Decay said:

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What's the worst-case scenario? Hitting ISS? Uncontrolled deorbit?

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Nothing gets close to the ISS without being in a very stable state; rules for approach and the phases are very tightly controlled. Initially, starliner was placed in an orbit that wouldn't even make it around once, but then once, deliberately, and then they boosted it up to an approach orbit, and even then there are 3 or 4 more steps to actually enter the 'safe' space around ISS.

Tim did a good video on that I think (or Scott Manley) a ways back (control of the airspace around ISS).

nortex97 said:

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Decay said:

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What's the worst-case scenario? Hitting ISS? Uncontrolled deorbit?

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Nothing gets close to the ISS without being in a very stable state; rules for approach and the phases are very tightly controlled. Initially, starliner was placed in an orbit that wouldn't even make it around once, but then once, deliberately, and then they boosted it up to an approach orbit, and even then there are 3 or 4 more steps to actually enter the 'safe' space around ISS.

Tim did a good video on that I think (or Scott Manley) a ways back (control of the airspace around ISS).

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Awesome thanks. I do remember watching that video, with all the different keep out zones. Also sounds like they're doing some testing ahead of time. So the ISS itself is safe, barring something like "RCS thruster gets stuck firing and also can't be compensated for while executing the last of 20 maneuvers".

Getting very close…

Just a few meters from the docking port will dock in about 35 minutes

.@BoeingSpace's #Starliner spacecraft is now expected to dock at the @Space_Station at 7:57pm ET. Live coverage continues on https://t.co/Ct94x1RTwM. pic.twitter.com/0sFq8yT744

— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) May 20, 2022

Almost there…

Stay on target.

👋 Hello, #Starliner! @BoeingSpace's human-rated spacecraft has arrived at the International @Space_Station for the first time, docking at 8:28pm ET (00:28 UTC). pic.twitter.com/gXceiHJhuB

— NASA (@NASA) May 21, 2022

Does the McGregor test center put out a schedule?

Love SpaceX, and think it will go further (Moon/Mars) a ton more quickly and cheaply, but it's good to have two American options for the ISS

I hate to agree with asshat.... but cmon man, this is full blown shuttle SRB level excuse making. Manned spaceflight should NEVER be using the "we know part of it is going to fail, we just built enough backups on it to keep it limping along".

He's absolutely right, especially for a vehicle designed for reboost, the freaking engines should be able to function through orbital insertion.

I'm not anti-boeing, I'm anti killing people, both for the sake of the astronauts and the program.

I'd take a more pragmatic approach to safety/risk. The margins are built in from a safety perspective for component failures, to remain safe per NASA's guidelines. Further;

Quote:

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NASA paid $86M per seat for the Soyuz missions. Recently they extended the SpaceX contract by 12 seats for $75M per seat. The Starliner cost, as part of the original development contract, is $90M per seat.

However these numbers don't consider included cargo (up & down), which both vehicles can carry. Starliner can potentially carry one more astronaut per launch, although there are no plans to do so. That seat will be used for cargo instead. Also NASA paid Boeing a premium for the ability to add launches if needed.

As things have worked out, NASA has now paid SpaceX for the extra flights, so likely will hold the acquired Boeing extra launch capability in future reserve.

We won't have a true comparison cost until NASA extends the contract for Starliner seats, which might not happen if the ISS is retired in 2030. There is probably already enough capacity to last until then.

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Starliner from an economic perspective is not outrageously expensive, and is, for now, available (subject to the Atlas/RD-180 inventory). It does offer the re-boost capability NASA could have chosen Sierra for, but didn't. It would be great to have more options and for the Senate not to heavily favor Boeing/ULA etc., but that's not the world we live in.

It also has now proven the safety procedures they require for ISS docking;

Quote:

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Testing of the spacecraft's systems and docking procedures were still ongoing, with a space-to-space commanding test carried out shortly after the second NHPC burn. After the coelliptic burn, Starliner performed another test to demonstrate the capabilities of its Vision-Based Electro-Optical Sensor

Assembly (VESTA), which will be used to identify and track the ISS, determining the distance to docking during the final approach to the station.

Next, the Terminal Phase Rendezvous Initiation (TPI) maneuver was conducted, putting Starliner on a direct course to intercept the ISS. Further VESTA demonstrations took place before Starliner performed its Inbound Flyaround Initialization Maneuver 1 (IF1) burn. This was the first of two maneuvers aligning the spacecraft with its docking port, the International Docking Adapter Forward (IDA-F), attached to Pressurized Mating Adaptor 2 (PMA-2) on the forward side of the Harmony module.

Then, the second Inbound Flyaround maneuver was performed. This was followed by the Approach Corridor Initiation (ACI) burn, bringing Starliner closer to the ISS. After the ACI, astronauts aboard the space station commanded Starliner to hold at 255 meters distance in a planned test of the crew's ability to send instructions to the spacecraft.

After holding for five minutes, Starliner resumed its approach and entered the 200-meter "keep out sphere" surrounding the ISS.

Shortly after it was cleared to enter the keep-out sphere, Starliner automatically retreated to the 200-meter mark in another planned demonstration of docking safety procedures. Starliner held position, and during this time VESTA was once again tested.

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AA is just…dramatic, imho. I've stopped watching his stuff.

"Burning through the first o-ring is fine, that's what the secondary is for.... nothing has gone wrong yet"

He is to dramatic, I just agree with him for once lol

*edit my point is that the thing has never operated without failures in the OMAC even on the test stand. Its already knocked out it's only two backups, and still has to fire again. There is very clearly a design flaw in the OMAC, and simply relying on the shuttle mentality of ignoring the design flaws and just putting redundant redundant redundancy in place is dangerousm

I tried finding this the other day, but does anyone know what kind of thrusters are used in the OMAC? I saw some pictures that make me think they're mono-propellant, but I can't get confirmation.

Maximus_Meridius said:

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I tried finding this the other day, but does anyone know what kind of thrusters are used in the OMAC? I saw some pictures that make me think they're mono-propellant, but I can't get confirmation.

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Think they're built by aerojet/rocketdyne, and I believe they're bi-prop using mmh/nto. The rs-88 variant being used for aborts is running mmh/NTO, I think only the crew module uses mono thrusters during re-entry.

Maximus_Meridius said:

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I tried finding this the other day, but does anyone know what kind of thrusters are used in the OMAC? I saw some pictures that make me think they're mono-propellant, but I can't get confirmation.

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They are derivatives of the MR-104 from Aerojet, used on everything since the original Voyager. The ones on Starliner use an oxidizer with the hydrazine, as it is a lot more efficient than a monopropellant. Starliner has 3 different types of thrusters, optimized for different purposes. The valve moisture issues occurred on the oxidizer side of the mid-range thrusters (nitrous tetra oxide), not the fuel side (hydrazine).

The root cause determination found that moisture entered the oxidizer valve housing through the electrical connectors, which have now been sealed. The housings are also now enclosed in a hood with dry nitrogen gas purge.

The analysis found that corrosion could begin in as little as 7 days after oxidizer loading. Due to various launch delays, Starliner had ended up being loaded 44 days before launch. So there was more than enough time for the problem to develop.

The requirements for corrosion were weeping of the oxidizer past the Teflon valve seals, ambient moisture in the air, and the aluminum valve materials. The solution addressed the moisture, but they may choose to address the other two with a valve redesign, as a more permanent fix.

There are 12 OMAC thrusters distributed between 4 doghouses. In the port doghouse, 2 of the thrusters had early shutdowns, but the 3rd was ok. Starliner has levels of redundancy that include the loss of any one doghouse, with the others compensating. So even if the remaining thruster went out in that one doghouse, it would be ok.

From the post-docking Starliner media conference, the two OMAC thruster problems were both low chamber pressure, which triggered a shutdown. Happened a second time today so they just mapped those thrusters out, since they have plenty of redundancy. Two RCS thrusters also failed during maneuvering today, but again there is ample redundancy so they just turned them off.

Also had a problem develop in the two cooling loops, which developed excess pressure and low flow rates. They resolved this by duty-cycling the radiators to boost flow and lower pressure, which has worked well as again there is ample capacity. Thought to be related to the system possibly freezing as there was a very low heat load without the crew.

There was an intermittent problem with one of the Starliner directional antennas, that caused momentary LOS to ground stations, but communication was continuous to ISS. Also the docking system got into an incorrect configuration when the ring was extended, but stowing it and resetting the system fixed the issue. Lastly there was small glitch in the computer graphics drawing, that showed a small offset in the Starliner location. They confirmed the offset was not real and proceeded.

Leuders mentioned that all the effort, planning, and time invested in the spacecraft pays off, when unexpected problems occur but the team quickly works around them. That is an excellent point, and exactly right.

The RCS thrusters can also suffice in a pinch. It was not necessary to invoke those scenarios. I disagree with '08 and AA in concluding that this is a demonstration Boeing is really going to put lives at risk over the two thrusters shutting down, and I also think NASA leadership and Boeing alike would desperately want to avoid the scrutiny such a serious incident would lead to, if it is a real risk.

The malfunctions in isolation don't worry me. The emergence of reliance on redundancy does.

It harkens back to a dark era in NASA history. If OFT2 can go off without a problem I'll be less concerned, but we can't man rate something that's going to have a habitual problem every flight.

That's fine, and I'm happy to agree to disagree like adults without throwing a tantrum over it or anything, but I do think that conclusory analyses is lacking historical context.

Boeing did better OFT-1 and OFT-2 than NASA did with Apollo 1 (AKA The Apollo Fire). The first Shuttle flight revealed a bunch of problems, including a landing gear problem that was very serious. The first 2 Mercury flights had apparent problems so serious that there was fear they had lost Glenn and Carpenter (With Glenn, it was a faulty sensor, and the capsule was fine, though they thought the heat shield was loose.)

SpaceX had some problems on the first Dragon 1 flights, and of course, they lost the first Dragon 2 capsule (Edit: on the ground) during a test of the abort systems. There was a valve problem, which they fixed by adding burst disks to the abort system.

I'm pretty sure the Shuttle had 2 or more thrusters fail on every flight. The Shuttle had 4-fold redundancy in every thruster position and valve, and feed line. The plumbing was a nightmare, and the software was so strange that the people who wrote it (who had moved on to other projects) had to give courses to the new NASA engineers every few years.

The approach with the shuttle was probably excessively cautious, but is pertinent because through that history/context Nasa still today insists on the highest levels of redundancy in thruster systems for manned capsules. Several levels of redundancy are essential here (and not by Boeing's choice), since without the thrusters, the capsule could be marooned in orbit. When you add redundancy you add complexity and increase the risk of a component failing.

On thrusters, it's a funny topic to me. Musk claims that the flatter management structure at SpaceX makes every engineer more competent in the operations of the entire system, and this might be the reason why SpaceX has fewer problems, and fixes them faster. I also suspect a lot of those engineers are putting in 80+ hour weeks and are trying to prove themselves at a younger age (often mid/late 20's) so they are very motivated to quickly resolve stuff as it pops up.

Remember Musk's mentality is that 'the best part is no part.' That's why on starship they are trying to just use excess main engine gases (ullage) as thrusters (essentially it's LOX that would be dumped on reentry anyway). They don't want to worry about things like seals as in Starliner giving way over weeks/months to toxic/non refillable thrusters at all for things like martian/lunar vehicles.

Thanks, I only had time to try 3 or 4 Google searches before chasing after the hyperactive toddler. Not really sure how I didn't find all this. My guess is the low pressure on the two OMAC thrusters is probably an indication that there's a slow leak in the oxidizer valves to those thrusters. It's not terribly surprising as valve sealing is a bit of a PITA, and when you're trying to keep weight down it only becomes more so.

While I agree with the notion that with the high levels of redundancy are sufficient for Starliner to proceed to the manned flight, I really think NASA needs to sit Boeing and Aerojet down in a room and tell them that this valve issue needs to be ****ing solved yesterday. The one thing I think they might be overlooking (and they're probably aware of it, but I'll say it anyway) is the effect of spending 6 months in orbit on those thrusters. While you're in a vacuum, corrosion (or maybe I should say material degradation) can still occur, and for all we know, every single oxidizer valve in the OMAC system is leaking, just at slower rates. Hopefully they'll have a monitor going that will say "Hey guys...yeah...I'm running low on oxidizer...just thought you'd wanna know". It's a shame, really, that the service module gets burned up because I'm sure the engineers would love to be able to dissect that thing to see where things went wrong.

nortex97 said:

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Maximus_Meridius said:

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I tried finding this the other day, but does anyone know what kind of thrusters are used in the OMAC? I saw some pictures that make me think they're mono-propellant, but I can't get confirmation.

---

They are derivatives of the MR-104 from Aerojet, used on everything since the original Voyager. The ones on Starliner use an oxidizer with the hydrazine, as it is a lot more efficient than a monopropellant. Starliner has 3 different types of thrusters, optimized for different purposes. The valve moisture issues occurred on the oxidizer side of the mid-range thrusters (nitrous tetra oxide), not the fuel side (hydrazine).

The root cause determination found that moisture entered the oxidizer valve housing through the electrical connectors, which have now been sealed. The housings are also now enclosed in a hood with dry nitrogen gas purge.

The analysis found that corrosion could begin in as little as 7 days after oxidizer loading. Due to various launch delays, Starliner had ended up being loaded 44 days before launch. So there was more than enough time for the problem to develop.

The requirements for corrosion were weeping of the oxidizer past the Teflon valve seals, ambient moisture in the air, and the aluminum valve materials. The solution addressed the moisture, but they may choose to address the other two with a valve redesign, as a more permanent fix.

There are 12 OMAC thrusters distributed between 4 doghouses. In the port doghouse, 2 of the thrusters had early shutdowns, but the 3rd was ok. Starliner has levels of redundancy that include the loss of any one doghouse, with the others compensating. So even if the remaining thruster went out in that one doghouse, it would be ok.

From the post-docking Starliner media conference, the two OMAC thruster problems were both low chamber pressure, which triggered a shutdown. Happened a second time today so they just mapped those thrusters out, since they have plenty of redundancy. Two RCS thrusters also failed during maneuvering today, but again there is ample redundancy so they just turned them off.

Also had a problem develop in the two cooling loops, which developed excess pressure and low flow rates. They resolved this by duty-cycling the radiators to boost flow and lower pressure, which has worked well as again there is ample capacity. Thought to be related to the system possibly freezing as there was a very low heat load without the crew.

There was an intermittent problem with one of the Starliner directional antennas, that caused momentary LOS to ground stations, but communication was continuous to ISS. Also the docking system got into an incorrect configuration when the ring was extended, but stowing it and resetting the system fixed the issue. Lastly there was small glitch in the computer graphics drawing, that showed a small offset in the Starliner location. They confirmed the offset was not real and proceeded.

Leuders mentioned that all the effort, planning, and time invested in the spacecraft pays off, when unexpected problems occur but the team quickly works around them. That is an excellent point, and exactly right.

The RCS thrusters can also suffice in a pinch. It was not necessary to invoke those scenarios. I disagree with '08 and AA in concluding that this is a demonstration Boeing is really going to put lives at risk over the two thrusters shutting down, and I also think NASA leadership and Boeing alike would desperately want to avoid the scrutiny such a serious incident would lead to, if it is a real risk.

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Nice summary. I'm looking forward to the post flight data reviews.

Smallsat Transporter mission launching in about 3 hours, always love a daytime RTLS landing

A nearly uninterrupted timelapse view of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster returning to Earth after today's launch, from separation to landing: pic.twitter.com/xlvwFeUS7F

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) May 25, 2022

We're about 30 minutes away from Boeing's Starliner spacecraft landing in White Sands, New Mexico. Which is named that, because, well ... pic.twitter.com/igSVhc0vj9

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) May 25, 2022

The NESC is possibly looking into a leak the spilled hypergolics on the heat shield of the Axiom 1 mission. Given crew 4 is reusing its composite heatshield materials, and some of the dracos.

NASA is maintaining that nothing has happened in a statement, that the rumors came from the replacement of a faulty component for the crew 5 mission.

I hold spacex to the same standard as boeing...either do it right or don't do it. The denial of the rumor seems to be the end of the discussion, but I'm hoping they're going to hold ANY vehicle operator's feet to the fire

That will never not be cool

Ag_of_08 said:

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The NESC is possibly looking into a leak the spilled hypergolics on the heat shield of the Axiom 1 mission. Given crew 4 is reusing its composite heatshield materials, and some of the dracos.

NASA is maintaining that nothing has happened in a statement, that the rumors came from the replacement of a faulty component for the crew 5 mission.

I hold spacex to the same standard as boeing...either do it right or don't do it. The denial of the rumor seems to be the end of the discussion, but I'm hoping they're going to hold ANY vehicle operator's feet to the fire

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My concerns are focused on CCP transitioning from a developmental phase into an operational one.

CCP and SpaceX (and now Boeing) are early in their programs and are having some operational success and developing confidence in excess of their experience. This is compounded by the fact that the skill sets are different in an operational program so you suffer an inevitable loss of corporate knowledge as your developmental staff transitions to other programs.

CCP is basically in the same place the Shuttle program was in in 1982 or 1983 and I'm scared about about what we're missing. I'm not predicting doom, just saying vigilance is especially needed right now.

That's a long way of saying, without going into details, don't worry about the heat shield, worry about the things NASA doesn't see.

Glad to hear the heat shield is not an issue! Have a hunchbthe blown out rumor may be internet fan children trying to run distractions. Hopefully the get OFT 3( or whatever they're calling it) off without thruster malfunctions, or some new issue.

Tower.

lb3 said:

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Ag_of_08 said:

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The NESC is possibly looking into a leak the spilled hypergolics on the heat shield of the Axiom 1 mission. Given crew 4 is reusing its composite heatshield materials, and some of the dracos.

NASA is maintaining that nothing has happened in a statement, that the rumors came from the replacement of a faulty component for the crew 5 mission.

I hold spacex to the same standard as boeing...either do it right or don't do it. The denial of the rumor seems to be the end of the discussion, but I'm hoping they're going to hold ANY vehicle operator's feet to the fire

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My concerns are focused on CCP transitioning from a developmental phase into an operational one.

CCP and SpaceX (and now Boeing) are early in their programs and are having some operational success and developing confidence in excess of their experience. This is compounded by the fact that the skill sets are different in an operational program so you suffer an inevitable loss of corporate knowledge as your developmental staff transitions to other programs.

CCP is basically in the same place the Shuttle program was in in 1982 or 1983 and I'm scared about about what we're missing. I'm not predicting doom, just saying vigilance is especially needed right now.

That's a long way of saying, without going into details, don't worry about the heat shield, worry about the things NASA doesn't see.

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CCP... Commercial Crew Program and not Communist Chinese Party. I read that totally wrong the first time!

You're not the only one trust me. I was sitting here trying to figure out why ib3 was worried about the Chinese. It finally snapped and I face palmed.

Hopefully the one difference in this and the shuttle program, they're not intentionally ignoring known issues. Both shuttles where lost to crap they new was a problem.

Ag_of_08 said:

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You're not the only one trust me. I was sitting here trying to figure out why ib3 was worried about the Chinese. It finally snapped and I face palmed.

Hopefully the one difference in this and the shuttle program, they're not intentionally ignoring known issues. Both shuttles where lost to crap they new was a problem.

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The only significant manned program to avoid a major disaster (so far) has been ISS.

Apollo, Soyuz, Shuttle, & MIR have all had disasters. I'm optimistic for the commercial crew program but Go Fever is a real phenomenon that is creeping into the program.

Interesting article:

https://newsletter.spacedotbiz.com/p/starship-really-going-revolutionize-launch-costs

Quote:

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Is Starship Really Going To Revolutionize Launch Costs?

There's a lot of talk in the space industry about how launch costs are on the verge of plummeting.

The driving mechanism for this change is said to be SpaceX's new Starship rocket, a super-heavy lift class vehicle that is intended to be fully reusable.

It's an extremely alluring proposition. Slashing launch costs would theoretically increase innovation in the space industry by allowing commercial entities and research institutions to rapidly deploy space technology in a much more affordable way.

However, I find myself skeptical of this silver bullet solution to the expensive cost of getting to space. In fact, SpaceX has previously speculated on reducing prices as a result of cost savings from reusability, and those price reductions did not materialize.
. . .
Speculation abounds as to what the cost of a Starship launch might be when it is launching regularly. By fully reusing the vehicle and eliminating any need to discard expensive flight hardware, the cost reductions to SpaceX would likely be great. Musk himself has stated that SpaceX's costs could be as low as $2M per launch, while analysts have suggested that something around $10 million might be more reasonable.

At a $10 million cost per launch, putting 100 tons of payload into orbit would come to about $100/kg. The current cost to SpaceX for a Falcon 9 launch is likely somewhere around $3,400/kg and so Starship's cost per kg is potentially a full order of magnitude or more improvement.

As a result, it seems understandable why some think that Starship is going to change the game.
. . .
However, if we want to greatly expand access to space, then cost isn't necessarily the key indicator that we should be tracking. More importantly, SpaceX will need to pass those cost reductions on to its customers in order for satellite providers to reap the benefits. This is where much of my skepticism resides, because it seems to me that there's little incentive for SpaceX to pass along those savings, or precedent that they will do so.

To understand what might happen when SpaceX is able to reduce launch costs from reusability, I think we should consider what happened the last time a similar dynamic was introduced.
. . .
On December 15th, 2015, SpaceX accomplished the seemingly impossible. They successfully landed the first stage of a rocket for the first time.

This meant that SpaceX would soon start reusing its Falcon 9 first stages, an innovation that could seemingly slash the cost of getting to orbit. Just three months later, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell spoke at the Satellite 2016 conference in Maryland. At the time, she speculated on what Falcon 9 first stage reusability might mean for SpaceX customers, citing that it could potentially reduce prices by 30%, down to $40M per launch. At the time, a Falcon 9 launch cost $61.2 million.

That wasn't the first time SpaceX leadership openly contemplated how reusability would impact pricing. Looking even further back to the Singapore Satellite Industry Forum in 2013, Shotwell speculated that Falcon 9 reusability could mean launch prices to customers as low as $5 to $7M.

Well, it has now been 9 years since the 2013 mention of $5 to $7M prices and 6 years from the 2016 speculation of $40M prices. Since that time SpaceX has widely surpassed the industry's expectations on reusability, flying some of its first stage boosters over 10 times. So what is a Falcon 9 launch priced at today?

$67 million.

The price has actually increased about $5.8M from the pricing in 2016. If we account for inflation, the real price hasn't much increased over that time but has generally stayed the same.
. . .
So what happened? Did SpaceX's costs benefits from reusability not materialize? I doubt that.

Actually, I just think SpaceX hasn't passed any of those savings on to its customers, they've simply expanded their margins and made more money on each launch.

Which I think is entirely understandable. When fully expendable in 2015, the Falcon 9 was already the cheapest launch vehicle in its lift-class at $61.2 million per launch. Today at $67M, that's still the case. In fact, a ride on an Atlas V rocket is twice that price. Not that you could get a ride on an Atlas V anyway, they're all sold out through the vehicle's upcoming retirement.

Furthermore, since 2015 the Falcon 9 vehicle has become arguably the most reliable rocket on the market, with over 115 successful launches in a row.

With no competition capable of putting pricing pressure on SpaceX, why would they reduce their prices? You could make a strong argument they should be raising them. Which they are!

SpaceX is laser-focused on getting humanity to Mars, an enormously expensive ambition. It isn't in their interest to charitably pass savings to customers when they already offer the best product on the market.

Want more evidence of that? Just look at the launch frequency of their rideshare business. SpaceX conducts a few rideshare launches each year where they carry many small satellite payloads in a single Falcon 9 and deploy them all into low Earth orbit. The wait time for a customer to get on one of those missions is close to around two years. SpaceX could fill the manifests for twice as many rideshare missions as they currently perform and reduce wait times significantly. They choose not to because these rideshare missions are simply not high-value launches. It is operationally intensive to work with many customers to pack potentially over a hundred satellites into a single rocket and those customers are extremely price sensitive.

Instead, SpaceX chooses to focus on pricier services like crewed missions to the International Space Station, expensive national security and commercial satellites, or Starlink deployment which SpaceX hopes will bring significant recurring revenue for the company.
. . .
Furthermore, what competition is going to pressure SpaceX to bring its pricing anywhere close to its marginal cost of $10M per launch? If Starship can put 100,000kg in low Earth orbit, its nearest competitor by payload class is NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), which was most recently approximated to cost over $2B per launch.
. . .
Ultimately, I struggle to see the incentive structure that would encourage SpaceX to introduce a revolutionary (which I suppose I'm loosely defining as an order of magnitude or greater) reduction in launch prices for smallsats. If they wanted to further expand access for smaller satellites, they could already do more of that with more frequent rideshare missions. It's just not financially worth it for them.

Just like everyone in this industry, I'm rooting for SpaceX. I would argue, along with many others, that SpaceX is the primary reason we even have a NewSpace industry in the first place. However, I'm also rooting for SpaceX's competition, because I think competition is the only factor that will push SpaceX to bring its launch prices closer to its costs.

---

Makes sense: SpaceX nearly went bankrupt developing their tech, and now has the best stuff on the block. They operate in an environment where demand still outpaces supply, so they'll keep pricing accordingly.

I guess the counter to the concept that SpaceX will only be curtailed by competition is that with a fleet of Starships - SpaceX could service so much of that demand that they begin to balance the scales themselves. They won't want hardware to sit around idle, and will be building out a whole lot of it for moon and mars missions - quite probably more than the earth satellite lift market requires. By reducing price they could expand the market - so they likely calculate for a sweet spot somewhere below their current gravy train once they've mass produced the things.

I'm all for them making what they can in the market. It's not as if they're putting the money in a Scrooge McDuck vault with Elon swimming around in it (which would be their right). It's all being reinvested in the company, resulting in more tech improvements. South Texas is benefitting as well.

Capitalism, baby.

Nothing wrong with that.

Starship 24 rolls out to the pad at Starbase pic.twitter.com/PGh6FY6x8w

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 27, 2022