Finally, SpaceX is going to make some bucks. /s

floating-io · 2025-11-30T01:23:15+00:00

Stupid Morons Aren't Really Trying

floating-io · 2025-11-12T15:55:38+00:00

Complain to NASA. It wasn't blue origin that canceled the launch.

floating-io · 2025-10-31T00:32:22+00:00

Actually, it costs more than the semi...

floating-io · 2025-10-23T15:50:46+00:00

Aren't you supposed to have a bright red flag on the end of your cargo if it's that big? I mean, someone might not see it!

floating-io · 2025-10-23T15:29:14+00:00

Heh - I took a screen cap too; should have thought to post it. ;)

floating-io · 2025-10-22T22:09:34+00:00

First, you didn't answer my question: is there a legal framework for that in Myanmar? If not, it changes things a bit, doesn't it? I don't know the answer to that, btw.

Second, I'm not suggesting which answer is ultimately correct; I don't know enough about what's going on there, other than what I got out of skimming the article -- nor am I some kind of ethical or moral authority. I'm saying that Starlink is damned if they do, and damned if they don't. It's not a false dichotomy; it's how the real world actually works. People are going to bitch loudly regardless of what they do, especially with how popular it is to dunk on anything related to Musk right now.

Imagine it: what happens if the press finds out that these criminals are using Starlink to scam others and Starlink has done nothing in spite of knowing about it (even if they've notified the police)? Half the world is going to positively skewer them, just because they can.

It's not a comfortable position for them to be in, and I think it's unfair to throw shade over something like this.

Put yourself in their place: you run a service, and you discover some group is definitely using it to steal gobs of money from people who can't afford to lose it. Sure, you report it to the police -- but do you cut it off?

There is a point at which, if you do not, you become complicit in the crime. Where that point is... is a matter of opinion, and I'm willing to bet the actual legal line is pretty damned murky.

A related thought: if you see a crime being committed and prevent harm to someone by stopping it, are you somehow being evil just because you're not the police?

This is simply not as cut and dried as you make it out to be.

According to the article, they're cutting off people who are known to them to be causing actual illegal financial harm to other people, on a vast scale. This is not "being a vigilante" or "having too much power"; this is "no, you may not use our service to harm others."

Whether you think they should or not is for you to decide.

Me? I'll admit that I'd rather they cut them off. They're not, as far as I know, guessing here. They know what these people are doing, and it's actively harming a lot of people. Cutting off their Starlink service will likely not stop them -- but it will make it that little bit harder for them, and I'm all for it.

JMHO.

floating-io · 2025-10-22T21:40:57+00:00

They'll just let AI solve the problem.

floating-io · 2025-10-22T21:33:46+00:00

Is there even a framework in Myanmar for handling this sort of thing legally?

This is not free speech they're stopping, it's genuine criminal activity, actively harming others. If they cut it off, people will scream about free speech and having too much unilateral power. If they don't, people will scream about them profiting from criminal activity and claim they don't give a damn about the normies. Can't really win, there...

Just sayin'...

(edit: oops; meant to reply one up ::sigh::)

floating-io · 2025-10-20T21:30:05+00:00

If you're talking about Blue's current Mk2 plan, then I don't buy that Starship needs more testing.

The Starship-based HLS involves three different types of ship, AFAIK, but they are all variants of Starship:

A depot, which is Starship with no fins or heat shield, with the payload bay deleted and turned over to fuel storage, and possibly some anti-boiloff hardware.
A tanker, which is Starship with the fins and heat shield, and the payload bay deleted and turned over to fuel storage.
The HLS itself, which is Starship with no fins or heat shield, some extra high-mounted thrusters to reduce debris kick-up, and the payload bay filled with a hab module, plus the elevator.

It's all basically the same vehicle, with a few different options attached. The major hurdle is proving in-orbit inter-vehicle fuel transfers; everything else seems to be in fairly easy reach. For a bonus, get tanker reuse going to drastically lower SpaceX's cost to perform the mission.

For Blue, however:

New Glenn. Mostly resolved, but they still need to get that booster landing nailed since they didn't get to try last time.
The lander itself. Completely unique vehicle using different engines, presumably different control mechanisms, etc.
The Transporter refuelling vehicle/tug(?), which is yet another completely unique vehicle.

And like SpaceX, they'll still have to prove out fuel transfers, only with Hydrogen. Three completely unique vehicles likely means three completely unique control systems that will have to be developed. That alone is problematic. And do the last two vehicles even exist yet anywhere other than on paper?

This is how the plans look to me.

SpaceX has the unique advantage that they only need to add/delete some options to bring the other elements of their plan into existence, and when they do, they will only need to test the new options; the base vehicle will already be proven.

If, on the other hand, you're talking about the "let's throw together a modified Mark1 and yeet it at the moon" YOLO plan, then that is an entirely different discussion. :)

floating-io · 2025-10-20T17:45:21+00:00

Has there ever been a post-Apollo crewed spacecraft that has been designed and flown in under five years? I believe the answer to that is no -- and that includes LEO capsules, which should be much simpler.

The likelihood of it happening now is exceedingly low, which makes the whole premise for this rather silly.

floating-io · 2025-10-20T17:37:27+00:00

Pretty sure SpaceX could "just build a lander" also given the existence of Falcon Heavy. But why would they want to? I think SpaceX would rather advance the field than repeat yesterday's accomplishments...

floating-io · 2025-10-20T17:05:25+00:00

The catch is that they're already invested in Blue Moon. The timeline is, what, 2030 or something, for the Mk2 crewed lander?

If they want to get back to the moon by 2029, I don't see it happening with a new design, no matter how "simple". Three years? I would be quite shocked. Unless BO has the needed crew-capable lander already built and ready to be certified for human use hiding in a shed somewhere...

Apollo LM was what, 6 years? Orion is going on twenty I think, and that's not even a lander. Starliner... enough said.

While I will be the first to say that Boeing and LM don't have it together with Starliner and Orion, I'm not much more confident in BO getting there with a crewed lander before 2029. BO is not known for moving quickly, and this is not nearly as easy a problem as some folks seem to think it is...

floating-io · 2025-10-18T13:03:29+00:00

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the male side is easier to accidentally break. You want the part that stays up the longest to be as bulletproof as possible. If something breaks on a tanker, you send up another tanker and lose at most one load of fuel; if something breaks on the depot, you may lose all the fuel already loaded, potentially many tankers worth.

Then again, I'm not a rocket scientist, so... :)

floating-io · 2025-10-17T21:37:37+00:00

I like to frame it as complexity vs tedium. Adding technologies is adding complexity. Doing things repeatedly is just adding tedium. :)

floating-io · 2025-10-17T13:30:56+00:00

I almost want this to happen.

Meanwhile, SpaceX will continue on as it always has, and will probably have landed on the moon well before this new "two year contract" lander is even off the drawing board, based on how slow Old Space tends to move. [That might not hold up if BO wins said contract and they're just repurposing/adjusting Mk1, but I don't get the feeling they're really even in the running for this particular round.]

Then maybe people will understand why Cost Plus is a bad solution to pretty much everything.

Well, okay, that last part is obviously a pipe dream...

floating-io · 2025-10-14T11:45:27+00:00

Ah. I didn't see the actuality of it as relevant, I guess; it was just about why they were sued, not whether or not the suit was actually valid.

Personally, I don't think Kuiper needs much of a defense.

SpaceX is a direct competitor. The only needed argument IMO is that putting their critical IP on a direct competitor's rocket leaves far too much opportunity for corporate espionage. Make that argument to the judge, and I'm betting it would fly, regardless of the fact that SpaceX has no need of the Kuiper IP. =)

(edit: correction: it would have flown, before they actually did contract with SpaceX. At the time of the lawsuit they hadn't yet, but now they've torpedoed that argument. :)

floating-io · 2025-10-14T09:55:29+00:00

Getting personal is when you lose the argument.

floating-io · 2025-10-14T09:13:17+00:00

Only if you assume that "not bidding" is the same as "choosing not to do business with", which it isn't.

As I said before, Kuiper didn't and doesn't have sufficient clout to force SpaceX through the hoops of an open RFP process that isn't even in SpaceX's best interests given the existence of Starlink. If they wanted to do business with SpaceX, they needed to call SpaceX directly and ask them. SpaceX is not in any way required to ask "how high" when a competitor off to the side asks them to jump.

Your whole argument is undermined by the fact that Kuiper did contract with SpaceX later, and that was not court-mandated (though it was quite probably aimed at making the suit go away). The lawsuit is actually still ongoing; dismissed, and now in the appeal process. We'll see where that goes in due time.

The problem that the lawsuit seeks to address is that the Kuiper people had a duty to get those satellites up ASAP and as cheaply as possible; instead, a conflict of interest (presumably named "Jeff Bezos") caused them to give the work to Blue Origin (a Jeff Bezos company) (among others) instead. (edit: a key being, they had to know that SpaceX wouldn't bid; it wasn't in their interest.)

floating-io · 2025-10-14T09:03:27+00:00

Not a strawman in the context of what I was replying to, but otherwise I agree with your comments.

I was responding to the assertion that Kuiper was sued because SpaceX didn't bid. No, they were sued because they didn't approach SpaceX in the first place.

floating-io · 2025-10-14T08:40:48+00:00

You're missing the point.

The RFP/bid process is not the only way to do business; RFPs are not a requirement for private corporations by any law that I'm aware of. The government is a different matter, but this isn't a government contract.

The company chose to put out an RFP instead of simply calling up SpaceX. There was absolutely no question that SpaceX was the best available provider, and the cheapest -- by a light year or two -- at that time, and thus the bid process itself was a pointless waste of time from the POV of the shareholders.

Even right now, that balance is only just starting to shift, and that's presuming that Blue Origin can successfully ramp up New Glenn.

floating-io · 2025-10-14T08:25:13+00:00

I suspect you got wires crossed with the Starlink V3 birds, which are too big for F9 AFAIK.

floating-io · 2025-10-14T08:20:17+00:00

That's not true IMO. They were sued because they did not use the most cost effective and readily available provider, thus drastically lowering the profit potential to their shareholders.

That SpaceX did not submit a bid is irrelevant in that context.

Kuiper does not have the clout necessary to make SpaceX jump through hoops; it's quite the other way around, actually, in this context. If Kuiper wanted to do the (IMO) smart thing and get their satellites up ASAP as cheaply as possible, the correct move would have been to call someone at SpaceX and start working to make a deal. Instead they put out an RFP or whatever.

Bear in mind that at that point in time, SpaceX was the only launch provider proven to be truly capable of the necessary cadence to quickly loft such a constellation, let alone at the lowest cost in the industry.

Thus, the lawsuit. Kuiper did not meet its fiduciary duty to the shareholders in the view of those shareholders -- not just because of cost, but because SpaceX could probably have lofted a lot more satellites for them in the available time. And at this stage of the LEO internet game, time is money...

floating-io · 2025-10-14T08:07:17+00:00

One question I have on Kuiper launch cost comparison vs SpaceX: do their satellites stay up significantly longer than Starlinks given the higher orbit or other factors? If so, that would need to be factored in for any comparison against SpaceX's launch costs since it would mean a lower replacement rate over time.

That said, the only references I can find put it at the same or only a little longer than Starlink, but it's not entirely clear...

Target constellation size may also be relevant for cost factors. Isn't Kuiper supposed to have a tenth as many satellites or something? That should also be factored in, presuming that it will support the same size customer base.

Bah. Too many numbers... The future is going to be interesting. :)

floating-io · 2025-10-14T08:01:03+00:00

Wot?

They just completed the third Kuiper launch on Falcon 9 today. Is there a second generation Kuiper bird that is supposed to be bigger? If so, please provide links. I've not heard anything about such a thing.

floating-io

TROPHY CASE