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SES-10 Mission

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Re: SES-10 Mission

#331

Post by sqeaky »

jacquesm wrote: post #204
sqeaky wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are correct for the most part, I would point out that text services have wider distribution even if only for bandwidth reasons. But there are other reasons, there are good (enough) and widely distributed text standards (SMS), but not yet for video. But maybe we are both over thinking it, does the old voice network reach even further?

You can use Skype and similar services without video.

You can but it doesn't fundamentally change my points. The old analog audio network and the text systems have much larger reach.

Laying out enough digital network fabric to have skype and its kind everywhere is an admirable goal though.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#332

Post by greeneggs »

sixQuarks wrote: post #241
ams6110 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The space program of the 1960s, culminating with the moon landings, seems like a far greater achievement to me than what SpaceX is doing, adjusted for the state of the art.

Nasa was spending close to 5% of the federal budget back then, about $35-40 billion per year in today's dollars. The space program cost hundreds of billions. spaceX has done it by raising less than $1.5 billion total

> spaceX has done it by raising less than $1.5 billion total

NASA has itself given SpaceX more than that. Wikipedia says SpaceX has taken $5 billion from NASA, with over $1 billion more from US defense contracts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#NASA_contracts

Re: SES-10 Mission

#333

Post by alangibson »

Congrats and a big "thanks" are also due for SES, for having the brass to put what I'm sure is a spendy piece of hardware on top of Elon's latest comic book science experiment.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#334

Post by SEJeff »

rimliu wrote: post #255
SEJeff wrote: post #53

I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day: Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time? Me: Yes Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive? Me: Yes. And then not long after will be the other talk: Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars? Me: Yes Kid: Did people ever die? Me: Millions Good job Elon…

> Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving > themselves in cars? A few generations will pass till this question will be asked. There might be self-driving cars sooner than that, but it will be a looooong time till manual driving is a very rare thing. Also, why wait for fully self-driving cars to prevent fatalities? Why not to implement collision-avoidance subsystem into the cars which are controlle…

Most everything in capitalist societies is based on economics. If you consider less accidents and fatalities due to self driving cars as an inevitability, then you should consider insurance premiums to reflect that once they're out in the general population. Given enough level 4-5 autonomous vehicles on the roads, you can also eventually expect premiums for non-autonomous vehicles to rise. Then you'll see a shift towards them that continues exponentially.

Thinking the shift towards autonomous vehicles happens linearly is a mistake.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#335

Post by vermontdevil »

ufmace wrote: post #199

Amazing! I genuinely think that this is a bigger deal than the moon landings. The moon landings were pretty awesome in their own way, but at the end of the day, with the way they were done, it was basically a stunt. None of it put any infrastructure for the long-term access of space into place, or anything to make future moon landings easier. This paves the way for the costs of space flight to be cut in half, or even…

Ya know the Pintle injector that Merlin engines use came from the Apollo program.

Just one example why I consider the Apollo program to be one of our greater achievements.

But SpaceX has done a lot on their own too. I'm just glad to be alive to see this.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#336

Post by dotancohen »

JshWright wrote: post #164
SEJeff wrote: post #53

I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day: Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time? Me: Yes Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive? Me: Yes. And then not long after will be the other talk: Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars? Me: Yes Kid: Did people ever die? Me: Millions Good job Elon…

>I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day https://goo.gl/photos/7rT5rxvsP9AxVZxn6 My four year old daughter, watching the launch with rapt attention. When we watched the Echostar 23 launch two weeks ago, she asked why it didn't land... Crazy that rockets landing is already totally normal for her.

My daughters have watched almost all Falcon 9 launches with me, and we still cheer when they land and stay upright. Some fathers watch basketball with their kids who then grow up and aspire to be a basketball star. I hope that your daughter meets my children in the engineering lab!

Re: SES-10 Mission

#337

Post by [deleted] »

SEJeff wrote: post #53

I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day: Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time? Me: Yes Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive? Me: Yes. And then not long after will be the other talk: Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars? Me: Yes Kid: Did people ever die? Me: Millions Good job Elon…

[deleted]

Re: SES-10 Mission

#338

Post by vkou »

rimliu wrote: post #255
SEJeff wrote: post #53

I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day: Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time? Me: Yes Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive? Me: Yes. And then not long after will be the other talk: Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars? Me: Yes Kid: Did people ever die? Me: Millions Good job Elon…

> Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving > themselves in cars? A few generations will pass till this question will be asked. There might be self-driving cars sooner than that, but it will be a looooong time till manual driving is a very rare thing. Also, why wait for fully self-driving cars to prevent fatalities? Why not to implement collision-avoidance subsystem into the cars which are controlle…

"What do you mean, cars were allowed drive faster then 60 MPH, when the speed limits were all 60 MPH?"

"Yes, they were. You could drive a car as fast as it could go."

"Did people ever die from going too fast?"

"Oh, yes."

"And you could start your car without breathing into a breathalyzer?"

"Yes, you could."

"Did people ever die from driving drunk?"

"Oh, yes."

We don't need to wait for the distant future to save millions of lives. Breathalyzers and speed regulators already exist. For some reason, though, they aren't mandated on our roadways...

Re: SES-10 Mission

#339

Post by politician »

Robotbeat wrote: post #321
nickik wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately the market is about putting stuff into orbit, not about putting stuff into orbit with reusable rocket. ULA also has monopoly in Hydolox rockets. That however is not relevant and its not a useful use of the word monopoly.

You're missing the point. It's perfectly relevant to point out that SpaceX is now able to charge much more for reuse than the marginal cost, effectively being able to charge monopoly rent for being the only player on the field with a reuse capability. Of course, it's not a total monopoly on launch period, but that's missing the point. A 30% reduction in price doesn't represent the ultimate lowest cost of reuse becaus…

Indeed, they are limiting the discounts to 10% [1].

> What is your current thinking on the savings for customers using a reused Falcon 9 first stage? Is a 30 percent discount realistic?

> We are not decreasing the price by 30 percent right now for recovered and reused vehicles. We’re offering about a 10 percent price reduction. I’d rather fly on an airplane that’s flown before as I’d feel more comfortable with its reliability.

> At this point that is a reasonable reduction and then, as we recover some of the costs associated with the investment that we put into the Falcon 9 to achieve that, then we might get a little bit more. But in general, it’s about 10 percent right now.

[1] http://spacenews.com/spacexs-shotwell-on-falcon-9-inquiry-di...

Re: SES-10 Mission

#340

Post by atotic »

jacquesm wrote: post #171
JshWright wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day https://goo.gl/photos/7rT5rxvsP9AxVZxn6 My four year old daughter, watching the launch with rapt attention. When we watched the Echostar 23 launch two weeks ago, she asked why it didn't land... Crazy that rockets landing is already totally normal for her.

Priceless :) I was 4 when the Apollo launches happened and I still remember them today, they're probably my oldest memories (others I can't date so accurately so that may be off by a bit). Very beautiful picture, thank you for posting.

Wow. That's my first memory too. I was almost 3.
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