It’s getting more efficient by the day. They used to have to launch it into the air before it had blow up. This way it saves time
It’s not perfect, but capitalism is the best system we’ve got. It is only through competition on the free market that we would arrive at a space program this efficient and innovative. Imagine if the government tried to do this! They would’ve blown up a 100 rockets by now with nothing to show for it, and it would’ve cost tax payers billions of dollars. The innovation of SpaceX is humanity at it’s finest. For thousands of years we’ve looked up at the sky, and wondered what’s there, and now, thanks to the engineering chops of Elon Musk, it is within our grasp. Imagine that, sending a person to space. Maybe someday we’ll even be able to put someone on the moon!
The efficiency of this is amazing, instead of actually sending it up, and waiting for it to blow up, they have figured out how to blow it up on the ground BEFORE launch. This is the kind of efficiency we need in government programs.
Such a remarkable achievement! We should put capitalists on the Starship ASAP so they can enjoy the fruits of “their” labor!
this but unironically. send all the billionaires to mars!
I mean, is it necessary to have a destination? Just get them going and let them sort it out from there.
Good gods! Captain, The ambient sarcasm readings are off the charts!
It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.
Not as we know it.
Not as we know it.
Star Trekkin’ Across The Universe…
Ngl, had me in the first half.
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NGL got me in the first part :-)
It’s not a big deal when you’re blowing up someone else’s money with no real accountability.
I mean… its a big deal if you’re anywhere near the launchpad. Or, in or around South Padre Island.
Also can’t help but notice that Starbase, Texas is practically hugging the US/Mexico border. Almost as though Abbott didn’t want this shit landing in his own backyard when it failed.
It also helps to be as far south as possible. You get to use more momentum to help get orbit, if I understand it correctly.
IIRC, that’s why NASA launches from Florida. That and the coast making launch failures safer.
(But I am not a physicist.)
Proximity to the equator and high elevation make for ideal launch sites. Then eastward facing, because you want to run counter to the earth’s spin as you launch and be out over open water if something fucks up. One reason why Kenya, Brazil, and Indonesia were floated as a high efficiency international spaceports decades ago, when efficiency was considered more important than inflating a billionaire’s ego.
I mean, SpaceX is a private company owned by Musk…
…That takes money from the tax payers in the forms of grants and contracts (that it has not fulfilled).
And?
MAYBE if we Cut the FAA and OTHER Regulatory agencies it’ll not Explode next Time?
Musk is going to be PISSED when he finds out there is no bureau of physics he can subsume or destroy from within. I believe one Rush Stockton came to a similar conclusion, if he indeed had time for that conclusion to even form before perishing.
that’s how we know Musk isn’t a Nazi, Nazis could make rockets.
/s
(he is a nazi, just an incompetent one)
My feed rn:
I would ride a Honda rocket a hundred times before ever setting foot on anything developed by SpaceX
I imagine riding a rocket like final boss fight in Just Cause 2.
I imagine it more like Dr. Strangelove
reached an altitude of 890 feet
Kids science projects make reusable rockets that go higher.
It’s a test flight. Going higher was likely not the goal.
reached an altitude of 890 feet
300 meters.
People really put the faith of the entire American space program on Elon. It would be funny if it wasn’t so stupid.
It’s less that people are putting faith in Elon (sure, some fanatics might be), but it’s that everyone else is somehow even worse.
SpaceX is actually getting stuff to space, despite their prototypes blowing up. Hell, even if this Starship thing is a complete failure and never works, their existing rocket, the Falcon, is still far beyond any of the competition.
The SLS: $10 Billion and a decade late to develop a ship that recycles old Space shuttle parts, then costs $2-3 Billion per launch, and maybe can only launch one every 2 years.
ULA Vulcan: currently years late, still finding problems, and even after all that gets worked out, it can maybe do 6 launches a year?
SpaceX: 1-2 launches per week.
That’s not faith, that’s just facts. I would absolutely love to have somebody else step up and take SpaceX’s crown, but… there really isn’t anybody. Bezos’s Blue Origin may have the biggest chance, but they are more likely to act like ULA than SpaceX.
Let my try and distill that. SpaceX is capable of doing some good work, when Elon leaves them alone.
Remember, Starship is Elon’s napkin drawing idea of making a big cheap steel tube. Bigger and bader than everyone else! For a mission that doesn’t exist, which it’s not even designed properly for. Starship is 100% Elon’s blunder and he’s made so many insane promises for it that it’s dragging SpaceX down.
Starship is SpaceX’s Cybertruck.
Bezos seems pretty happy with space tourism he doesn’t wanna work for the government. Gotta kinda be sick to want to in the first place.
Falcon 9 has launched over 500 mission with a very high success rate. Of course the bulk of advancement should be coming from NASA and we need to spend more there, but SpaceX is putting up big numbers in successful payload lifts.
The next explosion will occur on the assembly line. Now I call that progress!
If you told me that I’d be cheering for space rockets exploding 10 years ago I would have called you crazy. Incredible how much damage that fiend has done to our society.
It’s incredible, isn’t it? I used to be so stoked on space exploration and all the science that goes with it. Still am, really, but my enthusiasm has cooled markedly once billionaires started throwing dick-shaped space missiles around for no other reason than being able to.
I think Honda has begun building spaceships/rockets too. Think they chose to build the type that don’t explode. link
Japanese cars are superior to American cars, why wouldn’t their rockets be?
Japanese cars are superior to American cars
I had a high school friend who went on to become an engineer at General Motors. One of his first projects for them was tearing down an Infiniti and a Lexus when those cars first came on the market. He said that at the time, GM cars typically had between 300 and 400 production defects of varying severity. When they took apart the Infiniti, they found 2 production defects; when they took apart the Lexus, they found 0.
I worked on the Lexus line in Georgetown, KY one summer between semesters. Their standards are insane. Worked the Toyota Camry line the summer before that.
On the Camry line, if they found a defect, they would correct it, then have a QC stand there and inspect every affected car for the next month.
I stood on the line with a screwdriver to check the tightness of a single screw on every sunroof in Camrys. It was so heavily coriographed, it was like a dance.
Definitely agreed on cars, but Japan’s last few moon missions had several catastrophic failures unfortunately.
I’ll have to read up on that. I didn’t know they had tried anything because of the whole can’t make missiles thing.
The front fell off.
We shouldn’t be building rockets PERIOD. They cost too much and are eventually only going to serve trillionaires.
FIX SHIT ON THE GROUND FIRST
That said,
They did a test from 300 meters, sure it’s cool but I think they have a LONG way to go before they are competetive.
If you like SatNav, accurate weather tracking, and advanced intercontinental communication then ya like rockets ya dipshit.
While Id be the first to ban private rocket launches outright, we shouldn’t abandon the advances of the space age because of them.
the thing is, when you build rockets, and they actually work, and put people on mars, you can reasonably demand that people who demand exponential growth actually go to mars, because earth is already full. this way, you can get rid of the billionaires.
We can’t even handle being a multi-country species, maybe Elon should dial back the sci-fi “multi-planet” miniseries playing in his head…
How many times does this gotta happen before we start calling them missiles instead of rockets?
Putting the Bang back in Big Bang!
good.
sad that he wasn’t on it though.
I feel bad for all the engineers etc who are working really hard on these projects, only to see their efforts tarnished by the flyblown image of the wanker who owns the company.
