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Comment by nickik | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX is a total steamroller. Its insane. I think in 2005 nobody could have quite seen this comming. Even Elon must be suprised.

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I wonder how much is Elon vs. the team he put in place, seems like Gwynne Shotwell is definitely front and center. Not familiar w/ the other executives/operations/engineering folks

Its amazing what billions in government subsidies do for a company.

Quite amazing... why wasn't ULA able to leverage their billions in government subsidies so well?

Elon is doing it wrong. You're supposed to waste government funding, not deliver stuff.

I only half joke. He's threatening a massive gravy train by showing that government really ought to expect more from private contractors. Why didn't ULA do a reusable first stage? They got far more money from government than SpaceX over the years.

Capitalism finally kicking in, where there is waste there is opportunity.

SpaceX did have the government as their major early customer, but they charged less than other vendors of the same services (e.g., Orbital for space station resupply), so it's odd to describe their fees as a "subsidy". That description better fits the "launch capability" fee that ULA charges DOD in addition to the fees (well above commercial launch rates) that ULA charges for the launches themselves.

Do you mean the launch contracts or the milestone payments?

So good! Very thrilled -- SpaceX is a model giant, but also: the emergence of qualities MUST be due to underlying levels of Need and Demand in our human economy/ecology/world. Success that has great potential pushing behind it can soar. It's important now that we follow this example and harness the gathered beam of human intelligence as a laser or light beam would be harnessed and benefit the planet with strong focii of knowledge and need satisfaction.

edit: i'm very interested in any possible objections to what has been stated. i'm an avid observer and although i have no weight in the topic, i am of this genuine opinion.

I want some of whatever you're smoking, it sounds like some good shit.

The downvotes are because it's not clear what the heck you are saying. For example:

> the emergence of qualities MUST be due to underlying levels of Need and Demand in our human economy/ecology/world

This is a very vague and confusing sentence. Which qualities are you talking about?

Take it as an opportunity to improve your writing skills :)

Humans need rockets to Mars & Space and this need will manifest as thousands of small companies or several huge ones.

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