Best Of

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

But it cannot. SpaceX relied really heavily on government contracts and money, especially in the early days, and Blue Origin is (mostly) funded through one of the world's richest men.

This happened because two hyper-rich men find space 'sexy', wanted to do it, and sunk oodles of their own funds into it. I cannot see how that would be easily replicatable in other, less sexy areas. Do you have suggestions?

Anduril (for example) is shaking up the defence market in the US, in what might be a similar manner. And defence has areas of massive cost plus contacts,

Similarly, the private sector is largely responsible for delivering the massive growth in cheaper than fossil fuel renewables - though again pump primed by government money (notably China's).

There's certainly a lot of potential for private sector contractors to deliver government services. But I'm not sure there are many examples with similar potential to the enormous 'cost plus' of space launch being replaced by SpaceX's orders of magnitude cheaper technology.

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

Imagine. But it is still private sector firms being paid handsomely by the state. Wherever the innovation magic lies, it is not as simple as the public/private split.

The difference being the order of magnitude difference in the price paid by the state, thanks to the new private companies being able to do much more for much less.

New private companies doing more for less than the old private companies.

Partly because they have billionaires chucking their own funding in as well. When they can't get the government to fund it.

(SpaceX is getting $2.89 billion from NASA for their lunar lander in one contract alone - much of which is being spent on SS/SH development. I'd love Musky Baby to decide that the lunar program isn't cost-effective under DOGE and cut the program. Because if you're short of money, going to the Moon seems like a rather frivolous endeavour...)

SLS will be lucky to launch for $2.89 billion per launch. Lots of rice bowls to fill.

And Bechtel is trying to charge that for a single launch tower.

And that’s what’s on the chopping block.

First step is Orion qualification on New Glenn or Vulcan, if the rumours are right.

Yeah, that's looking likely. Which is what I've said all along: the SLS project should continue until there is a practical alternative in the very heavy-lift market, and preferably two. I reckon within a couple of years we'll have two rockets in *approximately* the same class as SLS that are reliable and much cheaper. At which point SLS should die.

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

Imagine. But it is still private sector firms being paid handsomely by the state. Wherever the innovation magic lies, it is not as simple as the public/private split.

The difference being the order of magnitude difference in the price paid by the state, thanks to the new private companies being able to do much more for much less.

New private companies doing more for less than the old private companies.

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

Imagine. But it is still private sector firms being paid handsomely by the state. Wherever the innovation magic lies, it is not as simple as the public/private split.

The difference being the order of magnitude difference in the price paid by the state, thanks to the new private companies being able to do much more for much less.

New private companies doing more for less than the old private companies.

Partly because they have billionaires chucking their own funding in as well. When they can't get the government to fund it.

(SpaceX is getting $2.89 billion from NASA for their lunar lander in one contract alone - much of which is being spent on SS/SH development. I'd love Musky Baby to decide that the lunar program isn't cost-effective under DOGE and cut the program. Because if you're short of money, going to the Moon seems like a rather frivolous endeavour...)

SLS will be lucky to launch for $2.89 billion per launch. Lots of rice bowls to fill.

And Bechtel is trying to charge that for a single launch tower.

And that’s what’s on the chopping block.

First step is Orion qualification on New Glenn or Vulcan, if the rumours are right.

Yeah, that's looking likely. Which is what I've said all along: the SLS project should continue until there is a practical alternative in the very heavy-lift market, and preferably two. I reckon within a couple of years we'll have two rockets in *approximately* the same class as SLS that are reliable and much cheaper. At which point SLS should die.

The problem is that SLS and Orion are sucking all the money out of the NASA budget - which is already hurting science. Though demented mismanagement of Mars Sample Return hasn’t helped either.

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

Imagine. But it is still private sector firms being paid handsomely by the state. Wherever the innovation magic lies, it is not as simple as the public/private split.

The difference being the order of magnitude difference in the price paid by the state, thanks to the new private companies being able to do much more for much less.

If only Thames Water were a private company.

The issue is that certain companies are using an unheard of, old fashioned technique - making a product that works, at a lower price than the competition.

If this kind of dangerous thinking spreads, it could lead to all kinds of disastrous outcomes. Bat cages that only cost £25 million a kilometre?

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

Imagine. But it is still private sector firms being paid handsomely by the state. Wherever the innovation magic lies, it is not as simple as the public/private split.

The difference being the order of magnitude difference in the price paid by the state, thanks to the new private companies being able to do much more for much less.

New private companies doing more for less than the old private companies.

Partly because they have billionaires chucking their own funding in as well. When they can't get the government to fund it.

(SpaceX is getting $2.89 billion from NASA for their lunar lander in one contract alone - much of which is being spent on SS/SH development. I'd love Musky Baby to decide that the lunar program isn't cost-effective under DOGE and cut the program. Because if you're short of money, going to the Moon seems like a rather frivolous endeavour...)

SLS will be lucky to launch for $2.89 billion per launch. Lots of rice bowls to fill.

And Bechtel is trying to charge that for a single launch tower.

And that’s what’s on the chopping block.

First step is Orion qualification on New Glenn or Vulcan, if the rumours are right.

I know Starship gets all the attention, but Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has just gone vertical fully-stacked for the first time. And it looks beautiful:

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1859784773100503412

(Still a way away from launch; they have to do the first stage test firing.)

Imagine if the improvements in space technology in the past decade, driven by independent private sector development replacing public-sector ‘cost plus’ contracts to established partners, could be replicated in many other areas of American life…

But it cannot. SpaceX relied really heavily on government contracts and money, especially in the early days, and Blue Origin is (mostly) funded through one of the world's richest men.

This happened because two hyper-rich men find space 'sexy', wanted to do it, and sunk oodles of their own funds into it. I cannot see how that would be easily replicatable in other, less sexy areas. Do you have suggetions?

Both companies rely for lower cost on not having the height and breadth of traditional contracting pyramids.

So you don’t have an endless chain of people putting 20% on top - x + 1.2x + 1.44x …..

Which also allows them to iterate design - with the pyramid, each component is a black box designed to spec. Changing the spec causes a slow wave of expensive changes in a pyramid of contracts. With a shorter supply chain to a centralised design, you can actually change things without blowing the budget. See the doghouses on Starliner for where that can end up…

The other way of doing things gets you SLS or Orion.

Much of government procurement, on a large scale, in the Western World, operates with the cost plus pyramids.

We are beginning to see, in the American military spend, the first use of non-pyramid type procurement - some solid rocket motors for missiles are being built by companies with the same policies. Leading to massive cost reductions.

I agree that's what they're doing. I'm just saying that space is a rather different thing.

(As an aside, I believe Bezos and Blue have a better / more coherent central concept for the future in space than Musk. Which is one reason I really wish Blue the best.)

The same pyramids show up all the time. In the U.K., the first thing we do on big public projects is build such a pyramid. At the enquiry stage.

As to concepts in Space - as Shotwell has said, a number of times, no one knows how the market will expand with really cheap launch.