481–490 of 497 posts
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And I still think that is an American cultural quirk. To me that notion is bizarre.
What you people are missing is that Americans don't care what you think.
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But it is the chant we are talking about. I can't think of anywhere else I've been where someone starting to chant the country's name in response to the actions of a single company wouldn't lead to embarrassed looks and face-palming from people around them. This is not about there not being nationalism elsewhere, but about how US nationalism gets expressed in contexts that is not seen as representative of the nation…
Why wouldn't an American company, doing business in America, funded mostly by American government contracts and helping carry out American space priorities, and THEN doing it in a way that brings about the first major advance in spaceflight technology in generations not be a place where they might chant the name of the country that this is all happening in, by and for? > I can't remember a single big work-related suc…
> I'd sure as hell be chanting something.
The question isn't whether or not there'd be celebration, but whether or not that celebration would involve chanting a country name or similar. As I wrote: Cheering and clapping and bringing the champagne out, sure. Chanting a country name? To me that's something people to at football (soccer) matches, and that would seem ridiculously out of place.
Company settings or not, I have never chanted a country name in any setting, or been present while it's been going on other than people doing it to stereotype Americans.
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Why wouldn't an American company, doing business in America, funded mostly by American government contracts and helping carry out American space priorities, and THEN doing it in a way that brings about the first major advance in spaceflight technology in generations not be a place where they might chant the name of the country that this is all happening in, by and for? > I can't remember a single big work-related suc…
I'm not saying they shouldn't. There's nothing wrong with it per se. I'm saying it seems bizarre from my viewpoint, and that it seems like a cultural quirk. > I'd sure as hell be chanting something. The question isn't whether or not there'd be celebration, but whether or not that celebration would involve chanting a country name or similar. As I wrote: Cheering and clapping and bringing the champagne out, sure. Chant…
I think this may be more of a personal quirk of yours and/or your immediate social circle. National chants pretty much abound throughout the world, especially in nations that perceive themselves in high competition with others.
Here's another post I made with some examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11643852
and yes, many are from sporting events, but I've heard people shout their nation name or some national slogan outside of sports enough times to know it's pretty common (but not universal).
(I notice you live in/near London from your profile, don't you ever notice the conspicuous displays of "Britishness" all over the place? I certainly did the few times I was there. I wasn't bothered by it, and though it did take different forms from the way we do it in the U.S. felt it was okay as a demonstration of national pride.)
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Perhaps you haven't taken enough time to observe and understand the conditions of those who are on the receiving end of Americas military-industrial aggression...
I would be wary in making assumptions about a stranger's background and what conditions they may or may not have grown up under prior to immigrating to the US. I can assure you I am more than familiar with the receiving end of both American and Russian military aggression. I continue to find the notion of SpaceX employees chanting USA to be analogous to the rallies of a man who thought it a good idea to send several…
Hey, "Sieg Heil!" started off 'harmless enough' too, yo. All the cool cats were doing it .. at first.
So .. Who knows where all this is going to go .. we may well be on the precipice of an enormous catastrophe, all for the whim of wanton displays of pride, prejudice, nationalism, and awe-/fear-inspiring technology. All I'm saying is, it took a lot of nations for America to get where it is today. It didn't do it alone. And some of those nations were seriously broken in the process ..
(Besides which, there is no such thing as 'USA'.. it is a fiction. Gravity doesn't care about your fancy flag. In space, nobody can hear your chant..)
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Perhaps you haven't taken enough time to observe and understand the conditions of those who are on the receiving end of Americas military-industrial aggression...
I would be wary in making assumptions about a stranger's background and what conditions they may or may not have grown up under prior to immigrating to the US. I can assure you I am more than familiar with the receiving end of both American and Russian military aggression. I continue to find the notion of SpaceX employees chanting USA to be analogous to the rallies of a man who thought it a good idea to send several…
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The energy amount the rocket impacts with is dominated by its speed, not its mass. A small, fast-travelling projectile can make a hole in just about any kind of armour. The terminal velocity is quite low, but that's in part because of the way it is engineered — an ICBM would probably be able to put a hole through a ship deck with ease. While what you've said is true, in practice it isn't a problem. If the F9 first st…
That brings up an interesting question, can't the range safety officer just scuttle the first stage after separation? I can't imagine that they don't have that capability after separation.
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This is a typical engineer conversation. "Oh, I'm sure I know a lot better than the accumulated centuries' worth of knowledge from actual rocket scientists, and I can come up with solutions to their problems based on no in-depth knowledge of the field and a minute's thought."
Not at all, it was an observation that bodies of fresh water exist that don't require huge effort to make massive floating ponds on the sea.
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If and when SpaceX land rockets beyond Earth, that will very much be something to get excited about.
This argument makes no sense.
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If it's such a good idea, why don't all airlines use it for airplane landings?
Airliners don't land on their tails either. If that's your model then Adeline is the correct approach.
Airliners could certainly land with parachutes. They could even glide in for unpowered landings. And doing so would save a lot of fuel in either case. But that fuel savings would come at the cost of adding huge operational complexities, and risks. Powered landings are more precise, more predictable, and more reliable. They reduce operational complexities, even if they are costly, and for that reason they are more than worth the fuel costs. An airplane could carry more weight a farther distance if it glided into landing unpowered, but effectively all landings would become emergency situations, and it's just not worth the small benefit of increasing payload.
The same is true in orbital rocketry as well. Parachutes may seem like a good idea, but they increase recovery complexity and costs, they increase the likelihood of damage to the rocket, they reduce predictability, and so on. Powered landings are the most dependable way of ensuring the stage can be returned and of doing so within an operational profile that can be streamlined and optimized until its very reliable and efficient, just like landing a plane. The fact that it comes at some cost of payload capacity is comparatively inconsequential, as it substantially increases the likelihood of recovering the tens of millions of dollars worth of launch vehicle hardware (which over its lifetime will service launches worth hundreds of millions of dollars).