Jeff Manber says that space companies need to talk to each other more.
We came to the conclusion in our study … [that] there is no one company that can do commercial. One company does not make a market. … You need an ecosystem. You need compares that are doing things and other companies that use that and begin to put it into their business plan.
You also need advances in communications, like getting data down [to Earth] using advanced technology. You need orbital tugs to move hardware between [free flying commercial space stations] and the International Space Station. You need reentry vehicles, and a cost effective way to bring biopharma products and products made in microgravity like fiber optics back to Earth. What we laid out in our plan was a road map that has the government as one of many customers and a private sector that knows what each other is doing and can plan accordingly.
I’m in discussion with him, and others.
Do you mean like all companies openly collaborate with their competitors to produce a more uniform end product? No competition in this industry is why Elon had to create it within his own company. No competition allowed by NASA is why we don’t yet have a way to launch people to space on vehicles built by US companies. Believing they have all the answers is why NASA has suppressed competition in space exploration for the last 50 years, or more. I suppose an education system run by socialists was bound to produce this idea sooner or later. Until this thought process is dead and gone, we will not have true commercialization of space. Sorry Rand, I disagree with you on this one.
I have no idea what you’re disagreeing with me about.
Well, if i can’t mis-read your stance on this, what fun is it?
This could be a fun game.
Musk is already inventing everything. Starkicker is offered as an expendable upper stage for Super Heavy, but since it will be refuelable (as a Starship and Startanker spinoff) that makes it a space tug. A big one. One day Mars will have its own flag. Instead of a brass cannon, it’ll have a mousetrap with a blue ribbon attached.
He could also offer his customers a communications module that will plug their satellite into his giant Internet constellation, reducing the cost of the satellite’s required ground control station to zero, or at least that of a cheap laptop or smartphone. He might even give you first three months free.
Why don’t they?
Is part of it because running your mouth and creates an expectation for performance that is often missed? It’s risky. Invest in our business, we totally aren’t cranks.