> Do people on this site really want Bezos to give up

How about not blocking everybody else constantly suing everybody and delaying the process. If he actually wanted to achieve a goal, that's what he would do.

Bezos is driven by pride more then anything else. It was clear that SpaceX was way ahead of them in terms of rockets. Instead of leveraging that and investing in space station or moon lander, they had to 'beat' SpaceX at rockets.

BO has been chasing its own tail and then suing everybody and claiming everything is unfair.

For a company that has achieved mostly nothing, to claim everybody else shouldn't get contracts and that they would be better is just the hight of arrogance. Not surprising it has left many space fans with a bad taste.

Additionally, this is a station that will only be build for a government contract. BO might be willing to spend actual money on idealism, but Boeing and Sierra are not.

> I'm starting to get the impression many on this site aren't really pro-space, they are just pro-Musk.

Maybe they are pro companies who actually achieve things and are not happy that the can finally sue everybody to 'flex their legal muscle' as BO CEO actually said.

Nobody dislikes Firefly, RocketLab, Relativity or any number of other space companies.

> Bezos is driven by pride more then anything else.

I don’t know. If his ego is so wrapped up in it wouldn’t he be putting more effort into Blue Origin? BO is mostly run by people he hired no?

Why is he suing? I don’t know. Maybe he does feel his company isn’t given the fair opportunity to participate.

Frankly if it’s prideful behavior you have a problem with, Musk isn’t doing too hot in that department either.

Remember when he slandered that British guy helping to free kids trapped in a cave in Thailand, damaging the guy’s reputation? All because the guy called him out on his publicity stunt.

Or the time he attacked CNN over ventilators although all CNN did was report the news verbatim - imagine being so hard up for recognition over what is supposed to be an act of charity.

In the worst case, we have 3 prideful billionaires trying to get into space.

Yet Musk is the only one getting good press … while the other 2 get nothing but negativity and equally accomplished but relatively poorly funded companies like ULA, no one really talks about.

> Why is he suing? I don’t know. Maybe he does feel his company isn’t given the fair opportunity to participate.

Well, but here is the thing, they weren't. The already complained to GAO and the GAO confirmed that the competition was fair. Usually that is the end of it, but the continued on suing.

The are literally delaying the nations moon program. Bezos himself said in an interview a few years back that the reasons we can't do Appollo today was that the losers in the competition would sue. He called this the biggest problem in modern space flight.

And then a few years later he turns around doing exactly that. Talk about being part of the problem.

> Frankly if it’s prideful behavior you have a problem with, Musk isn’t doing too hot in that department either.

What national program has Musk delayed?

> Remember when he slandered that British guy helping to free kids trapped in a cave in Thailand, damaging the guy’s reputation? All because the guy called him out on his publicity stunt.

The British guy who also didn't actually do anything and was jealous that he didn't get much attention and attacked him first by slandering him in the media? This made Musk look like an asshole to be sure, but it was not out of nowhere.

If you actually read beyond the slanderous headline, the story is quite different. The SpaceX team talked to the actual diving team, they worked with them for a specific backup scenario that the divers said could a be a problem. The 'submarine' was never thought to be 'the solution', as was heavy implied by the media, and they never tried to make this the general solution.

And it was not a 'publicity stunt', Musk and a group of SpaceX engineers went there to help. It generated an absurd amount of attention because Musk tweets are so wide reaching, but he was just tweeting what they were doing. Media then latched on to the story because the 'clueless billionair builds submarine' apparently generated more clicks then 'Team of SpaceX engineers works with divers on backup solution'-

> Or the time he attacked CNN over ventilators although all CNN did was report the news verbatim - imagine being so hard up for recognition over what is supposed to be an act of charity.

So attacking CNN over false reporting is somehow bad now? They basically made fun of him because apparently he had order the wrong ventilators during Covid. Another repeat of the 'arrogant clueless Musk only craves attention' story the media endlessly repeats. Turns out, because Tesla was very involved in China they had talked to hospitals in China they had learned what machines were likely to be required and they ordered those machines.

Later it was confirmed by multiple hospitals that they had gotten the machines and that they were indeed very helpful. This part of course was never reported.

> In the worst case, we have 3 prideful billionaires trying to get into space.

Musk wasn't even a billionaire when SpaceX started. SpaceX has been a well operated commercial business for a long time now. Musk is a partly billionair because of SpaceX, its not that he was a billionaires and then decide to play around in space.

And Musk is not even really trying to go to space himself primarly, if he wanted to he could have years ago.

> Yet Musk is the only one getting good press … while the other 2 get nothing but negativity and equally accomplished but relatively poorly funded companies like ULA, no one really talks about.

The other two are getting bad press because they are selling vanity roller-coaster rides. Branson project is consistently lying about capability to boost the public stock and they have a terrible technical solution that has killed multiple people already.

BlueOrigin gets bad press because they insert themselves into every program and demand to be treated like an accomplished space company when they have never delivered a single product despite having an absurd amount of resources to spend. And then when they fail they sue everybody and claim that their propels were better.

SpaceX gets good press because they have successfully accomplished one difficult program after another at low cost to the government.

Not sure why it is surprising that companies who execute well under budget and achieve amazing should get more good press.

If you think ULA is 'equally accomplished' to SpaceX you are totally misinformed about the space industry. And among actual space fans and not the general media that is totally clueless anyway, everybody knows perfectly well what ULA does and they are talked about quite often.

> The British guy who also didn't actually do anything and was jealous that he didn't get much attention and attacked him first by slandering him in the media? This made Musk look like an asshole to be sure, but it was not out of nowhere.

He publicly accuse the man of being a pedophile. That slander no matter how you look at it.

It's funny you accuse the man of wanting attention when that's exactly what he called out Musk on. Musk had no business getting involved but wanted to be in on the publicity. Musk of course having his ego damaged overreacted as usual - when a normal person would just brush it off. Projection at it's finest.

> So attacking CNN over false reporting is somehow bad now?

It wasn't false. CNN report that the governor said the hospitals didn't receive the ventilators which is 100% true - the governor did say that.

> And Musk is not even really trying to go to space himself primarly, if he wanted to he could have years ago.

That one thing you have to give Bezos, he was the first of the 3 to be willing to dogfood his own rockets. Frankly I think he did it, despite the risk, just because he really wanted to visit space.

> If you think ULA is 'equally accomplished' to SpaceX you are totally misinformed about the space industry

ULA has been around a long time and recently sent a probe to the Sun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe. They are pretty darn capable and reliable. They just don't get much press - or money for the matter.

But I'm probably wasting my time. You seem like a huge fan of Musk and will just rationalize away everything I say.

Personally I think Musk and his companies are overhyped - frankly to an annoying level; and I'm not the only one to think that give people have created r/EnoughMuskSpam.

There are many great feats of space exploration that get gloss over while every time SpaceX does something it's seen as major news even if it's one of their just test rockets blowing up.

e.g.

The Japanese sent a probe to an asteroid, landed on it, collected a sample and sent it back to earth - all autonomously. That's a remarkable feat of engineering IMHO. 2 days on space related social media at most.

SpaceX launch something. People: "OMG it's so beautiful!!!" + Endless spam of the videos.

> It wasn't false. CNN report that the governor said the hospitals didn't receive the ventilators which is 100% true

I really don't know the exact incident you speak of. What I remember is endless accusation that Musk was delivering the wrong things that would be useless and that it was all a media stunt.

This was not the case, they did deliver the right thing that helped people. That at the end is what matters to me more then whatever bullshit is happening on twitter and the endless 'he said', 'she said', 'they reported what he said' and so on.

> They are pretty darn capable and reliable.

I didn't say they are not reliable or capable. I said they were not 'equally accomplished' and they aren't. Why are you moving the goal post?

Literally nobody in the space industry believes ULA has achieved as much as SpaceX.

ULA is government created company that got a monopoly over US launches. During the time they existed they managed to get a grant total of 0% of the global commercial launch market.

> They just don't get much press - or money for the matter.

Now you are just joking. ULA got absolutely absurd amounts of money for a decade+. The prices they charged the government up every single year until SpaceX finally sued their way into competition was absolutely absurd. In addition to that they got almost 1 billion per year to be launch ready.

ULA basically farmed the government, and when SpaceX showed up magically their prices dropped to less then half. Crazy how that happens.

ULA is a child company of Boeing and Lockeed and both of those have absurd amounts of government contract. The money Boeing gets for SLS alone blows everything SpaceX gets out of the water.

> There are many great feats of space exploration that get gloss over while every time SpaceX does something it's seen as major news even if it's one of their just test rockets blowing up.

No they don't. Again, maybe if you follow mainstream media, but the space community is well aware of ULA and what other agencies are doing.

> frankly to an annoying level; and I'm not the only one to think that give people have created r/EnoughMuskSpam.

You mean the cesspool of people who publish and believe every nonsense rumor on twitter. Those are the people you want to associate with? Have you read that subreddit? People there are bordering on insane often with the nonsense they are willing believe as long as it is against Musk.

Even things that Musk is only associated with threw 3 different intermediaries are apprently him pulling the strings behind the back. Everything any costumer of SpaceX does or even says they do these people will claim 'Musk is doing X'.

I'm not saying there are not major criticism you can make of him, but the people that sub are delusional for the most part.

> The Japanese sent a probe to an asteroid, landed on it, collected a sample and sent it back to earth - all autonomously. That's a remarkable feat of engineering IMHO. 2 days on space related social media at most.

It was a great mission to be sure. But the nature of such missions is that they deliver a few media pictures for a few moments and then its a space craft that flies threw dark space for a few years.

What exactly do you want people do keep talking about? The scientific results are not available for a long time. There is very little content published about the engineering specially in english.

And while its a cool mission, these are just individual costume science missions. They are very, very expensive and have huge teams behind them. We have been doing missions like that for 50 yeras. All that is fine, but its not gone fundamentally change space as we know it. Its evolutionary improvements over past missions at best.

> SpaceX launch something. People: "OMG it's so beautiful!!!" + Endless spam of the videos.

The reason people get exited about Starship Test launches is because if its successful, its gone fundamentally change space industry forever.

These science missions you seem to love could do 100x more science because you can make a far larger mission for a lower price.

Just transportation alone used to be like 50% of some of these missions. And they suffer from major constraints in weight and size. If you can build them bigger and not require gravity assist, the price for these missions can drop a huge amount.

> I really don't know the exact incident you speak of.

He went nuts on Twitter bashing CNN. It was kind of pathetic if you think about it.

I honestly don’t get the appeal of Musk.

Maybe I’m just old and don’t get excited anymore for proclamations of pie in the sky ideas - funny thing is, even if he hasn’t delivered on his proclamations people already give him the credit for it; e.g. neural link.

In fact, I quite warily of him.

I’m no psychologist but Musk pretty much displays almost every sign of NPD - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-....

After the “last 4 years” of 45 I have growth very warily of people with such personality traits.

The similarities don’t stop there. They both kind of have a cult of personality around them.

Ruthless businessman like Gates and Bezos at least wear their characters on their sleeves and generally behave in a logical and predictable manner. Neither of them try to style themselves as some kind of visionary and obsessively hog the media limelight - unless there is a material benefit to doing so.

Even Jobs, who many accused of being somewhat of a narcissistic cult leader, to my knowledge set the record straight on his deathbed - told his biographer to tell it as it is flaws and all; frankly I think he ran with the visionary leader image the media gave him because it benefited Apple.

> Maybe I’m just old and don’t get excited anymore for proclamations of pie in the sky ideas - funny thing is, even if he hasn’t delivered on his proclamations people already give him the credit for it; e.g. neural link.

He has delivered on enough to have credibility. When he starts a new project you know its going to get a lot of funding.

People give credit that somebody is TRYING to do it.

> Maybe I’m just old

If you are not exited about Starship or reusable rocket in general it has nothing to with your age.

> I’m no psychologist but Musk pretty much displays almost every sign of NPD - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-....

> After the “last 4 years” of 45 I have growth very warily of people with such personality traits.

Maybe he does. He publicly stated aspergers. I don't really care, more about what he does and how he behaves most of the time. Judging everybody that lives by their worst moment is a bad tendency in todays world.

> Neither of them try to style themselves as some kind of visionary and obsessively hog the media limelight

He doesn't need to push himself into the limelight, that happened by itself. Elon was the same person in 2005 when nobody cared about him.

> Ruthless businessman like Gates and Bezos at least wear their characters on their sleeves

Read anything by journalist and authors about Musk, Musk is very genuine. When he gets angry, you can see it. When he is bored he will tell you. He says his opinion, when its popular its popular and when its not, its not.

He is described as very funny and engaging sometimes, but also very competitive if you get cross with him.

Compared to Gates and Bezos he shows way more of his actual personality. He has no PR department or endless media training in the art of saying nothing.

You can dislike that, but accusing you of fake is just wrong. Just as Trump wasn't fake if you want to compare them, he was presenting himself as he actually was (and that was a moron).

> told his biographer to tell it as it is flaws and all

Elon never claimed he was flawless and he has authorized books about him that clearly show that.

You can read Liftoff as a recent book about SpaceX. Elon has good and bad moments in that book but there is no question that he is genuine.

Ashlee Vance who did the original biography also believed he was genuine. And that book equally has plenty of negatives about him.

Good point. I'm not pro-Musk, just skeptical of BO. I want them to succeed, but I have doubts.