FYI SAN has Peter Zeihan as it commentary. and that guy literally just make shit up. I wouldn't trust them even as a source of biased fact. there is a different between unfiltered news, and real fact. just because they don't filter what people are saying, doesn't make them fact.
Axiom meet Boeing. Boeing meet Axiom. Axiom: H...h...Hi. Boeing: Pfffffftttt.... you amateurs haven't even killed anyone or stranded anyone in space. Amateurs!
I will say that often your videos have a bit of a negative tone, but I have to appreciate the honesty. It’s crazy just how poorly all these aerospace companies are run. They are SO used to siphoning off government funding.
@@billweberxno...spacex takes way too much government money. That's just how the industry is. At least they're doing good work with taxpayer dollars though
There's a reason SLS is $9billion/launch. People like him are accustomed to spending without accountability to the financiers. NASA doesn't have that direct line to contend with.
@@josephparrish8773 probably more now than the launch tower needs repairs following the single launch. Following the launch, the only thing they "may" reuse is the capsule. Consequently, the launches will only get more expensive as inflation eats at the budget.
@@josephparrish8773 What they mean is, it's cost a _total_ of $9 billion to achieve one launch (i.e. the SLS program has cost that much so far). It obviously doesn't actually cost that _per_ launch though (it's like saying each voyage on the Titanic cost $7.5 million - technically true because that was the build cost and it only ever had one voyage).
Sounds like this is a NASA problem. If getting one person to space on a falcon 9 costs $40 million, then there's no way anyone is producing an entire space station for just $150 million.
Its not intended to pay for the entire station, they are supposed to run the station commerially and pay for it that way, the 150 mil is a grant they got to help them because nasa would love someone they can rent station space from.
The goal is to rent the station. They give money to develop it, but even if nothing is produced the IP is still there and can be sold to another company eventually. It is inefficient though. Plus Spacex pretty much makes there development pointless now given they are so close to getting Starship so close to being ready. And it wouldn't be hard to just develop a space station using that platform instead. Basically Axiom is a decade late.
The only money there is to be made in space is through government projects. What else are you gonna do? Time shares in outer fucking space? Gold membership, only $10 million a year!
Given his background he probably just assumed that the government would give Axiom a bailout as they do whenever the private sector fails to live up to its promises.
@@AWriterWandering - True. Again, it's that issue where going over budget and having to ask for forgiveness (and more money) is a valid business model because the government so reliably falls for it. Same deal with missing target dates for delivery of product. Boeing is currently losing money on Starliner because NASA has broken tradition and not been giving them more money. Of course, that's because NASA doesn't want to stick their necks out to Congress when SpaceX has a working capsule. How much it will be worth if we end up with no space station will be a matter of debate though. While *our* target is to de-orbit the ISS in 2030, the Russians could force it to happen sooner if they decide to pull out of the ISS in favor of their partnership with China. Some of the most important modules on the ISS belong to them after all.
I can’t help but roll my eyes when you mentioned axiom was going to keep continued human habitation of orbital space as if the Chinese space station didn’t exist.
@@meatsaucez1516 - Whose comment are you replying to? Because I explicitly said that Russia was going to switch to working with China (because Russia's not really our ally and China has their own space station)
It feels like if your space company is not built off the back off some other massive business empire, you have almost no chance. You have to have money coming in from somewhere else for the things that inevitably go wrong.
I mean Rocket Lab is doing pretty well. They did what they should've done and started small rather than trying to build a space station right off the bat. They also make a lot of their money from satellite parts
@@metriczeppelinMy laughter comes from people who are so lacking in critical thinking skills that they compare Elon launching exploding tin cans into the air to the actual achievement of the past 50 years. SLS literally completed a moon mission on its first launch, yet you say that no one can match SpaceX?? It's statements like that that make me laugh.
Thales is a French/Australian Defence contractor, the Australian section is responsible for munitions, while the French side is responsible for pretty much everything else. ADFI or Australian Defence Force Industries was merged with Thales, just some background info for the fans!
If that guy was able to run a government administration position for 30 years and now he broke a private company in one year it only expose how inefficient government is.
It's just an example of skillset mismatch. The issue is more to do with the company being a startup, rather than simply private sector. The same thing happened with the NSA director-founded IronNet cybersecurity company. These govt/military veterans would be better off running mature companies, like Lockheed Martin.
Not really. He could have been great at his job but running a private company is a different ball game. Using one example and applying it to all cases is a logical fallacy buddy.
I appreciate The Space Race & Tesla Space. Current information that’s not filled with repetitive stuff, nice subtle sense of humor, and under 30 minutes.
Thank you for this rather disturbing update on Axiom Space. It would seem that VAST is the only competitor currently in the running to place the worlds first fully commercial space station in orbit.
For sure. You know what else would be nice and is long overdue? A reduced gravity (or pseudogravity) medical research station in LEO. It could be as simple as a tethered pair.
Hopefully Sierra Space can pull it together, but they're too dependent on Blue Origin for their partnership. They may pull it off, but it depends on BO sorting themselves out. We'll have see how New Glenn pans out.
Sadly, unless they can address the issues urgently I suspect Axiom will abandon the station before it is ever launched. However, VAST has recently made some significant announcements include Haven-1 and Haven-2 and it seems they have better funding in place.
I'm sure Thales and SpaceX will play lets make a deal at some point in 2025 with Trump's NASA providing some funding for ongoing support. Those modules look almost ready ready and a lot of the engineering is done, so get them built and flying after a quick safety review.
@@stainlesssteelfox1 more likely money will just get pumped into SpaceX to build a whole new space station. One which will never actually be delivered, but nevertheless will make Musk the trillionaire he always wanted to be.
The Starship is slightly larger in volume than the ISS so could be outfitted on the ground, complete with windows and docking ports, and sent to orbit as a very low-cost replacement.
Wrong. Starship is large, but it's mostly fuel tanks and engines. Now, having said that: it has plenty of room for inflatable habs. Stay-Puff Marshmellow Station could be assembled very quickly.
I've wondered about using empty starships as temporary habititats on the moon or mars. Not just the cargo compartment but the fuel tanks as well. It's a large empty airtight space. Seems like there's probably some way to repurpose it. Obviously using a starship that won't fly again. The idea of using them as spacestations/modules seems plausible using a modified design. Or maybe not, I'm a welder not a aerospace engineer.
@@Lucas12vsame problem as container homes. Sounds good at first because it’s reusing old stuff, but there’s many problems when you look closer. If a spacecraft gets reused into a station, a replacement will need to be built which would probably cost more than using that rocket to send up a station part then using that rocket for more missions elsewhere.
@@jameswilson5165 go look at the footage from flight 3 when they showed the inside of the payload bay... It's massive. Yes, the tanks are even larger but who cares?
Well, that is disappointing. If Axiom can’t do it, I would love to see SpaceX partner with Sierra to build a space station based on their 9 meter faring LIFE module. One launch on a starship, inflate it, and you have 5x the pressurized volume as the ISS. It could even be a test flight of Starship - they’ve already proven they can get it to orbit, in principle.
Okay, Ihave to admit, I was wondering for years, where Axiom had gotten the funds to do those nice Space missions, that were great to watch und groundbreaking. You finally gave the answer in this video: they simply wrote it down to pay later. Hopefully the new honest and more cost conscious way will work out. The've already done waaay more than most other aerospace companies had down in the last decades. This is real stuff, made to make humans interplanetary on the long run. PS: I edited out centuries, as I wanted to say decades of course.
@@horridohobbies PS: Uuuups ... now I got it! Decades, not centuries! I'm sorry, english isn't my native language. I edit it out, makes no sense, that's true. There have been well known Aerospace companies around for dacades: Rockwell International (built the Space Shuttles), Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation (now Sierra Space), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grummin. Of course they all needed (or would have needed) money from Nasa and the US Space Force. That is not fundamentally different from our day and age. Even Space X wouldn't be where its today without that fundings. The fact that these decades old companies didn't launch anything themselves (as there were no private rockets back then) does not directly refer to my comment, as I tried to aim it at companies that built space hardware like space stations and human transport vehicles, not lifting hardware. But of course most of them also built parts for lifting hardware and the ISS.
I'm not sure if you'll read my comment, but I want to say that your channel was very realistic three years ago. For three years, I eagerly awaited Mechazilla's success and your discussion about it, but surprisingly, you never mentioned it at all.
This story is so typical of American tech development. Weak government oversight. Poor corporate management. Wasteful spending. Inferior engineering talent. Boeing is the prime example of this. Now, we have Axiom. If I were a betting man, I'd say we won't see a completed space station until well into the 2030s, if ever. Thank heavens we have Tiangong.
This is very disappointing. Up to now, I was a fan of Axiom and was looking forward to seeing their space station up and running. Well, there's still Vast And Voyager Space, I guess. Not sure about Orbital Reef.
No, it's likely that some of the commercial options like Starlab, Haven or Axiom will be ready. And the Lunar Gateway should also be operational at that point. But there is a real possibility that the Tiangong station will be the biggest space station for a while.
I have looked online for actual information about what experiments were performed on the ISS that led to any major breakthroughs. In short, there doesn’t seem to be a plethora of data leading to medial, engineering, or scientific breakthroughs. In short, little to nothing has to lead to questioning what differences between the old Space Stations, SkyLab, MIR, and the ISS justify building AXIOM? If these tests can be performed by other means than the billions a space station costs, wouldn’t that make more sense? My point is not to rally around causing the downfall of the Space Station concept. My point is that just maybe we should design one around performing tests and experiments that lead to positive useful outcomes. So before we spend billions on a new low-orbit habitable experiment. Let’s work on designing one that can meet the needs of deep space life sciences, new metallic alloys that can withstand cosmic radiation, spinning ship components that can simulate 1-G to prevent astronaut health issues. And many more new concepts yet to be discovered. No more billions spent on outdated and obsolete endeavors with much more affordable ways to preform tests.
There are several medical experiments ongoing currently, among one is a medicine for Parkinsons, Zero-G allows things to crystalize in larger and VERY uniform crystals, which is pivotal for this research and other research for cancer medicine and several others. Another one I remember reading about is growing organs, since gravity makes it extremely hard to get cells to grow in 3 dimensions. You can make something flat on earth, but Zero gravity gives you the ability to grow more complex structures, potentially we could grow organs in space in the future. This is also used to study the spread of bacteria in lab grown tissue. Then there is studying what can actually grow in micro gravity, a very important field if we ever want to do anything anywhere except LEO. There has also been a lot of work done in understanding fluid dynamics that can't be preformed without zero G. I think space stations are very worthwhile, with many countries racing to build their own, and with launch costs going down more and more I don't really see this changing.
@@trequor : Maybe I’m just too much of a realist. Placing people in space without reason is expensive and doesn’t get you very far but lower Earth orbit. Talk about spinning your wheels. What we need to realize is that space is very hard, and it’s not healthy for life. However, it’s great to use as a medium to travel through to get us from one place to another. So what are those places? A colony on the Moon, and on Mars. A way to protect life from disappearing because of a large meteor strike that took out the dinosaur. A way to hedge our bets against extinction.
Yeah, I think "research" was just a way to justify spending $billions on a crewed space station. There are some sound business cases for the space sector, such as comms and earth sensing, but after that there is very little to justify the expense.
How does any company on that scale not have analysts crunching the numbers around costing, efficiency improvements, and long term forecasting? Government agencies and nonprofits are incredibly wasteful.
@@Jasontrower-rundle right, not so long ago we were offered "hope and change" but got a bunch of shit instead. Soon to be possibly repeated, I predict!! Take your choice! ;D
Great video, thank you! Question: why are we letting the ISS burn up in the atmosphere again? It's inherently modular, parts of it CAN be saved if they're still useful, like the solar panels and cupola and other stuff. So if we're planning to build a new one, whoever that ends up being, and put it in the same LEO location, then for christmas sakes why not save some of the parts? What's it gonna take, a space garage to store extra modules just in case? I think ditching the entire ISS is going to be viewed as having been a terrible move after it's over. (PS: it's spelled "climate.")
Stuff in space actually degrades quite quickly, leading to relatively short lifespans. Space might seem "empty" but it is a really harsh environment. Unlike terrestrial infrastructure, it is pretty impossible to do structural repairs in orbit.
To give you an analogy, it's like trying to take a 1980 Toyota Corolla and outfit it with Bluetooth, GPS, backup camera, lane assist, etc. It is not worth trying to keep it up and doesn't have the capability to expand with new technology. i.e. some of the data connections are serial versus digital.
There are lots of people searching for a business model in order to exploit the space sector, but not finding one. The problem with space projects that need to start big to be viable is that doing a big project is expensive and risky. So far only only a few like Elon seems to understand how to run a business model; start with something small that can be scaled and turn it into a cash cow, then you can use the revenue to invest in the "big project".
China having the last laugh as they watch NASA and USA scramble to keep anything resembling a space station in orbit while floating in their own space station. 😂 Idk guys maybe banning them from joining the ISS wasn’t the brightest move💀
NASA didn't "give out" all that money...the US taxpayers did. Where is the accountability?? Who is getting punished for failing? How do we get a return on our investment? I am all for space travel and exploration but at what cost? People can't afford groceries or rent but these companies can waste hundreds of millions of dollars on absolutely nothing.
I dont understand why they would connect to the existing space station... One of the main issues is that the station is so dirty from being a floating pitri dish. They should keep those things separate just so we reduce the chances of something learning how to survive well in space without us wanting it to...
There is a proverb: do not trust when is softly made. The bigger and more beautifully the picture is drawn in the presentation, the greater the failure of the planned program.
Lets start with Logics -- or rather Illogics. A company hires other companies to build things. Why does he need 1000 empoyees? That could be done by a handful who just handle paperwork (legal & bills). I had a friend who wemt on a hiring spree to 180 employees only to have to fire half of them. Unless someone is absolutely vital, Payroll is the primary cost of an Administrative Company. You do everything with as few people as necessary and employ a lot of automation (MS word, Excel, etc)
My 1st company i employed just 4 people to generate $1.36 m per year starting 2 months after the company started. I think you can do more with just a few good people. And anyone working should be generating more money than they cost.
I was skeptical of a Starship used as a space station, but I now warmed up to it. SpaceX have to test the long-term habitability of Starship in LEO anyways, might as well get out additional use by hosting those space station experiments.
@@negirnostarship as a 1000m3 volume per ship (without even considering modifying the propellant tanks to make them habitable), is an insanely obvious solution for quasi infinite modules as long as they create the 6-side node elements to gang them together.
The payload bay of Starship has more habitable volume that does the ISS. There's no need to mess with the propellant tanks, which could be used for station keeping. By 2030, we'll have the small stations like Haven-1. We'll likely the government backed station, ESA's Starlab. Finally, we'll have Starship Space Station. The others, like Orbital Reef, I'm not confident will be ready.
Short version: a government bureaucrat used to wasting taxpayer money from an infinite supply can’t do anything once constrained by a realistic budget.
It's upsetting that China can do 4 launches and build a whole new space station in a year, but we in the U.S can barely even build one module. I think private space companies are steering us in the wrong direction and failing on their promises.
4:48 your statement is incorrect. Axiom’s cans are built by Thales, not AxH1. Those 1,000 engineers are doing everything - Power, thermal, ECLSS, MMOD shielding, C&DH, crew systems, etc… that’s far too few engineers, they should be hiring instead of laying people off, but the cash flow problem is killing them. The only thing keeping Axiom afloat is the suit contract.
Axiom Space Station started with big promises, aiming to usher in a new era of commercial space stations. However, ambitious projects often face significant challenges in execution.
NASA paid for a single habitable module that could be attached to the ISS, not a full space station. I don't think it was meant to cover the full cost of the module, either.
this video was tough to watch i was really looking forward to the new wave of private stations but if this is anything to go by im going to have to drastically reduce my expectations
How much is Axiom in the tank? The situation is wholly fixable. I've always felt we should launch these capsules up into orbit until we have enough capsules to construct a large station which would be a simple matter of gathering all the capsules and assembling them.
If Axiom wants to save this program. Then it has some hard choices to make. The CEO is going to have to lay off most of the staff right a way. They will need to brainstorm on ideas to save money were ever they can. They need more money and pay people what they are due. Plus keep the budget up. Finally they are going to need new management. Someone who has experience in the private sector and knows how to get the most out of his investment. But these are things that any good businessmen would know. Why the hell are these things not happening? Important note. Never hire a government manager to run a private business.
Really good job making a 6 minute video into 13 minutes and then put in a minute and a half of advertisement in the middle of it that's when I checked out
Axiom's plan and engineering is sound. SpaceX should buy them out. The core modules and power system would be ideal to link together Starship's in orbit, and take it out of NASA's hands so some serious work can begin.
Space is hard. Manned space is harder. Manned space with duration is hardest. SpaceX has had many failures (and still does) and only became profitable with Starlink. Axiom doesn’t have the luxury of failure. With a space station you have to get it right the first time and continue to get it right throughout the life of the station.
Forget axiom and Boeing we need to go all in Sierria Space. They have reusable Mini space shuttles add inflatable habitats they should get the contract to build the next Space Station
What would it take to put ISS into a much higher orbit, so it can be turned into a place where robots can collect defunct satellites or space junk? That much aluminum coming down all at once is some nasty pollution.
Actually it's not "weird" for them to come out and say that they're broke and can't afford to do it.. that's what you're SUPPOSED TO DO! What's weird is you got people like Elon, who is in a similar predicament (except ohhh, maybe a few hundred times worse) and instead of coming out and admitting the truth, he just keeps on fucking lying, and people just keep letting it go for some reason. Now THAT is some weird shit
Unfortunately, I see it as almost "necessary" in this new age of space flight/travel that some companies will fail for whatever reasons. Fortunately though, they have assets, possibly patents, & data that other companies can buy to help push the space frontier forward! 🤷♂ My underdog company that I hope succeeds at the moment is Sierra Space. The inflatable habitat they're developing was originally conceived by NASA 20-30 years ago, but never came to fruition yet seems promising in it's design. 😃
Good report, a bit "inside baseball" (in the spirit of the season with the "World Serious" going on ln all, so "go" whoever wins, LOL), but still interesting to learn of the ins and outs of these big projects. I guess I never really got the good reason to ditch the ISS except that it is old. We did do that with Sky lab years ago, but the reason is still murky to me except for the fact that we had budget problems, and that's why us not going to Mars then too, in the 70's and 80's. Money is always the problem (and its waste in particular) so it's good to hang on to what you've invested in before you get rid of it, like old cars for example. ( I have 4 from the 1960's but they just make money, daily, sitting in my yard, LOL, so not a very good example). And our new love affair with a new type of car using new technology that in many ways will not work or we are not ready for, with infrastructure to support it. But it is new and shiny, like this space station, and innovative, etc. etc. Instead of letting the ISS crash to Earth I always thought that maybe boosting it into higher orbit, somehow if feasible, would be a better idea and give us more time to develop another over a longer period, and have it really "international", with more than one country footing most of the bill and then call it ISS for feel good and diplomatic reasons. Obviously based on recent world events, diplomacy is pretty much dead, and any country will do what any country wants to do now. But still very good report on the reasons some things fall to do do now and then. Reflecting back on the good old Apollo days they were also so "gloom and doom" then too, especially when the Russians were doing well, but we did get er done eventually despite the delays and cost over runs of almost all contractors. Yes, Axion will develop the space suits for the moon, and I read that Prada may make the shoes, so that will be cool. I wonder if they will be high heels, which may not work so well on the moon, with the dust and all you know!! But maybe that's Exactly why, to stay above it!! LOL ;D
If they had to pull people that probably means the suits are going over budget and having problems. My guess is that they might make one suit before they go bankrupt.
Download the SAN app at www.san.com/spacerace to stay up to date on unbiased, straight facts!
FYI SAN has Peter Zeihan as it commentary. and that guy literally just make shit up. I wouldn't trust them even as a source of biased fact. there is a different between unfiltered news, and real fact. just because they don't filter what people are saying, doesn't make them fact.
The Disappointing Truth about... Straight Arrow News is it only has an app for iPhone and IPad, not Android, like 72% of phones in the world are.....
Axiom meet Boeing. Boeing meet Axiom.
Axiom: H...h...Hi.
Boeing: Pfffffftttt.... you amateurs haven't even killed anyone or stranded anyone in space. Amateurs!
@@tim2024-df5fu Russians do not lose ''Cosmonauts''!!!...She was simply misplaced in space...
@@tim2024-df5fuI never heard about that. Can you give details please?
the way Axiom says "H...h...Hi" makes me think there's going to be a comment including "senpai" next.
@@kathrynck So, a hentai enthusiast, i see...thank for letting us all know, i guess...
Boeing? Give me a break, you're going to fly every flight of your life in a Boeing plane, you know?
a government official that is terrible in the private sector? no way! surely you jest....
🤔...Yeah I'm shocked spending taxpayer money all those years didn't prepare him better for the private sector.
Oh u didn't hear they are cartel traffickers and money launderers
And don't call me Shirly.
Spending? Wasting, you mean. 😅@@THX..1138
@@visions91 😂😂
I will say that often your videos have a bit of a negative tone, but I have to appreciate the honesty. It’s crazy just how poorly all these aerospace companies are run. They are SO used to siphoning off government funding.
Ain't that the true ''american way'' of do things?!
With the exception of SpaceX.
@@Dead_Kerbalhe’s Canadian 😐
@@HenochVelazquez No one cares, really...
@@billweberxno...spacex takes way too much government money. That's just how the industry is. At least they're doing good work with taxpayer dollars though
A program manager familiar with government funding (everything way overpriced) trying to run a new company as a CEO SMH
There's a reason SLS is $9billion/launch. People like him are accustomed to spending without accountability to the financiers. NASA doesn't have that direct line to contend with.
Yup
Good lord, is it really 9’billion?!
@@josephparrish8773 probably more now than the launch tower needs repairs following the single launch.
Following the launch, the only thing they "may" reuse is the capsule. Consequently, the launches will only get more expensive as inflation eats at the budget.
@@josephparrish8773 What they mean is, it's cost a _total_ of $9 billion to achieve one launch (i.e. the SLS program has cost that much so far). It obviously doesn't actually cost that _per_ launch though (it's like saying each voyage on the Titanic cost $7.5 million - technically true because that was the build cost and it only ever had one voyage).
@@anonymes2884duh, it's 4 launches from a program that costs around 40 billion, you do the math per launch genius
Sounds like this is a NASA problem. If getting one person to space on a falcon 9 costs $40 million, then there's no way anyone is producing an entire space station for just $150 million.
Its not intended to pay for the entire station, they are supposed to run the station commerially and pay for it that way, the 150 mil is a grant they got to help them because nasa would love someone they can rent station space from.
NASA paid 2.7 Billion on the second SLS launch tower, they can surely get some more money to fund a new space Station.
@@JustJayGaming That´s nearly 2x Burj Khalifa.
But hey! The skyscraper is lacking a sewers connection and needs pump trucks.
These cartels can't figure out our white dollars
The goal is to rent the station. They give money to develop it, but even if nothing is produced the IP is still there and can be sold to another company eventually. It is inefficient though. Plus Spacex pretty much makes there development pointless now given they are so close to getting Starship so close to being ready. And it wouldn't be hard to just develop a space station using that platform instead. Basically Axiom is a decade late.
Are we "surprised" that a man who's used to open ended government funding doesn't know how to run a for profit business?
@@MadJustin7 no
you should'nt fucking run government contracts like that either! guy's an arsehole, aerospace companies all seem to be run by homer fucking simpson
The only money there is to be made in space is through government projects. What else are you gonna do? Time shares in outer fucking space? Gold membership, only $10 million a year!
Given his background he probably just assumed that the government would give Axiom a bailout as they do whenever the private sector fails to live up to its promises.
Government contractors lowball their estimates to get the contract, knowing full well that it’s not anywhere close to what they actually need
@@AWriterWandering - True. Again, it's that issue where going over budget and having to ask for forgiveness (and more money) is a valid business model because the government so reliably falls for it. Same deal with missing target dates for delivery of product. Boeing is currently losing money on Starliner because NASA has broken tradition and not been giving them more money. Of course, that's because NASA doesn't want to stick their necks out to Congress when SpaceX has a working capsule. How much it will be worth if we end up with no space station will be a matter of debate though. While *our* target is to de-orbit the ISS in 2030, the Russians could force it to happen sooner if they decide to pull out of the ISS in favor of their partnership with China. Some of the most important modules on the ISS belong to them after all.
I can’t help but roll my eyes when you mentioned axiom was going to keep continued human habitation of orbital space as if the Chinese space station didn’t exist.
@@meatsaucez1516 - Whose comment are you replying to? Because I explicitly said that Russia was going to switch to working with China (because Russia's not really our ally and China has their own space station)
"Blue Origin is doing, what they...do. Talking a lot, delivering...not very much." lol Burrrrn
It feels like if your space company is not built off the back off some other massive business empire, you have almost no chance. You have to have money coming in from somewhere else for the things that inevitably go wrong.
I mean Rocket Lab is doing pretty well. They did what they should've done and started small rather than trying to build a space station right off the bat. They also make a lot of their money from satellite parts
As they say, space is hard
@@michaelh8890 right, and there is a reason they also say: "It's not rocket science"! ;D
At this point, Elon with SpaceX will be the only one pulling the entire world forward due to incomeptence in the whole industry.
Starship should be landing Mars any day now.😂😂
@@jasjordan1 Is your laughter from sarcasm or ignorance? Laugh if you want, but absolutely no one is even close to Starship in technology and pace.
@@metriczeppelinMy laughter comes from people who are so lacking in critical thinking skills that they compare Elon launching exploding tin cans into the air to the actual achievement of the past 50 years. SLS literally completed a moon mission on its first launch, yet you say that no one can match SpaceX?? It's statements like that that make me laugh.
Thales is a French/Australian Defence contractor, the Australian section is responsible for munitions, while the French side is responsible for pretty much everything else. ADFI or Australian Defence Force Industries was merged with Thales, just some background info for the fans!
The Australian section also builds the Hawkei and Bushmaster
Alenia Spazio was an Italian aerospace company. Thales Alenia Space is a joint multi-national venture with headquarters in Cannes, France.
If that guy was able to run a government administration position for 30 years and now he broke a private company in one year it only expose how inefficient government is.
It's just an example of skillset mismatch. The issue is more to do with the company being a startup, rather than simply private sector. The same thing happened with the NSA director-founded IronNet cybersecurity company. These govt/military veterans would be better off running mature companies, like Lockheed Martin.
@@calc1657NASA is extremely inefficient. Talented engineers with nothing to do is the NASA standard
Not really. He could have been great at his job but running a private company is a different ball game. Using one example and applying it to all cases is a logical fallacy buddy.
Political correctness and DEI is the main cause
@@holocene2164 running a private company requires competence because your are dealing with your own money.
I appreciate The Space Race & Tesla Space. Current information that’s not filled with repetitive stuff, nice subtle sense of humor, and under 30 minutes.
Thank you for this rather disturbing update on Axiom Space. It would seem that VAST is the only competitor currently in the running to place the worlds first fully commercial space station in orbit.
I'd love to see an inflatable space station in space.
For sure. You know what else would be nice and is long overdue? A reduced gravity (or pseudogravity) medical research station in LEO. It could be as simple as a tethered pair.
Hopefully Sierra Space can pull it together, but they're too dependent on Blue Origin for their partnership. They may pull it off, but it depends on BO sorting themselves out. We'll have see how New Glenn pans out.
@@Wrangler-fp4ei sierra space is doing awesome, i have no doubt they will succeed
We regret to inform you, sir, that we got space station inflation before inflatable space stations.
they tested an inflatable module on the ISS already.
Sadly, unless they can address the issues urgently I suspect Axiom will abandon the station before it is ever launched. However, VAST has recently made some significant announcements include Haven-1 and Haven-2 and it seems they have better funding in place.
I'm sure Thales and SpaceX will play lets make a deal at some point in 2025 with Trump's NASA providing some funding for ongoing support. Those modules look almost ready ready and a lot of the engineering is done, so get them built and flying after a quick safety review.
@@ClayinSWVA You think a Trump administration will buy space station modules from Italy?
@@stainlesssteelfox1 more likely money will just get pumped into SpaceX to build a whole new space station. One which will never actually be delivered, but nevertheless will make Musk the trillionaire he always wanted to be.
@@stainlesssteelfox1 especially when SpaceX can just start from scratch and never deliver anything while making Elon a trillionaire.
@@ClayinSWVA some funding? There’s a reason Musk is bankrolling his campaign. He will get all the funding.
The Starship is slightly larger in volume than the ISS so could be outfitted on the ground, complete with windows and docking ports, and sent to orbit as a very low-cost replacement.
Wrong. Starship is large, but it's mostly fuel tanks and engines. Now, having said that: it has plenty of room for inflatable habs. Stay-Puff Marshmellow Station could be assembled very quickly.
I've wondered about using empty starships as temporary habititats on the moon or mars. Not just the cargo compartment but the fuel tanks as well. It's a large empty airtight space. Seems like there's probably some way to repurpose it. Obviously using a starship that won't fly again.
The idea of using them as spacestations/modules seems plausible using a modified design. Or maybe not, I'm a welder not a aerospace engineer.
@@Lucas12vsame problem as container homes. Sounds good at first because it’s reusing old stuff, but there’s many problems when you look closer.
If a spacecraft gets reused into a station, a replacement will need to be built which would probably cost more than using that rocket to send up a station part then using that rocket for more missions elsewhere.
@@jameswilson5165 go look at the footage from flight 3 when they showed the inside of the payload bay... It's massive. Yes, the tanks are even larger but who cares?
@@ham_the_spam4423 it's not reusing a Starship, it's using one designed as one.
8:57 "Powe And Handle Climet Control." 🤔
you cant handle the climet, its very powefull
@@joakimastro I saw what you did there...sooo mean, dude... 🤣🤣
Power* Climate* ... But what he meant was ''atmospheric control''
I can't believe those are typos. They must be some sort of unexplained cutsey acronyms. Like Climet instead of ECLSS.
@@jacoblfRyte, I can't belive tha tipos ether! LOL
space hype is bigger than space itself
Or.... they could fire the unnecessary 1000 workers, and not pay themselves ridiculous salaries....... yeah, never happen, they'll just cut corners
Hopefully Vast who's posed launch next year their prototype Haven-1 station will work out in the end. Axion was such unsupervised disaster...
Turning a Spacex Starship into a space station would be cool af!
yup, it was done before in the 1970's with Sky Lab, and it worked for a while, so why not now?
Well, that is disappointing. If Axiom can’t do it, I would love to see SpaceX partner with Sierra to build a space station based on their 9 meter faring LIFE module. One launch on a starship, inflate it, and you have 5x the pressurized volume as the ISS.
It could even be a test flight of Starship - they’ve already proven they can get it to orbit, in principle.
Okay, Ihave to admit, I was wondering for years, where Axiom had gotten the funds to do those nice Space missions, that were great to watch und groundbreaking. You finally gave the answer in this video: they simply wrote it down to pay later. Hopefully the new honest and more cost conscious way will work out. The've already done waaay more than most other aerospace companies had down in the last decades. This is real stuff, made to make humans interplanetary on the long run.
PS: I edited out centuries, as I wanted to say decades of course.
In the last centuries? What aerospace company is more than 50 years old?
Plural centuries? The first space missions were less than 80 years ago.
@@horridohobbies PS: Uuuups ... now I got it! Decades, not centuries! I'm sorry, english isn't my native language. I edit it out, makes no sense, that's true.
There have been well known Aerospace companies around for dacades: Rockwell International (built the Space Shuttles), Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation (now Sierra Space), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grummin. Of course they all needed (or would have needed) money from Nasa and the US Space Force. That is not fundamentally different from our day and age. Even Space X wouldn't be where its today without that fundings.
The fact that these decades old companies didn't launch anything themselves (as there were no private rockets back then) does not directly refer to my comment, as I tried to aim it at companies that built space hardware like space stations and human transport vehicles, not lifting hardware. But of course most of them also built parts for lifting hardware and the ISS.
I'm not sure if you'll read my comment, but I want to say that your channel was very realistic three years ago. For three years, I eagerly awaited Mechazilla's success and your discussion about it, but surprisingly, you never mentioned it at all.
Bigelow would have been a much better space station than any of these.
Come on, Mike, you know NASA can always do it better....tee tee tee.
Sierra is doing that now.
This story is so typical of American tech development. Weak government oversight. Poor corporate management. Wasteful spending. Inferior engineering talent.
Boeing is the prime example of this. Now, we have Axiom. If I were a betting man, I'd say we won't see a completed space station until well into the 2030s, if ever.
Thank heavens we have Tiangong.
That window idea for the sleep pods designed by that architect are dumb as fuck.
Sunrise and sunset happen every 90mins orbiting the earth.
yeah, and I wonder if venetian blinds work in zero G!! LOL ;D
@@ronschlorff7089
Sure if they are positioned permanently ”lowered” inside a frame and you just open and close them. And they aren't built by Boeing.
It sounds like they were tacking on every luxury and feature they can think of to justify getting more money.
Curtains
Right, there is no technology to block sunlight on a window, right?
This is very disappointing. Up to now, I was a fan of Axiom and was looking forward to seeing their space station up and running.
Well, there's still Vast And Voyager Space, I guess.
Not sure about Orbital Reef.
Orbital reef is another CGI fantasy.
Does that mean Tiangong Space Station will be the only working space station in orbit after ISS retired?
No, it's likely that some of the commercial options like Starlab, Haven or Axiom will be ready. And the Lunar Gateway should also be operational at that point.
But there is a real possibility that the Tiangong station will be the biggest space station for a while.
I have looked online for actual information about what experiments were performed on the ISS that led to any major breakthroughs. In short, there doesn’t seem to be a plethora of data leading to medial, engineering, or scientific breakthroughs. In short, little to nothing has to lead to questioning what differences between the old Space Stations, SkyLab, MIR, and the ISS justify building AXIOM? If these tests can be performed by other means than the billions a space station costs, wouldn’t that make more sense? My point is not to rally around causing the downfall of the Space Station concept. My point is that just maybe we should design one around performing tests and experiments that lead to positive useful outcomes. So before we spend billions on a new low-orbit habitable experiment. Let’s work on designing one that can meet the needs of deep space life sciences, new metallic alloys that can withstand cosmic radiation, spinning ship components that can simulate 1-G to prevent astronaut health issues. And many more new concepts yet to be discovered. No more billions spent on outdated and obsolete endeavors with much more affordable ways to preform tests.
There are several medical experiments ongoing currently, among one is a medicine for Parkinsons, Zero-G allows things to crystalize in larger and VERY uniform crystals, which is pivotal for this research and other research for cancer medicine and several others.
Another one I remember reading about is growing organs, since gravity makes it extremely hard to get cells to grow in 3 dimensions. You can make something flat on earth, but Zero gravity gives you the ability to grow more complex structures, potentially we could grow organs in space in the future. This is also used to study the spread of bacteria in lab grown tissue.
Then there is studying what can actually grow in micro gravity, a very important field if we ever want to do anything anywhere except LEO.
There has also been a lot of work done in understanding fluid dynamics that can't be preformed without zero G.
I think space stations are very worthwhile, with many countries racing to build their own, and with launch costs going down more and more I don't really see this changing.
Maybe I'm too human, but it just seems like a damn shame to just end 30 years of continuous human presence in space.
@@trequor : Maybe I’m just too much of a realist. Placing people in space without reason is expensive and doesn’t get you very far but lower Earth orbit. Talk about spinning your wheels. What we need to realize is that space is very hard, and it’s not healthy for life. However, it’s great to use as a medium to travel through to get us from one place to another. So what are those places? A colony on the Moon, and on Mars. A way to protect life from disappearing because of a large meteor strike that took out the dinosaur. A way to hedge our bets against extinction.
Yeah, I think "research" was just a way to justify spending $billions on a crewed space station. There are some sound business cases for the space sector, such as comms and earth sensing, but after that there is very little to justify the expense.
@@bobcousins4810 : What a waste of money. I agree with you 100%
How does any company on that scale not have analysts crunching the numbers around costing, efficiency improvements, and long term forecasting? Government agencies and nonprofits are incredibly wasteful.
Musk will soon fix that, if given a chance!! ;D
Government agencies perhaps, but as someone who works for a nonprofit, I can tell you we are forced to be extremely frugal.
So what was Axiom's revenue stream whilst the station modules were being designed and built?
hope into one hand, shit into the other. see which one fills up first
@@Jasontrower-rundle then they should not have been awarded any contract.
@@Jasontrower-rundle right, not so long ago we were offered "hope and change" but got a bunch of shit instead. Soon to be possibly repeated, I predict!! Take your choice! ;D
NASA having a plan is like the government knocking on your door and telling you they are from the government and they're there to help you! lol
Hey man, at 8:58 in the graphic you forgot an R. Great video no matter what though! thank you for keeping us informed
When I saw a video, where they showed, they build wooden prototypes, I already thought, they never achieve the delivery date.
Spot on, sir. at least they could hire the CGI guys who make those great video's for Blue Origin.
Great video, thank you! Question: why are we letting the ISS burn up in the atmosphere again? It's inherently modular, parts of it CAN be saved if they're still useful, like the solar panels and cupola and other stuff. So if we're planning to build a new one, whoever that ends up being, and put it in the same LEO location, then for christmas sakes why not save some of the parts? What's it gonna take, a space garage to store extra modules just in case? I think ditching the entire ISS is going to be viewed as having been a terrible move after it's over. (PS: it's spelled "climate.")
Why can't we sell the ISS in whole or in part?
Wear and tear. It was not designed to last forever up in Space and there is some nasty mold that tends to grow up there.
Stuff in space actually degrades quite quickly, leading to relatively short lifespans. Space might seem "empty" but it is a really harsh environment. Unlike terrestrial infrastructure, it is pretty impossible to do structural repairs in orbit.
To give you an analogy, it's like trying to take a 1980 Toyota Corolla and outfit it with Bluetooth, GPS, backup camera, lane assist, etc. It is not worth trying to keep it up and doesn't have the capability to expand with new technology. i.e. some of the data connections are serial versus digital.
If you want to run a successful company, the first thing to do is hire a government bureaucrat
There are lots of people searching for a business model in order to exploit the space sector, but not finding one. The problem with space projects that need to start big to be viable is that doing a big project is expensive and risky.
So far only only a few like Elon seems to understand how to run a business model; start with something small that can be scaled and turn it into a cash cow, then you can use the revenue to invest in the "big project".
China having the last laugh as they watch NASA and USA scramble to keep anything resembling a space station in orbit while floating in their own space station. 😂
Idk guys maybe banning them from joining the ISS wasn’t the brightest move💀
NASA didn't "give out" all that money...the US taxpayers did. Where is the accountability?? Who is getting punished for failing? How do we get a return on our investment? I am all for space travel and exploration but at what cost? People can't afford groceries or rent but these companies can waste hundreds of millions of dollars on absolutely nothing.
The taxpayers don't give out the money lol 😂😂
Government job is not to tell you how to manage your money
DoD budget is over 900 billion. NASA gets around 20
Pork barrel politics.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334
There is also another 200B black budget, never mentioned, of which NASA gets another 40B.
These contracts are a fraction of payments toward defense contractors 😢
Elon should buy Axiom!
Why buy losers when he has better engineers already?
@@denysvlasenko1865 purchase of a company's infrastructure does not always include the "meat"!! LOL
Why would he do that?
I dont understand why they would connect to the existing space station... One of the main issues is that the station is so dirty from being a floating pitri dish.
They should keep those things separate just so we reduce the chances of something learning how to survive well in space without us wanting it to...
There is a proverb: do not trust when is softly made. The bigger and more beautifully the picture is drawn in the presentation, the greater the failure of the planned program.
Lets start with Logics -- or rather Illogics.
A company hires other companies to build things. Why does he need 1000 empoyees? That could be done by a handful who just handle paperwork (legal & bills).
I had a friend who wemt on a hiring spree to 180 employees only to have to fire half of them.
Unless someone is absolutely vital, Payroll is the primary cost of an Administrative Company.
You do everything with as few people as necessary and employ a lot of automation (MS word, Excel, etc)
My 1st company i employed just 4 people to generate $1.36 m per year starting 2 months after the company started.
I think you can do more with just a few good people. And anyone working should be generating more money than they cost.
'Powe and Climet control fills me with confidence as to their professionalism and attention to detail...
hey, enough knocking our kids today and their "pubic screw-well" educations!! ;D LOL
Sometimes Engineers make Bad Businessmen. Beancounters wreck engineering companies like Boeing but an engineering company has to have Business Sense!
Elon to the rescue, again. Space Station Starship is more of a sure thing than most of these ambitious proposals.
I was skeptical of a Starship used as a space station, but I now warmed up to it. SpaceX have to test the long-term habitability of Starship in LEO anyways, might as well get out additional use by hosting those space station experiments.
@@negirnostarship as a 1000m3 volume per ship (without even considering modifying the propellant tanks to make them habitable), is an insanely obvious solution for quasi infinite modules as long as they create the 6-side node elements to gang them together.
I would be wise to build a station for in orbit refueling and crew/passenger transfer, so yeah SpaceX will probably build the next one.
The payload bay of Starship has more habitable volume that does the ISS. There's no need to mess with the propellant tanks, which could be used for station keeping. By 2030, we'll have the small stations like Haven-1. We'll likely the government backed station, ESA's Starlab. Finally, we'll have Starship Space Station. The others, like Orbital Reef, I'm not confident will be ready.
Heads up at 3:03 there remains a bit of a placeholder slide that just says "animation"
Your content is exceptionally unique!
Fun fact: the guy in black at 3:27 is literally just there to tickle the astronauts before launch. Weird job but hey someone's gotta do it 🤷
Interesting , Thank You. To me the sad part is there are already at least 2 operating space stations , to use as a base design and improve on
Short version: a government bureaucrat used to wasting taxpayer money from an infinite supply can’t do anything once constrained by a realistic budget.
_A is for Axiom, your home sweet home_
_B is for B&L, your very best friend_
It's upsetting that China can do 4 launches and build a whole new space station in a year, but we in the U.S can barely even build one module. I think private space companies are steering us in the wrong direction and failing on their promises.
perhaps if an astronaut is stranded orbit in an Axiom Space Suit, it can be considered Axiom's Micro Space Station.
Haven will replace the iss probably. Pls make a vid on them
just give the damm contract to spacex they will do it in 1-2 years
I hope the ISS doesn't crash before being replaced...
4:48 your statement is incorrect. Axiom’s cans are built by Thales, not AxH1. Those 1,000 engineers are doing everything - Power, thermal, ECLSS, MMOD shielding, C&DH, crew systems, etc… that’s far too few engineers, they should be hiring instead of laying people off, but the cash flow problem is killing them. The only thing keeping Axiom afloat is the suit contract.
Axiom Space Station started with big promises, aiming to usher in a new era of commercial space stations. However, ambitious projects often face significant challenges in execution.
The pursuit of -excellence- cents.
Sad news... a space station could be a solution for refuelling in space 😢
$140 Million contract? To replace a $150 Billion (2010 dollars) ISS?
suuuure, that was realistic.
NASA paid for a single habitable module that could be attached to the ISS, not a full space station. I don't think it was meant to cover the full cost of the module, either.
So basically, no government oversight. It's more common than you could ever imagine.
We all know how this will end... Wingless Starship flitted as a station.
Leave it to a government lump to F things up.
__
Payroll problems? Move your company to Tennessee, the volunteer state.
Elon Musk should build a space station.
We must keep Axiom alive. We must.
this video was tough to watch i was really looking forward to the new wave of private stations but if this is anything to go by im going to have to drastically reduce my expectations
How much is Axiom in the tank? The situation is wholly fixable. I've always felt we should launch these capsules up into orbit until we have enough capsules to construct a large station which would be a simple matter of gathering all the capsules and assembling them.
If Axiom wants to save this program. Then it has some hard choices to make.
The CEO is going to have to lay off most of the staff right a way.
They will need to brainstorm on ideas to save money were ever they can.
They need more money and pay people what they are due. Plus keep the budget up.
Finally they are going to need new management. Someone who has experience in the private sector and knows how to get the most out of his investment.
But these are things that any good businessmen would know.
Why the hell are these things not happening?
Important note. Never hire a government manager to run a private business.
Maybe.... Make SpaceX do it?
Really good job making a 6 minute video into 13 minutes and then put in a minute and a half of advertisement in the middle of it that's when I checked out
This is truly heartbreaking to hear and see what's happening to Axiom.
Axiom's plan and engineering is sound. SpaceX should buy them out. The core modules and power system would be ideal to link together Starship's in orbit, and take it out of NASA's hands so some serious work can begin.
Space is hard. Manned space is harder. Manned space with duration is hardest.
SpaceX has had many failures (and still does) and only became profitable with Starlink. Axiom doesn’t have the luxury of failure. With a space station you have to get it right the first time and continue to get it right throughout the life of the station.
Forget axiom and Boeing we need to go all in Sierria Space. They have reusable Mini space shuttles add inflatable habitats they should get the contract to build the next Space Station
I'm sad that the next generation of space stations will be fragmented, instead of several countries working on one big project.
Really sounds like Elon will have to stitch a few Spaceships together after 2030 if we want to have a (non-Chinese) space station again.
8:57 Typos !
What would it take to put ISS into a much higher orbit, so it can be turned into a place where robots can collect defunct satellites or space junk? That much aluminum coming down all at once is some nasty pollution.
Actually it's not "weird" for them to come out and say that they're broke and can't afford to do it.. that's what you're SUPPOSED TO DO! What's weird is you got people like Elon, who is in a similar predicament (except ohhh, maybe a few hundred times worse) and instead of coming out and admitting the truth, he just keeps on fucking lying, and people just keep letting it go for some reason. Now THAT is some weird shit
What's going to have to happen is NASA's just gonna have to pay the subcontractor to finish the space station and NASA's gonna have to put it up there
Unfortunately, I see it as almost "necessary" in this new age of space flight/travel that some companies will fail for whatever reasons. Fortunately though, they have assets, possibly patents, & data that other companies can buy to help push the space frontier forward! 🤷♂
My underdog company that I hope succeeds at the moment is Sierra Space. The inflatable habitat they're developing was originally conceived by NASA 20-30 years ago, but never came to fruition yet seems promising in it's design. 😃
You know you are in hopeless sh*t when your problems no longer surprise people.
Let me guess, those two rich guys are still rich? It's only their employees and contractors who don't get paid? How convenient...
Good report, a bit "inside baseball" (in the spirit of the season with the "World Serious" going on ln all, so "go" whoever wins, LOL), but still interesting to learn of the ins and outs of these big projects. I guess I never really got the good reason to ditch the ISS except that it is old. We did do that with Sky lab years ago, but the reason is still murky to me except for the fact that we had budget problems, and that's why us not going to Mars then too, in the 70's and 80's. Money is always the problem (and its waste in particular) so it's good to hang on to what you've invested in before you get rid of it, like old cars for example. ( I have 4 from the 1960's but they just make money, daily, sitting in my yard, LOL, so not a very good example). And our new love affair with a new type of car using new technology that in many ways will not work or we are not ready for, with infrastructure to support it. But it is new and shiny, like this space station, and innovative, etc. etc.
Instead of letting the ISS crash to Earth I always thought that maybe boosting it into higher orbit, somehow if feasible, would be a better idea and give us more time to develop another over a longer period, and have it really "international", with more than one country footing most of the bill and then call it ISS for feel good and diplomatic reasons. Obviously based on recent world events, diplomacy is pretty much dead, and any country will do what any country wants to do now.
But still very good report on the reasons some things fall to do do now and then. Reflecting back on the good old Apollo days they were also so "gloom and doom" then too, especially when the Russians were doing well, but we did get er done eventually despite the delays and cost over runs of almost all contractors.
Yes, Axion will develop the space suits for the moon, and I read that Prada may make the shoes, so that will be cool. I wonder if they will be high heels, which may not work so well on the moon, with the dust and all you know!! But maybe that's Exactly why, to stay above it!! LOL ;D
I'd be mad if I had nothing to do, and they wouldn't even pay me for it.
Just make like Star Trek’s Earth Space Stations!😊
This feels like a full season of For All Mankind…
Oh god... Now theres another 'unbiased' news source.
Why does this not surprise me!
If they had to pull people that probably means the suits are going over budget and having problems. My guess is that they might make one suit before they go bankrupt.
Guess they would have to keep the old station if the new one isnt it. I wasnt too keen on dumping the good old ISS anyways.
I want the Space Station design by SPACEX .
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