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SES-10 Mission

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101–110 of 368 posts

Re: SES-10 Mission

#101
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just depresses me seeing how many people don't have the slightest clue why this is something incredibly remarkable - the complexity behind each and every component, process, research and engineering making this possible - and then start bitching about the new Emoji set on their smartphone

And when, say, an amazing archeological artifact is uncovered, we probably won't appreciate the complexity that went into that, and the folks at ArcheologistNews will be pissed. There are so many fields and so many complex processes. I can assure you that any one of: the world of power transmission, or offshore oil drilling rigs, or commercial shipping, or chemical process design and optimization, or tons of other st…

Well, not understanding such topics deeply doesn't preclude one from appreciating the complexity. You can't expect everyone to be even interested in everything, but a little bit of intellectual curiosity, as a character trait - is that too much to dream of people?

Re: SES-10 Mission

#103

I've noticed that during the webcast they talked much more about their planetary colonisation project than they usually do. I guess it makes sense since today is the first time they actually implement the re-usability plan they believe is the key to this colonisation. But frankly, is the cost of going to mars really that important for its colonisation? I mean, I wouldn't move to mars even if going there was free. For…

> They are talking about building a city on a place where there isn't even breathable air.

Yet. As far as I know, the plan is to create some generators and a basic colony that can terraform the land to try and create an atmosphere on the planet. It's not unlike what they were planning in "Total Recall" but, at least in this case, there's more science to it than fantasy.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#106

I've noticed that during the webcast they talked much more about their planetary colonisation project than they usually do. I guess it makes sense since today is the first time they actually implement the re-usability plan they believe is the key to this colonisation. But frankly, is the cost of going to mars really that important for its colonisation? I mean, I wouldn't move to mars even if going there was free. For…

> I can't help thinking that those people who get excited > about building a city on mars are completely delusional.

That's what they once said about walking on the moon.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#107
post #83

I understand the enthusiasm, but I don't see enough hard data to convince me this will be a commercial success. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... , SpaceX has launched and landed about 10 of these rockets, and has so far reused one. That rocket was first used about a year ago. Factors that might prevent this from making this economically superior to 'just' ramping up productio…

[deleted]

Re: SES-10 Mission

#109
post #83

I understand the enthusiasm, but I don't see enough hard data to convince me this will be a commercial success. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... , SpaceX has launched and landed about 10 of these rockets, and has so far reused one. That rocket was first used about a year ago. Factors that might prevent this from making this economically superior to 'just' ramping up productio…

http://spacenews.com/spacexs-reusable-falcon-9-what-are-the-...

Of course the first missions won't that effective for cost savings, but the future ones will be.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#110
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% is pretty bad. ULA has launched over a hundred times with no failures. The much-maligned Shuttle had two failures in 135 flights (and, strictly speaking, only one of those failures would have prevented a payload from getting to orbit). I'm pretty sure the Russians are the only ones doing worse right now.

But you'd have to compare their first thirty launches with these to compare. Anyway, notice has been served today I think, now let's see what it leads to. For comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thor_and_Delta_launche... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... Of course the beginnings of what is now ULA were much more innovativ…

Well no, you don't have to compare to the first thirty launches with those when we're talking about competition for launch services. Somebody choosing a launch provider for their satellite today doesn't care what the reliability of the Atlas was in the 1960s, they only care what it is today.

If I was arguing that "SpaceX sucks and they deserve to fail because they're so unreliable" then you'd have a point, but I'm not.

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