Competing with SpaceX
Ars: Your recent comments in The New York Times 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.
Ars: How do you view the Starship program? Do you think they’re going to be successful with rapidly reusing the Starship upper stage?
Beck: I think it’s very challenging. And every day it starts to look a little bit more like a Space Shuttle, and that is not by accident, right? I mean, there’s very hard engineering problems to solve. And, you start to whittle away to a smaller and smaller number of solutions to solve those problems. But yes, I think they’ll ultimately get there.
But once again, what market is it serving? Are you building a business alongside building the product? And don’t forget, Elon’s vision is to go to Mars and colonize Mars. And I haven’t seen the latest numbers, but I’ve seen numbers like 30,000 Starships or something like that to do that. If that’s your means, and that’s the business that you’re trying to build, or the dream you’re kind of trying to fulfill, then Starship is awesome. They’re doing really well, and it’s fantastic to watch. But there has to be a business in colonizing Mars, at the end of the day.
