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Comment by aranw | Hacker News Reader

Is it just me or is everything that Tesla, SpaceX, <name of musk business>... is doing something that is "game changing" feel like everyone massively over hypes what there doing

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Tesla did change the game in automotive, creating a viable market for pure electric cars. SpaceX did change the game for space launch providers, proving that it's a viable and profitable business for startups with reasonable funding. Today we have lots of startups in the market competing for different niches, before SpaceX there were only slow moving giants like Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

Of course the press likes to pump up the hype and will subsequently call everything they do game-changing. But it could be justified in this case. This could be game changing for lithium mining. And that's a game we are all somewhat invested in because of how prevalent lithium batteries have become in the last two decades.

> before SpaceX there were only slow moving giants like Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

SpaceX gets all the media attention, but Blue Origin was actually founded before SpaceX.

Blue Origin gets little media attention because their list of accomplishments is rather short. The seem to make good engines, but in the time SpaceX has developed the Falcon 1, the Falcon 9 (and launched it 120 times), the Falcon 9 heavy, and a human rated capsule that has made multiple crew launches to the ISS, Blue Origin has managed to develop one demonstrator that reached about 90 meters, and the suborbital New Shepard that is now finally about to have its first commercial launch.

They certainly weren't involved in any game changing activities yet. They might play a significant role in bringing about space tourism, but that's yet to be seen.

You mean 90 km. As I have seen Diwali firecrackers going beyond 90m :D.

"The vehicle climbed for approximately 10 seconds, reaching a height of roughly 85 m (279 ft) before starting to descend, and making a controlled landing back on its landing legs approximately 25 seconds after take-off." [1]

It did two other flights, but nobody seems to know how far up those went.

New Shepard has undergone 15 test flights to around 100km (suborbital), so that's something I guess.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin_Goddard

> They might play a significant role in bringing about space tourism, but that's yet to be seen.

I hope so. SpaceX is launching a private spaceflight soon, for which each passenger is paying $55 million.[1] That's not really game changing, though, because Russia has been selling seats for similar prices for years, and it's space tourism only for billionaires. SpaceX is working on big, expensive rockets and talking about Mars.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic seem to be our best hope of seeing space tourism for the masses. They both talk about selling short suborbital trips for less than $1 million soon, and if that is popular, efficiency of scale should lead to further price decreases.

1: https://apnews.com/article/1st-private-space-crew-pay-55m-ea...

best hope?

SpaceX hopes that Starship will cost $200k per launch and that they'll be able to offer point-to-point transport on earth under an hour for a cost of business class airline ticket. You'll go to space as a side effect.

Given that cost structure, eventually they should be able to offer a trip around the moon for tens of thousands of dollars.

Point to point transport is bs... there are so so many problems with that idea. I don't get why spacex even brought up somthing so dumb.

Getting on the military "WANT TOY" list? (using it to ferry troops around was cited a few times)

> The seem to make good engines,

Their new BE-4 seems to be having some problems recently. But Blue Origin are not really public about their failures, compared to SpaceX

Implying that Blue origin is even slower-moving than those two incumbents?

And what astonishing results did it produce in even more time than SpaceX? Exactly, none whatsoever.

There's been far more press coverage about "Tesla killers" than Tesla's "game-changing tech/products". These killers are now called "Tesla fighters", for some reasons https://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2021/07/mercedes-eqs-tesla-...

Improving the cost of lithium extraction, if this can be scaled up, is actually a really big deal for electric vehicles. The single largest cost of a modern EV is the battery. Tesla thinks this process reduces the cost of lithium extraction 30%.

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