaceX Crew Dragon, for the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract round.
> ...While the company had received $18 million under the NASA Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) contract by 2010 for early design work, substantial Boeing private funds would be required to complete development, even with Boeing competing for additional NASA contracts. This exposed Boeing to ordinary business financial risk that had not been a large part of traditional cost-plus contracting that Boeing had previously done for work on space capsules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner
Edit: Guess down voters don’t like this idea
There is the SLS/Orion and Atlas/Starliner - they just havent actually put people in them yet
I defined it (implicitly) as "have they actually put humans in orbit". That's a pretty simple and objective definition.
If you want to include SLS/Orion and Starliner, you have to define the point at which a system becomes "capable". Is it when they designed it? When they approved the budget? When they tested it uncrewed? When it's less than 1 year from launching with humans?
Depending on your definition, India might already be "capable" of launching astronauts now.
Note also that both Orion and Starliner are working through technical problems. Are they very likely to resolve them in <1 year? Sure. But there's still a non-zero chance that they will delay for 1 year, 2 years, or even more.
In any case, were there ever more than now? I’m curious if we were regressing, or just not progressing for a couple decades.
Being able to shoot straight up and fall back down isn't anywhere near as useful or hard as orbit.
Being able to reach space at all is the hard part: so many pieces have to be developed and work well together. Achieving orbit is more evolutionary than from going from 0 to 1. Orbit seems like a such an arbitrary line, amd I suspect once BO achieves it, the bar is going to be arbitrarily raised to "Heavy-lift rockets are the hard part, and only 2 organizations on Earth can achieve it"
https://www.wired.com/story/a-rocket-built-by-students-reach...
> Orbit seems like a such an arbitrary line
It's not. If your super expensive rocket can't reach orbit, why would anyone bother? Can't deploy sats, can't go to the ISS, nothing.
Is there anything special about boosters, second or third stages or vacuum motors that's tough to crack for an organization that has already managed to reach space under its own steam?
Bigger tanks, more engines and/or higher specific-impulse-fuels are tractable problems to organizations that have already reached space - they know how to do R&D, integration and operations. Getting to space ab initio is harder, and is where most - if not all - failed launch companies have failed.
To be in orbit, a rocket must move extremely fast. The source below says that the energy needed to go to space is only 3% of the energy needed to go to orbit. That means orbit is about 30 times harder than space.
And it gets worse than that because of the rocket equation: to get twice as much kinetic energy requires more than twice the amount of fuel, because you are not just accelerating your capsule, but also the fuel it will need along the way.
So yes, there is a huge difference between being able to reach space and being able to reach orbital velocity.
Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/basic-ro....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit
The gov is slow b/c it requires sign off from hundreds of people. (For example, congress approving NASA's budget).
As a private entity, maybe 20 or 50 people are required to approve or reject missions. This lets them move faster, but if a certain CEO doesn't want to provide services for a war, they can mess with the contract.
Why taking rides to orbits should require some massive jumping threw hops doesn't really make sense to me. If the launch and landing are secured what the problem or danger with people going to LEO?
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/26/1172290009/spacex-is-grounded...
https://www.space.com/spacex-debris-fall-australia-crew-1-dr...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/spacex-rocket-debris-fo...
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/2/22364582/spacex-rocket-deb...
Indeed.
Both are true, IMO.
Even if it was relevent, firing rockets into space doesnt somehow mean the moronic shitposts you make suddenly don't exist.
And finally "i'm" not saying anything, the guy sharts every other thought into his twitter megaphone. I'm just taking that feed at face value. Unless of course you now claim to speak for and translate on behalf of old Elon.
You can be a rich idiot and delegate the actual work to smart people, that isn't a contradiction.
What you are demonstrating is cognitive dissonance, because it is Elon Musk himself that is presenting himself in a negative light and then you somehow pin his own public behaviour on the media.
He does appear to be good at raising money, through a mixture of government subsidies and making things up to pump valuations. It's just that instead of Tesla's "self driving cars are coming next year" it's about missions to Mars. (You could argue that this is similar Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, except... Apple actually delivered.)
But even if Musk had a hand in things, professional success does validate unwell behavior. Howard Hughes was a successful aircraft engineer despite, but clearly suffered from severe mental illness. The difference is that Hughs lived out his decline in private, while Musk is live-tweeting his unraveling.
Then people pretend his behavior is "unwell" or "unhinged". Then I ask them "how is he unhinged" and I get a long confusing rant about nonsense. Personally I prefer progress over a popularity. Nerds are just bullying nerds at this point.
I think you are the bully here.
I never mentioned a failed SpaceX launch.
Imagine describing Musk’s behavior to a stranger while leaving out a name: Impulsively buying a beleaguered business, then destroying its only revenue through further impulsivity. Would a well person in his situation give the recent, “Go Fuck Yourself” speech to advertisers?
Your believes about his “behavior” will make you if it happens. That will be the rationalization. An ad hominem attack.
Musk’s can tell advertisers to go fuck themselves. Lots of other companies do. Valve is probably the most successful example.
I don’t see how Valve is analogous. Perhaps if they were in a financial nosedive, and turned around and told software publishers to go fuck themselves?
This is just factually wrong.
Musk has been leading and controlling SpaceX for literally 20 years now. He has always been in full control and made pretty much all the most important decisions. He hired and recruited all of the leadership team. And he did work on the design and and helped build the rocket too. Since when is leading a team not important? Those are simple facts. Go read about about Falcon 1.
Its Twitter where Musk only recently started on, and Twitter had lots of issues before Musk took over, and Twitter where he has put a CEO in place.
So the fact is, Musk is far more deeply involved in SpaceX compared to Twitter. The same for Tesla, Musk has just as much power there and its also very successful.
The whole 'its all fund raising and government' doesn't actually hold up either.
> Apple actually delivered
Being the most successful space company in history. Having the most rocket launches, the biggest rocket, the most reliable engine, the most advanced engine, the most sats and the most launched human isn't good enough for you? Hasn't even deliver on the most complex project in human history. What a loser.
Granted its not exactly as complex as having a computer with a nice user-interface ...
> while Musk is live-tweeting his unraveling.
Musk is fine, he lives on, he does the same things he has been doing for 20+ years, SpaceX and Tesla continue to do fine and he is continuing to lead them. Twitter, exists and works fine. If that is 'unraveling' then I don't think you know what that words means.
All that has actually happened because of this 'unraveling' is that Twitter lost some of its value. Not ideal but also not really a big deal either.
Essentially calling somebody mentally ill because you don't like how they handle a company is really is more a reflection on you not Musk.
Factually wrong? Are you saying that Musk designs and builds the rockets?
> Musk has been leading and controlling SpaceX for literally 20 years now.
I think his behavior has very clearly changed over the past 20 years. There's a theory the pandemic did something to him, but I suspect it predates that.
> Being the most successful space company in history. Having the most rocket launches, the biggest rocket, the most reliable engine, the most advanced engine, the most sats and the most launched human isn't good enough for you? Hasn't even deliver on the most complex project in human history. What a loser.
I didn't call him a loser, and I'm not sure why you're equating criticism with an ad-hominem attack. I genuinely think he is grappling with mental health issues, though it doesn't excuse his behavior.
Anyway, I don't think it's relevant to dig into SpaceX's engineering any more than Tesla's battery tech.
If I hire a contractor to renovate my bathroom, and the results are good, is it because I had a hand in it? For all you know, I could have changed my mind about the tiles halfway through and demanded they start over, making the project harder than it needed to be. I could have hurled abuse at the laborer and the stiffed him for the bill.
> Musk is fine, he lives on, he does the same things he has been doing for 20+ years, SpaceX and Tesla continue to do fine and he is continuing to lead them.
Howard Hughes' companies did fine through his mental decline and death.
> Twitter, exists and works fine. If that is 'unraveling' then I don't think you know what that words means.
Twitter has lost its only major source of revenue, most of the people I followed there have moved on, and it's facing so many lawsuits that I've lost count. That doesn't seem fine.
The important detail is that all of this was self inflicted. The company wasn't doing great, but it was chugging along. He grabbed the wheel and drove it straight into a wall.
> Essentially calling somebody mentally ill because you don't like how they handle a company is really is more a reflection on you not Musk.
I think that when someone acts mentally ill, they tend to be mentally ill. The only counterargument seems to boil down to, "But he has a lot of money."
Yes he did help to design and build the rockets. By literally any definition. His impact on the final products of SpaceX is clearly larger then anybody else at SpaceX. And if you actually read the books on the topic, listen to talks with people who worked with him rather then some anti-space socialists on twitter.
> I think his behavior has very clearly changed over the past 20 years.
Many people change over 20 years ... but he didn't really fundamentally. Buying twitter came at the end of years of talking about speech and so on.
> If I hire a contractor to renovate my bathroom, and the results are good, is it because I had a hand in it?
Containing with the nonsense of 'he is just the finance' guy. Again, just nonsense. Honestly, inform yourself.
> most of the people I followed there have moved on
Its called selection bias.
> and it's facing so many lawsuits that I've lost count
Welcome to america.
> but it was chugging along.
And it still is.
> He grabbed the wheel and drove it straight into a wall.
How about we judge the company 5 or 10 years after he takes control. Tesla was a shitshow when he took over as well.
Twitter will likely never have the absurd valuation it had before, but to claim it 'drove into a wall' just isn't accurate.
> I think that when someone acts mentally ill, they tend to be mentally ill.
Again, I love to know what he has actually done that constitutes 'act mentally ill'. You can point to lots of things that make him not very like-able, but those aren't the same thing.
Literally your only argument seems to be 'twitter is now worth less then when he bought it'. So you think any company that gets acquired and doesn't justify its value means the CEO who bought it is mentally ill? Was Balmer mentally ill when he bought Nokia?
But go to now that you are professional therapist who can make medical diagnosis.
> The only counterargument seems to boil down to, "But he has a lot of money."
That's literally zero % of the argument but I guess that is what you need to tell yourself for your reasoning to make sense. He is rich because he is rich, and he is crazy because he wastes money on things you don't find important.
Do you think he had a greater impact than Tom Mueller? I'd expect the guy who was lead on the TR-106, and already developing liquid-fueled rocket engines, had more technical impact at a space company than a guy who worked in e-payments.
> And if you actually read the books on the topic, listen to talks with people who worked with him rather then some anti-space socialists on twitter.
I find it fascinating that you use "books" in the plural, like a totally normal person would read multiple books on Elon Musk.
From my survey of the material, Elon Musk books fail to consider anything he does from a critical perspective. Perhaps that's a requirement of getting access to interviews, or perhaps the authors know their audience are parasocial fans. Are there any books that you recommend that take a critical look?
> How about we judge the company 5 or 10 years after he takes control. Tesla was a shitshow when he took over as well.
Was it? It seems Tesla was any early-stage company. When he took over Twitter, it was already making revenue and even reached profitability in 2019. I don't understand the endgame of driving advertisers away.
> Again, I love to know what he has actually done that constitutes 'act mentally ill'.
It's hard to pick just one, but I'd start with the Twitter acquisition. Specifically, the part where he felt insulted by the CEO, so he initiated a hostile takeover. Then he put together a contract that he couldn't back out of. Then he spent much of the year trying to back out of that contract by just making up silly excuses.
Following the transition, he has cultivated an image and a platform that no sane advertiser would touch with a ten foot pole. Would a person grounded in reality tell a room full of advertisers, "Go fuck yourself," and then pause for applause that never come?
Then there's all the behavior in his personal life. I'm an open minded person, so if you want to have children with two women at the same time... and everyone is a consulting adult... good luck? But not telling both women what was going on seems unwell.
If you described this behavior to someone while leaving out the names, they'd probably describe it as self-destructive.
> But go to now that you are professional therapist who can make medical diagnosis.
It doesn't take a medical professional to watch bizarre episodes by Kanye West, Charlie Sheen or Britney Spears, and know something is up. I won't venture to say Elon is bipolar or has a drug problem, but if the news came out, most people would react with, "Sounds right."
Don't fall all over yourself moving the goal post. That's dangerous.
> normal person would read multiple books on Elon Musk
Books on EV, rockets, SpaceX, Tesla ...
But thanks for admitting that you are not actually informed. It shows.
> Was it?
Again, read some books.
> It's hard to pick just one
You have one, its bad business choices. Bad business choices don't imply mentally ill.
I don't think you know what moving the goal post means.
In my original post, I said, "Musk doesn't design or build the rockets."
You just said, "His impact on the final products of SpaceX is clearly larger than anybody else at SpaceX," and you claimed, "And he did work on the design and and helped build the rocket too."
I asked if that includes Tom Mueller, the person with professional experience designing rockets. Because going from "fired by an e-payments company" to "designing rockets" is quite a pivot.
> Books on EV, rockets, SpaceX, Tesla ...
What books do you recommend?
> But thanks for admitting that you are not actually informed.
I like to think I'm informed because I listen to both the praise and criticism of Musk and then make up my own mind.
> You have one, its bad business choices. Bad business choices don't imply mentally ill.
Are you saying that driving away all the advertisers, in the way that he did, was a business choice? Can you explain what he hoped to accomplish?
What I see is a mountain of evidence you can't argue with, so your only hope is an appeal to authority.
You believe he is smart. I presented an example of a stupid act. Now you’re supposed to explain why he did that. I’d think the only explanation would be a genius strategy I’m missing, but you seem to have trouble explaining it.
That said, I’m still genuinely interested in what you find loaded about my questions.
Do you disagree that advertisers left? Do you disagree that he was responsible? Do you disagree that this was a bad turn of events?
SpaceX has almost 300 re-usable rocket launches.
That’s incredible.