It was a 2019 tweet, so it's firmly in the Blue Sky category of Elon statements. Starhopper made its first untethered flights at the time of the tweet. SN5 and SN6 wouldn't fly for another year.
newspaceeconomy.ca
Thanks for that. I had never heard of Sea Dragon. The wikipedia page has a nice summary, but I'm glad I watched the YT clip first because I wouldn't have realized that's what was meant for the launch. My favorite part of that page is from a caption on one of the drawings:
That video is impressive but silly at the same time, Sea Dragon was never meant to be launched from that far below the surface of the water.
No news makes for idle minds.I’m not the moderator here, but can we get back to Starship?
BTW, there is an amusing typo at the end of that Rocket Report:
Starship?
Should be Starlink.$90M for a fully stacked Starship is still a steal for even fully expended. Once it becomes reusable, watch out!BTW, there is an amusing typo at the end of that Rocket Report:
Starship?
Yeah, and $10 million for 100 tons is $100/kg. They might be able to scale to 200 tons with the next generation of Starships for $75/kg. (Ignoring inflation)
I realize such a scenario could occur, but logically it makes no sense to me how SpaceX could be accused of anti-competitive behavior just because they invented a much more cost effective method of providing an existing service that there is demand for.
If all your competitors go out of business because of your actions, that is, by definition, anti-competitive. Then SpaceX ends up being a monopoly, with all the problems that inevitably brings. We already have a bunch of effective monopolies (e.g. Google, Apple, Microsoft) as a result of them doing the job better than anyone else (and by being entrenched), and they call the shots. The capitalism rulebook says it's a bad thing. Unfortunately, we have less and less of an idea of how to ensure competition when a monopoly seems to provide so much to us. From there, it's a slippery slope that leads to corporatism.
Only if those actions are considered predatory in nature. Like for instance, selling your service below cost, forcing bankruptcy to your competitors, and then jacking up the price. If you have really deep pockets you can do that.
That's the current law, but consider that it's legal to merge companies and to acquire them - unless that sort of thing would inhibit competition due to excessive consolidation. So it's not an issue of law, but of intent. The laws will adjust to stay on track to the intent as conditions change. That's how the anti-competition laws came into being in the first place; the trusts of the early 20th century came into being, and they were deemed to be bad for the nation. They came into being by using those predatory tactics, so the predatory tactics were outlawed.
Structure for docking during refueling. Double wall for fuel depot.
