111–120 of 127 posts
> The soon-to-be-astronauts Maybe this is just me, but I think we need a new word for people who pay to take a ride on a spacecraft but have nothing to do with the operation or mission of that spacecraft. "Payload" seems rude, perhaps "passengers"? Whatever they are, they're not astronauts.
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When we're drooling over these accomplishments, we should direct more of our praise to the thousands of really, really good engineers who did the work, built on the accumulated experience of millions, over decades. People seem to be very eager to ascribe success to heroic individuals, and while leadership is certainly something remarkable, I think that there is a severe imbalance in who we're thanking for these achie…
Well, there is a mass grave of failed private space companies that predate SpaceX so Mr. Musk was entering some pretty hazardous territory, business wise. While the engineering work is of course non-trivial, in this case I would not downplay Mr. Musk's role in creating a company that put payload to orbit before becoming bankrupt.
It's as though some smart people said "Hmm, what if we realize the ability to launch payload into space more cheaply than anyone else? What's the most durable moat we could build with that advantage?"
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It helps fund the space industry
appart from meteorological satellites and the like, for what space industry is useful?
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I think the point here is, this is the first "private" space mission that wasn't using government/military hardware or staff. It is a rocket designed by a commercial company, flying people who just made a few calls and then paid to do it. It is pretty wild when you think about it - not so long ago (10 years maybe?) this sort of thing would have been unthinkable . Say what you will about Elon Musk, but you've got to g…
When we're drooling over these accomplishments, we should direct more of our praise to the thousands of really, really good engineers who did the work, built on the accumulated experience of millions, over decades. People seem to be very eager to ascribe success to heroic individuals, and while leadership is certainly something remarkable, I think that there is a severe imbalance in who we're thanking for these achie…
as much as it pains me to say it, but those "really really good engineers" are just cogs in the machine, providing services for money; the management running the machine, ultimately decide which direction the machines runs.
it's a cynical take, but cogs are replaceable, and would (often with not that major of an adjustment) easily fit other machines, ones that perhaps run in directions we don't like or care about.
(like seriously, tech companies like SpaceX etc burn through engineers like crazy, they literally take this metaphor to heart, iirc most fresh engineers last barely the vesting period, much cheaper to replace them with the fresh batch from the next semester)
Therefore the people running the machine are the ones that matter, since they are responsible for the good and the bad.
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> It is pretty wild when you think about it - not so long ago (10 years maybe?) this sort of thing would have been unthinkable . 10 years ago many people thought it would happen well before 2021. The "first operational Dragon spacecraft was launched in December 2010" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX ) and commercial flights to the ISS were right around the corner (cargo first happened May 2012).
I remember going to Disney Epcot Center as a kid and it showed how we would be living on the ocean floor by the year 2000. That is what I consider wild. If you told me as a kid that I will go my whole life without owning a robot and that the main difference is we will replace a rotary phone with a hand held phone I would want my money back. I guess poor Christa McAuliffe has been totally forgot about also.
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While Elon Musk deserves credit for SpaceX, I fail to see what credit he deserves for Tesla. The founders of Tesla and the designers of the first car should absolutely get credit, but Musk is neither. He delayed the release of their first car to get rid of the founder, in fact.
In all seriousness, founding a company and designing[0] a car aren't really remarkable achievements. This has been done many times. What's really impressive is moving from a glorified proof-of-concept to manufacturing at a massive scale—a feat rarely achieved by startup automotive companies anywhere in the world. [0] Especially when "design" really just means an electric drivetrain and bits of custom trim for a Lotus…
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Wouldn't Virgin Galactic's flight be the first for this then?
Depends on your definition of ‘space mission’, I suppose. But clearly there is a difference between a suborbital flight with a few minutes of weightlessness and a flight that orbits for three days.
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No single tech is gonna be the solution here. It’s going to a mix of lowered consumption, more efficient tech, time shifting of demand (EVs selectively charging based on the sun), and a wide variety of energy storage tech. Carbon capture is attractive because it can be used in places where energy density is a critical factor.
yes lower consumption plus stuff. where does space tourism fits in the lower consumption scheme? i just don't get it. what is critical ? for instance is food production (that will sharply decrease due to climate change) more critical than individual cars, for instance? you also still don't answer the primary question i have as an engineer and physicist: which CC tech is gonna work/can be scaled?
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In all seriousness, founding a company and designing[0] a car aren't really remarkable achievements. This has been done many times. What's really impressive is moving from a glorified proof-of-concept to manufacturing at a massive scale—a feat rarely achieved by startup automotive companies anywhere in the world. [0] Especially when "design" really just means an electric drivetrain and bits of custom trim for a Lotus…
Running a mile in less than four minutes has also been done many times. But it's still extremely remarkable to me.