Nobody else has anything remotely like Starship. If they pull it off, and it's looking like they will, they will extend their dominance for another decade if not more.
Yes, Starship development has been slow and occasionally explodey, but they've successfully demonstrated all the fundamentals and it's "just" iteration from here. (They haven't gone into full orbit, but that's by choice, not lack of capability.)
It's a hard problem, and both SpaceX and Blue Origin will probably have failures in the future too, I am encouraged that they both see failure as a way to do better and looking forward to both of them eventually succeeding. It's a good time to be a space nerd.
There's a saying in the racing business. If you're not walking back to the pit now and then carrying the steering wheel, you're not trying hard enough. If you're walking back to the pit too often, you're incompetent.
There's another aspect. If you're launching men in rockets, you cannot tolerate failures, so the development cost is way, way higher. The cost effective method is to launch unmanned ones, tolerating a lot of failures, and when the bugs are worked out then launch men.
I know insurance for a launch is typical, but seems really tough to do that for this still “rather experimental” launch. I got to imagine it has costs something like 50% on a project like this.
The failure of the upper stage is a bummer. If it triggers a months-long review, that will almost certainly bump back the schedule for the prototype Blue Moon lander launch.
It came to my attention recently how many TOTAL objects currently exist in LEO. And that a study said that due to light deflection of these objects, that the earth’s night sky is an average of 10% brighter than it was in 1980s… although I generally am excited by technological advancement, that fact (if true) made me feel somewhat melancholy.
I will be good to have competition for space Internet. It’s unclear though if the market will really support two players. Satellite radio and data quickly ended up consolidating down to one.
Amazon is trying to become more vertically integrated but they seem at a structural disadvantage here competing against SpaceX.
You might be counting out the value of government and military contracts that might not want to do business with a wild card.
SpaceX is killing it because the US government gives them a bunch of contracts, but if stability is slightly more important than cost or speed, amazon has a contender.
Once Elon showed how to do it, and how cost-efficient it was, a rocket company that doesn't do it is not viable.
It's the 4-minute mile except it's taking everyone else too long to copy it. Really shows how far ahead Musk is.
Spacex first landed an orbital booster just over 10 years ago and have now landed 600 times.
The entire rest of the world combined has done it twice.
For a long time people would scoff when it was said they had a 10 year lead, and that others would catch up quickly. Proof meets pudding.
FTA: "SpaceX suffered upper stage failures on three test flights of the massive Starship rocket last year. "
SpaceX has also had numerous failures with the larger generation of second stages and currently doesn't have a lead there. Nobody does.
Nobody else has anything remotely like Starship. If they pull it off, and it's looking like they will, they will extend their dominance for another decade if not more.
Yes, Starship development has been slow and occasionally explodey, but they've successfully demonstrated all the fundamentals and it's "just" iteration from here. (They haven't gone into full orbit, but that's by choice, not lack of capability.)
It's a hard problem, and both SpaceX and Blue Origin will probably have failures in the future too, I am encouraged that they both see failure as a way to do better and looking forward to both of them eventually succeeding. It's a good time to be a space nerd.
There's a saying in the racing business. If you're not walking back to the pit now and then carrying the steering wheel, you're not trying hard enough. If you're walking back to the pit too often, you're incompetent.
There's another aspect. If you're launching men in rockets, you cannot tolerate failures, so the development cost is way, way higher. The cost effective method is to launch unmanned ones, tolerating a lot of failures, and when the bugs are worked out then launch men.
If you always fail, you aren’t trying.
If you never fail, you aren’t trying.
If you always fail, you aren’t learning
Isn't that better?
True, but then you have to differentiate trying and failing vs not doing anything and failing by default.
I know insurance for a launch is typical, but seems really tough to do that for this still “rather experimental” launch. I got to imagine it has costs something like 50% on a project like this.
The failure of the upper stage is a bummer. If it triggers a months-long review, that will almost certainly bump back the schedule for the prototype Blue Moon lander launch.
What I was not aware of is how many satellites Amazon already has in LEO for it's own Internet service.
They've been flying under the radar there it would seen.
It came to my attention recently how many TOTAL objects currently exist in LEO. And that a study said that due to light deflection of these objects, that the earth’s night sky is an average of 10% brighter than it was in 1980s… although I generally am excited by technological advancement, that fact (if true) made me feel somewhat melancholy.
I will be good to have competition for space Internet. It’s unclear though if the market will really support two players. Satellite radio and data quickly ended up consolidating down to one.
Amazon is trying to become more vertically integrated but they seem at a structural disadvantage here competing against SpaceX.
You might be counting out the value of government and military contracts that might not want to do business with a wild card.
SpaceX is killing it because the US government gives them a bunch of contracts, but if stability is slightly more important than cost or speed, amazon has a contender.
They "only" have about 250 but they're authorized for 3000. They just bought a satellite company this week though that might boost the numbers a bit.
Video of the booster landing: https://xcancel.com/JeffBezos/status/2045874068763632017
Stupid question I know, but are there people on that boat?
It's a drone boat, so no.
Space is hard.
Losing payloads hurts though, especially for a new platform.