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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

#171

Post by the_duke »

matmatmatmat wrote: post #151
throwntoday wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am equally stunned at the level of "pesimism" in your comment. We used to do things just because, just for the thrill of exploration, and pushing the limits of human civilization. If Elon wants to spend his money on this, and the government as well for their own reasons, why are you so frustrated? Plenty of money gets spent on fixing problems on Earth.

I don't believe this is true. Undertaking the risk of exploration has -- I would venture to say -- almost always had some economic, political, or military motive. Someone had to see some potential gain for the risk they were undertaking. To be clear, I'm not frustrated at Elon for spending his money like this. I mean, if it were his money, because it's not. He's spending his investors' money, which he raises for hims…

> What frustrated me more were the comments that appeared to be divorced from reality about what space exploration will bring.

There's not a single comment in this thread that does anything of the sort.

> He's spending his investors' money

All large, institutional investors that invest not because of some hypothetical Mars colonization, but because SpaceX is dominating the launch market, including government contracts, and has a potentially very large upcoming revenue stream with Starlink.

In terms of any sort of GDP comparison, space activities and employee numbers are a tiny, tiny fraction of economic output, so I really fail to understand such complaints.

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

#172

Post by systemvoltage »

jonahbenton wrote: post #168
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…

Sorry, this is such an absolutely absurd argument. What are minimal capital and time requirements to do this eggs in more than one basket thing? Not talking about an orbiting space whatever but a real, sustainable ecology on another planet. The depth of our ignorance even about whole classes of basic science there, notwithstanding the number and scale of engineering problems to solve.... Is there any reality where th…

This is a tiring argument of opportunity cost for Space Exploration. It has been discussed ad-nauseum on HN. It is not a zero sum game - we can explore space and simulatenously do the things that are immediately in need and urgent.

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

#173

Post by lagmos »

kbenson wrote: post #159
matmatmatmat wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument would have a lot more merit if Earth and Mars were similar, but they're utterly not. The difficulty, expense, and risk of setting up life on Mars absolutely pales in comparison to cleaning-up life on Earth. Suppose there were a Mars colony. How many years before that colony could go on indefinitely if it didn't have support from Earth?

> This argument would have a lot more merit if Earth and Mars were similar, but they're utterly not. So where's the better choice for redundancy? > The difficulty, expense, and risk of setting up life on Mars absolutely pales in comparison to cleaning-up life on Earth. First, that's irrelevant, as a sustainable colony on Mars provides something that you don't get no matter how much you clean up Earth. It can be prist…

I don't think your redundancy is in the cards yet, technologically. You'd need a minimum of a few hundred people living on Mars long term and being able to sustain themselves.

That seems ... very far off. I dont necessarily disagree with setting a science mission up on Mars, but i'd strongly disagree with the notion that Mars is even a top priority for a diversification of baskets.

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

#174

Post by systemvoltage »

gridspy wrote: post #70
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…

There are a couple of major reasons the FAA is involved: 1. Fuel-air explosions at ground level can injure people or destroy property (even kilometers away) 2. Rockets on unplanned trajectories can ruin people's day 3. Lots of fuel is toxic, we need to mitigate this. Basically someone has to walk through all the worst case scenarios and ensure that everyone (and nature) remains safe or as safe as it is possible to be…

I am sorry but this is false.

Toxicity and polluting aspects of Rockets is of a negligible concern, Everyday Astronaut (Youtube fame) gets this so often that he did an entire hour long video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4VHfmiwuv4

> Rockets on unplanned trajectories can ruin people's day

Well darn.

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

#175

Post by sandworm101 »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #124
sandworm101 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Notwithstanding the millions that NASA gave them in their early stages. And the billions spent on the technologies that allow those engines to exist. SpaceX didn't invent rocket engines. It stands on the shoulders of many giants going back through Apollo to the early days. There are even traces of Soviet tech in the raptor (ie closed cycle). Nearly all of that work was funded by taxpayers ... and by whatever funde…

Watching the Falcon Heavy take off & land was one of the coolest things in my life. Watching Starship take off, land, and blow up was neat. The fact that these things build on previous accomplishments doesn’t make them any less impressive. Enjoy the ride & don’t poop on the party.

>> Enjoy the ride & don’t poop on the party.

Legitimate criticism of SpaceX fanboys is not "Pooping on the party". People who pretend that this is a ground-up space program, an icon of how private enterprise is always better at everything, need to be educated in the history of spaceflight. I myself could build a car in my garage that is better/faster/cheaper than everything available in decades past. That doesn't mean that I am one iota smarter, better organized or more innovative than the engineers who built those classic cars.

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

#176

Post by mlindner »

api wrote: post #100
narrator wrote: post #81

Earlier 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…

I've come to believe that the most important quality of capitalism isn't markets or some super-human intelligence that markets somehow possess, but simply the ability to bypass stagnant incumbents, entrenched interests, and bureaucracies. In other words the most critical quality is permission-free innovation. In all other systems from feudalism to socialism to communism there generally is just one department or agenc…

> This is also why I disagree with market purists about anti-trust. If a private company gets so huge that it is able to occupy an entire market niche for a prolonged period of time, it's important to do something to either break it up or incentivize other entrants. A private company allowed to remain super-dominant in one sector for too long starts to look and behave like a Soviet bureau.

I would say that if a private company gets so huge and can control an entire market niche for a prolonged period of time, they will inevitably stagnate which leaves them open to competition. The biggest problem issue for such private companies is not that they can control entire market segments but that they can lobby the government for regulations that permanently entrench themselves by making competition illegal in some way. The regulations are almost always done in the name of safety (if we don't regulate this then new unsafe entrants who don't follow all our internal practices could enter the industry and kill people). So they get government regulations created that exactly follow the company's own internal regulations. That both accelerates the company toward stagnation (they can no longer update the regulations) and also puts up walls for new competition as the new entrants can't innovate if they have to follow all the legacy processes.

That further gets trade unions/teamsters involved who learned to follow those regulations in trades schools and further act to restrict any improvement as it would kill their jobs.

Them being a monopoly in and of itself is not a problem, as long as we can prevent them from putting up barriers that would protect themselves from competition once they stagnate.

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

#177

Post by systemvoltage »

asadlionpk wrote: post #97
e40 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Tough times make tough people. But their next generation is usually soft sadly.

Meanwhile here in Oakland, this is what Mathematics teaching looks like in schools [PDF]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...

These people are actively undermining the American spirit - I am saying this as an immigrant to USA and a person of color. I am fine with understanding racism in USA, it is completely unacceptable to inject this into STEM education. The next generation is going to grow up learning more about race at the expense of learning mathematics.

This isn't just my opinion - professors from UC Berkeley/Stanford and many major universities have written an open letter to the California Governor: https://www.independent.org/news/news_detail.asp?newsid=2287

Apparently, the message was clear and the California government is pausing this initiative: https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr21/agenda202107.asp

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

#178

Post by solraph »

paxys wrote: post #5
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 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…

> > The single most important job humanity has is to get our eggs into more than one basket.

> The single most important job for humanity right now is to save this one planet we have from destruction.

Aren't these two sides of the same coin? If we colonise Mars, but leave Earth a smoking ruin, then we've made things worse by trading a planet with a function biosphere for one without. If we wait till Earth is in perfect state before colonising another planet, we'll never leave, and be subject to many of the same risks.

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

#179

Post by throwthere »

SahAssar wrote: post #133
jvm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have some other country in mind that could support a nascent space company?

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

#180

Post by kbenson »

lagmos wrote: post #173
kbenson wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This argument would have a lot more merit if Earth and Mars were similar, but they're utterly not. So where's the better choice for redundancy? > The difficulty, expense, and risk of setting up life on Mars absolutely pales in comparison to cleaning-up life on Earth. First, that's irrelevant, as a sustainable colony on Mars provides something that you don't get no matter how much you clean up Earth. It can be prist…

I don't think your redundancy is in the cards yet, technologically. You'd need a minimum of a few hundred people living on Mars long term and being able to sustain themselves. That seems ... very far off. I dont necessarily disagree with setting a science mission up on Mars, but i'd strongly disagree with the notion that Mars is even a top priority for a diversification of baskets.

I'm not making any claim we can do this right now. I'm just making a claim that working towards this as a goal is important to many people for what I think are understandable reasons.

Also, the sooner you can get to Mars more reliable and more cheaply with larger payloads, the sooner that becomes a reality. Even if it never happens in my lifetime, that doesn't mean I think it's not worth working towards making all those things more real so it can be a reality at some point in time.

> i'd strongly disagree with the notion that Mars is even a top priority for a diversification of baskets.

Without even knowing specifically what you think would be a better choice, my guess is that cheaper, more reliable launch capabilities with bigger payloads will help that too.

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