Neutron Alt History
In this post, I'm going to try to describe what I would have wanted to see RocketLab pursue instead of Neutron. It's important to preface this by saying that I don't have a strong objection to the Neutron architecture itself. I also think that RocketLab has a brilliant team of great executors. My concerns lie primarily with strategy: 1. I wish they had pursued the MLV market sooner; many outside observers, as well as other companies in the industry, have seen small launch as a stepping stone where there isn't very much opportunity to grow. RocketLab, on the other hand, resisted going into big rockets, and lost time (see time between Falcon 1 and 9 vs. between Electron and Neutron for a sense of the might-have-been). 2. I wish their stated goals for Neutron cost and pricing reflected the reality of SpaceX's very comfortable margins with Falcon 9, as well as the threat of a larger LV with aspirationally single digit million dollar marginal launch costs. RL is aiming t