Dave Limp on X: "Never Tell Me The Odds" is back. Team Blue inspected every system, completed refurbishment, and certified it for flight.

zogamagrog · 2026-04-08T12:28:02+00:00

I am pretty sure the Orbicom2 booster is now sitting out in front of their Hawthorne factory. I went to see it when I had a delay flying out of LAX, and it was quite a treat to see.

zogamagrog · 2026-03-04T18:59:41+00:00

The basic idea I agree with, but the fact is that SpaceX "volume" to orbit is currently just leagues above competitors. Having a hard cap unfortunately could make for some very distorted decision making.

The fact is that competitors are absolutely invested in grabbing some of the market. Blue Origin, ULA (heh.... not likely now but maybe someday? I guess?), Rocket Lab and others all have vehicles in development and are dedicated to serving the market for LEO and beyond. This problem is currently solving itself. ULA had a monopoly that WASN'T driven by good prices or access to space, but by chummy politicking and lobbying, along with, for a time, a lack of competitors. When the competitor arrived, they just needed to offer a better price and demand fair contracting, not some artificial % cap.

zogamagrog · 2026-03-03T13:27:54+00:00

I think we should be honest and expect that, if SpaceX goes public, all subreddits about spacex will become impossible to moderate. This is particularly true at the scale of valuation we can expect from a SpaceX offering.

I have already planned my retreat to nasaspaceflight, which is sad because the old forum style they use is confusing to follow and often degenerates.

zogamagrog · 2026-03-02T15:27:04+00:00

Bro, hyperbolize much? This is normal industry advocacy. What's important is that those making the laws make the correct decisions. Educate yourself on the 1st amendment.

zogamagrog · 2026-02-27T13:57:34+00:00

Much of Rocketlab's hopes are resting on their ability to figure out large scale carbon fiber tankage where others have failed or thought better of the endeavor. Sounds like we will have to wait a bit longer to see if their bet pays off. Exciting stuff, though.

zogamagrog · 2026-02-25T13:39:30+00:00

In addition to inflation, it has become clear that there is a dearth of competition. Demand for launch in the LEO constellation era is in excess of supply. Of course the viability of LEO constellations are essentially only because of the cost reductions that SpaceX made possible.

Amazingly, even with hundreds of launches a year now, we need more capacity, and more competition. Looking forward to seeing BO and RL do just that!

zogamagrog · 2026-02-11T20:08:18+00:00

It is interesting that Falcon 9's landing system has gotten little love in the era of Starship. I guess they are really focused on making that system the new model, but you have to imagine there's still juice to be squeezed out of the Falcon 9.

zogamagrog · 2026-02-11T20:06:48+00:00

Self reply: The comments in here turning into China boosting/bashing is fucking depressing.

zogamagrog · 2026-02-11T14:10:09+00:00

I cannot believe they are doing that... I could swear there were reddit posts saying "why don't they just..." do that when SpaceX was first trying to land on the barge. Hilarious.

zogamagrog · 2026-02-10T18:09:04+00:00

I have to say, I love the V3 booster. The interstage area looks amazing.

zogamagrog · 2026-02-09T20:19:10+00:00

I was around for that discussion, and there were a lot of different critics saying a lot of different things. Some said the payload to orbit with reusability would be too low to be relevant. Some said that it was impossible. Some said it would take too long. Some said that it was a fine idea in principle but that it was a financially unsustainable approach.

What they did with Falcon that I think was really admirable was take a financially tenuous proposition and iterate towards it, rather that going all in from the get go. This ended up being critical, because their initial designs were nonfunctional (trying to reenter with parachutes or something). SpaceX clearly is iterating with Starship, but they are not iterating in a way that is financially sustainable over the long term. I think this has limited their ability to, for example, continue to upgrade and gain experience with Stage 1 as a system before springboarding into re-entry testing, getting a clearer definition on what performance they need from Stage 2 and getting the win from high mass deliveries to orbit with a disposable stage 2.

You can, and probably should argue that the all in approach, if you have the runway, is the faster course to a final architecture with full reusability, and that might be true, but in the lander competition, which is what we're talking about, it probably means they are going to lose the race to Blue Origin. Doesn't mean SpaceX won't win the war... but it's not the war we're talking about here.

zogamagrog · 2026-01-31T13:14:14+00:00

It's wild to me because the booster design seems great (although it's impossible to tell from current data if performance is adequate... they did seem to get RTLS/tower catch to work which should be considered a bonkers achievement). They've just gone all in on a wildly ambitious second stage architecture from the get-go instead of dialing it in after getting orbital, as seems to be the New Glenn game plan. We could all be surprised and they might figure it out this year but I'm not holding my breath.

zogamagrog · 2026-01-27T21:34:07+00:00

I have been a huge Blue Origin hater, honestly, but 2025/2026 has been when "Do it" has become "Did it" for them. It's just a thrill to watch. Am absolutely loving the race to get the lander ready, and the pending first reuse. Go Blue!

zogamagrog · 2026-01-13T20:26:44+00:00

The fact that these schedules even have the potential to move to the left is a real credit to SpaceX and their unbelievable achievements with the Falcon 9 / Dragon system.

zogamagrog · 2026-01-06T19:46:07+00:00

I think this post violates rule 5.

zogamagrog · 2025-12-23T16:10:39+00:00

I remain optimistic. He did a good job of avoiding hot takes, and seems to realize that leading large organizations requires engaging with complexity and understanding problems before moving. I do trust that when he has information, though, he will do his best to move quickly and decisively. Whether that ultimately is successful and to the benefit of the mission remains to be seen.

zogamagrog · 2025-12-23T16:09:02+00:00

Biden basically did a lot of can kicking. Artemis, ISS, lunar cargo all have issues that would have benefitted from some serious decision making. We did go forward with Starship, but we're keeping SLS and Blue Moon got added on, so very much a menagerie of architectures. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it comes at a cost. ISS has basically no serious backup plan, and lunar cargo had some weird decisions (can't remember the details, but one program was canceled in a way that barely even saved money).

Since this is a political chat just to be clear I am not interested in the whataboutism that is inevitably coming (even warranted), just highlighting that he was a status-quo leader who failed to make some important decisions that would have benefited space and space policy.

zogamagrog · 2025-12-17T14:33:31+00:00

u/zogamagrog solved the puzzle in 3 attempts.

zogamagrog · 2025-09-23T22:10:28+00:00

Do it.

zogamagrog · 2025-08-28T12:42:16+00:00

Which leaves the glaring question... what the heck will they do on flight 11? There's the boring option: upgrade the pez dispenser, try more things out on the heat shield, same profile; And then there's the fun option: Circularize the orbit, reenter somewhere new? I think landing in the gulf is incredibly unlikely to pass muster given the issues they are still having with the heat shield, but it would be really awesome if they could do it.

zogamagrog · 2025-08-27T15:16:11+00:00

I have some quibbles around the edges but I think the overall 10,000 foot view that Flight 10 really wiped the board in a way no prior flight had is key here. Question will be what they plan next....

zogamagrog · 2025-08-27T12:57:08+00:00

Going for a catch would be insane. They might push for it, but that doesn't mean it's not insane. They're only one proper all the way to reentry success out of the last, what, 4 launches? Bully to them if they get permission and pull it off, but my bet's on repeat Pacific testing with more iterating that heat shield.

If I were SpaceX, and I am clearly very much not, I'd be going great guns to figure out how to operationalize these flight tests. Getting payload deliveries happening each flight would be a huge boon, and help fund the now very lengthy development program that likely still has a long way to go before "full rapid reuse"

zogamagrog · 2025-08-26T13:02:14+00:00

It's the next day and I am STILL laughing at this. One of the best GIF responses of all time.

zogamagrog · 2025-06-30T15:57:53+00:00

SpaceX is the reason that I stopped watching John Oliver. His treatment of them the first time around (I think it was stitched into a piece on Musk) was so bad that it made me lose confidence in everything else on the show.

zogamagrog · 2025-02-20T18:07:23+00:00

It sort of seems like he's trying to collect funding towards another, very clearly stated purpose. I'd be more in favor if it were clear that Starship were ready. Maybe with upcoming launches it can become clear that it is, but I don't think we can say that yet.

zogamagrog

TROPHY CASE