So I’ve heard and seen the newest launch, and I thought for a private firm it seemed cool they were able to do it on their own, but I’m scratching my head that people are gushing about this as some hail mary.
I get the engineering required is staggering when it comes to these rocket tests, but NASA and other big space agencies have already done rocket tests and exploring bits of the moon which still astounds me to this day.
Is it because it’s not a multi billion government institution? When I tell colleagues about NASA doing stuff like this yeaaaars ago they’re like “Yea yea but this is different it’s crazy bro”
Can anyone help me understand? Any SpaceX or Tesla fans here?
Have you seen their boosters land? It very much IS impressive. They basically made reusable rockets viable, which is a huge step for more affordable space flight.
Also their raptor engine is a marvel of engineering.
Both are doing impressive things, but only one is deliberately using media to build hype.
They are also very different organizations with very different goals.
NASA is focussed on science, they are trying to learn as much as possible about our solar system and the universe.
SpaceX by contrast is focussed on engineering. They aren’t trying to find life on Mars, they are trying to build the ferry service to it.
When NASA built rockets back in the 60’s, space flight was a science problem. We needed to figure out if it was even possible to do so. Can we even get a capsule into space? Can humans survive in zero gravity? Nowadays space flight is an engineering problem. We know it’s possible, we know the math, but can we actually build those things?
If you ignore Musk for a moment, it is impressive. Maybe not every launch (I wasn’t even aware of another one), but a company that’s actually pushing for more space exploration. That’s cool beans.
even if you don’t ignore musk…
They’ve achieved all that despite musk. musk is an idiot and a fool, and he’s far from an engineer. Imagine what they could do if his coke-and-ketamine fueled dipshitery decided to take up a different hobby.
Imagine what they could do if his coke-and-ketamine fueled dipshitery decided to take up a different hobby.
Didn’t he just do that with Xitter?
Seems like he is quite isolated in SpaceX and COO is running everything.
SpaceX success is based on senior management being able to keep musk away from everything to do with the company. He is solely responsible for funding. Everything else, musk has zero credit.
he bought twitter to show what a company ran directly by him would be like. If that was SpaceX there would be far more rockets ploughing into the earth or exploding at launch.
SpaceX has a very robust management system that manages musk and keeps him out of the day to day. That’s the most impressive thing about them IMO. Tesla used to be better about this as well, but with the whole eDumpster (aka cybertruck) fiasco that system seems to have largely fallen apart.
For real - by all accounts, Musk has, for years, just introduced speed bumps to the process because he wants one particular part of the system to work one particular way, simply because he had an idea about it.
Is it cool beans to litter the atmosphere with satellites and spend a metric fuckton on money, energy and garbage into “space exploration” while we treat the planet we live on is on fire and we treat it like shit? Isn’t it weird that they plan to deliver weapons around the planet in a short time? That doesn’t sound like a “space exploration” endeavour, it sounds like a military operation that is dressed up in make up so his fanboys go: whoooo, rockets, science.
My guy they just caught an object falling from space using a pair of giant chopsticks
https://youtu.be/b28zbsnk-48?t=412
That thing is about 70 meters long and weights 300 tons and some.
Technically not from space since the lower stage never made it past the Karman line, which is 100km above sea level.
They are pretty focused on reducing the cost of launches by aggressively re-using components that would normally crash into the sea. Previous launches landed on floating sea platforms but yesterday’s heavy was so big it needed a more stable landing zone. So after boosting the Star Liner the rocket returned down the trajectory it had followed up and then hovered briefly before being caught by two pincers on the very launch pad it had left five minutes before. That’s pretty cool.
