[ultramegachurch]

I'm looking forward to ~5 years from now when hopefully a lot of these small launch companies have gone under. They suck up insane amounts of venture capital and engineering talent. A few companies will certainly rise to the top, Rocket Lab likely being one of them.

My company (non-aerospace) just had a couple engineers leave for a different small launcher. I wish them success, but also wish their talent could be applied elsewhere. I say this as someone who just left the space industry.

[the_duke]

There are billions going into extremely boring software startups all the time. The amounts raised by these "New Space" startups is relatively modest in comparison.

Sure, there is no way that the launch market will need Rocketlab, Astra, Firefly, Relativity and Blue Origin on top of ULA and SpaceX. Especially if Starship is successful ( a big Starship rideshare + in-orbit shutteling services will be almost impossible to beat if that rocket ends up being actually reusable).

It will definitely put a downward pressure on prices. And even if they go under, the know how and the talent will still be useful.

In any case, building an orbital rocket is certainly a lot more interesting than building the umpteenth webapp or SasS.

[AYBABTME]

That's a strange take, since I personally see space tech as a useful endeavour, versus ... ad-tech, building yet another chat app, social network apps, another financial service, another way to sell eyeballs, another way to scam people with NFTs.

[ultramegachurch]

I work at a clean energy startup, which is an industry that desperately needs the talent that aerospace often grabs. I wholeheartedly agree that space is a useful endeavor.