Elon Musk - Gatekeeper to Space

[mme]

Shouldn't the announcement of New Glenn have made this thread completely moot?

I know they haven't announced an capsule for it yet but it's not like they can't/won't develop one. The stated goal of Blue Origin is to get 1000s of humans working and living off of Earth.  In a pinch, what about a collaboration with Sierra Nevada or Boeing?

Sorry, anytime someone suggests that only one company will dominate spaceflight I get twitch like when Chief Inspector Dreyfus hears Clouseau's name.

The New Glenn will not be entering service until NET 2020. Then Blue will have to developed an orbital capable crewed spacecraft to match the Falcon 9/Dragon 2 combo. Seems like NET mid 2020's for Blue to put a manned orbital spacecraft of their own on top of a New Glenn.

So it does looks like the folks from Hawthorne will dominate human spaceflight to LEO & cos-Lunar for at least a few years.

IMO, the only way for the Boeing Starliner & the Dreamchaser to be on top of the New Glenn is if Blue acquired them. From historical Amazon behavior with competitors.

The premise of this thread is that SpaceX will gain some sort of long term advantage is the "Gate Keeper" to LEO and will maintain that advantage into the foreseeable future.  A few years "domination" is nothing in the scheme of things. Especially because I don't see SpaceX focussing on even trying to create some huge LEO market and it will take longer than 5 years for there to be more than a few such flights.

CommX is the golden goose for SpaceX, not space tourism. IMHO.

I also would not assume that Bezos would not gladly launch CST-100s and Dreamchasers if the opportunity presented itself.  It's not like that locks them into anything or prevents them from developing their own capsule.  Amazon sells iPads, AppleTVs, and everything else under the sun even when it "competes" with Amazon.

Edit:

IntoTheVoid pointed out that Amazon no longer sells AppleTVs. But they use to and I imagine they would be willing to use other company's spacecraft until they have one of their own. Either way, SpaceX won't be the only game in town for long.

[IntoTheVoid]

... and everything else under the sun even when it "competes" with Amazon.

That's not true. Amazon specifically stopped Chromecast and Apple TV to reduce competition for it's Amazon Fire devices.

http://fortune.com/2015/10/02/amazon-chromecast-apple/

[Zed_Noir]

.....

....

IMO, the only way for the Boeing Starliner & the Dreamchaser to be on top of the New Glenn is if Blue acquired them. From historical Amazon behavior with competitors.

You mean acquired that tiny piece of Boeing, not Boeing in total, right?
Not a ULA asset.

Thought that "Boeing Starliner" is clear enough to meant just whatever assets is associated with that spacecraft program from Boeing.

And I didn't mention ULA in my post.

[ZachF]

Shouldn't the announcement of New Glenn have made this thread completely moot?

I know they haven't announced an capsule for it yet but it's not like they can't/won't develop one. The stated goal of Blue Origin is to get 1000s of humans working and living off of Earth.  In a pinch, what about a collaboration with Sierra Nevada or Boeing?

Sorry, anytime someone suggests that only one company will dominate spaceflight I get twitch like when Chief Inspector Dreyfus hears Clouseau's name.

The New Glenn will not be entering service until NET 2020. Then Blue will have to developed an orbital capable crewed spacecraft to match the Falcon 9/Dragon 2 combo. Seems like NET mid 2020's for Blue to put a manned orbital spacecraft of their own on top of a New Glenn.

So it does looks like the folks from Hawthorne will dominate human spaceflight to LEO & cos-Lunar for at least a few years.

IMO, the only way for the Boeing Starliner & the Dreamchaser to be on top of the New Glenn is if Blue acquired them. From historical Amazon behavior with competitors.

The premise of this thread is that SpaceX will gain some sort of long term advantage is the "Gate Keeper" to LEO and will maintain that advantage into the foreseeable future.  A few years "domination" is nothing in the scheme of things. Especially because I don't see SpaceX focussing on even trying to create some huge LEO market and it will take longer than 5 years for there to be more than a few such flights.

CommX is the golden goose for SpaceX, not space tourism. IMHO.

I also would not assume that Bezos would not gladly launch CST-100s and Dreamchasers if the opportunity presented itself.  It's not like that locks them into anything or prevents them from developing their own capsule.  Amazon sells iPads, AppleTVs, and everything else under the sun even when it "competes" with Amazon.

Edit:

IntoTheVoid pointed out that Amazon no longer sells AppleTVs. But they use to and I imagine they would be willing to use other company's spacecraft until they have one of their own. Either way, SpaceX won't be the only game in town for long.

I would not be surprised in the least if Bezos has designs for his own Amazon constellation. New Glenn would be an almost perfect LV to maintain such a constellation.