See this is the bit that bug me. It indicates a trial an error approach and screw the consequences. There’s smarter ways.
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Yes, NASA.
What has NASA got to do with it?
Nothing.
The spunking rockets because I’ve got more money than you approach appears reckless. If you’ve got evidence to the contrary I’m listening
There’s learning from your mistakes and there’s being being slapdash for the sake of appearing to achieving a milestone. I wonder how much time and money has been lost through this failure? From a project management perspective the optics are shite.
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Not quite sure why you’re deriding NASA so much. They as much as anyone have allowed us the views of the solar system and the universe. The space telescopes you so admire, the missions to Mars, the probes deep into our solar system… NASA, right? Or a collaboration with NASA. Musk is standing on the shoulders of those gone before him and basking in the glow.
Personally, rockets are a means to an end. More can be achieved for the goal of space exploration by solving the problem of achieving a speed where other solar systems can be explored remotely within a time frame that can allow that probe to leave and return signal within a 20 year period (optimistic) and develop a technology that can sustain manned flight in deep space for such a period. Proxima B is just over 4 light years away, if we can get to even a quarter of the speed of light that’s 16 years. May be a little simplistic, I know, but that’s the problem and we can find a solution for that. I’d have far more respect for him if he was looking throwing all the considerable resources he has to interstellar while using what he could to fix the problems here.
But no; Mars. What the fuck are we going to do on Mars? Live in caves or habitats and all the while yearn to go outside? It’s all for show and space tourism. ‘big rocket go boom’.
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There is a process that became popular in software development in the 00s called Agile. It is based on idea that no matter how much planning you put in your product is not going to be perfect. So the quicker you get a version out into the hands of customers the quicker you get the feedback and the quicker you can fix the flaws. It’s now dominates software development. More so, with the tech broification of our economy we see a growing trend of self identified “smartest person in the room” trying to agile everything.
When people say Musk brought software methods to car manufacturing, this is what they mean. You can now earn big money by selling yourself as an organizational Agile coach/consultant, but there is very little evidence (read “none”) that it is effective in other sectors and tech bros who arent half as smart as they think they are will excuse their flaws as being part of the Agile process.
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Fascinating. I agree there’s a limit or a line if you like. I’d also agree that the differences across different industries when compared to software development are quite obvious when looking at consequences.
Musk space travel project is based on the commonly held idea that it is a path to finding somewhere else to live should we need it. It is such a backwards perspective as while there might be places out there that are livable, they are effectively unreachable without technology that is largely imaginary and so far out of our reach so as to be a pipe dream. So that means anywhere we can reach over the next say 2 centuries will need extensive teraforming or a commitment to living in artificially created conditions. Well, if we can do the former, or we’re ok with doing the latter then earth is still more viable.
Sure, every journey starts with a first step, but that is the value of continued interest in space travel right now - the as yet unknowable lessons you learn while on that journey to interstellar space flight. Anyone selling it as anything else, anything more tangible is just a sales guy. To go back to Musk just being a (bad) tech bro, it’s vaper ware - selling something to a customer your product cannot do.
For using 60’s tech and thinking. SLS is Saturn 5 made with Space Shuttle parts and every single main booster will be thrown away. Once SpaceX crack Starship, it will be reusable on a daily basis.
Smarter ways.
Have you watched Falcons launch and land? Falcon heavy? The whole industry has been completely revolutionised. You don’t like their methods but they demonstrably work.
clearly you haven’t been watching the evolution of space exploration since the 50’s/60’s. they blew up a lot of rockets.
This launch was the first of its kind. as stated during the launch, if the rocket clears the tower this is a success. everything else is just bonus data
my issue, is that there’s no real good to mankind for other world exploration. it’s what happens when someone has accesss to sooooo much money that they can literally do whatever they want.
it’s literally rocket science. but not like you have stated it, you make it sound like they’re building a tree fort
He’s made progress on something no one else was really doing. So the success of his methods ultimately need to be on other well established metrics such as cost ( development) and time. We don’t see those.
For whatever reasons other space agencies have decided not to go down the same route. I wonder why?
I think this is a bit of a misperception. Space X exists largely because of the government contracts that are available to fund its work. The figures for their operating costs are not public, but it’s been estimated that the $15b+ in government funding it has has received represents about 90% of its operating cost in that time. This is not some Hugo Drax shit (the Bond villian from Moonraker)
Because the work is being funded by NASA and it doesnt make sense to fund a redundant internal program
I’m not just referring to SpaceX but thanks for your input. what do you think the infrastructure for Starlink will be worth once it’s fully completed? Who owns it, the US Government with their funding, or Musk?
When the chips all fall, I suspect that Musk will just be another western oligarch whose strings are pulled by whomever really runs Washington DC. Much like Buffett, Rockefeller, Vanderbilts, etc.
My tree fort or @Klopptimist’s?
I ask because I want mine to be bigger
