Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:37:51 UTC No. 16124149

As of now, 3-d printing has limited benefits for manufacturing.
Building an entire company around the concept of "3-D printed rockets" seems like a meme to fleece unsuspecting investors.
Personally, I'd rather invest in a company that was based on updating the already successful Soviet-era Soyuz Rockets designed by Sergei Korolev.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:40:48 UTC No. 16124152

Their first launch was a failure on two separate fronts.
The first stage engines can be seen destroying themselves prior to stage-separation. The green flames are likely from the burning of components from inside of the rocket engines.
Secondly, after stage-separation, the second-stage failed to ignite, and both rockets crashed back to earth.
Seems like it would've been a good idea to install parachutes on test articles so they could recover more of the craft for analysis.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:52:11 UTC No. 16124160

And the final nail in the coffin (for now), is that the company has cancelled all future launch attempts planned for their first rocket (Terran 1), and are already in the process of designing their next rocket (Terran R).
What's the point of that other than to burn investor cash?
Why would they retire their first rocket after 1 failed attempt? If it was that poorly designed, why would anyone else choose to invest in them?
How do they expect to make the Terran R successful (which is much larger and more complicated) when they can't even design a good rocket from the beginning?

Their first rocket should've been designed to be less expensive per launch for small satellite payloads. Only after that should the company even attempt to build a much larger rocket.

It's possible that this company can be successful with this approach, who knows, but to go from 2015 - 2026 with only one failed launch attempt, that seems rather dire.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 14:21:51 UTC No. 16124194

>>16124145
They are going to fail because they are too ambitious in initial scope. They should have started with 3-d printed cargo carriers which could fit already existing launch craft. Then they could print a launch craft shell, or maybe even start with a 3-d printed train or ocean vessel. They just needed to be more iterative in scope and learn more about 3-d printed vessels in general before they took the big bite.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 14:26:50 UTC No. 16124206

>>16124194
If the company went with that approach, I don't think they would've been able to sucker in dumb investors.
Their business also could've had different segments from the beginning, like making specialized rocket components for other clients (ULA, SpaceX, RocketLab, etc.), while also developing their own rocket system. At least that would've helped them to generate revenue.
But based on reality, there's no benefit to outsourcing that type of work unless Relativity Space was that much better at it than their competitors.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 15:48:25 UTC No. 16124330

>>16124145
Why would someone print a fuel tank? that's the opposite to improving 'manufacturing'.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 16:37:34 UTC No. 16124391

>>16124330
There isn't a tangible benefit yet.
It's possible that 3-D printing a fuel tank or booster will be better than sheet metal, but highly unlikely from a technical or even cost-savings perspective.

If their first rocket was successful I wouldn't even be making a post about it. But as of now it just seems like a giant cash burn with very little possibility for success. Especially given the competition of ULA, SpaceX, and even Rocketlab.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 19:51:49 UTC No. 16124639

>>16124145
>So what do you think?
it's obvious tech for in situ stuff, to craft new machinery from asteroid metal and, to a lesser degree, recycle shit in orbit

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:17:47 UTC No. 16124666

Dude it's better because it's 3D printed! It's so high tech! Let's just 3D print the world! I love 3D printing and technology! Tech! Geek! So cool! I hecking love science! 3D print everything! Cool! Give us money! Let's 3D print some wind turbines to stop le global warming! How 2 Teen Hackers Are Hacking Their Way Into Stopping Global Warming By 3D Printing Wind Turbines For Sustainable Energy Climate Change Future Teens Hacking New York Times. Now give us scholarships! Now! Give us money! 3D Printed! High tech! So Cool! 3D printing is all the rage, which means that we should 3D print everything! So cool!

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:27:20 UTC No. 16124683

>>16124330
3D printing might help in minimising variants in multiple parts which need to act exactly the same.
One problem in roggets is gimballing, moving the rocket to fire in different directions, to steer the thing. But suppose you had twelve identical rocket-parts all pointing in the same direction, but in different places. Fire one to shift a bit left, fire another to shift a bit right.
If it works, no need to gimbal the rocket anymore. The directional shifting is done in the subrockets.

Anonymous at Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:28:33 UTC No. 16124684

>>>/sci/sfg/

Anonymous at Fri, 12 Apr 2024 08:42:01 UTC No. 16125303

>>16124145
go to /sfg/ retard you would know that you fucking proonters are ridiculed by anyone even remotely serious

Anonymous at Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:29:21 UTC No. 16125557

>>16125303
Why, so it can get buried in shit?
Go fuck your mother

3-D printing rockets is a meme concept, and this company is going to waste billions of dollars in investor cash on a dumb idea.

Anonymous at Fri, 12 Apr 2024 19:20:22 UTC No. 16126072

>>16124145
Kind of reminds me of an unrelated startup from about 10 years back called Juicero. It was a $400 machine that squeezed premade juice packets into a cup and had an phone app and bluetooth and looked all fancy. It raised $120 million from investors. Then some people reviewing the machine realized they could just squeeze the juice packets into a cup with their hands and it was easier than using the machine. It's like a classic example in business of a totally useless product full of buzzwords and trends and raised a ridiculous amount of money for basically a useless product. Just sounded like Relativity Rockets might be the Juicero of the space industry

Anonymous at Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:41:17 UTC No. 16126533

>>16126072
>the Juicero of the space industry
Very apt description kek

Anonymous at Sat, 13 Apr 2024 11:52:50 UTC No. 16127089

>>16126072
There are lots of stories of startups that raised a lot of money with nothing to show for it. SpinLaunch is another one, just like Virgin Galaxtic. Both raised a ton of money and then have nothing to show for it. That’s probably a post for /biz/, which I’ll probably make soon.

As for this company though, I still dont see any benefits (cost or otherwise) to building 3-d printed fuel tanks in addition to the rest of the spacecraft.
Even 3-d printed rocket engines seems like a complete failure since the rocket launch showed puffs of green gas/fire, which means engine components were burning themselves apart.
If 3-d printed engines were better, this company would already be selling them to other customers.
Company is definitely closer to being the next Juicero than it is to being the next SpaceX.