Elon Musk Feelings Got Hurt

@ElwoodBlues All those stats are from pre-private space industry, when everything was run by NASA.

Cost is now very comparable, if you look at all the contenders. He may be ahead, schedule-wise, but the Bezos company is far more advanced, based on one's perspective.

Bezos is totally focused on building a space infrastructure, similar to the "trading posts" along the Oregon trail, while Musk's company is focused on doing one-shot deals.

In time, the Bezos strategy will pay off big, for general purpose space travel.

BTW, SpaceX did not pioneer re-usable rockets. The research on this predates Musk's first wet dream. SpaceX's rockets are "partially" re-usable. Everyone is moving in that direction. In time, the vehicle delivering people to space, will only have two parts, the part that flies to the edge of space, and the "saucer" section, that takes them all the way up. The main section flies back. Paul Allen's company pioneered that, but the company is going nowhere since his passing.

I get to listen to all the SpaceX gossip, at one on my local pizza joints, where the SpaceX engineers gather for Pizza, beers and loud brags.

@Northwest I looked for a while for a modern table comparing cost of kg to orbit for Blue Origin, SpaceX, Ariane, etc, but I couldn't find one.

Looks like Blue Origin has done 47 satellite launches. ULA has about 150 launches under its belt. SpaceX is doing 50+ launches per year these days, including crew and resupply the ISS; they have maybe 200 launches total. I think Ariane just does launches for French companies these days.

@ElwoodBlues The real story is sort of murky and complicated.

Arianne has done close to 300 individual rocket launches, delivering multiple satellites per launch.

Amazon has a contract to launch its satellites with Arianne, roughly 85 launches to put about 3,500 satellites in LEO. Bezos is not going to with SpaceX, and his space strategy is not focused on launching satellites. Starlink has close to 2,500 satellites up there already.

In reality, it costs about $20 to put 1Kg in LEO (low earth orbit). That's if you use methane, which is what the Falcon uses.

@JimboSaturn To be fair, Musk has donated about 20,000 "Starlink" satellite stations to Ukraine. At the beginning of the invasion, Russia destroyed as much cellular infrastructure as they could in Ukraine, and Musk moved pretty quickly to donate hardware and bandwidth to fill the void. They sell for about $700 each; probably cost 1/4 that to manufacture.

This doesn't make Musk any less of a dick, but he did something large and good for the people of Ukraine by keeping them in communication with the global internet.

@ElwoodBlues Ok I did not know that at all. I can see how he would be sore then. However, I think he needs a thicker skin and maintain his proffessionalism.

@ElwoodBlues
He left everyone with the impression that he did, but he did not. The terminals were paid for, using private funds (per a statement from the Starlink President), with the most likely sources being France and Poland.

What he's hinting at, is that he has not been charging subscription fees, and he's hinting that he wants to do so.

@ElwoodBlues FYI If want me to reply don't recreate a new thread!

I don't follow you nor do you follow me. So I don't get any notifications.

What he tweets isn't his own philosophy. Just like Trump!

That's all because I suspect you really didn't expect a reply at all!

@DeWayfarer Sorry. I started this thread because I think Musk's tweets tell more than the common perception of him. Right-wingers and libertarians want Musk to be their poster boy, but his views on health care and universal basic income make him a lousy poster boy for those folks.

@ElwoodBlues all I can say is many are are hypocritical in what they say on social media.

Trump isn't an exception, just one of the worst. Read anything that has been thought through though it gives a better picture.

Tweets or any social media just isn't up to well thought out philosophy. Yet it's there in the pages long interviews and other long and thought out pieces.

@LvChris not really why on Twitter. For years his has talked about needing a "publicity" platform.

Just Twitter came around and is big enough for his publicity purposes right at the right time.

I forget which other news channel he once thought of buying.

He is and was following the Disney business model. Buy a channel to promote your own businesses.

@LvChris see my reply to the OP as well as the following comments. 😆

The guy is a utter jerk for the wealthy. Kind of reminds me of characters out of a Heinlein sci-fi books... TANSTAAFL!