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Gentlemen, start your engines. SpaceX‘s CEO, Elon Musk, has laid down the challenge; a verbal slap in the face, if you will. He’s had the bare-faced cheek to insult Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket, saying that the “Ariane 5 has no chance” in the increasingly crowded rocket market. Well, to me, that just sounds like a challenge.
SpaceX is the maker of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and notable for being NASA’s weapon of choice to resupply the International Space Station. This shouldn’t give Mr Musk and his jolly band of rocketeers unlimited bragging rights though; one of the major factors in winning contracts was the suspiciously low price that SpaceX are able to charge. Although Elon insists that his prices are sustainable, sceptics wonder if he can keep the sort of reliability you need in space flight; one of the most recent Falcon 9 flights saw a first-stage rocket motor failure.
Truth be told, although SpaceX is being a bit brash, there’s no denying that the Ariane rockets are currently a little bit pathetic. The Ariane is a perfectly good rocket, but it’s not competitive enough on price or payload. Although there are plans in the works for an upgrade, squabbling between the countries trying to build it (hmm, squabbling in the EU, what a surprise…) is slowing things down. And that can’t afford to happen. Not when the Yanks are using a Merlin engine to beat us. C’mon Europe, even if we can’t sort the debt out, at least can we put this jumped-up American company in its place? [BBC]
Image credit: Duel from Shutterstock
Europe:
That’s fine…. (quietly keeps Skylon to itself…)
America sends things up into space a lot, and they send things to Mars
We send things to Mars too, which sometimes get there…
I think they mostly get there, just not all in one piece.
The Yanks are clearly shitting it so have resorted to some playground trash talk.
Musk needs to check himself, Germans made the V2 and really pioneered rocket tech. Last time I checked Germany it was in Europe.
Never forget where you come from Musk! (South Africa)
He’s saying that they can’t compete in the future. Not the past.
Actually, it was Robert Goddard in the US who really pioneered liquid fuel rockets. What has this to do with competing on price and reliability in 2012?
I guess the Americans are planning to kidnap a few more German scientists.
Really though, rockets are so 20th century and we really need to be moving away from the technology. Skylon should be funded to completion and on an accelerated schedule and the engines sold a lot like RR does.
Musk / Space X is doing well but its a little early for talk like that yet. If / when he loses a rocket he will know the true price of his venture. Loss of clients, expensive redesigns and testing, years of setback. Odds are it will happen and Space X has not thought of everything.
SABRE engines become rockets above about Mach 6.
I know. Its a rocket engine before and after, just the fuel delivery is somewhat different. Thats what the RE in SABRE stands for.
It works more like a rocket engine from 0 to low speeds rather than the other way around. At high speeds the cone of the rocket opens to allow air to be pre-cooled to just above liquid temperature to replace the onboard fuel source.
He wont be laughing when he kills someone with his tech-by-the-lowest-bidder business model. Stupid asshat.
Good thing NASA never killed anyone with its whatever-you-want-and-a-fat-profit-too business model.
Tell us, MikeO, how many rockets have you designed, built, and flown into space? How many space ships?
That many? Yes, I thought so.
Mr. Mills, it is interesting how you failed to note that France and Germany agree with Mr. Musk’s assessment, as they are discussing how best to begin producing a lower-priced Ariane 6 rocket. This would seem to be basic background information in an article such as this.
Can’t Gizmodo do better than this?
No. I think you’ll find that NASA went with the lowest bidder. And seeing as the O ring fiasco was a result of that, hence that business practice is the result of the sad deaths of some brave Astronauts.
Can you do better than that? No. Now go away and read some history.