Then, it depends on what you need to do. A 3x cost if you deploy a strategic constellation is fine. A 3x cost if you want to launch huge payloads for a Mars trip (I know costs were for LEO, just giving an example) is probably uncompetitive.
Price is not the only characteristic of a product (hence the mention of "strategic constellation").
In a "free market" would you recommend on USA to rely only on a Chinese manufactured essential product for its military (or the reverse, or Europe on Russia, or etc.)?
I am not against great private offers (be it rockets/cloud/etc.). But there should also be some "local" capability for some strategic products, so that if the private providers encounter issues (crazy CEO, tariffs, export regulations, etc.) you are not left without any of that capability.
They are right now, but if Japan can do it, and China can do it so can Europe and by the way, so can Australia, New Zealand and Canada they have the abilities they just have to have the will and if they haven’t learned anything recently, they better develop the will. Once again congratulations.
None of the countries you name is even close to SpaceX. Not even close. Their most ambitious prototypes are on par or behind the rocket SpaceX has been flying for a decade commercially.
The fact is that no one cares about reusability. Expendable rockets are cheap enough for governments and commercial entities alike, even for constellation launches. Starlink architecture only makes sense as a justification for the F9 launch cadence, and even then the actual satellites are managed as trains.
China and Japan have done it. You may not like the fact they have done it once or twice, they know how to do it from a technical standpoint and that’s only gonna grow in the future particularly China don’t act obtuse.
Except for the fact that SpaceX had a hard time getting any contracts at first because they were all going to Boeing and Lockheed Martin since the 1990s and even when SpaceX came to the market they had to compete at first with ULA and fact that they made it cheaper by orders by magnitude. Except for the fact that Musk almost went personally bankrupt trying to get SpaceX off the ground. Except for all those facts yea sure maybe... haha nope you're still wrong.
Yeah, I really hate this revisionism of Elon as an extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company. There is plenty to criticize about him, but SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
> extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company.
> SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
Both can be (and are) true at the same time. Elon hired/partnered the right people and didn't have capacity to mess all the companies he owned into oblivion. His main skill is bullshiting investors, the government and the public.
Musk was raised affluent in apartheid-era South Africa, his father had some connection to Zambian emerald trading/mining, and Musk's companies have benefited enormously from public contracts and policy. He's not stupid.
Musk has benefited enormously from public contracts and policy, but all the questionable ones are in Tesla (and especially originally solarcity, but that got folded into Tesla).
The government contracts that made SpaceX were all open bid, where SpaceX bid an better solution than anything that any of the established companies did, at literally half the price. Falcon 9 was a massive gift to the US government, in that it drove the entire industry to halve the prices they extracted from the government. Dragon was just as good.
That they also built a profitable launch company out of it just highlights how much of an outlier SpaceX is. They sold the US government a dollar for fifty cents, made a profit doing it, and ended up driving half the rockets already flying out of the business.
It's not good to take info as a personal attack.[0]
The most subsidized companies in human history by how long they've been around. it's worse than the actual military industrial complex (though both his major companies are heavily tied to the MIC as well)
I didn't flag your original comment. You're clearly very deep into identity-protective cognition and unable to discuss logically. You are taking criticism of a company very personally and getting emotional about it.
You are presenting statistics about government funding as "subsidies" when they aren't subsidies. They are just normal government contracts. That makes you a liar and a fool. You very clearly have an agenda to push but I will have none of it.
I looked through the link again and couldn't find a single one that is a contract and not a subsidy. Most of them look like this:
> Nevada has offered Tesla, an electric car producer, a subsidy package worth estimated $1.3 billion over several years. The package includes 100 percent abatements of sales taxes ($725 million saving over 20 years), real and personal property taxes ($332 million over 10 years), and modified business taxes ($27 million over 10 years). In addition, the subsidy package includes transferable tax credits: a tax credit of $12,500 per job for up to 6,000 jobs ($75 million saving for the company); a tax credit of 5 percent of the first $1 billion investment ($50 million); and a tax credit of 2.8 percent of the next $2.5 billion investment ($70 million). In addition, Tesla will receive cheaper electricity rates for eight years, which will save the company an estimated $8 million. Nevada will spend $43 million to buy the right of way for USA Parkway for the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, where the Tesla facility will be located (the amount is not included in the total). The state will also change its laws to allow Tesla to sell its cars directly to consumers, rather than through car dealers. Jobs are projected full-time permanent jobs at the facility. Investment is total projected investment (the company has committed to invest $5 billion within first 3 to 5 years and another $5 billion during the following 10 years). However, to receive the subsidies, Tesla must invest $3.5 billion.
When something has been proven false for the thousandth time I value not seeing the falsehoods repeatedly with no consequences in the supposed false virtue of "coherent educated responses". In real life these same people are denied attendance to universities. They aren't hired at top companies. And they aren't treated seriously by the adults in the room. Yet for some reason on an anonymous online forum I am supposed to sit through the bullshit. In reality these people are sucking up all the air in the room and narcissistic-ally going "me me me look at me and my pet political agenda". They know they are wasting everyone's time and cherry picking. You call it a "personal attack" like it's the worst thing in the world when in reality in real life rolling my eyes and going "you're dumb" to someone is barely an insult. If that's all it takes to make your entire argument collapse then you really didn't have a leg to stand on.
If I drive my German-made VW sedan on American roads - how many people consider it an American car, and wonder if Germany has a real car industry or not?
They are more expensive but the figures I have seen are 3x for Ariane 5 and 2x for Ariane 6 (source : https://spacenexus.us/guide/space-launch-cost-comparison).
Then, it depends on what you need to do. A 3x cost if you deploy a strategic constellation is fine. A 3x cost if you want to launch huge payloads for a Mars trip (I know costs were for LEO, just giving an example) is probably uncompetitive.
Any 2x or 3x cost for the same thing is uncompetitive in a free market.
Price is not the only characteristic of a product (hence the mention of "strategic constellation").
In a "free market" would you recommend on USA to rely only on a Chinese manufactured essential product for its military (or the reverse, or Europe on Russia, or etc.)?
I am not against great private offers (be it rockets/cloud/etc.). But there should also be some "local" capability for some strategic products, so that if the private providers encounter issues (crazy CEO, tariffs, export regulations, etc.) you are not left without any of that capability.
They are right now, but if Japan can do it, and China can do it so can Europe and by the way, so can Australia, New Zealand and Canada they have the abilities they just have to have the will and if they haven’t learned anything recently, they better develop the will. Once again congratulations.
New Zealand has already done it. Rocket Lab may have rebranded as American but it still builds and launches from NZ every few weeks
None of the countries you name is even close to SpaceX. Not even close. Their most ambitious prototypes are on par or behind the rocket SpaceX has been flying for a decade commercially.
The fact is that no one cares about reusability. Expendable rockets are cheap enough for governments and commercial entities alike, even for constellation launches. Starlink architecture only makes sense as a justification for the F9 launch cadence, and even then the actual satellites are managed as trains.
China and Japan have done it. You may not like the fact they have done it once or twice, they know how to do it from a technical standpoint and that’s only gonna grow in the future particularly China don’t act obtuse.
Cost decreases with scale. Spacex was also wildly expensive, it grew up thanks to government assistance
Except for the fact that SpaceX had a hard time getting any contracts at first because they were all going to Boeing and Lockheed Martin since the 1990s and even when SpaceX came to the market they had to compete at first with ULA and fact that they made it cheaper by orders by magnitude. Except for the fact that Musk almost went personally bankrupt trying to get SpaceX off the ground. Except for all those facts yea sure maybe... haha nope you're still wrong.
> it grew up thanks to government assistance
Please give an example of gov assistance that was not a open contract to every private launch company in the US
Yeah, I really hate this revisionism of Elon as an extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company. There is plenty to criticize about him, but SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
> extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company.
> SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
Both can be (and are) true at the same time. Elon hired/partnered the right people and didn't have capacity to mess all the companies he owned into oblivion. His main skill is bullshiting investors, the government and the public.
Musk was raised affluent in apartheid-era South Africa, his father had some connection to Zambian emerald trading/mining, and Musk's companies have benefited enormously from public contracts and policy. He's not stupid.
Musk has benefited enormously from public contracts and policy, but all the questionable ones are in Tesla (and especially originally solarcity, but that got folded into Tesla).
The government contracts that made SpaceX were all open bid, where SpaceX bid an better solution than anything that any of the established companies did, at literally half the price. Falcon 9 was a massive gift to the US government, in that it drove the entire industry to halve the prices they extracted from the government. Dragon was just as good.
That they also built a profitable launch company out of it just highlights how much of an outlier SpaceX is. They sold the US government a dollar for fifty cents, made a profit doing it, and ended up driving half the rockets already flying out of the business.
He benefits enormously from the government but then acts like he doesn’t.
[flagged]
It's not good to take info as a personal attack.[0]
The most subsidized companies in human history by how long they've been around. it's worse than the actual military industrial complex (though both his major companies are heavily tied to the MIC as well)
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cognition
[flagged]
I didn't flag your original comment. You're clearly very deep into identity-protective cognition and unable to discuss logically. You are taking criticism of a company very personally and getting emotional about it.
You are presenting statistics about government funding as "subsidies" when they aren't subsidies. They are just normal government contracts. That makes you a liar and a fool. You very clearly have an agenda to push but I will have none of it.
I looked through the link again and couldn't find a single one that is a contract and not a subsidy. Most of them look like this:
> Nevada has offered Tesla, an electric car producer, a subsidy package worth estimated $1.3 billion over several years. The package includes 100 percent abatements of sales taxes ($725 million saving over 20 years), real and personal property taxes ($332 million over 10 years), and modified business taxes ($27 million over 10 years). In addition, the subsidy package includes transferable tax credits: a tax credit of $12,500 per job for up to 6,000 jobs ($75 million saving for the company); a tax credit of 5 percent of the first $1 billion investment ($50 million); and a tax credit of 2.8 percent of the next $2.5 billion investment ($70 million). In addition, Tesla will receive cheaper electricity rates for eight years, which will save the company an estimated $8 million. Nevada will spend $43 million to buy the right of way for USA Parkway for the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, where the Tesla facility will be located (the amount is not included in the total). The state will also change its laws to allow Tesla to sell its cars directly to consumers, rather than through car dealers. Jobs are projected full-time permanent jobs at the facility. Investment is total projected investment (the company has committed to invest $5 billion within first 3 to 5 years and another $5 billion during the following 10 years). However, to receive the subsidies, Tesla must invest $3.5 billion.
Ironic to be acting like this and telling others to go back to bluesky. Please go for a walk.
[flagged]
Some value coherent educated responses to emotional name calling. Being proud of devolving into that is something I don't share.
When something has been proven false for the thousandth time I value not seeing the falsehoods repeatedly with no consequences in the supposed false virtue of "coherent educated responses". In real life these same people are denied attendance to universities. They aren't hired at top companies. And they aren't treated seriously by the adults in the room. Yet for some reason on an anonymous online forum I am supposed to sit through the bullshit. In reality these people are sucking up all the air in the room and narcissistic-ally going "me me me look at me and my pet political agenda". They know they are wasting everyone's time and cherry picking. You call it a "personal attack" like it's the worst thing in the world when in reality in real life rolling my eyes and going "you're dumb" to someone is barely an insult. If that's all it takes to make your entire argument collapse then you really didn't have a leg to stand on.
No because of reduction of bureaucracy. ESA is the prime example of 1 engineer to 50 managers culture.
This is an inaccurate simplification
No, counterintuitively Ariane is non-EU. It launches from South America
French Guyana is part of the EU, actually, in spite of being in South America. (Colonialism!)
Curious fact: France's longest border is with Brazil.
EU outermost region to be exact.
Last time I checked, France was part of the EU
If I drive my German-made VW sedan on American roads - how many people consider it an American car, and wonder if Germany has a real car industry or not?