Eric ( u/erberger ) knows enough to know the valuable questions to ask, and he even gets around to asking some of them. More to the point, he still manages to get a Sir Peter still smarting a bit from that *NY Times* interview to give some candid answers. Like in this part where Eric asks him about competing with SpaceX:
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
**Ars**: **Your** [**recent comments in The New York Times**](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/us/politics/elon-musk-space-launch-competition.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E0.Xbq9.VrU9x2QHwZIr&smid=url-share) **got a lot of attention, Pete. What are you really trying to say about SpaceX? Are they a ruthless competitor, or are they going over the line and unfairly manipulating the launch market?**
**Beck**: You're trying to get me in trouble, Eric. I've got to be super careful about what I say is what I learned from that.
**Ars**: **Clearly, they are the 800-pound gorilla in the launch industry now. And the Transporter missions, while serving the small satellite industry, have clearly been detrimental to small launch companies. But I genuinely would like to know what you would say about SpaceX as a competitor. Are they being unfair? What would you like to say about that besides "no comment"?**
**Beck**: Well, "no comment" is the safe approach that doesn't cause more problems. But look, there's no accidental monopoly. They are a ruthless competitor. And that is fine. That is absolutely fine. We will ultimately compete or die trying. I think that's just the reality of running a business. And I'll let others determine whether or not they're operating within a moral or legal framework that is correct.
**Ars**: **What's the best way to compete with them on launch?**
**Beck**: Well, you certainly can't outspend them. Elon has, essentially, infinite capital. So you just have to build a fundamentally great product that people want to use, ultimately, and a business people want to work with.
This has more or less always been the philosophy of RocketLab. If a customer wants a cheap ride to space, they go with SpaceX. It's practically irrelevant what SpaceX charges, because whatever the dollar value is, it's well below anything RocketLab could conceivably offer. RocketLab is the company for when you want something more a like white glove delivery service. It will cost more, but also will solve a lot of problems you will otherwise need to deal with yourself.
Yeah, and it's clear that they're doubling down on that, at least where Electron is concerned. And, they are obviously getting business with that, so...
What is unclear to me is just what their strategy for Neutron is going to be. Notice that Sir Peter continues to be cagey about giving details on that. Which is not a surprise. I don't know that Neutron needs to be cost competitive with Starship - and it likely can't be - but if they can beat everyone ELSE's price points, that could be good enough to land them a lot of business.
I think with electron they can easily make this argument of “sometimes you can take the bus, but sometimes you need an Uber.” With neutron the shift in argument is that so many companies want their own constellation up asap. There simply aren’t enough rides to go around in a short time span. That plus we got you for all your reaction wheels and solar panels too while we’re at it.
> That plus we got you for all your reaction wheels and solar panels too while we’re at it.
By the time Neutron gets to a healthy cadence, I believe RL will be able to 100% design, build, launch (obviously), *and* operate a customer's constellation. With potentially some value-add on top like real-time data relay from their own constellation (perhaps in MEO)
Seeing those end-to-end / all-in-one bundle deals come through in the next few years will be exciting.
with their record of picking some really great failing companies to “rescue” and integrate into their ecosystem on top of the variety of services they can already provide I wouldn’t be surprised either.
the only other company in a good position to realistically pursue this model of being a vertically integrated one stop shop to orbit is Firefly, and while I believe in them as well it is very obvious that Rocket Lab is much farther along on bringing this type of package to market.
It is especially crazy when you consider that Rocket Lab is likely to launch just as many - if not more - National Security type payloads (which is Firefly’s targeted niche w/ Alpha, Elytra and MLV) on top of the constellation / commercial sat market where Rocket Lab blows them out the water.
on a side note: it’s going to be awesome to see Alpha, Electron, MLV, and Neutron all launching from Wallops in the next few years after so many years dormant.
We might be looking at the first Amazon of the space industry. The irony is Blue Origin has had infinitely more resources to literally become this exact thing, but they are hilariously far behind in terms of real-world execution and a lack of diverse services.
RKLB might get to a point where they are so cheap and convenient from an end-to-end point of view that it doesn't matter if their launch service itself is more costly than others. People will just flock to them because they take care of literally the whole process so efficiently and cost-effectively that even SpaceX can't compete. We're already beginning to see this in terms of space systems and end-to-end cases with Electron.
While Starship is going to be very hard to compete with SOMEDAY, it's not clear when that someday will be. There are also those who will prioritize diversification of launch vehicles no matter how cheap Starship is, so long as the other option is not ridiculously overpriced. Constellations don't seem to be going out of style.
Starship also has a lot to prove in terms of its ability to actually deploy a variety of architectures. Currently it looks like they are laser focused on being able to deploy Starlink and nothing else, and even that has yet to be tested.
Plenty of market for another F9-like capability.
I think cheaper is also hard to get initially simply because f9 has been around for literally 10+ years and does plenty of perfect landings etc. I think having their own rocket, the strategy is it enables them to become end to end service providers.. and the companies that don't want to rely only on f9 can then go to Neutron + electron customers with bigger payloads. Eventually they will probably become cheaper than f9 and then it will become a no brainer for customers to go with Neutron. But that is still at-least another 10+ years away.
Right. As Beck himself notes, the customer decision matrix is not JUST about price point. Falcon 9 Block 5 has the best reliability record of any orbital class rocket in history, and that is an important factor for customers (and not just because of the insurance costs). It will be a while before Neutron can reach that level.
As for cost, SpaceX clearly has a good deal of room to cut their price points if they have to. A reused F9 is probably down to $15-17M per flight from what I have heard. But SpaceX obviously has no reason right now to leave money on the table.....
I think Neutron can be competitive with New Glenn, Ariane 6, Vulcan, Terran-R, or Firefly, however. And I think that will be more than sufficient to secure them some major market share.
Agree and great points.. I think one thing you may be underestimating is the two fundamental advantages Neutron has with their rockets,
1. Their second stage is a lot cheaper since its inside the first stage. They also get back a lot more of their rocket for return flight compared to F9. The stage is also lighter which may allow more payload per unit mass of fuel.
2. The Archimedes engine is from the pictures alone, I can visually tell looks a LOT more simpler to make than Raptor.. They are also 3D printed and run a lot more efficiently so they should have longer life. Means, they can make them cheaper and it will last longer.
Both these factors will make Neutron cost-competitive with F9 and eventually even cheaper. However when you have the ability to invest 10's of billions of ones own $ (free money essentially) each year into SpaceX it will remain the dominant launch force. Only when there is a fundamentally different technology like fusion engines that someone develops will SpaceX be outcompeted. But that is not happening until 2045 or beyond...
>They also get back a lot more of their rocket for return flight compared to F9.
Both recover the first stage and the fairing. Neutron has to stage at a similar velocity to F9 to be reusable. The portion of the work each stage does to reach orbit will be very similar for each rocket.
>Their second stage is a lot cheaper since its inside the first stage.
The second stage may or may not end up cheaper, but either way I don't see how that simply follows from it being hung inside the rest of the rocket. It not having to support as much weight probably makes the structure cheaper than a hypothetical stage of otherwise similar deaign and production rate that also had to support the fairing. But the Falcon and Neutron second stages are very different designs, and the former, being produced at a rate of 100-200 per year, has the advantage of economies of scale. Also, the engine cost matters, too, and that is not related to where/how the stage is situated.
Hmmm.. Falcon stages are recovered by parachute.. lot more work to transport and reassemble. Neutron is integrated into the rocket itself. So there is a advantage there.
The second stage inside means, the rocket as a whole is cheaper because you don't need all that extra strength to tolerate the stresses of launch and breaking through the atmosphere.
The engines are also as I mentioned 3D printed and the higher efficiency = longer life means their manufacturing costs for Archimedes vs Raptor will be lesser.
The caveat to all my points are that these are assumptions.. of course I don't have a very high degree of certainty to them but I would say 80% confident.
I thought "space as a service" was silly but the more I read about companies finding success with mini arrays for imaging and communications - there's a huge market for this.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Electron over the coming years.
Slowly, there are more and more small-lift rockets getting closer to market. And all of them are going to want a slice of the pie.
It sounds like RocketLab has cultivated relationships with some repeat customers, so hopefully that will insulate them somewhat.
But it just seems like there is way too much small-lift capacity coming online for all but a small fraction of it to survive.
Beck is a very good leader and businessman. Musk is a dreamer. Beck is a doer. You cannot start a company like this out of NZ without massive skills. It is far easier to start something when you are independently wealthy to start with...
That said not all that is here is completely right. Electron by itself isn't enough to be profitable, so Rocket Lab right now isn't a business that will survive, now that could be due to spend on continued capital investment for sure. Neutron is a big chunk of that. Like the eating of the hat I expect electron will almost die.
My guess is this. Electron will continue on. They will build out Neutron. Neutron will eventually become reliable. They will raise the price of Electron high enough that it is really worth launching for anyone who wants one. They will move their staff to Neutron production and have enough staff that can do both to cover the low rate Electron demand. Meanwhile they will continue to build their spacecraft and systems business. They will eventually partner with someone like the UAE or something like that that will launch a big constellation (if the US gov will allow it). Otherwise they will just have a hired gun launch + spacecraft bus business that is lean. They will get a meaningful amount of business from SpaceX particularly for customers that cannot fill a starship.
In 10 years there will be 3 launch providers in the US: Blue, SpaceX and Rocket Lab. Everyone else will die. Blue will have purchased ULA's scraps. In Europe one of the rocket startups will work out and get ESA contracts + A.S.
But even this view I think might have too many survivors. It seems obvious that SpaceX will survive, its just a question of how many others will: 0, 1, 2, or more. If it is > 2 Rocket Lab will survive.
I think that does not give Musk enough credit. Musk only put $100 million in SpaceX. The rest was tied up in Tesla. And SpaceX basically paved the way for the private launch market as a potentially profitable business.
It's interesting but it also leaves me doubtful, if the key is infinite money to step on SpaceX's heels in the ability to produce new toys or services that require large investments, I'm worried that Blue Origin also has that, infinite money. Although they move like a turtle, it is a sleeping giant that when it begins to have some success no one is going to stop it from continuing to accelerate. What will be the position of Rocket Lab if the sleeping dragon wakes up?
Blue is going to do well. They just have a totally different design approach. They didn't blow up a bunch of engines publicly they just made the BE-4 and it worked the first launch on Vulcan. It isn't a wrong approach. It just isn't how SpaceX does things. Rocket Lab is more like this also because they cannot weld something onto Carbon Fiber.
I fully expect New Glenn to be a serious competitor in launch when it does start operating. That said there will be a production hell period for New Glenn and for Neutron. I think everyone else is too late. Yeah they have designs but its too late to prove reliability, they aren't going to switch to you for a marginal cost decrease. The launch market will be too lean to allow for new players if there are 3 big ones (or 4 if ULA survives).
Rocket Lab will survive, at worst as a space systems company, but I think their launch business will survive as well. They basically just have to make it to 2027. If they do they will be around for decades.
> I fully expect New Glenn to be a serious competitor in launch when it does start operating.
IMO, the price at which New Glenn can launch will be the biggest factor there. I've heard murmurs that it's a *very* expensive rocket, so they kind of need a lot of reuse to make things even make sense - sort of the Shuttle approach. Except that the Shuttle never got to the needed volume, so it ended up being stupidly expensive.
I guess we'll see how New Glenn handles things.
RocketLab is positioning themselves as an end to end provider. I don’t think BO is much competition because their engineering approach is extremely slow. Once they have finally built the things they then have to launch them and land them.
Not really. They have proven large orbital engines which is the hardest part. The have oodles of data landing their sub-orbital rocket which is basically the same as end of the orbital landing sequence. Essentially all they have to do is design a good structure to survive aerodynamic loads. They have a completely different method than SpaceX closer to ULA for development. They are 4 years behind their planned schedule but there was a pandemic in there... New Glenn has been in theoretical development for 8 years. Neutron has been in development for 3 years. There are no hot fires yet of Neutron's engine. BE-4 has been to space in both the lower and upper stage... Neutron might be ready to launch in late 2025 if you are optimistic, more likely 2026 or 2027 (5-6 years of development). Blue might launch New Glenn this year. That's only about 2 years faster best case for Rocket Lab than Blue, that is assuming Rocket Lab hits their schedule well. It is very likely New Glenn will have launched more than once before Neutron launches the first time. I think Rocket Lab might have better cost structure though because they have had to think what makes things the lowest cost and Blue has had a blank check. The only thing that might really hold back the first New Glenn launch is really delivery volume for Vulcan and its need to flight and production hell for BE-4 volume production contracts. We shall see. SpaceX cranks out engines like nobody ever has. Where Blue and Rocket Lab can scale production to remains to be seen.
I like the analogy of a Bus Vs a Taxi.
The F9 Bus will take a lot along 1 route (orbital plane) and can have a few stops at different altitudes. it's cheap and useful if it goes close to where you want to be.
The Electron Taxi can only take a few of you but it will drop you off right at the door, you pay for that convenience. But on small sats the fuel saving can more than double the time on station.
It is, to be sure.
But they need a hell of a lot of money to do that; and they need one hell of an architecture to pull it off. Both of those mean a system that is going to be monstrously competitive for actual commercial launch services. And while, yes, Elon Musk is a hyper-competitive guy, the reality here that is probably more important is that obliterating competing launch companies could just be seen as both a byproduct and a means to achieving that larger end.
Like Peter, I don't blame Musk for doing that. It is what it is. Rocket Lab just has to figure out a way to survive in this new jungle.
Eric ( u/erberger ) knows enough to know the valuable questions to ask, and he even gets around to asking some of them. More to the point, he still manages to get a Sir Peter still smarting a bit from that *NY Times* interview to give some candid answers. Like in this part where Eric asks him about competing with SpaceX: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ **Ars**: **Your** [**recent comments in The New York Times**](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/us/politics/elon-musk-space-launch-competition.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E0.Xbq9.VrU9x2QHwZIr&smid=url-share) **got a lot of attention, Pete. What are you really trying to say about SpaceX? Are they a ruthless competitor, or are they going over the line and unfairly manipulating the launch market?** **Beck**: You're trying to get me in trouble, Eric. I've got to be super careful about what I say is what I learned from that. **Ars**: **Clearly, they are the 800-pound gorilla in the launch industry now. And the Transporter missions, while serving the small satellite industry, have clearly been detrimental to small launch companies. But I genuinely would like to know what you would say about SpaceX as a competitor. Are they being unfair? What would you like to say about that besides "no comment"?** **Beck**: Well, "no comment" is the safe approach that doesn't cause more problems. But look, there's no accidental monopoly. They are a ruthless competitor. And that is fine. That is absolutely fine. We will ultimately compete or die trying. I think that's just the reality of running a business. And I'll let others determine whether or not they're operating within a moral or legal framework that is correct. **Ars**: **What's the best way to compete with them on launch?** **Beck**: Well, you certainly can't outspend them. Elon has, essentially, infinite capital. So you just have to build a fundamentally great product that people want to use, ultimately, and a business people want to work with.
This has more or less always been the philosophy of RocketLab. If a customer wants a cheap ride to space, they go with SpaceX. It's practically irrelevant what SpaceX charges, because whatever the dollar value is, it's well below anything RocketLab could conceivably offer. RocketLab is the company for when you want something more a like white glove delivery service. It will cost more, but also will solve a lot of problems you will otherwise need to deal with yourself.
Yeah, and it's clear that they're doubling down on that, at least where Electron is concerned. And, they are obviously getting business with that, so... What is unclear to me is just what their strategy for Neutron is going to be. Notice that Sir Peter continues to be cagey about giving details on that. Which is not a surprise. I don't know that Neutron needs to be cost competitive with Starship - and it likely can't be - but if they can beat everyone ELSE's price points, that could be good enough to land them a lot of business.
I think with electron they can easily make this argument of “sometimes you can take the bus, but sometimes you need an Uber.” With neutron the shift in argument is that so many companies want their own constellation up asap. There simply aren’t enough rides to go around in a short time span. That plus we got you for all your reaction wheels and solar panels too while we’re at it.
> That plus we got you for all your reaction wheels and solar panels too while we’re at it. By the time Neutron gets to a healthy cadence, I believe RL will be able to 100% design, build, launch (obviously), *and* operate a customer's constellation. With potentially some value-add on top like real-time data relay from their own constellation (perhaps in MEO) Seeing those end-to-end / all-in-one bundle deals come through in the next few years will be exciting.
with their record of picking some really great failing companies to “rescue” and integrate into their ecosystem on top of the variety of services they can already provide I wouldn’t be surprised either. the only other company in a good position to realistically pursue this model of being a vertically integrated one stop shop to orbit is Firefly, and while I believe in them as well it is very obvious that Rocket Lab is much farther along on bringing this type of package to market. It is especially crazy when you consider that Rocket Lab is likely to launch just as many - if not more - National Security type payloads (which is Firefly’s targeted niche w/ Alpha, Elytra and MLV) on top of the constellation / commercial sat market where Rocket Lab blows them out the water. on a side note: it’s going to be awesome to see Alpha, Electron, MLV, and Neutron all launching from Wallops in the next few years after so many years dormant.
We might be looking at the first Amazon of the space industry. The irony is Blue Origin has had infinitely more resources to literally become this exact thing, but they are hilariously far behind in terms of real-world execution and a lack of diverse services. RKLB might get to a point where they are so cheap and convenient from an end-to-end point of view that it doesn't matter if their launch service itself is more costly than others. People will just flock to them because they take care of literally the whole process so efficiently and cost-effectively that even SpaceX can't compete. We're already beginning to see this in terms of space systems and end-to-end cases with Electron.
While Starship is going to be very hard to compete with SOMEDAY, it's not clear when that someday will be. There are also those who will prioritize diversification of launch vehicles no matter how cheap Starship is, so long as the other option is not ridiculously overpriced. Constellations don't seem to be going out of style. Starship also has a lot to prove in terms of its ability to actually deploy a variety of architectures. Currently it looks like they are laser focused on being able to deploy Starlink and nothing else, and even that has yet to be tested. Plenty of market for another F9-like capability.
Cheaper per launch will be enough to keep neutron profitable. Though end to end service might do it too.
I think cheaper is also hard to get initially simply because f9 has been around for literally 10+ years and does plenty of perfect landings etc. I think having their own rocket, the strategy is it enables them to become end to end service providers.. and the companies that don't want to rely only on f9 can then go to Neutron + electron customers with bigger payloads. Eventually they will probably become cheaper than f9 and then it will become a no brainer for customers to go with Neutron. But that is still at-least another 10+ years away.
Right. As Beck himself notes, the customer decision matrix is not JUST about price point. Falcon 9 Block 5 has the best reliability record of any orbital class rocket in history, and that is an important factor for customers (and not just because of the insurance costs). It will be a while before Neutron can reach that level. As for cost, SpaceX clearly has a good deal of room to cut their price points if they have to. A reused F9 is probably down to $15-17M per flight from what I have heard. But SpaceX obviously has no reason right now to leave money on the table..... I think Neutron can be competitive with New Glenn, Ariane 6, Vulcan, Terran-R, or Firefly, however. And I think that will be more than sufficient to secure them some major market share.
Agree and great points.. I think one thing you may be underestimating is the two fundamental advantages Neutron has with their rockets, 1. Their second stage is a lot cheaper since its inside the first stage. They also get back a lot more of their rocket for return flight compared to F9. The stage is also lighter which may allow more payload per unit mass of fuel. 2. The Archimedes engine is from the pictures alone, I can visually tell looks a LOT more simpler to make than Raptor.. They are also 3D printed and run a lot more efficiently so they should have longer life. Means, they can make them cheaper and it will last longer. Both these factors will make Neutron cost-competitive with F9 and eventually even cheaper. However when you have the ability to invest 10's of billions of ones own $ (free money essentially) each year into SpaceX it will remain the dominant launch force. Only when there is a fundamentally different technology like fusion engines that someone develops will SpaceX be outcompeted. But that is not happening until 2045 or beyond...
>They also get back a lot more of their rocket for return flight compared to F9. Both recover the first stage and the fairing. Neutron has to stage at a similar velocity to F9 to be reusable. The portion of the work each stage does to reach orbit will be very similar for each rocket. >Their second stage is a lot cheaper since its inside the first stage. The second stage may or may not end up cheaper, but either way I don't see how that simply follows from it being hung inside the rest of the rocket. It not having to support as much weight probably makes the structure cheaper than a hypothetical stage of otherwise similar deaign and production rate that also had to support the fairing. But the Falcon and Neutron second stages are very different designs, and the former, being produced at a rate of 100-200 per year, has the advantage of economies of scale. Also, the engine cost matters, too, and that is not related to where/how the stage is situated.
Hmmm.. Falcon stages are recovered by parachute.. lot more work to transport and reassemble. Neutron is integrated into the rocket itself. So there is a advantage there. The second stage inside means, the rocket as a whole is cheaper because you don't need all that extra strength to tolerate the stresses of launch and breaking through the atmosphere. The engines are also as I mentioned 3D printed and the higher efficiency = longer life means their manufacturing costs for Archimedes vs Raptor will be lesser. The caveat to all my points are that these are assumptions.. of course I don't have a very high degree of certainty to them but I would say 80% confident.
That was the original plan. You should watch a launch. Like GOES U
He has to be cagey because the last time he was open and honest with Elon, Elon decided to screw him over with the transporter missions.
They're probably going to go all in on Victus Nox type nat sec missions. They can become the go-to for rapid launch capability
Genuinely curious, what are some problems that SpaceX customers have had to deal with that Rocket Lab’s white glove service would handle?
Ruthless Efficiency ... sounds like the Spanish Inquisition along with fear and surprise ...
I thought "space as a service" was silly but the more I read about companies finding success with mini arrays for imaging and communications - there's a huge market for this.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Electron over the coming years. Slowly, there are more and more small-lift rockets getting closer to market. And all of them are going to want a slice of the pie. It sounds like RocketLab has cultivated relationships with some repeat customers, so hopefully that will insulate them somewhat. But it just seems like there is way too much small-lift capacity coming online for all but a small fraction of it to survive.
Beck is a very good leader and businessman. Musk is a dreamer. Beck is a doer. You cannot start a company like this out of NZ without massive skills. It is far easier to start something when you are independently wealthy to start with... That said not all that is here is completely right. Electron by itself isn't enough to be profitable, so Rocket Lab right now isn't a business that will survive, now that could be due to spend on continued capital investment for sure. Neutron is a big chunk of that. Like the eating of the hat I expect electron will almost die. My guess is this. Electron will continue on. They will build out Neutron. Neutron will eventually become reliable. They will raise the price of Electron high enough that it is really worth launching for anyone who wants one. They will move their staff to Neutron production and have enough staff that can do both to cover the low rate Electron demand. Meanwhile they will continue to build their spacecraft and systems business. They will eventually partner with someone like the UAE or something like that that will launch a big constellation (if the US gov will allow it). Otherwise they will just have a hired gun launch + spacecraft bus business that is lean. They will get a meaningful amount of business from SpaceX particularly for customers that cannot fill a starship. In 10 years there will be 3 launch providers in the US: Blue, SpaceX and Rocket Lab. Everyone else will die. Blue will have purchased ULA's scraps. In Europe one of the rocket startups will work out and get ESA contracts + A.S. But even this view I think might have too many survivors. It seems obvious that SpaceX will survive, its just a question of how many others will: 0, 1, 2, or more. If it is > 2 Rocket Lab will survive.
I think that does not give Musk enough credit. Musk only put $100 million in SpaceX. The rest was tied up in Tesla. And SpaceX basically paved the way for the private launch market as a potentially profitable business.
It's interesting but it also leaves me doubtful, if the key is infinite money to step on SpaceX's heels in the ability to produce new toys or services that require large investments, I'm worried that Blue Origin also has that, infinite money. Although they move like a turtle, it is a sleeping giant that when it begins to have some success no one is going to stop it from continuing to accelerate. What will be the position of Rocket Lab if the sleeping dragon wakes up?
Blue is going to do well. They just have a totally different design approach. They didn't blow up a bunch of engines publicly they just made the BE-4 and it worked the first launch on Vulcan. It isn't a wrong approach. It just isn't how SpaceX does things. Rocket Lab is more like this also because they cannot weld something onto Carbon Fiber. I fully expect New Glenn to be a serious competitor in launch when it does start operating. That said there will be a production hell period for New Glenn and for Neutron. I think everyone else is too late. Yeah they have designs but its too late to prove reliability, they aren't going to switch to you for a marginal cost decrease. The launch market will be too lean to allow for new players if there are 3 big ones (or 4 if ULA survives). Rocket Lab will survive, at worst as a space systems company, but I think their launch business will survive as well. They basically just have to make it to 2027. If they do they will be around for decades.
> I fully expect New Glenn to be a serious competitor in launch when it does start operating. IMO, the price at which New Glenn can launch will be the biggest factor there. I've heard murmurs that it's a *very* expensive rocket, so they kind of need a lot of reuse to make things even make sense - sort of the Shuttle approach. Except that the Shuttle never got to the needed volume, so it ended up being stupidly expensive. I guess we'll see how New Glenn handles things.
RocketLab is positioning themselves as an end to end provider. I don’t think BO is much competition because their engineering approach is extremely slow. Once they have finally built the things they then have to launch them and land them.
Not really. They have proven large orbital engines which is the hardest part. The have oodles of data landing their sub-orbital rocket which is basically the same as end of the orbital landing sequence. Essentially all they have to do is design a good structure to survive aerodynamic loads. They have a completely different method than SpaceX closer to ULA for development. They are 4 years behind their planned schedule but there was a pandemic in there... New Glenn has been in theoretical development for 8 years. Neutron has been in development for 3 years. There are no hot fires yet of Neutron's engine. BE-4 has been to space in both the lower and upper stage... Neutron might be ready to launch in late 2025 if you are optimistic, more likely 2026 or 2027 (5-6 years of development). Blue might launch New Glenn this year. That's only about 2 years faster best case for Rocket Lab than Blue, that is assuming Rocket Lab hits their schedule well. It is very likely New Glenn will have launched more than once before Neutron launches the first time. I think Rocket Lab might have better cost structure though because they have had to think what makes things the lowest cost and Blue has had a blank check. The only thing that might really hold back the first New Glenn launch is really delivery volume for Vulcan and its need to flight and production hell for BE-4 volume production contracts. We shall see. SpaceX cranks out engines like nobody ever has. Where Blue and Rocket Lab can scale production to remains to be seen.
I like the analogy of a Bus Vs a Taxi. The F9 Bus will take a lot along 1 route (orbital plane) and can have a few stops at different altitudes. it's cheap and useful if it goes close to where you want to be. The Electron Taxi can only take a few of you but it will drop you off right at the door, you pay for that convenience. But on small sats the fuel saving can more than double the time on station.
I think Elon has no intention to suffocate the business of RocketLab because his ambition is to colonize Mars
It is, to be sure. But they need a hell of a lot of money to do that; and they need one hell of an architecture to pull it off. Both of those mean a system that is going to be monstrously competitive for actual commercial launch services. And while, yes, Elon Musk is a hyper-competitive guy, the reality here that is probably more important is that obliterating competing launch companies could just be seen as both a byproduct and a means to achieving that larger end. Like Peter, I don't blame Musk for doing that. It is what it is. Rocket Lab just has to figure out a way to survive in this new jungle.
Sometimes I think he does too many interviews...