He was completely up front about how early they are in this project. He even acknowledged his overambitious timelines, saying that the one he presented was the most optimistic and probably wouldn't happen.
I can't understand how this kind of openness gets labeled "a reality-distortion field."
Behind OldSpace? Im sorry that is an absurd claim.
OldSpace has not devloped a new rocket or rocket engine or rocket in a while. OldSpace has almost completely been pushed out of the international launch market. OldSpace launches cost at least 2x more, and for a number of missions more like 4x more. SpaceX is flying a young rocket that is seeing huge amounts of improvement still, while Old Space is flying Old Rockets that don't really improve all that much.
They are not just 'launching rockets'. SpaceX is flying an active Space ship, Dragon 1, and are working on another one. OldSpace company Boing is for 4.2 Billion for the Commercial Crew contract, SpaceX only 2.3 Billion. For that money SpaceX will have to perform extremely complex tests, that the Boing craft will not even be capable of. Plus, Boing has actually tried to get around even the more basic tests. Additionally to that Boing is already far behind on their schedule, even thought they were specifically picked over SNC Dreamchaser because 'they are the most likely to finish development in time'.
They are in space, orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, driving around the surface of Mars, flying by Pluto and escaping the solar system. And that's just NASA.
While its true that they haven't landed a rocket on a barge, I'd say SpaceX is far, far, far behind.
> OldSpace has not devloped a new rocket or rocket engine or rocket in a while. OldSpace has almost completely been pushed out of the international launch market. OldSpace launches cost at least 2x more, and for a number of missions more like 4x more. SpaceX is flying a young rocket that is seeing huge amounts of improvement still, while Old Space is flying Old Rockets that don't really improve all that much.
1. I consider Arianespace and Proton "OldSpace" - Old established players who exist to make a buck.
2. What counts is success at your business. If you're good at that, you can take time off to do R&D. If not, you're rightfully seen as a not-focused, unreliable company.
It's like if Firefox Os. If Firefox was a great, secure, light browser and then they want to also came up with an OS, fine. If their browser needs work but instead they write experimental OSs, they got their priorities wrong.
Now it's true that OldSpace has been tremendously lucky with the latest rocket incarnations, but except the three Delta_III launches, they were tremendously successful.
Delta II was 151/153
Delta III was 1/3
Delta IV is 32/33
I can't understand how this kind of openness gets labeled "a reality-distortion field."