"Launches to higher-orbits have included DSCOVR to Sun–Earth Lagrange point L1, TESS to a lunar flyby, a Tesla Roadster demonstration payload to a heliocentric orbit extending past the orbit of Mars, DART to the asteroid Didymos, Euclid to Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, and Psyche to the asteroid 16 Psyche." Per wikipedia, not sure if those count as meaningful. Plus Europe Clipper in a few months.
Well Starliner was originally contracted to be certified in 2017. So a few month slip on top of the 5+ year slip already maybe justifies some of the skepticism from ARS
Would be nice to see some of that skepticism applied to Crew-1, when it slipped 4 years, but Ars treated SpaceX announcements as gospel truth.
Hell, the launch article for Crew-1 (https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/weather-permitting-t...) literally did not once mention that that launch was delayed, let alone 3 separate year+ delays. Just about SpaceX "saving" NASA from "wandering around in the wilderness with no access to space".
Except Crew-1 Happened in 2020, Staliner-1 has been delayed until probably late 2023, 2024. Demo-1 Happened before OFT-1. They both started at similar times and also their delayed missions were delayed by similar amounts initially. By all accounts, Starliner is behind is every possible way with much greater funding than SpaceX.
SpaceX is at Crew 7, Starliner isn't even close to Starliner-1
> By all accounts, Starliner is behind is every possible way with much greater funding than SpaceX.
That's only true if you assume SpaceX strictly allocated budgets per program and that no revenue from their other missions have gone to the crewed flight programs.
I'm not saying Spaceliner is a success, or that there are arguments to be made about each company's approach (you could argue that while Boeing's approach seems relatively glacial, Boeing also has far fewer smoking craters and damaged barges than SpaceX).
None of that removes the fairly evident bias that Ars can be counted on to spin anything SpaceX in a positive manner (a la ignoring years of delays to talk of SpaceX saving the day for NASA, while a refusal to commit to a launch date following a just discovered issue for Boeing immediately implies more years of delays).
Sure its startup SpaceX that has massive amount of money from other programs that the can smash into Dragon. Its not like the were not also working on 5 other development projects at the time.
It Eric Berger, not "Ars". And he absolutly did report on all the SpaceX delays. After the testing explosion he even said SpaceX might be behind. Stop spreading your conspircy threory nonsense.
> completely neglects to mention any delay whatsoever when talking about the Crew-1 launch
The Crew-1 delay was three years ago. Why would he mention it in this article?
> spins a lack of a confirmed updated launch date less than three weeks after discovery of issues into a delay that will approach 2025
Reasonable, given how it's gone so far. They've yet another parachute issue, and accidentally used "hundreds of feet" of flammable tape.
> "perhaps even after Crew-9", which is hilarious given that even Crew-8 doesn't have a launch date other than towards the middle of next year, and Crew-7 is currently facing new delays
> The Crew-1 delay was three years ago. Why would he mention it in this article?
The Crew-1 delays were not mentioned once in the article where Crew-1 actually launched - he just spent the article patting SpaceX on the back for saving NASA.
Now we have this delay but it's Boeing, and it's all about the delays. And speculating that Starliner may not even launch until after Crew-9, when Crew-8 isn't even announced, but will be mid 2024 at the earliest, and that's before you realize that Crew-7 is delayed, yes by a few days, but "because of another launch" - that other launch being a SpaceX launch that was delayed.
However you spin it, this journalist has a near allergic avoidance of the word "delay" when it comes to SpaceX, and can't wait to spin Boeing delays into worst case scenarios that are entirely speculation. There's no way you can reasonably turn "we're going to talk to Boeing and announce an updated launch date" in July of 2023 and credibly say "it's entirely possible that Crew-9 will launch before it!"
> The Crew-1 delays were not mentioned once in the article where Crew-1 actually launched - he just spent the article patting SpaceX on the back for saving NASA.
The article about Boeing finally getting their crewed test done is in the future, so it's a little odd to be mad at a slight that hasn't yet happened.
> Now we have this delay but it's Boeing, and it's all about the delays.
Yes, the article about the delays is about the delays. Why is this surprising?
> that's before you realize that Crew-7 is delayed, yes by a few days
If you're going to point out two-day delays, Berger's pointing out two year delays seems eminently reasonable. When they eventually do fly crew, a "after years of delays and additional test flights at Boeing's expense" is probably warranted in the article.
> There's no way you can reasonably turn "we're going to talk to Boeing and announce an updated launch date" in July of 2023 and credibly say "it's entirely possible that Crew-9 will launch before it!"
The last Starliner delay was nine months long. Crew-9 beating the Boe CFT is entirely possible. SpaceX and Boeing both had their first orbital tests in 2019, but SpaceX has flown eight NASA crewed flights (and three commercial) since then to Boeing's zero.
One of these programs is currently troubled, the other has hit its goals and won extra contracted flights. You really can't wish these facts away, and a journalist would be goofy to ignore the difference.
The idea that for the rest of history, SpaceX Crew-1 delay has to be brought when talking about Starliner is nonsense. Its not bias. It common sense for a short update article like this.
> less than three weeks after discovery of issues
It has been much longer then 3 weeks.
> which is hilarious
Eric Berger has a very good track record when talking about delays. He usually has information from inside the industry. I'm gone go with they guy that has predicted correctly over and over and over again the last 10 years.
I don't really care if you think it's 'hilarious'.
Dragon is on regular cadence, short term delays of one doesn't necessarily even mean that the launches after that will be delayed to.
So disingenuous. SpaceX’s “craters”, whatever that means, are not from mission failures but from working on booster landing and reusability, _after_ successfully delivering their mission payloads.
SpaceX landings require reserve fuel and thus much lower cargo capacity to attempt, and failure to land cost millions in equipment when it doesn’t work. So, cost wise it’s little different than failing to send up an additional satellite.
Partial mission success gets them a paycheck, but it would be interesting to look at their financials and see if they lost money on those missions.
> (you could argue that while Boeing's approach seems relatively glacial, Boeing also has far fewer smoking craters and damaged barges than SpaceX).
Yet SpaceX is still cheaper despite those damaged barges and craters. And that's really all there is to those, a cost element. It would be different if they had left smoking corpses but they haven't.
So does, "Announced in 2012 to be launched in November 2016, the program suffered numerous delays until four years after the initial launch date, it's taking off..."
> and the situation in Russia
Presumably you mean the Ukraine invasion, which had zero bearing on this, given that it happened nearly a year and a half later...
I mean I guess you are correct it was late but it was still first relative to Boeing. So the timeline warranted less emphasis then say now when Boeing is delayed 3 plus years on top of that.
I’m not sure how you can say the Ukraine invasion has zero bearing on the “NASA…having no access to space”. Given starliner is a dumpster fire and NASA would not be able to reliably count on Soyuz for access to ISS, it was a remarkably prescient statement. Even if Russia hadn’t invaded in 2020 it was obvious that NASA having its own capability to get to ISS was a strategic priority, that was only achieved by SpaceX.
Calling the shuttle reusable is such a massive stretch. It’s like the shuttle of Theseus they basically had to rebuild it every time and it cost something like 1.5 billion dollars. Basically could’ve built a brand new rocket every time.
Recovery of the first stage of SpaceX rockets is not even close to being the same thing as reuse of the shuttle. Surviving re-entry is a completely different set of specs than floating through atmosphere at a much much slower rate of descent.
I mean from a technological point of view sure, but that just shows how bad the design was(compared to what we know now). The falcon program shows that it’s obviously way more economical to just ditch the 2nd stage and reuse the booster. F9 launches cost sub 20 million and a shuttle launch costs on the order of a billion. Squabble over whatever details you want about performance or who had to do what R&D but F9 is clearly in a different league.
> Squabble over whatever details you want about performance or who had to do what R&D but F9 is clearly in a different league.
Falcon 9 First launch attempt 2007 [0]
Shuttle First launch 1981 [1]
I wonder if there's an advantage to having 26 years of watching someone else before designing yours? You also act like the rockets from the shuttle were not reused. They always (except for 2 instances) came back with the shuttle. The SRBs were also recovered, so it's not like these were wasted.
I’m not disputing SpaceX had the advantage of learning from peoples mistakes. And I’m not arguing that they didn’t physically get the engines and boosters back I’m just saying that calling the space shuttle and F9 both reusable may be semantically true but is really not giving an accurate representation.
SpaceX is also contributing to the increasing amounts of space junk. How long is the second stage just floating around after delivering payloads? Once the shuttle delivered payloads, it just left nothing but space.
A brief look would have you find that for most (but not all) launches the second stage de-orbits after one or two orbits and isn't even left in orbit for a day. (For some launches it's impossible to de-orbit the stage and no matter which provider you launch with will leave a second stage as junk in orbit.)
Also, this isn't just SpaceX, every launching country/company leaves second stages in orbit, some, unlike SpaceX, don't even try to dispose of their second stages and leave all second stages in orbit.
I'd recommend reading up more on the topic as I think you read something at some point and think that SpaceX is an especially bad actor in the space when in fact they are one of the most responsible actors, if not _the_ most responsible actor, in the space launch sector at the moment.
SpaceX is launching stuff at an incredible rate. That's the great thing, but it also means that as they continue to launch, the amount of 2nd stages left behind will only increase.
I didn't read anything one time in weird corner of the internet like seem to want to insinuate. There are plenty of sites where you can see the items being tracked. There is a large number of second stages in orbit that are not coming back any time soon. It might have been some coincidental bit of luck that on one particular perusal of one of these sites I just happened to click on 2 such items. Again, as they continue to increase the rate of launches, this will become an issue. And obviously, I don't believe SpaceX is the only such party doing this. That's just an unintelligent comment to have made.
> SpaceX is launching stuff at an incredible rate. That's the great thing, but it also means that as they continue to launch, the amount of 2nd stages left behind will only increase.
You seem to be saying that all entities globally should as a whole launch less objects into space, as you imply that putting more objects into space is a net negative. That's fine to think but I strongly disagree that we as a planet should launch less objects into space.
> There is a large number of second stages in orbit that are not coming back any time soon.
I agree, which is why we should push for regulations that require satellite operators to have plans to de-orbit their satellites at end of life and/or not launch to orbits where the launching stage cannot quickly de-orbit within a set number of years. However simply pushing for all countries to launch less things into space, as you seem to be saying, is not a good idea.
Almost Immediately after the payload is deployed, the second stage does a deorbit burn. So maybe an hour? Each Shuttle launch ended with ditching the enormous external tank into like the Indian Ocean, far more dry mass in the atmosphere/ocean than a Falcon 9 upper stage. (Also, the ET was about $100-150 million apiece.)
No, it was a legit question. It depends on the payload though right? For StarLink deployments at LEO, I'm sure it re-enters soon-ish. But what about for higher altitude launches of other types of satellites? How long does the second stage float around?
If you take it out of context of your post, yes, it looks like a well posed question. When read in context it looks rhetorical and that's how I took it, too. Perhaps you didn't intend that. But that is how it came out.
They also lugged a large amount of extra dry mass into space because of the mass of the orbiter. The part that was least important to re-use and most expensive to re-use is the part that was re-used the most.
maybe, but it was the coolest part to re-use. whatever inefficiencies the shuttle had that people squabble over, it was a very inspiring program. not sure how much inspiration to a small kid a SpaceX launch is, but i know exactly how much the shuttle was.
>not sure how much inspiration to a small kid a SpaceX launch is, but i know exactly how much the shuttle was.
From what I've seen, it sounds like many kids these days feel the same way about SpaceX launches now as you did about the shuttle (incredibly inspiring). I hope that's reassuring.
it is. i know that i flew my shuttle around my room much more than my apollo rockets. my fighter jets had a hard time keeping up with the shuttle in my room too. i once saw footage of the "chase" planes as the shuttle screamed past them on approach. just so much more "cool" to the shuttle than a capsule.
This video showing kids’ reaction to the Falcon Heavy inaugural launch is pretty fun. The dual-landing is absolutely insane. Straight up science fiction.
https://youtu.be/A0FZIwabctw
> inefficiencies the shuttle had that people squabble over, it was a very inspiring program
Exactly. The shuttle program was designed by bureaucrats to be "inspiring." Which explains why it was such a dismal failure economically and in turns of safety - killing 14 people which is far more than any other rocket, and costing insanely more than expendables.
The shuttle program set the U.S. space program back by decades. We are only now finally starting to recover from its dismal failure.
What do kids ever have to do with anything? They are the next generation that may or may not want to be involved in whatever they might be getting inspired by.
>The goal is to get to space affordably and reliably; the shuttle failed on both fronts SpaceX is succeeding at.
Shuttle had ~135 missions (number from memory) with 1 failure at launch. The second failure was at re-entry, so assumption is that the mission deployed whatever was being deployed (if that was part of the mission). How many missions has SpaceX lost payloads on? >1? If we do percentages, sure, but to say that 1 failure at launch is unreliable is just farcical.
Are you actually trying to say the mission when Columbia came apart on re entry and killed 7 people was successful? And you’re gonna say the challenger mission failure that killed people is the same as SpaceX losing a satellite and a dragon cargo capsule.
Rockets landing vertically is the most sci-fi thing ever and has been a staple of science fiction since the early 20th century. I think that's plenty more cool than landing it horizontally.
Anyway, coolness factor doesn't really matter for space. Economical things also tend to end up looking cool over time anyway simply because streamlined designs which are efficient tend to also look cool..
The first stage of SpaceX is the most expensive part with nine engines. The second stage is just single engine. Plus SpaceX reuse fairings and the Dragon is also reusable. So re-usable parts are like 95% and expendable parts are vastly cheaper than Shuttle refurbishing.
This number is total nonsense. It is derived from simply dividing the total cost of the program by the number of launches. This is useless. First, the R&D costs were sunk all the way back in the '70s. Second, the cost of personnel, operations, and facilities do not necessarily scale with the number of launches.
NASA put the cost of a launch at about $450 million in 2011, but that is pessimistic. That is simply the years cost divided by the number of launches in that year. The marginal cost, i.e. the cost of going from N launches to N+1, will always be lower. The Shuttle was designed to fly 24 missions per year and actually flew an average of under five missions per year. The lack of demand was a substantial reason for the high cost.
I find it tedious that every conversation on this topic has to start with the same tired old memes. No, the Shuttle did not cost $1.5 billion per launch. No, reusable launch vehicles are not new. No, not even reusable launch vehicles that land vertically under power are new. No, the price to LEO has not fallen by an order of magnitude. No, ULA is not dead in the water. No, neither is Ariane. Yes, the Shuttle program was badly mismanaged. Yes, the Falcon 9 is pretty cool.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. Pretty sure there’s a quote from Herb saying that southwest was going to be “high touch, low tech”. Herb was a legend for going up against the big airlines and winning but he was the right person for the right time. A war time ceo if you will. Southwest doesn’t need Jobs they need Cook, someone who can build out and scale now that they’re established.
The airline industry as a whole is known to have antiquated tech and hard to clean data. Someone mentioned in one of the threads last week how difficult it is to modernize these systems where every system is using different timestamp formats. Southwest is just more antiquated and probably at least 5 years behind the rest of the industry in modernizing. Especially with crew systems which is what blew everything up last week.
Could try checking out bigger blogs that you like and joining their discord for better/more stimulating interactions than comments. Also if you’re in a big enough city Less Wrong and EA probably have in person meetups. If they don’t they have a lot of resources for starting them.
Secret Hitler. Kind of like a formalized game of mafia
Everyone is secretly assigned a faction: liberals or fascists and one person is hitler. Liberals have to work together to try and find out who the fascists are and win if they vote out hitler.
This is a little bit misleading. You have to look at the entire history of the industry. A lot of consolidation has happened to eliminate competition. And pretty much every legacy airline has declared bankruptcy except for coincidentally, Southwest. Largely due to their founders strategy of avoiding overly leveraging the company. So much so that at one point during the pandemic when other airlines were overleveraged, their stock price did not crash and they were the most valuable airline in the country by a considerable amount.
