Whether or not they hit April specifically (some of which isn't under their control, freak weather or the like can happen) they've clearly been checking through prep at an impressive, disciplined pace and it'll be soon. And importantly once they start they've set things up to keep the iteration going and do more and more ironing things out, and then going into full production. All technical merits aside, that, mass production and cadence, will itself be amazing vs previous efforts. The first launch will simultaneously be incredibly exciting and meaningful, and yet also meaningful in that it won't be that meaningful if that makes any sense. If it operates perfectly beyond expectations great, if it blows up at Max-Q that'd still give them a fair amount and they can quickly try again. Not a multi-billion white elephant that we might only ever see a handful of launch in history, but something aimed to ultimately be as unremarkable and reliable as a commericial airline.
I'm a bit too young for Apollo, so it feels incredibly fortunate to be able to watch the next great step forward for humanity. Starship is both the first true economics focused rocket to production and after F9 the end of the beginning of a shift in mindset for space. The ripple effects of the disruption will be fascinating and exciting as well. And we'll get to watch if live, in beautiful detail.
I understand the distinction but I wonder if it’s only useful because of the weird nature of previous rocket engineering efforts. Notably, NASA contracting out different components due to the quirks of being a government entity. SpaceX is much different than that but aren’t they rather similar to, say, car companies?
I mean if SpaceX is a rocket factory company, isn’t Ford a car factory company? We just don’t include factory because it’s redundant.
The thing that made Ford revolutionary is precision mass production . You could take parts produced in factories on different continents and freely interchange them. Parts with tolerance of a thousandth of an inch.
Ford bought out Johansson just to make sure he had access to the gage blocks that were the enabling technology of the day.
There probably _is_ a similar, relevant distinction between mass-manufactured cars like Ford's and hand-built high-end cars like, I dunno, a McLaren F1, though. We don't use this exact terminology, but I think SpaceX is trying to be Ford in contrast to the legacy players, which are McLaren.
yeah i think any company that's more than just a brand name / middle man could say that their production process is their product rather than what they actually sell.
spacex does not sell any rocket factories even if that is what they spend the most money on developing so i'd consider them a rocket company because to me a company should probably be described by what brings in the income
at some level, even a middle man could say that they are a sourcing and branding company rather whatever product bears their name
"I mean if SpaceX is a rocket factory company, isn’t Ford a car factory company? We just don’t include factory because it’s redundant.
"
I think you could call any company that tries to mass produce something a "X factory company" because from a certain scale on production and supply chains are where the real knowledge is. Apple could be called a "phone factory company".
Could it? It doesn't actually make them. It hires 3rd party companies for that. Where Ford owns/operates factories that produces their products. Unless I'm confused and Ford doesn't own their factories?
Ownership doesn't seem particularly important. Apple designs the specifications, the supply chains, and the QC, leaving a few pieces of the labor supply up to partners.
Still seems like a phone factory company, even if they don't own everything soup to nuts like early auto factories tried to do.
True. When the Artemis test launches were being scrubbed it really felt like an all-or-nothing moment. Even thought it was a rocket designed to be a disposable test article, it felt like failure would have necessitated a review of the whole program.
With the upcoming starship test, it feels like even if it ends up being a 100 meter firework, the engine is still purring.
Yeah regardless of the outcome the real significance here is the SpaceX getting into an orbital launch test cadence, which with some luck should speed up after the first few once the various kinks in preparation and the bureaucratic half of the equation get smoothed out and it all becomes routine.
If they can pull this off I think we may enter an age with a clear "Before super heavy reusable launch" and "after".
It's mind boggling how much stuff a Starship will be able to chuck into space and come down and then do it again and again.
Consider this, the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment anywhere in the world within 90 minutes using this kind of capability. International Space Station sized habitats are a handful of launches over months, not dozens over decades. A single Starship launch could place multiple hubble-sized space observatories up in a single launch.
> International Space Station sized habitats are a handful of launches over months, not dozens over decades. A single Starship launch could place multiple hubble-sized space observatories up in a single launch.
Even if they just stacked a modified Starship designed to stay in orbit (just enough fuel to get into orbit, ability to jettison engine section, some solar panels bolted on) and shot that up, that'd get you as much or more internal pressurized volume than the ISS in a single launch.
Absolutely insane. Wonderful way to communicate it, too - makes it trivial even for people with only a passing interest to understand what a step-change this is.
>Consider this, the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment anywhere in the world within 90 minutes
How reliable would this really be in practice? I'm thinking of all the times a projected launch has to get scrubbed and rescheduled days later. Not exactly the type of delivery uncertainty you'd want for critical equipment.
As a former air force contracting specialist... This is completely wrong. Bases are not cheap to build, maintain or defend (Politically, physically and fiscally).
Also, no matter how much money you spend or how many bases you build, you can't get 90 minute asset delivery EVERYWHERE ON EARTH, which is every military strategists' wet dreams since alexander.
Lastly, if you haven't noticed the military doesn't really care about 'Cheap', or they wouldn't have spend ungodly numbers on the f35. They care about effective. The check book is infinite, and slight advantage is everything.
> Lastly, if you haven't noticed the military doesn't really care about 'Cheap', or they wouldn't have spend ungodly numbers on the f35.
Being cheap was the motivation for everything that led to the F-35 being expensive, so, no, this is wrong: the military cares a lot about cheap, they are just very bad at doing it.
Being cheap is developing a next generation war-fighter that blows every other aircraft out of the water? next generation halo lenses, with advances stealth, manuverability, and rate of weapon deployment? With multiple different variety's and add ons to enable all weather and VTOL? What is cheap about the initial contraints of the project?
The F-35 (more specifically, the JSF program out of which the F-35 was the successful contender) was conceived as a comparatively cheap multiservice, multirole fighter to reduce both initial development and ongoing operational costs by having a high degree of commonality between the conventional air force model, the CATOBAR navy model, and the STOVL marine corps model; It was also supposed to replace basically every US fighter and strike aircraft except for the F-15 and variants, which the F-22 would replace, and the F-22 itself.
As it turned out “do everything" and “be cheap” turned out to be less compatible goals than originally envisioned.
> completely wrong. Bases are not cheap to build, maintain or defend
Nobody suggested building more bases. The proposed problem was launch reliability. A major reason for launch scrubs is weather.
AustinDev proposed staging in orbit [1]. I said it’s cheaper to have more than one launch location on the ground over more than one launch location in orbit.
also: this model is 9 meters in diameter, and will already be more robust to weather effects than the f9, the 18 meter diameter model would be a beast if ever built.
I imagine there's a lot to go into it. For example, if it's a one-of-a-kind weapon with a long lead time to develop, they probably have a pretty low risk threshold.
Launch windows generally aren't open-ended and typically only last a few hours because they are orbit-dependent. That's why when a launch is scrubbed, a window often doesn't open again until days later.
Clearly there remains legitimate skepticism on both fronts, but it’s pretty crazy to think that we might get “AI” (or at least, the first widespread use of something ordinary people might reasonably call “AI”) and reusable, economical heavy-lift capability all within the same calendar year.
> the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment
The killer app for the military is missile defense. Currently the US has about 4 dozen ground based midcourse interceptors. Each costs more than $100 million and carries one single exo-atmospheric kill vehicle capable of destroying one single incoming threat. The kill vehicle weights 64 kg.
A single starship could carry more than 1000 kill vehicles. A dozen or two starships on standby could carry enough kill vehicles to defend not only against all current intercontinental ballistic missiles, but against all that Russia, China and North Korea could conceivably build in a decade.
Yes, it's preferable to have solid propellant missiles. But that does not mean it's impossible to use liquid, and even cryogenic liquid fueled rockets for deterrence missions. The first American ICBM, Atlas, used liquid oxygen, and was used for 7 years. Its contemporaneous soviet counterpart, the R-7 Semyorka, also used liquid oxygen and was in service for 9 years.
The advantage would be pre positioned orbital interceptors could effectively reach some percentage of missiles in the boost phase rather than later on when intercept is harder.
Starship also allows for enough mass to orbit to make Star Wars legitimately viable.
I assuming they drug test because it's a requirement for govt contracts. Given that they get something like 98% of their funding from the govt, they can't exactly flippantly violate their best customers rules.
Under the Drug-free Workplace Act of 1988, workers at any company that receives a federal contract of $100,000 or more are prohibited from using or distributing drugs in the workplace, and the firm must have a drug-free workplace policy. Elon himself is subject to drug tests by the federal goverment
I'm curious how well this is actually enforced. I would imagine a lot of big tech companies have $100k government contracts: Google, Microsoft, etc. Pretty sure employees of either company are not drug tested (and a large number of them would fail a test if it were required). I'm not sure what "drug-free workplace policy" means, while I was at Google I don't recall ever hearing "don't do drugs".
On the other hand, I met a person recently who works for Lockheed and I'm pretty sure he was regularly (or randomly) tested at his workplace.
SpaceX undoubtedly does have US government agencies as some of their biggest customers, but 98% must be a gross exaggeration. The Falcon 9/Heavy have made nearly all of their launch revenues, and from just perusing the lists [1][2] of all launches, the US government can't be more than some low double digit percentage.
SpaceX does receive other funding as part of various NASA contracts, but that funding is also related to providing services to them, not just receiving money for nothing.
98% wasn't a number I pulled out of thin air. It's hard to know exact figures, but there are some people who publicly track what they can. [1]
From that source, SpaceX has about ~$5.515B in contracts. Of that, about $5.411B is from government contracts (military, NASA). That's about 98.1%.
There's probably a good chance it's higher, if they have govt contracts that aren't allowed to be public knowledge for security reasons.
Also, nobody is claiming SpaceX receives "money for nothing" from the govt. They are a contractor who, at least at these relatively early stages, need government contracts to survive. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's the way many nascent industries survive. But we need to call a spade a spade.
That source only lists contracts where the price is known or can be reasonably estimated. Naturally, US government entities which have a semi-public bidding process are much easier to obtain a price estimate from. There's a large amount of foreign government contracts and private commercial contracts that are omitted from that list. Just from 2020 alone, SkySats 16-21, ANASIS-II, SXRS-1, SAOCOM 1B, GNOMES 1, Tybak-0172, SXM-7, and NROL-108.
Edit: I did unreasonably make the assumption that you were making the case the SpaceX was receiving subisidies for "nothing" and I see that you weren't now.
Hell, SpaceX is private so we have limited information across all domains. I acknowledged in my first post that accurate numbers are hard to come by. But we have to work with what information we have.
Foreign govts would still be govt money; many of those you listed are still public projects. Do you have estimates for those other private launches? If not, it's just speculation. Based on the information we have, it seems like it's safe to say the bulk of their launches are for governments. It's not a knock on them, and I'm not saying this is your perspective, but there's this kinda weird sentiment that they are some paragon of free-market capitalism when in fact they are a company highly dependent on government money. But that's exactly what I think is reasonable to expect in a nascent industry.
As a side note, There are easy esimates for private launches. SpaceX widely publicises their launch pricing, which lines up pretty well for the publicly disclosed contracts.
That’s fine. I’m completely ok with someone saying “I don’t know”. But the original post was trying to make a wild claim with zero evidence. I’m at least trying to ground my claim in some actual data while clearly acknowledging the limits of that data. I’m also completely fine with the veracity of that data being brought into question. What I’ve yet to see is anyone trying to refute it being an any additional data to the discussion that is of better quality. Losing Wikipedia launches (with little understanding of the business context and no actual revenue claims) is even more specious than I was using. It’s not a more informed or more rational argument, it’s an emotional bias.
Put differently, why do you think there isn’t an abundance of people chiming in to say “there’s not enough data to make a claim” rather than jumping to defend SpaceX’s honor? If people were truly rational, the strength of their convictions would be proportional to the strength of the data being it.
The other respondent brought up a good point regarding selection bias. A different way to approach the problem would be to look at total SpaceX launches by customer. This has its own problems, but might paint a better picture.
When talking about funding in general, you also have to consider that SpaceX has significant non launch Equity funding to the tune of $10B, and that contracts can include potential future Revenue instead of funds received.
Edit: If you look at their launches for 2020 onwards[1], Their number 1 customer is SpaceX (themselves), followed by US and other governments, followed by private companies.
While your borader conclusion is probably accurate regarding income, your spreadsheet only 71 of 216 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for ~$9B total. This is roughly on par with the VC funding they have recieved.
Sure, I can acknowledge there is likely a selection bias based on public reporting. But I would push back that it skews the data by an order of magnitude as suggested. We'd likely see many, many more private launches compared to public for that to be true. Let's be super generous and say that Starlink brings in $1B in revenue; that still means govt funding accounts for 80% of their revenue.
And, yes, we can talk about different ways of accounting. But I wouldn't count the fickle or volatile ones like "potential future revenue" as better than measuring actual contracts. (This is what SpaceX is investing in with their own launches, to be fair, but that's different than actual revenue). People trying to raise capital are always talking about potential revenue and potential market share, but you'll get much more investor money if you have actual purchase orders.
Like I said, I dont disagree with your broader point, and would agree that 80+% is a reasonable estimate.
$1B income for Starlink makes sense given they have ~1M customers paying ~$100/mo, and a $4-500 hookup cost.
Lasty, you have to consider that the government contract numbers you have are cummulative going back to 2012, while the Starlink revenue is annual (2022 only). If you look at government contracts for 2021, you only get $1.6B. Using those numbers, Starlink internet would be closer to 40% of revenue, with launch contracts at 60%, which starts to paint a very different story.
I think a lot of the feedback you are getting is a kneejerk reaction based on language. E.g.
"government funding" had a very different connotation than "government sales". People think subsidies and then their minds short circut.
You're probably right; I could have phrased it better. I think we pretty much agree, given what data is available. My main point is that their business model is predicated government contracts early before they can transition to other income streams. That's not really crony capitalism and it's part of the intent of the government to spur new industries. But I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capitalism that can exist outside of government money. (Which, ironically, is a point many people hold against legacy aerospace). And I think that latter point is relevant because SpaceX (and Musk himself) is often held up as some sort of capitalistic ideal and any counterpoint to that makes people bristle. In all, however, I think that hybrid approach is ultimately beneficial to both SpaceX and the public.
I think we prettymuch agree to, but I have an obvious quibbling problem.
> I would also hold it as distinct from pure free-market capitalism that can exist outside of government money. (Which, ironically, is a point many people hold against legacy aerospace). And I think that latter point is relevant because SpaceX (and Musk himself) is often held up as some sort of capitalistic ideal and any counterpoint to that makes people bristle. In all, however, I think that hybrid approach is ultimately beneficial to both SpaceX and the public
I think a lot of people dont really get this nuanced distinction. Rockets and spaceships have always been never been built by the government. Most of the work was always done by publically traded companies. NASA, whomever, would put out a contract, and then be involved in high level diretion of the design process.
The difference with SpaceX is that 1) they not publically traded (who cares?) and 2) they dont take design direction from NASA for their rockets, and built what they wanted. Thats it!
The cool part is that they built somthing more ambitious buy cutting NASA out of the design process, and relied on the fact that it will be so good that NASA will want it when they saw it.
My quibble is that this is very different than the classic case of the government spuring new industires. The government was already buying rockets from established manufactures for a half centry. SpaceX just came in and ate other companies lucnhes by being more focused and more efficienct.
This isn’t new. It’s exactly how the airplane was invented over 100+ years ago.
The Army didn’t tell Orville and Wilbur how to build. They dangled the carrot of a lucrative military contract to incentivize their innovation. It’s what transitioned the effort from hobbyists to an actual industry. There was no “industry” until the govt put up money because the govt was really the only entity that could bear that kind of risk. It’s the same with the initial days of SpaceX.
I think that is where we differ, but maybe I didnt explain my stance well.
I agaree that the government contracts are a carrot, and broadly speaking supports the entire space industry. Im not debating that at all.
However, I do think there is a narrative difference between companies that that humm along doing the same thing eating eating their carrots, and a new one that beats them at their own game and steals all the carrots. The carrots have been there for decades, and then someone came along and radically shakes up the industry and it makes it jump forward. Thats exciting!
It is like when a chef tells the customer "I wont make what you ordered, But I will make something so much better you can't resist.
It is as if Lockeed were to tell the military I won't build the F-35 to your specs, but when you see it, you will want it more than what you designed.
This is exciting because it marks a transition of industry dynamics. Something changed, and it wasn't the carrots. SpaceX brought something new to the table in a 60 industry, and they deserve credit for that change. The government deserves credit too, but the dynamic is different than if it were year 1 of the space industry.
The carrot did change, though. What’s fundamentally different about this carrot is that it is the first time large service contracts for space have been leveraged. Previously it was product contracts. In the latter, the govt provides specs on the hardware and drive the design. The entire mechanism of the CCP carrot is designed around a relatively hands-off approach to the hardware design to instead just specified the purchase of a ride. It doesn’t matter if it’s sci-fi tech or a donkey, as long as it gets the job done.
I still give SpaceX credit that they did a much better job of raising the bar in response to that incentive. I have some reservations about the way they’ve gone about some of it, but at the end of the day I think they have done a much better job than the legacy aerospace companies.
The bulk of their own launches are for their own infrastructure. That doesn't bring revenue at the launch date. They aren't paying themselves to launch their equipment; it's an investment in future revenue. Even looking at optimistic projections for 2023 Starlink revenue puts would still mean govt contracts dwarf Starlink revenue by 4:1.
>And that is outside of their Starship business, that is by now a large part of its revenue.
Starship is bringing in investment money, not revenue that I'm aware of. I don't know what revenue it would be bringing without actual launches. Maybe I'm wrong and you can correct me here, but I think you are conflating some business aspects.
Now if you're saying that the private money will be a bigger factor in the future, I agree. That's the whole idea behind govt money being used to foster along nascent industries: the govt props them up early until a viable private enterprise can exist later.
I meant to say Starlink rather then Starship. They have over a million subscribers now. Plus larger clients in shipping and air travel, plus the military.
Honestly I don't get your issue. You can just go to wikipedia and look at the list of the launches. So clearly the 98% is wrong, this isn't a question, its not speculation.
The original claim was “US government can't be more than some low double digit percentage”.
Let’s say it’s by “low double digit percentage” we’re generous and say 20%. (I interpreted their stance to be lower, but they didn’t specify).
We can are there is incomplete data but we have reasonably good data on the the govt side: U.S. govt contacts are at least $5.4B, likely higher. So that means we expect the complementary private side to be 5x, or over $22B. The absolute most optimistic Starlink estimates about $2B through 2023. Do you think the other private streams dwarf Starlink by 10x? I just don’t see how we get there given the govt is still there #1 launch customer after Starlink, and this is the most generous interpretation to steelman the case. The only way is true is if there is some unknown customer launching nearly 3x that of the US govt.
The only way the numbers work out is if the govt is the major revenue stream or there’s some secret launch customer that dwarfs the US space agencies.
It’s a claim based on wishful feeling, not on data.
No disagreement; this actually is proving my point. I'm pretty clear about using the larger business cycle as my point. I'm not taking a snapshot in time, I'm saying relying on govt contracts early is necessary for their business to survive. Others are either twisting or misinterpreting my point.
To be absolutely explicitly clear: their business model requires using govt contracts/funding/sales early before they can transition to other viable means of revenue. They could not survive as a company without those early govt contracts, but this does not mean they are dependent on govt contracts into perpetuity.
A dependency on govt contracts early and an increasingly private revenue stream can both be true. This isn't bad, but it also isn't the often-lauded ideal of free-market capitalism.
That is nonsense. Look at their flight manifest and see how many flights are NASA or Space Force. Maybe like 3 launches in the next several months out of planned 25.
Again, this comment, like most, misses the point. I'm saying they required govt contracts early to be a viable business. You're pointing to late-game information that doesn’t speak to that point. They can both be true without the point being "nonsense".
The point is their business model is predicated on using govt contracts early, when they were an unproven commodity, because the govt is generally the only organization who can take those kinds of risks. In turn, this fosters the development of a space industry which can transition to more private revenue streams. Musk himself said they were in the 11th hour of bankruptcy before NASA "saved" them with a huge contract.
It doesn't miss the point because the OP is talking in the present tense. Not something from 10 years ago, e.g. "they get something like 98% of their funding from the govt"
The OP was intended to convey that their business model is predicated on heavy govt funding early. I never said they get, and will continue to require, that level of support in perpetuity. The intent was to show the level of govt support necessary to where they're at. Those "old" contracts are still in execution; they're not done and and in the past. Meaning the funding is still relevant and so are the rules attached to those funds. If you doubt that, what do you think will happen to SpaceX if they suddenly start going against their SpaceAct agreements that are part of those contracts?
Even if you want to go against HN guidelines and not read the comment generously, they have still gotten the vast majority of their revenue from the govt in present tense. We can quibble about the exact percentage, and in reality it's probably impossible to pin-point without insider information. But we can use the information we know to estimate that it's still a major part of their business and it wouldn't be viable without it. And they'd still have to keep those customers happy by following their rules.
I worked there for 3 years and was never asked to do a drug test. Maybe that's the case now? Or maybe it's based on job responsibilities?
The only time I was ever tested for drugs was when I started an internship at Toyota back in 2006 or so. I had to do a whole physical. At the time it seemed pretty silly. Later in my career I started a new job, and the new company's background check flagged me for being unable to verify my employment at Toyota. That also seemed pretty silly, considering the company's CTO used to be in the
same department at Toyota back in the day!
Putting a rocket into orbit requires a good understanding of science and reality. There is no actual scientific proof that occasionally using marijuana is a bad thing that would make a potential employee a bad employee.
Maybe politicians don't like that reality, but they are not the ones putting people into orbit.
The traditional explanation is that drug users can be blackmailed and security compromised by adversaries threatening to reveal federally prohibited behavior.
It seems antiquated.
Edit: as cannabis use is transitioning to decriminalized, testing specifically for that will become antiquated. Standing crimes of course will remain leverage for bad guys.
Eh, I buy that "habitually committing crimes" makes it easier for adversaries to blackmail you. Seems like evergreen logic that doesn't get antiquated.
It's an evergreen that can be easily repaired by eliminating silly categories of crime and social conventions. See e.g., the old restrictions on allowing gay people to hold security clearances, which stemmed from the fact that it was easy to blackmail gay people in a society that (foolishly) kept penalizing people for being gay. We lost Alan Turing because of stupid crap like that, god only knows what else we lost.
> See e.g., the old restrictions on allowing gay people to hold security clearances, which stemmed from the fact that it was easy to blackmail gay people
AFAIK, they did not stem from that fact, that was a later rationalization from keeping them around. They stemmed from the fact that being gay was seen as a serious moral failing in its own right, and indicative of propensity for other moral failings.
No, implying that I think that "they are worse at building and launching rockets because they drug test employees" when I never said that at all is not sound reasoning, it is terrible reasoning actually
Why do you immediately jump to drugs as a conclusion?
Maybe they just want to commemorate the birthday of the visionary leader who recognized and funded the genius inventor that ultimately ended up being instrumental in getting the American space program of the ground?
If someone can't quit for the time it takes to get a job, then I wouldn't want them on my team. It's usually one and done at these companies, not random throughout employment, and usually purely for outside regulation purposes. A modicum of self control isn't a bad thing.
When I was in high school my desk had a graffiti carved in it of the three most important numbers: 69, 2112, and 714. 2112 was the Rush album (which I liked), and I had to ask a friend about 714: he explained that it was the number printed on Quaalude pills (as if everybody knew that).
1134 is the angel number, I think something to do with Tarot. I know there was the calculator trick: 1800-666=1134. Turn it upside down and it spells "hell".
Cool video but it sure would be nice to have the dates when the rockets launched (if they did) and if they have not yet launched. For example Sea Dragon was a 1962 study design; never built. If they are going to have that one they should do the Orion Design (the first one with the nukes).
I think it is highly unfair to compare concepts to actual built rockets, might as well just include the Enterprise from Star Trek as well at that point.
Well, the Enterprise from Star Trek is fiction, so legitimate answers would include "zero actual size" and "as big as they say it is".
A true fan would probably reply: "Which one?"
An enlightened person might point out that Star Trek fans are very online, all this info and much much more than you wanted to know is just a google away.
640m / 2000 feet, or thereabouts, is also an acceptable answer.
But the unbuilt rockets in that animation were somewhat legitimate designs, a few steps from actual working prototypes; therefor those sizes had to be somewhat buildable; whereas the Starship Enterprise is FTL fiction, with warp drives powered by antimatter handwavium.
ughft. I mean: I smoke hashish, but honestly, Musk's adolescent little references like these are really trite and demeaning to the magnitude of what his companies are hoping to achieve. S3XY, poop emoji and 'Titter'. ughft, just stop already.
I find it helpful to separate space Elon, car Elon and nut job Elon. (The man is one. But his shadows track three suns. His influence is indirect, and in that, varied myths cause varied outcomes.)
If you knew me irl, you'd know I'm very much in favour of humour and irreverency, especially where it might not be expected or even appropriate – but I'm not that much younger than Musk and honestly, I just find his particular flavour of humour childish and cringe-inducing.
13-year old me would've been gleefully receptive to it – the not-far off 50-year old me... somewhat less so.
The trouble for him here is – I'm not sure who amongst his consumer base would find it amusing.
- ed Also: I, like everyone else, saw that clip of him 'smoking' pot on Joe Rogan's thing. Unlike Clinton, he really didn't inhale... . NASA had nothing to worry about there.
I think part of Elon's charm is his cringe. He's a crazy uber-billionaire literally digging tunnels, making flame throwers and launching interplanetary rocket ships. His childish irreverence is what makes him dorky Tony Stark (Marvell superhero) rather than Hugo Drax (Bond villain).
I don't get the people who hate it to the point of complaining about it in discussions.
I mean I don't find the farting and 4/20 references funny, but I don't see a reason to be bothered. I'm happy for the people whom it makes smile.
And I think S3XY is clever. I like that it gives the models sort of a canonical order and always feel good when I see them ordered that way by someone other than Tesla.
SLS gave tons of experience, of all kinds imaginable. Like, supercomputers used to calculate aerodynamics, heat-protecting tiles, landing and pacifying procedures, to name some less known. It was definitely not money wasted, even though more than 14 people gave their lives to the program.
Except nothing in SLS was strictly new. The engines are literally re-used, the solid rocket boosters are not new and are 5 segment versions of the boosters used on Shuttle, the tank design is a load-bearing version of the Shuttle. It's all 70s/80s tech at best.
There's nothing new in using supercomputers to compute aerodynamics. It's been done for decades with ever further precision. SpaceX has even done talks that can be found on youtube on it themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYA0f6R5KAI
The heat protection technology is literally the exact same material as used on Apollo, except re-formed into tiles, something SpaceX has been doing with their own heat shielding technology for decades.
The landing/pacifying procedures are variants of Shuttle procedures as the same propellants are used (which are also very old). They're even the same engines and fuel used on Apollo and the Shuttle.
(Also, I do not describe "happened to die during period of employment" as people "giving their lives for the program". That's just extreme propaganda.)
So what experience was gained that was not in the form of "re-learning things that were forgotten"?
The main criteria is if SpaceX can grantee margin of safety in regards to humans. Can they grantee that even in the worst case the rocket isn't gone fly into a town.
In this case this is specially hard because the core booster flies back towards the coast.
Do you have any information on the recovery plans for the booster and ship 24?
I have been curious about this and not seen much disclosure on the topic. Would ship 24 also be the largest re-entry vehicle, and largest re-entry vehicle to make ocean landing?
Edit: I was able to find some more information on the splashdown:
>During this time, the spacecraft will hurtle sideways, generating tremendous heat before adjusting to an upright position for a "soft " rocket-powered ocean landing 62 miles north of Kauai. It will sink in the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility, according to plans for the historic flight, and join dozens of warships that have gone down over past decades during Navy "sink exercises " in waters 15, 000 feet deep.
if this works out does there become a bottleneck in the world's ability to produce space-ready, useful things (satelites, telescopes, etc).
Its incredibly costly and complex to build things like the james webb telescope and that would be a great problem to have, but are there any measures of the demand for rocket capacity at given price points?
I'm a bit too young for Apollo, so it feels incredibly fortunate to be able to watch the next great step forward for humanity. Starship is both the first true economics focused rocket to production and after F9 the end of the beginning of a shift in mindset for space. The ripple effects of the disruption will be fascinating and exciting as well. And we'll get to watch if live, in beautiful detail.