Not sure why SpaceX is in this group, except "cause musk", since they're objectively the best rocket company out there.
The rest are obvious, but the Falcon 9 is the cheapest, and most reliable rocket.
While Falcon 9 is a dependable rocket...
EDIT: My turnaround times for the Space Shuttle were off, fastest was 55 days and its more like 3 months in average. The point I was attempting to illustrate, which is Rapid Reusability Is A Huge Element To Making The Cost Effectiveness Gains Promised, And SpaceX Is Still Off By An Order Of Magnitude, Over A Decade Into The Falcon Program.
The cost to launch a Falcon 9 has never dropped to around 5 million dollars, as Musk claimed they would be. Even accounting for inflation, launches average around ten times the cost Musk said they would be. Musk is charging the government around 90 million per launch: Soyuz was the only option, so the Russians could overcharge a bit for ISS launches, now the Russians are not an option, and Musk is similarly overcharging.
Starship/BFR is woefully behind the schedule for accomplishments that Musk claimed it would reach in his hype shows, woefully behind schedule for the NASA contract.
Starship/BFR has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and so far has a proven payload capacity of 0, would require 12 to 16 launches to accomplish what a single Saturn V could do, has not demonstrated the capacity to refuel in orbit, is not human rated, and is now just being moved back to Starship 2 and 3, with Musk now claiming Starship 1 actually has half the orbital cargo capacity he has up to recently claimed it has.
For comparison, the Saturn project had a development time similar to how long BFR/Starship has... never once failed, proved it could do what it needed to in 67, 7 years after development began.
(They also had computers maybe a little bit more or less powerful than a ti-83 and had to basically invent a huge chunk of computer science)
Starship/BFR development has been a shit show.
Dear Moon is cancelled.
Remember when the repulsive landing Dragon Capsule was going to land humans on Mars?
Remember when we were going to have multiple Starships starting a Martian colony by now?
SpaceX in general has gotten high on their own supply over the last 10 years and has made all sorts of lofty claims about lowering launch costs, rapid reusability, rockets for military asset deployment to anywhere on Earth, rockets as basically super fast commercial airliner travel, all of which have driven massive public hype and investor confidence, and then these claims are just forgotten about when it becomes apparent just how difficult these are to achieve, or in some cases, laughably, obviously unworkable with even a modicum of thought.
The truth of the matter, as proven by Musk's handling of his other companies, is that Musk just says things, "We can do this now!", when in reality he's basically had a napkin drawing plan a month ago, calls this prototyping, and now its a month later, and he emailed somebody and said 'Make this happen' with no further explanation, thus the project is now in development.
Seems like you're comparing SpaceX to Elons promises, not against the rest of the space industry. They're still much better than all the rest, even if they don't quite meet Elons promises.
Musk is SpaceX.
He's the frontman, even if Shotwell is the CEO now she's made some of the absurd claims I've referenced.
And SpaceX as a company, its developed products, fall laughably short of its promises, of its marketing.
The rest of the Space industry, generally, is no where near as bombastic and obviously full of shit, instead preferring to develop and operate without grandiose media/public performances.
There is a saying in business: Under-Promise, Over-Perform, or Over-Deliver.
SpaceX does the opposite of this.
Yeah but that doesn't mean SpaceX isn't a fantastic rocket company. Why is over promising an issue? It's still fantastically cheap and capable. You aren't buying rocket launches, and the people who are are looking at the current performance, not future projections.
Like it or not, the industry would still be worse off without the idiotic claims. The idiotic claims pushed the industry forward. You want to make a bulleted list of all the things you dislike or you perceive as failures and drawbacks, fine, go ahead. There are just as many positive bullet lists that could be made.
Musk is gross and SpaceX has some questionable marketing claims that you've identified, but I don't see how anyone could claim that anything about the company's products are a shitshow.
Falcon 9 has radically changed the economics of the space industry, and has no competition to force lower prices.
Starship has had a very successful testing campaign, and operates within a different development paradigm than Saturn. They've shown more progress on more technology in the last year than almost any rocket ever. It won't be long before Starship has demonstrated all the capabilities you mentioned. While the price tag is large in absolute terms, it will be very cheap relative to the competition.
Dear Moon was not canceled by SpaceX, and no one who follows the industry has ever believed Musk's timelines.
I guess I'm confused, because everything I know about Starship points towards it being one of the most incredible engineering accomplishments ever. There are lots of other problems with SpaceX's leadership, environmental impact, and work culture, but aren't the products inspiring?
Some people just cant separate the musk from the accomplishments. Or they read headlines about costs and historical comparisons without actually thinking about how apples to oranges they are. The vitriol over musk which is well deserved has really fucked with the space industry's image. And considering how fucked the image already was (not hated, but jaded and perceived as a waste of money), its a shame.
3 weeks, roughly in line with faster Space Shuttle turn around times
The shortest shuttle turnaround time was 55 days. Almost three times as much as Falcon 9. The fastest post-Challenger turnaround time was 88 days, I believe. After Columbia, the fastest turnaround was around 5 months.
NASA claimed that the shuttle could achieve a turnaround time of two weeks (page IX). It looks like SpaceX is not the only one setting unrealistic timelines?
bUt aLl tHe sTaRsHiPs eXpLoDeD!!!
How dare you! ... use sarcasm without the /s, people are getting confused!
The main issue with spacex is that they use taxpayer money to build infrastructure, research, and in many other ways fund a company who's accomplishments will never be shared with the world unless there is a price sticker on it.
SpaceX has Gwynne Shotwell who actually is the reason to find SpaceX interesting. She is so powerful that she can overcome Musk's perpetually increasingly unstable drag coefficient.
One of these things is not like the others. Falcon 9 is the most successful and impressive rocket ever built.
Replace Falcon with Starliner. Boeing is big enough to fuck up twice.
Put Google’s AI projects in the 4th box
Oh come on. SpaceX is doing way better than Boeing atm.
Yeah honestly space x is rocking it because of the immense talent of the team that exists there. They do over 100 successful launches per year now. It has transformed the space industry as humanity has ever known it. That's fucking cool.
Why is SpaceX on that I mean I know "musk bad", but seriously they're doing well. Just put Boeing on there again this time for Starliner.
Space x doesn't belong there
You son of a bitch, I'm out.
Muskians are having fits in the comments
Imagine simping over a Nazi worshipper like Musk who isn’t qualified to run a McDonalds.
Two of your team members are Elon
Gwen Shotwell actually. Honestly fantastic name.
If you're going to hate Elon Musk it might be a good idea to work out what companies he actually is and isn't CEO first
No one cared when Astra’s first three attempts (with a much less ambitious design) recently failed to reach orbit. Of course, launching rockets is hard and SpaceX’s first, less ambitious rocket also failed on its first three attempts. I’m sure other manufacturers have had their own share of problems. IMO people mostly think worse of spacex because it gets more publicity, but some degree of failure is always to be expected with new ventures in commercial rocketry.
There's 2 main reasons spacex gets shit. First one is Musk. Second one is the weird competitive thing SpaceX fanbois do where they criticise the shit out of all other rocket manufacturers and endlessly praise everything spaceX do.
3rd SpaceX is a private company getting public (national) funding and taking away from NASA (a national institution)
Same for Boeing, Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman and the like. Why are they getting a pass?
A great deal of the problem with the modern rocket industry is that it has been commercialized.
Indian and Chinese public sector agencies don't need to run around sucking off donors for money or inventing new ways to generate profit on taxpayer expense. They can operate at-cost with a consistent budget and aim at targets set by experts in the field rather than investors with the biggest wallets. Consequently, they're putting up better and more efficient spacecraft - India put its Mangalyaan probe into orbit around Mars for a measly $75M, China's the only country left with a nationally independent space station - than anyone in the private sector has managed to date.
Back when NASA wasn't an entirely owned and operates subsidiary of Boeing, it was able to go toe-to-toe with the USSR. But now the pursuit of quarterly profits is dissolving the western space industry to the point where we can't even get people off the ISS without Russia's help.
Top left: An aerospace conglomerate with an all-consuming focus on short-term profits, leading to endemic problems. The featured product being the 787, a functional and popular airliner which had numerous problems related to excessive outsourcing. Some safety concerns about newly delivered planes of this type, due to the company's endemic problems. As an airline, I would prefer to buy Airbus. And as a passenger, I would avoid the 737 Max totally and all Boeings for the first years of service.
Top right: A major electric car company with major leadership problems. The featured product is an automobile which compares disfavourably to other electric pickup trucks in most conventional metrics. As a consumer, I would look at alternatives.
Bottom left: Someone thought they could build a submarine.
Bottom right: The world's leading space launch company. Also the world's leading satellite internet company. The featured product is the Falcon 9, a large rocket capable of sending a large payload into orbit or beyond. The first stage can then land and be reused. Some concerns about the leadership of the company, and the side effects of their failure tolerant testing. As a for-profit company, I would have no other choice in launch providers. As a consumer, I could be in a situation where they are the the only real provider of internet access.
A very diverse "team". Assembled by someone with a different perspective than my own.
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