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Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an

Agreed. I know nothing about aerospace engineering or aircraft design, but the hype around Boom always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical supersonic jet, then surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Boeing, Lockheed, Airbus, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material science, airplane design, and actual resources/contracts to actually build one. If it made sense.

nfw2 4y ago
I also know nothing about the subject, but just to play devil's advocate here, doesn't SpaceX show that a startup could potentially solve hard physical engineering problems more effectively than established incumbents?
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Yes, definitely. BUT - there is a very wide and thinly-populated gulf between the folks who only talk about doing that, and those who actually deliver viable, working systems. SpaceX went from founding the company to their first orbital launch attempt in 4 years, was obviously d*mn close to successful orbit 1 year later, and actually made orbit another 18 months after that. Vs. Boom Supersonic, not having had to design nor build its own jet engines, is already 5+ years behind on their 1/3-scale, zero-passenger technology demonstrator even trying to taxi down the runway.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  It does, but a supersonic personal jet is a much bigger feat of engineering than a rocket that lands. Most people don't appreciate that. We had landing rockets in the 80's, but Boom was trying to do several things that are completely new. SpaceX's real technology is about launching the rockets cheaply, not re-using them (which is only part of the problem). And SpaceX started with engineers who knew a lot about the domain of the actual problem (rocket engines). Boom has never designed an engine. Starlink satellites are a great example of SpaceX solving engineering problems that an incumbent couldn't, but SpaceX was a pretty large company at the time the effort started.
  - signatoremo 4y ago
    Boom isn’t trying to do something completely new. Concord was in commercial services for many years. Benefits and shortcomings are well known. OTOTH, there was never a rocket that could land, only suborbital prototypes. Shuttle doesn’t count since it’s reusable in name only, as it still cost substantial amount of money and time for refurbishing. In fact there are still no other reusable rockets, seven years after SpaceX did it for the 1st time.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      I didn't realize that the Concorde was a private jet. Also, I'm not so sure that SpaceX has managed to achieve reusability (launch turnaround cost) better than end-of-life space shuttle yet. The space shuttle did take a lot longer to work out the kinks than falcon 9, but it was also a much more complicated vehicle.
  - chadash 4y ago
    > We had landing rockets in the 80's, but Boom was trying to do several things that are completely new. SpaceX's real technology is about launching the rockets cheaply, not re-using them (which is only part of the problem). And we had supersonic passenger jets in the 60's. But they weren't economically viable. I'd argue that Boom is trying to do exactly what SpaceX is doing for rockets, which is to make supersonic air travel make economic sense. Any engineering that they need to do is really towards that goal.
chadash 4y ago
I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, what if I changed your comment to: Agreed. I know nothing about automotive engineering or car design, but the hype around Tesla always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical electric car, then surely the existing automotive manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material science, car design, and actual resources/contracts to actually build one. If it made sense. Sometimes the incumbents are just too entrenched in what they are doing to make what out an outsider sees as an obvious move.
- nfw2 4y ago
  you read my mind :)
- senko 4y ago
  One can certainly argue that Tesla is overhyped.
  - nfw2 4y ago
    Sure, but no one could argue that Tesla is a Theranos-like operation. Arguments can be made about whether Tesla's valuation is reasonable, but it's certainly a legitimate car manufacturer.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      What about the times when they announced different types of car models, promised delivery in a year, took pre-orders, and then didn't deliver (and still haven't)? That's pretty Theranos-y behavior.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        Delays in the car industry are pretty normal and you can get your reservation money back if you cancel.
    - 4y ago
klintcho 4y ago
This argument could be made about any big SV company the past 30 years. - Anyone of IBM, Microsoft or Yahoo could build a better (quicker and cheaper) search engine than what a bunch of new grads from Stanford can (Google) - Anyone of the car manufacturer can build a better (quicker and cheaper) electric car than a software millionaire (Tesla) I don't agree with the statement, I think there are numerous reason people embark on ambitious project that incumbents "could" do, but are not doing; - An unexpected insights, - A new research breakthrough from some other field - Collecting a bunch of the most bright people coming up at the same time in the field (Mueller for SpaceX comes to mind for instance) etc. But most of the time it's just that it's not really in their business to do a 100 million dollar - 1 billion bet on something that risky, they are in the business of returning like 7 - 10% a year to their shareholder, not producing 5x returns (like the VC/startup business).
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Except costs for prototyping and building a plane are (no kidding) 100x the costs of prototyping and building a car And that's for "easy" stuff like electric cars. Not a supersonic plane (which has a full bag of hurt to go with) If you don't believe me just look at the price tag of a brand new Cessna (which is old/proven/boring technology)
- rollinggoron 4y ago
  Eh, I figured I would get this response but writing software e.g. your IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft example is much easier and faster to do than building a cutting edge, physical, supersonic commercial jet. To build Google, all you needed was a computer, and a new approach/algorithm to solving web search. Software companies are much easier to disrupt than physical product companies. As others have pointed out the Tesla isn't a great example either because building a car is still 100x easier to do than building aircraft, let alone supersonic planes. "Unexpected Insights" and "A new research breakthrough from some other field" seems to be handy wavy. A supersonic jet breakthrough is not something that can be discovered in a dorm room. It requires millions in research and expensive materials to build and test against.
  - 4y ago
samatman 4y ago
I would say that a brand-new rocket company making a rocket which can land itself would sound more implausible than what you're describing, if we didn't all know that it in fact has happened. That doesn't mean Boom is that, however.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Landing rocket boosters happened in the 70s already, and said rocket company benefited heavily from NASA, government and defence contracts and research. If Boom would have had access to supersonic jet research from the government, along with government contracts, development or production doesn't matter, RR wouldn't have stopped the cooperation. Edit: Reusable or VTOL rocket were tested, successfully landing, in the early 90s by McDonnel Douglas under the DC-X program. No idea where the 70s thing came from...
  - signatoremo 4y ago
    Which rockets landed in the 70s? Note that SpaceX didn’t get any meaningful defense contract until they’ve proved themselves with Falcon 9.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      He must either be talking about the Apollo Lunar Module which first landed on the Moon in the 60s (but was not "landing a booster", much less on earth.), or more likely he's talking about the Delta Clipper which was in the 90s (and also not a rocket booster.) Probably the latter, because there are some low-brow skeptics on reddit and youtube who inexplicably seem to think the Falcon 9 is a stolen Delta Clipper with a new paint job.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        I kind of take ofense with the low-brow reddit sceptic :-) Obviously, a Falcon 9 is not a reused DC-X. The technologyvto land a booster was already there before, it wasn't invented by SpaceX and was discussed as far back as the 60s. SpaceX made it possible, which in itself is quite an achievement. That nobody else tried so is due to the fact that there were not enough launches to make it economically viable (I found a ESA study on that topic a couple of years ago and subsequently lost it again, Google and DDG fail to dig it up again ever since). And whether or not reusable booster do make econommic sense or not, and just how many launches are needed to break even, is impossible to tell without SpaceX financials, they are the only ones doing it right now, which we don't have.
deepnotderp 4y ago
Agreed, SpaceX has no chance against ULA /s
rockemsockem 4y ago
The reason why startups continue to make things that big companies don't is because your assumption that big companies *can* do it is wrong. They cannot due largely to organizational challenges and inertia in one direction or another. It is very rare that a large company successfully continues to innovate indefinitely.
- tarunkotia 4y ago
  Also known as Innovator's Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma Most established players don't want to cannibalize their existing market by launching a product in a niche segment. Sales and Marketing $$$ eat into the profits which is not easy to justify when you are profitable. If you are fighting for your survival then it's easy to reallocate resources to fight.
pbreit 4y ago
"surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper" How could you possibly think that?

nfw2 4y ago

I also know nothing about the subject, but just to play devil's advocate here, doesn't SpaceX show that a startup could potentially solve hard physical engineering problems more effectively than established incumbents?

bell-cot 4y ago
Yes, definitely. BUT - there is a very wide and thinly-populated gulf between the folks who only talk about doing that, and those who actually deliver viable, working systems. SpaceX went from founding the company to their first orbital launch attempt in 4 years, was obviously d*mn close to successful orbit 1 year later, and actually made orbit another 18 months after that. Vs. Boom Supersonic, not having had to design nor build its own jet engines, is already 5+ years behind on their 1/3-scale, zero-passenger technology demonstrator even trying to taxi down the runway.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
It does, but a supersonic personal jet is a much bigger feat of engineering than a rocket that lands. Most people don't appreciate that. We had landing rockets in the 80's, but Boom was trying to do several things that are completely new. SpaceX's real technology is about launching the rockets cheaply, not re-using them (which is only part of the problem). And SpaceX started with engineers who knew a lot about the domain of the actual problem (rocket engines). Boom has never designed an engine. Starlink satellites are a great example of SpaceX solving engineering problems that an incumbent couldn't, but SpaceX was a pretty large company at the time the effort started.
- signatoremo 4y ago
  Boom isn’t trying to do something completely new. Concord was in commercial services for many years. Benefits and shortcomings are well known. OTOTH, there was never a rocket that could land, only suborbital prototypes. Shuttle doesn’t count since it’s reusable in name only, as it still cost substantial amount of money and time for refurbishing. In fact there are still no other reusable rockets, seven years after SpaceX did it for the 1st time.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    I didn't realize that the Concorde was a private jet. Also, I'm not so sure that SpaceX has managed to achieve reusability (launch turnaround cost) better than end-of-life space shuttle yet. The space shuttle did take a lot longer to work out the kinks than falcon 9, but it was also a much more complicated vehicle.
- chadash 4y ago
  > We had landing rockets in the 80's, but Boom was trying to do several things that are completely new. SpaceX's real technology is about launching the rockets cheaply, not re-using them (which is only part of the problem). And we had supersonic passenger jets in the 60's. But they weren't economically viable. I'd argue that Boom is trying to do exactly what SpaceX is doing for rockets, which is to make supersonic air travel make economic sense. Any engineering that they need to do is really towards that goal.

chadash 4y ago

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, what if I changed your comment to: Agreed. I know nothing about automotive engineering or car design, but the hype around Tesla always puzzled me. If this start up can all of a sudden make an economical electric car, then surely the existing automotive manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper. Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, etc... already have existing designs from decades past that they could at least use as a base. They have experts in material science, car design, and actual resources/contracts to actually build one. If it made sense. Sometimes the incumbents are just too entrenched in what they are doing to make what out an outsider sees as an obvious move.

nfw2 4y ago
you read my mind :)
senko 4y ago
One can certainly argue that Tesla is overhyped.
- nfw2 4y ago
  Sure, but no one could argue that Tesla is a Theranos-like operation. Arguments can be made about whether Tesla's valuation is reasonable, but it's certainly a legitimate car manufacturer.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    What about the times when they announced different types of car models, promised delivery in a year, took pre-orders, and then didn't deliver (and still haven't)? That's pretty Theranos-y behavior.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Delays in the car industry are pretty normal and you can get your reservation money back if you cancel.
  - 4y ago

klintcho 4y ago

This argument could be made about any big SV company the past 30 years. - Anyone of IBM, Microsoft or Yahoo could build a better (quicker and cheaper) search engine than what a bunch of new grads from Stanford can (Google) - Anyone of the car manufacturer can build a better (quicker and cheaper) electric car than a software millionaire (Tesla) I don't agree with the statement, I think there are numerous reason people embark on ambitious project that incumbents "could" do, but are not doing; - An unexpected insights, - A new research breakthrough from some other field - Collecting a bunch of the most bright people coming up at the same time in the field (Mueller for SpaceX comes to mind for instance) etc. But most of the time it's just that it's not really in their business to do a 100 million dollar - 1 billion bet on something that risky, they are in the business of returning like 7 - 10% a year to their shareholder, not producing 5x returns (like the VC/startup business).

raverbashing 4y ago
Except costs for prototyping and building a plane are (no kidding) 100x the costs of prototyping and building a car And that's for "easy" stuff like electric cars. Not a supersonic plane (which has a full bag of hurt to go with) If you don't believe me just look at the price tag of a brand new Cessna (which is old/proven/boring technology)
rollinggoron 4y ago
Eh, I figured I would get this response but writing software e.g. your IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft example is much easier and faster to do than building a cutting edge, physical, supersonic commercial jet. To build Google, all you needed was a computer, and a new approach/algorithm to solving web search. Software companies are much easier to disrupt than physical product companies. As others have pointed out the Tesla isn't a great example either because building a car is still 100x easier to do than building aircraft, let alone supersonic planes. "Unexpected Insights" and "A new research breakthrough from some other field" seems to be handy wavy. A supersonic jet breakthrough is not something that can be discovered in a dorm room. It requires millions in research and expensive materials to build and test against.
- 4y ago

samatman 4y ago

I would say that a brand-new rocket company making a rocket which can land itself would sound more implausible than what you're describing, if we didn't all know that it in fact has happened. That doesn't mean Boom is that, however.

hef19898 4y ago
Landing rocket boosters happened in the 70s already, and said rocket company benefited heavily from NASA, government and defence contracts and research. If Boom would have had access to supersonic jet research from the government, along with government contracts, development or production doesn't matter, RR wouldn't have stopped the cooperation. Edit: Reusable or VTOL rocket were tested, successfully landing, in the early 90s by McDonnel Douglas under the DC-X program. No idea where the 70s thing came from...
- signatoremo 4y ago
  Which rockets landed in the 70s? Note that SpaceX didn’t get any meaningful defense contract until they’ve proved themselves with Falcon 9.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    He must either be talking about the Apollo Lunar Module which first landed on the Moon in the 60s (but was not "landing a booster", much less on earth.), or more likely he's talking about the Delta Clipper which was in the 90s (and also not a rocket booster.) Probably the latter, because there are some low-brow skeptics on reddit and youtube who inexplicably seem to think the Falcon 9 is a stolen Delta Clipper with a new paint job.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      I kind of take ofense with the low-brow reddit sceptic :-) Obviously, a Falcon 9 is not a reused DC-X. The technologyvto land a booster was already there before, it wasn't invented by SpaceX and was discussed as far back as the 60s. SpaceX made it possible, which in itself is quite an achievement. That nobody else tried so is due to the fact that there were not enough launches to make it economically viable (I found a ESA study on that topic a couple of years ago and subsequently lost it again, Google and DDG fail to dig it up again ever since). And whether or not reusable booster do make econommic sense or not, and just how many launches are needed to break even, is impossible to tell without SpaceX financials, they are the only ones doing it right now, which we don't have.

deepnotderp 4y ago

Agreed, SpaceX has no chance against ULA /s

rockemsockem 4y ago

The reason why startups continue to make things that big companies don't is because your assumption that big companies *can* do it is wrong. They cannot due largely to organizational challenges and inertia in one direction or another. It is very rare that a large company successfully continues to innovate indefinitely.

tarunkotia 4y ago
Also known as Innovator's Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma Most established players don't want to cannibalize their existing market by launching a product in a niche segment. Sales and Marketing $$$ eat into the profits which is not easy to justify when you are profitable. If you are fighting for your survival then it's easy to reallocate resources to fight.

pbreit 4y ago

"surely the existing plane manufacturers could do it quicker and cheaper" How could you possibly think that?