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Comment by d_silin | Hacker News Reader

Very unfortunate, but strategically this changes nothing for US spaceflight. If anything, SpaceX will continue to increase its dominance.

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Blue Origin is challenging SpaceX - they are not the incumbent. I'm not sure how you can say that SpaceX will increase dominance despite this.

SpaceX will increase the lead from all potential competitors even further.

It's a static fire test. There weren't any payloads inside, this isn't very bad PR.

Not very bad, except that they lost the whole rocket, and damaged the launch complex. No big deal. What's a few hundred mil and a one year delay...

Please look at total mass launched to space by SpaceX vs the rest of the world combined. They are the most incumbent launcher in history.

Unless you're talking about moon landers specifically.

Anyway, competition is good and this is a bummer.

What are you trying to accomplish with this comment? SpaceX is the incumbent that's what I said...

One can be the dominant player in a field and still increase dominance.

The comment I'm replying to is saying that SpaceX will increase dominance despite this explosion which makes no sense.

Blue Origin are challenging SpaceX about as much as I’m challenging Michael Jordan.

Sure we’re playing the same game, but the divide is enormous

What are you trying to accomplish with this comment? Did I say that they were on the same level?

Unless the comment was edited, the person you replied to never said anything about "despite"?

They didn't say despite, they said "If anything" which reads the same to me:

> If anything, SpaceX will continue to increase its dominance.

it'll probably be a favorable event for SpaceX's IPO.

Surely not as favorable for the IPO as SpaceX’s own recent explosion and multiple engine failures?

Blowing up on the pad is incredibly worse from a design data collection perspective, a risk to life perspective, and a downstream impact to future launches perspective (nobody can use that site for a couple of months).

To be fair the last Starship to blowup on launchpad/ground was less than a year ago. It is a set back but it appears nobody has avoided this issue yet.

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/spacexs-...

That was on a test stand, NOT a launchpad.

Vastly different destroying each of those.

I will give you that. Better to blow up in a test rather than ready for launch.

not to mention 7 days before it was meant to deliver a payload to space... a proper commercial payload. not just a POC payload.

The entire point of SpaceX’s recent launch was an explosion. They were aiming for that outcome. They wanted that outcome.

The fact they did it with pinpoint accuracy even with engine issues and an in tact heat shield is a monumental success for a test flight.

SpaceX also had a massive explosion on the ground not that long ago.

Absolutely, they were running a test on a test stand.

For BO it’s much better to have this now when there is no payload or people on board so they can correct whatever the issue is.

If anything their one engine out unexpected but successful test boosts their position a bit.

After separation that turned into all engines out on the booster, so perhaps not.

I meant the engine on the Raptor. But yeah good point about the booster. However that's nowhere near as large of a set back as this explosion

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