I genuinely don't understand what the point of all this is. Is this all about sending people to Mars? Is it basic research? What is the end goal here? I don't follow this too much, so I'm hoping someone can paste me a link to something I can read to explain the justification for building this thing.
SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
101–110 of 421 posts
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I think it has a lot to do with American sub-culture, the US dollar, our crazy university system, and immigration. This is speculation on my part so take it with a BIG grain of salt. The USA brings in 50 million or so people from other countries. Often they are bloody minded, stone cold, hard workers that will sacrifice everything to give their children the opportunity to be Americans. These people are so…
> The USA brings in 50 million or so people from other countries. Often they are bloody minded, stone cold, hard workers that will sacrifice everything to give their children the opportunity to be Americans. These people are some of the best in the world in my opinion. Over the last 40 years I've known and worked with some of these people, and I marvel at their tenacity and the sheer force of will they have to succee…
I've worked with a lot of people like that as well. It's always a bit awe inspiring.
I don't know what component is responsible for the difference between immigrants and natives. Maybe it's the selection, the change of environment, the adversity, or sheer diversity of individuals. If we could manage to build an education system that produced students as dedicated, creative and hard working as our best immigrants, the USA would secure a place in history that would make the 1400 years of the Roman Empire seem like a blip in comparison.
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
The single most important job for humanity right now is to save this one planet we have from destruction. There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that. I'm as much into spaceships as the next nerd, but people need to get real. The world isn't going to end because his next launch is a month late due to pesky safety regulations or whatever else. This effort is going to play out over many generati…
I think the best way to save the planet is to move heavy industry into space. Move our power generation into space and beam it down. Make advanced technologies in space which benefit those on Earth. Move people into real orbital habitats. Make Earth proper a gigantic park / nature reserve. We can't "wait" for anything, or the window during which we can develop space travel will close. 10 or 100 years from now we migh…
> I think the best way to save the planet is to move heavy industry into space.
Good luck dealing with the absence of cheap oxydizer and the lack of convection which makes heat dispersion a nightmare.
> Move our power generation into space and beam it down.
Our power is already generated in space, and beamed down to us. It also comes with no infrastructure cost, which is truly an engineering wonder when you think of it.
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#104I genuinely don't understand what the point of all this is. Is this all about sending people to Mars? Is it basic research? What is the end goal here? I don't follow this too much, so I'm hoping someone can paste me a link to something I can read to explain the justification for building this thing.
one objective is to have affordable and perfomant global connectivity
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
One problem with other countries is there is an industrial oligarchy that can't get shake itself out of the "The Innovator's Dilemma." Disruption is not considered valuable. The Russians have two aircraft design bureaus Sukhoi and MiG to help somewhat in preventing stagnation, but it would be impossible for a SpaceX to come out of nowhere in Russia like it did in the U.S. Elon even went to Russia in the early SpaceX…
In almost all other countries the rich use the government to keep competition out. All under the banner of national pride. In Canada we lock out all foreign investment in lots of areas.
I never understood why Canada would restrict international players from disrupting sectors like telecom (a commodity really) but didn't seem to have any problem with Airbus taking over the CSeries program for almost nothing.
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#106I genuinely don't understand what the point of all this is. Is this all about sending people to Mars? Is it basic research? What is the end goal here? I don't follow this too much, so I'm hoping someone can paste me a link to something I can read to explain the justification for building this thing.
Starship/Super Heavy have the prospect of dramatically reducing the cost of launch to orbit, the moon, and beyond.
NASA has selected the platform for supply to the Lunar Gateway.
SpaceX wants to use it to take humans to Mars.
But it's also a decent platform for just getting lots and lots of mass into LEO.
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#107I genuinely don't understand what the point of all this is. Is this all about sending people to Mars? Is it basic research? What is the end goal here? I don't follow this too much, so I'm hoping someone can paste me a link to something I can read to explain the justification for building this thing.
Elon Musk claims this is all to establish a civilisation on Mars in order to decrease the chance of humanity destroying itself. He might not have an entirely faithful relationship with the truth, but there is really no other rational reason to be so aggressive with the Starship program. SpaceX already does the vast majority of commercial launches using its Falcon 9 rocket, so they don't need to do anything this drastic.
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that you could probably build a Merlin out of solid gold and it would come in cheaper than an RS-25, that's not exactly saying much...
Maybe not once you consider the R&D costs of figuring out how not to melt a solid gold Merlin engine ;)
There is that... ;-)
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
In almost all other countries the rich use the government to keep competition out. All under the banner of national pride. In Canada we lock out all foreign investment in lots of areas.
I never understood why Canada would restrict international players from disrupting sectors like telecom (a commodity really) but didn't seem to have any problem with Airbus taking over the CSeries program for almost nothing.
> disrupting sectors like telecom
Perhaps the government doesn't like foreigns tapping Canadians' communications? The NSA listens in on its own citizens with the coöperation of the US telcos, so what chance would foreigners have?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
As a Canadian I would certainly like more competition, but I can certainly see the reasoning.
Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the best way to save the planet is to move heavy industry into space. Move our power generation into space and beam it down. Make advanced technologies in space which benefit those on Earth. Move people into real orbital habitats. Make Earth proper a gigantic park / nature reserve. We can't "wait" for anything, or the window during which we can develop space travel will close. 10 or 100 years from now we migh…
> I think the best way to save the planet is to move heavy industry into space. Move our power generation into space and beam it down. Wasn't one of the disasters in Simcity 2000 having your power-beaming space laser miss your power station instead light your city on fire? It seems like such a thing would cause massive hazards. > Move people into real orbital habitats. > Make Earth proper a gigantic park / nature res…
I don't know anything about the physical feasibility of any of this but honestly I don't think 'argument by video game' is terribly convincing.