Why Musk's Biggest Space Gamble is Freaking Out His Competitors
takyon writes:
Why Musk's biggest space gamble is freaking out his competitors
Standing in front of the towering Starship rocket at Space X's southwest Texas "Starbase" on Thursday night, Musk pledged that his most ambitious spaceship yet will make its first journey in the coming months.
[...] "It is the kind of thing we used to talk about as 'wouldn't it be great if we could do these kinds of things?'" said Scott Altman, a former astronaut who is now president of ASRC Federal, a space R&D company. But NASA officials - and their longtime aerospace contractors - are watching with a mix of awe and horror. "They are shitting the bed," said a top Washington space lobbyist who works for SpaceX's competitors and asked for anonymity to avoid upsetting his clients.
[...] As Starship progresses, it will further eclipse the argument for sticking with SLS, according to Rand Simberg, an aerospace engineer and space consultant. "Once the new system's reliability is demonstrated with a large number of flights, which could happen in a matter of months, it will obsolesce all existing launch systems," he said. "If SLS is not going to fly more than once every couple of years, it's just not going to be a significant player in the future in space, particularly when Starship is flown," he added.
[...] The potty-mouthed D.C. lobbyist, a longtime detractor of SpaceX, described the reaction among his clients to Musk's presentation on Thursday as "promises, promises, promises." But he said such dismissals are passe. "It's like you keep saying 'he can't do it' but it keeps working. It keeps working. I think people are scared. He's starting to make people who were never believers think he might."
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