Is competition speeding things up?

[JamesH]

Is anyone else getting the impression that the recent plethora of launches is being sped up as a result of Musk/Bezos competition?

Previously, BO have been pretty secretive and slow releasing information about flights, now its coming thick and fast. SpaceX suddenly managed a RTLS, with very little warning, and released a DragonFLy video actually made last November.

It used to be government handbags at dawn, has that batton been handed over to commercial entities?

[IRobot]

R&D accomplishments are not linear with time.

[Lars-J]

Is anyone else getting the impression that the recent plethora of launches is being sped up as a result of Musk/Bezos competition?

No. Not at all. SpaceX own launch rate is behind their own optimistic schedules, even accounting for the CRS7 failure. They are simply catching up to their own schedule, going as fast as they can.

Long term? Maybe. But short and medium term term? Heck no. Blue Origin is far too secretive to have that kind of effect on anyone.

[JamesH]

Is anyone else getting the impression that the recent plethora of launches is being sped up as a result of Musk/Bezos competition?

No. Not at all. SpaceX own launch rate is behind their own optimistic schedules, even accounting for the CRS7 failure. They are simply catching up to their own schedule, going as fast as they can.

Long term? Maybe. But short and medium term term? Heck no. Blue Origin is far too secretive to have that kind of effect on anyone.

So complete coincidence that SpaceX release the DragonFly video the day before a BO flight? I defo. get the feeling there is some friendly billionaire competition going on here...!

[Silmfeanor]

Is anyone else getting the impression that the recent plethora of launches is being sped up as a result of Musk/Bezos competition?

No. Not at all. SpaceX own launch rate is behind their own optimistic schedules, even accounting for the CRS7 failure. They are simply catching up to their own schedule, going as fast as they can.

Long term? Maybe. But short and medium term term? Heck no. Blue Origin is far too secretive to have that kind of effect on anyone.

So complete coincidence that SpaceX release the DragonFly video the day before a BO flight? I defo. get the feeling there is some friendly billionaire competition going on here...!

Yes. It was released partly because NASA had a press release / update ready about commercial crew. The actual test was months ago.
So, complete coincidence. Unless NASA is part of this race? Which it is not. Your feeling is not substantiated by actual events.
As other posters have noted, this R&D and actually flying missions is not something that is done to promote flashy videos. There are lead times. Actual competition speeding up takes time; think the scale of months or years over year or decade-long schedules. Not something like releasing a video a day after.

[Danderman]

Any competition now is between 2 entities still in development mode.

Real competition is for customers, not bragging rights.  The best analogy is the Cold War Space Race. Since the competition was not economic, it was not sustainable.

[Elvis in Space]

Sit back and look at all the players including Spacex, Arianespace, Russia, NASA, BO, Virgin Galactic, etc and it looks less like direct competition and more like they are just making each other aware of what can be done. Certainly there are competitive forces at work but the feeling to me is more like they are encouraging each other. Just a vibe I guess but it's a strange business. Not making widgets here.

[sanman]

Competition certainly sped things up during the 1950s and 1960s of the Cold War, so there's no reason why private space competition shouldn't achieve a speed-up as well.

It will be even more interesting to see how much of a speed-up from competition occurs once space tourism gets rolling, with plenty of paying customers.

I'm also wondering if competition won't spur imitation - ie. competitors switching to adopt each others' approaches when they see them working better. How many ideas will SpaceX and Blue borrow from each other?
Will Richard Branson now start looking around for a VTVL as he sees others marching ahead with that approach?

[Craftyatom]

Is anyone else getting the impression that the recent plethora of launches is being sped up as a result of Musk/Bezos competition?

No. Not at all. SpaceX own launch rate is behind their own optimistic schedules, even accounting for the CRS7 failure. They are simply catching up to their own schedule, going as fast as they can.

Long term? Maybe. But short and medium term term? Heck no. Blue Origin is far too secretive to have that kind of effect on anyone.

So complete coincidence that SpaceX release the DragonFly video the day before a BO flight? I defo. get the feeling there is some friendly billionaire competition going on here...!

The biggest counterargument to this, IMO, is that until the plume appeared, nobody actually knew anything about the flight.  The only way to have known beforehand is if somebody was watching the FAA releases very closely, and something tells me nobody at SpaceX is going to get paid to do that.

Personally, I think even the idea of posting media reactively is ridiculous, but even more compelling is the fact that SpaceX likely didn't even know Blue was going to be doing anything when the Dv2 video was posted.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Posted this in another thread about the recent Raptor contract but it really belongs here.

Just looked at the SpaceNews article for the BO test flight yesterday and there is one tidbit of information and that is that the BE-4 prototype tests NLT EOY 2016. This is 1 year in advance of SpaceX so you are correct that SpaceX is likely to increase their spending to do their prototype test for Raptor NLT EOY 2017. Also this means that by 2019 there will be a possible 2 MethaLox 500Klbf class engines in production. Things are moving quickly and SpaceX needs to keep moving ahead rapidly or they may get left behind in the reusability race that has started.

This also means that if ULA continues sufficient funding of Vulcan then they could fly the first MethaLox orbital 1st stage NLT EOY 2019. SpaceX would not be far behind with a 1st stage MethaLox vehicle NLT EOY 2021. Their development may see an acceleration.

There is a competition starting but it is for a highly inexpensive reusable 1st stage and the competitors include SpaceX, BO, ULA and ESA. I am wondering if ULA may change its Vulcan design to allow for later propulsive land landing recovery, since Vulcan is still in design (paper) phase but with a BE-4 looking like existing with exact performance values and (form fit function) the design is likely to quickly transition to critical design and production. SpaceX's effort is a year behind and that will spur them to speed up.

[HIP2BSQRE]

Posted this in another thread about the recent Raptor contract but it really belongs here.

Just looked at the SpaceNews article for the BO test flight yesterday and there is one tidbit of information and that is that the BE-4 prototype tests NLT EOY 2016. This is 1 year in advance of SpaceX so you are correct that SpaceX is likely to increase their spending to do their prototype test for Raptor NLT EOY 2017. Also this means that by 2019 there will be a possible 2 MethaLox 500Klbf class engines in production. Things are moving quickly and SpaceX needs to keep moving ahead rapidly or they may get left behind in the reusability race that has started.

This also means that if ULA continues sufficient funding of Vulcan then they could fly the first MethaLox orbital 1st stage NLT EOY 2019. SpaceX would not be far behind with a 1st stage MethaLox vehicle NLT EOY 2021. Their development may see an acceleration.

There is a competition starting but it is for a highly inexpensive reusable 1st stage and the competitors include SpaceX, BO, ULA and ESA. I am wondering if ULA may change its Vulcan design to allow for later propulsive land landing recovery, since Vulcan is still in design (paper) phase but with a BE-4 looking like existing with exact performance values and (form fit function) the design is likely to quickly transition to critical design and production. SpaceX's effort is a year behind and that will spur them to speed up.

There is added pressure for all space rocket companies.  What people have not said - what will this competition do to the market for A6?  Will A6 have to change?  How does this affect OTK?  I think Vulcan has to change now or they will be building a rocket for the wrong decade.   The rockets in 5 -10 years maybe a lot different than they are today.  Also what affect will this have for SLS?  SpaceX and BO may be flying reusable first stages before the 2nd flight of SLS.

[HIP2BSQRE]

Posted this in another thread about the recent Raptor contract but it really belongs here.

Just looked at the SpaceNews article for the BO test flight yesterday and there is one tidbit of information and that is that the BE-4 prototype tests NLT EOY 2016. This is 1 year in advance of SpaceX so you are correct that SpaceX is likely to increase their spending to do their prototype test for Raptor NLT EOY 2017. Also this means that by 2019 there will be a possible 2 MethaLox 500Klbf class engines in production. Things are moving quickly and SpaceX needs to keep moving ahead rapidly or they may get left behind in the reusability race that has started.

This also means that if ULA continues sufficient funding of Vulcan then they could fly the first MethaLox orbital 1st stage NLT EOY 2019. SpaceX would not be far behind with a 1st stage MethaLox vehicle NLT EOY 2021. Their development may see an acceleration.

There is a competition starting but it is for a highly inexpensive reusable 1st stage and the competitors include SpaceX, BO, ULA and ESA. I am wondering if ULA may change its Vulcan design to allow for later propulsive land landing recovery, since Vulcan is still in design (paper) phase but with a BE-4 looking like existing with exact performance values and (form fit function) the design is likely to quickly transition to critical design and production. SpaceX's effort is a year behind and that will spur them to speed up.

Why does SpaceX have to speed up MethaLOX? If you are  1- 2 years behind - how does it matter?

[nadreck]

One aspect of what is going on between BO and SpaceX right now is that their competitors have to take everything each company does more seriously because the various rationalizations of how this new way of doing things won't affect serious customers of serious launch providers are far less effective if there are two eccentric billionaires doing it: A, it is a lot less eccentric and probably even makes business sense; B, it isn't just a lucky shot.

From the ranks of the potential customers for BO and SpaceX the perception of each success that either company has rubs off on the other one and the potential customers will, barring any spectacular failures, expect that anything both companies can do should be practical for any company.

While I think Jeff and Elon might spend a very small amount of effort trying to one up each other (and most of that effort is probably in trying to think up effective tweets) the successes and failures of one may influence not the overall effort, but sometimes scheduling the effort, on some project. Raptor vs BE-4 may be an example of that.

[HIP2BSQRE]

Competition is not helping Areojet.

[Darkseraph]

I don't think so. Certainly there is a competition for visibility by putting out slick commercial videos of the achievements thus far.

But many of these companies started out around the same time, in the early 00s coming right after the internet boom and the time it takes to develop technologies like this is hard to compress, even with a ton of money. So right about now, they're on the steep ascending part of the curve, when all that trial and error comes together.

:/

[Coastal Ron]

I don't think so. Certainly there is a competition for visibility by putting out slick commercial videos of the achievements thus far.

But many of these companies started out around the same time, in the early 00s coming right after the internet boom and the time it takes to develop technologies like this is hard to compress, even with a ton of money. So right about now, they're on the steep ascending part of the curve, when all that trial and error comes together.

Important points.  So essentially the competition between Blue Origin and SpaceX is not affected by each others accomplishments, but I would hope they are now inspiring the next wave of competition - those that want to stay up with (or even surpass) what Blue Origin and SpaceX are doing.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

For orbital launches the F9 can be considered as the first generation VTVL reusable first stage and the BE-4 and Raptor powered first stages to be the second generation VTVL reusable first stages. The difference being that the MethaLox vehicles are likely to have twice or more times the number of flight life than the F9. Plus the refurbishment costs may be lower for these vehicles as well such that on a comparison the per flight costs of these second generation 1st stages may represent a real reduction in costs of as much as $5M per flight. Making the cost of the 1st stage per flight as a percentage of the flight costs <10%. Now add a reusable US and the costs can drop another $10M per flight get the per flight prices below $20M.

But it will not happen overnight. These second generation 1st stages will be showing up somewhere around 2020-2022 ULA's Vulcan notwithstanding which may fly as early as 2019. Unless ULA changes their minds about VTVL, Vulcan would be classed as a first generation reusable 1st stage even though it could have a large flight number for the engines the costs per flight will still be significant.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I agree that SpaceX and BO are going at their respective paces, it's just with each company doing multiple things some events naturally occur close together.
However, competition has clearly affected ULA's plan for Vulcan & ESA's for Ariane 6. It's great to see the industry being more innovative.

[HIP2BSQRE]

For orbital launches the F9 can be considered as the first generation VTVL reusable first stage and the BE-4 and Raptor powered first stages to be the second generation VTVL reusable first stages. The difference being that the MethaLox vehicles are likely to have twice or more times the number of flight life than the F9. Plus the refurbishment costs may be lower for these vehicles as well such that on a comparison the per flight costs of these second generation 1st stages may represent a real reduction in costs of as much as $5M per flight. Making the cost of the 1st stage per flight as a percentage of the flight costs <10%. Now add a reusable US and the costs can drop another $10M per flight get the per flight prices below $20M.

But it will not happen overnight. These second generation 1st stages will be showing up somewhere around 2020-2022 ULA's Vulcan notwithstanding which may fly as early as 2019. Unless ULA changes their minds about VTVL, Vulcan would be classed as a first generation reusable 1st stage even though it could have a large flight number for the engines the costs per flight will still be significant.

I think ULA is in a world of hurt going forward in 2020+ timeframe.  What stops BO for competing for the EELV contract around 2020?  BO said they want millions of people in space - well to get there - there needs to be  demand.  The number of DOD launches will be down, they would be competing with SpaceX and BO for Govt. launches.  The market has to expand going forward. 

[AncientU]

Posted this in another thread about the recent Raptor contract but it really belongs here.

Just looked at the SpaceNews article for the BO test flight yesterday and there is one tidbit of information and that is that the BE-4 prototype tests NLT EOY 2016. This is 1 year in advance of SpaceX so you are correct that SpaceX is likely to increase their spending to do their prototype test for Raptor NLT EOY 2017. Also this means that by 2019 there will be a possible 2 MethaLox 500Klbf class engines in production. Things are moving quickly and SpaceX needs to keep moving ahead rapidly or they may get left behind in the reusability race that has started.

This also means that if ULA continues sufficient funding of Vulcan then they could fly the first MethaLox orbital 1st stage NLT EOY 2019. SpaceX would not be far behind with a 1st stage MethaLox vehicle NLT EOY 2021. Their development may see an acceleration.

There is a competition starting but it is for a highly inexpensive reusable 1st stage and the competitors include SpaceX, BO, ULA and ESA. I am wondering if ULA may change its Vulcan design to allow for later propulsive land landing recovery, since Vulcan is still in design (paper) phase but with a BE-4 looking like existing with exact performance values and (form fit function) the design is likely to quickly transition to critical design and production. SpaceX's effort is a year behind and that will spur them to speed up.

Why does SpaceX have to speed up MethaLOX? If you are  1- 2 years behind - how does it matter?

There is no basis for saying Blue is a year ahead... this is only true if you assume the USAF funded development is the single path for Raptor.  Full scale component testing is underway at Stennis (almost two years running) and McGregor, so we'll see what is revealed when SpaceX discusses Mars plans this year. 

I wouldn't be surprised if they are each testing a full scale engine this time next year, but Blue doing that would be the greater surprise. They were talking a while back of having an engine for Vulcan in 2018 IIRC.