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404 points voxleone | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.865s | source
1. destitude ◴[] No.45656083[source]
Considering nobody in the world can compete with SpaceX currently this seems purely political in nature. The EU is struggling to even come up with an answer to reusable rockets. China is the closest and will likely have something equivalent to the Falcon 9 within the next 2 years. But someone in the USA? People are delusional. Sure it is always best to have competitors but how did that work for Boeing/NASA/Starliner? You can't have two players/competitors if there is only one player in the entire world. And the reason why you need reusability is so that it is actually sustainable to use it! Does anyone here thinking this is a good idea have any idea how much it costs to launch SLS just once??
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2. Culonavirus ◴[] No.45656500[source]
To anyone not getting it still. SpaceX position in rocketry is comparable to that of Nvidia in AI GPUs. Thinking that Blue or anyone else will be beating them in anything any time soon is simply naive. Blue is the AMD here. The AMD that is today where Nvidia was 5 years ago. That's just the way it is. Also, like Nvidia, SpaceX has a massive budget for R&D. Just the revenue from Starlink is projected to eclipse the entire NASA budget within a couple of years, maybe sooner.
3. panick21 ◴[] No.45656882[source]
> China is the closest and will likely have something equivalent to the Falcon 9 within the next 2 years.

That's wildly optimistic. Falcon 9 launches operationally 100+ a year and single boosters with 20+ uses. Even if in the next 2 years, China has some kind of first stage that lands, its in no way 'like Falcon 9'.

So lets not be unreasonably optimistic just because its China. China isn't magic and they wont have such a rocket no matter if they invest in it or not.

> But someone in the USA? People are delusional.

BlueOrigin is much closer then anybody in China. They have actually attempted launching a large rocket, China has not. And BlueOrigin has made its own advacned reusable engine and flown them to Orbit, argaubly China has not done that.