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SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#131

Post by Ancapistani »

cblconfederate wrote: post #117
908B64B197 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in America things like this can happen. A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission critical hardware to commodity; SpaceX is doing the same thing with flight hardware. Contrast that with previous generation engines (the RS-25 comes to mind) with a sticker price of 125 millions... per engine! [0] [0] https://spacenews.com/aerojet-rocketdyne-d…

bootstrapping itself by extending tech designed decades ago? that doesn't sound right. Until today, the biggest rocket design was still the soviet N1 from the 60s. It's good to celebrate space achievement but rewriting history is annoying

The novel thing here isn’t the tech, but the scale at which it’s being developed and the price point that they’re targeting.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#132

Post by matmatmatmat »

I'm stunned at the level of "optimism" in these comments. Guys, we're not going to be setting up colonies on Mars, we're not going to setting up heavy industry in space. There is literally no. point. at. all. Mars is less hospitable than even the least hospitable places on Earth. "Heavy" industry, pretty much by definition, means it's way cheaper to do it on Earth than in space (no amount of rocket development will ever overcome those physics.)

I'm barely, just barely, partial to the argument that there should be a Mars colony so that humanity could go on even if we wiped ourselves out on Earth, but the challenge of an off-Earth colony is so great, I'm pretty reluctant we'll see anything successful in the next 50 years. Even once you figure out all the mechanics of building something in a high radiation/below freezing/basically no atmosphere environment, you have to figure out how to get a few dozen people to work together for _years_ without interpersonal conflicts destroying the whole mission.

Also, uh, why don't we just fix Earth? Oh, that's not sexy? No, of course not, because real problems are always more complicated than simple, inspirational ideas or a colony run by a dictator.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#133

Post by SahAssar »

jvm wrote: post #119
throw0101a wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only in America things like this can happen. > A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission critical hardware to commodity; Silicon Valley did not bootstrap itself. It received untold billions of dollars from the US government during the Cold War (and lots of stuff happened during the WW2 economy, when the US was the Allies' armorer). Do you thin…

This is such an annoying argument. The government gave $18B to the SLS and so far has vapor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System The government spent $211B on the shuttle program and got 133 launches. SpaceX will probably surpass that number this year at a fraction of the cost. NASA's record on rockets since Apollo has been abysmal. I don't think government is necessarily bad (the Russians did a much be…

SpaceX has had very impressive successes, some government programs have failed or run over budget. Some government programs were also impressive, both in the US and abroad.

I think we can all agree on those points. The point of the GP that I (and I think many others) react to is the "Only in America things like this can happen" part. I just don't get American exceptionalism I guess.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#134

Post by Pokepokalypse »

foxyv wrote: post #80
piercebot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about America (or other countries) that makes you think this couldn't happen anywhere else?

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…

>We hate boring maintenance and love to launches cars into space.

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#135

Post by kbenson »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #132

I'm stunned at the level of "optimism" in these comments. Guys, we're not going to be setting up colonies on Mars, we're not going to setting up heavy industry in space. There is literally no. point. at. all. Mars is less hospitable than even the least hospitable places on Earth. "Heavy" industry, pretty much by definition, means it's way cheaper to do it on Earth than in space (no amount of rocket development will e…

> Also, uh, why don't we just fix Earth? Oh, that's not sexy? No, of course not, because real problems are always more complicated than simple, inspirational ideas or a colony run by a dictator.

Fixing your run down car will never provide the same level of utility and redundancy that having two cars will. Preferably you do both.

If you live in a somewhat remote location, and your wife is pregnant and you know she needs to go to the hospital because of complications, you don't just make sure your somewhat run-down car is in better condition, and gassed up, you also make sure to find someone else in the area that you can rely on for a vehicle because it's that important. When it comes down it it, there are things important enough that you try to reduce thy impact random chance can have on it. Having all humans on Earth is one of those things to many people.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#136

Post by abledon »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #132

I'm stunned at the level of "optimism" in these comments. Guys, we're not going to be setting up colonies on Mars, we're not going to setting up heavy industry in space. There is literally no. point. at. all. Mars is less hospitable than even the least hospitable places on Earth. "Heavy" industry, pretty much by definition, means it's way cheaper to do it on Earth than in space (no amount of rocket development will e…

> because real problems are always more complicated than simple, inspirational ideas

Colonizing another planet 'is' a real problem?

Also, if we can 'just fix Earth' tell us how we convince all nations to come together and sing Kumbaya, put aside our resource differences and disarm all nuclear missiles (I'm looking at you North Korea)

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#137

Post by cblconfederate »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #132

I'm stunned at the level of "optimism" in these comments. Guys, we're not going to be setting up colonies on Mars, we're not going to setting up heavy industry in space. There is literally no. point. at. all. Mars is less hospitable than even the least hospitable places on Earth. "Heavy" industry, pretty much by definition, means it's way cheaper to do it on Earth than in space (no amount of rocket development will e…

If we had our priorities right, we first need to engineer humans capable of living there, and until then send robotic missions. The way things are going, sending humans to mars for a second moon landing tells me this is all a vanity show.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#138

Post by oxplot »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #132

I'm stunned at the level of "optimism" in these comments. Guys, we're not going to be setting up colonies on Mars, we're not going to setting up heavy industry in space. There is literally no. point. at. all. Mars is less hospitable than even the least hospitable places on Earth. "Heavy" industry, pretty much by definition, means it's way cheaper to do it on Earth than in space (no amount of rocket development will e…

> why don't we just fix Earth?

If you’re truly interested to know the answer to this, you can find it aplenty online. And it’s not because it’s “sexy”.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#139

Post by qq4 »

sfblah wrote: post #101

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.

Progress.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#140

Post by cblconfederate »

hirundo wrote: post #2

Elon appears to be building a large ground-locked monument to demonstrate his argument in this tweet: Unlike its aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure. Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars. -- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/13548625…

> the more protection it needs, the more important it is for them to get out of the way of projects like this.

That's a non sequitur

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