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Space Station grabs SpaceX Dragon ship

(www.bbc.co.uk)
585 points mocko | 4 comments | 25 May 12 14:01 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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savrajsingh ◴[25 May 12 17:20 UTC] No.4024488[source]▶
What's amazing is SpaceX beat companies like Boeing to the punch. That's pretty remarkable!
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1. fidotron ◴[25 May 12 17:34 UTC] No.4024561[source]▶
Not at all. It's classic innovator's dilemma where Boeing, Lockheed etc. simply can't face the implications of competing with someone coming in from outside.

SpaceX just won't have the same baggage that bigger outfits do.

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2. ippisl ◴[25 May 12 17:46 UTC] No.4024623[source]▶
The innovator's dillema mainly talks about the lack of motivation of established entities to offer a lower cost service so they won't hurt current profits. this doesn't seem the case.
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3. fidotron ◴[25 May 12 17:57 UTC] No.4024676[source]▶
It's not necessarily about current profits, but future ones for sure. They will have people internally capable of doing it, but their structure will prevent them being cost-competitive, so they resist entering the whole area at all.
4. tsotha ◴[25 May 12 21:36 UTC] No.4025451[source]▶
It's classic innovator's dilemma where Boeing, Lockheed etc. simply can't face the implications of competing with someone coming in from outside.

Absolutely. SpaceX is already the cheapest $/kg to orbit. If things play out like Musk intends, they'll cut that number to a tenth of what it is today. There's no way Boeing can compete without a complete restructuring of its space business.

They certainly weren't going to put money into bringing this situation about.