Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starship is still not understood

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 364 posts

Re: Starship is still not understood

#21

Post by wokwokwok »

theshadowknows wrote: post #6

I know that going into space is sexy and nerdy and cool and that it’s a difficult problem. What I don’t get is why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire..and people elsewhere who don’t have access to water at all. Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go u…

This is a difficult argument to argue with because it doesn’t have any constraints.

Instead of doing X why don’t we do any of the Y other things we could do?

Surely, at least some subset of Y is more important than X, right?

…but, is it?

Are we better off, specifically with spending slightly more money on proving people with water, than having weather forecasts that can help thousands of farmer provide better yields and grow more food?

Could we not say, spend a little bit less on building guns and use that money to do it instead? There’s loads more money in guns than space and hell, and wtf are the people crying for us to stop doing that?

My observation has been, that people who want space funding redirected are not familiar with the benefits it provides, and fail to understand that the funding is, actually, insignificant.

There’s a good write up of this here: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasa-budget

What wrong with investing in science?

:(

Re: Starship is still not understood

#22

Post by gameswithgo »

ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

Yeah if starship gets to orbit and lands both stages, NASA will start talking about it more. At the moment brief static fire tests still knock off multiple heat tiles. Still a long way from knowing it will be viable for humans to fly on.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#25

Post by ahartmetz »

blkhawk wrote: post #14
twic wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved this bit: > McMaster-Carr already stocks thousands of parts that will work in mines, on oil rigs, and any number of other horrendously corrosive, warranty voiding environments compared to which the vacuum of space is delightfully benign. Yeah, working underwater means it'll work in space no problem!

I don't think it means that you take the underwater parts and use them in space - it means that it was possible to make it work in adverse environments at cheaper than NASA prices.

Space is probably harder just because there is less experience and it's much more difficult to get it. Temperature extremes and lubricants seem to be obvious difficulies.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#26

Post by soco »

ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

In other words, NASA doesn't want to move fast and break things.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#27

Post by Loic »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #20
ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

I'm not sure that NASA designs much. JPL designs and builds most of the probes launched by NASA. JPL is an anomaly in the Federal Government where it gets good results. It would be interesting to look into how JPL does so well relative to other agencies and contractors such as Boeing (which is a national embarrassment).

People with passion. JPL people were/are (and I hope will continue to be) believer in the purpose of what they are doing.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#28

Post by bryanlarsen »

ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

NASA just announced that they want to spend $1B per launch for SLS once a year until 2050. For a capability less than what SpaceX might provide for $10M.

That's not sensible risk management, that's head in the sand denialism.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/nasa-wants-to-buy-sl...

Re: Starship is still not understood

#29

Post by aero-glide2 »

Loic wrote: post #27
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that NASA designs much. JPL designs and builds most of the probes launched by NASA. JPL is an anomaly in the Federal Government where it gets good results. It would be interesting to look into how JPL does so well relative to other agencies and contractors such as Boeing (which is a national embarrassment).

People with passion. JPL people were/are (and I hope will continue to be) believer in the purpose of what they are doing.

Interestingly, the author himself works for JPL.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#30

Post by panick21_ »

ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

> I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high.

I think the risk of not doing so is to high.

And NASA is already relaying on it. They have had all the data and they selected it for Human Landing System. They knew what it required and they were comfortable with it.

> If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises

It doesn't have to deliver on everything to be worth designing for it.

> But that leaves them with no backup plan

Going back what they always did before is the backup plan.

How come wasting 20 billion on SLS is totally reasonable, but risking a few billion on starting with designing for a rocket that doesn't exist isn't.

> I think once Starship has proven itself capable of deliver on its promises, you’ll see NASA changing its approach radically in the manner the author describes.

But that will leave a years to decade long gap of actually profiting from it.

> but a different calibration of “risk”

Yes an incredibly conservative one that would have meant the US could never go to the moon.

Post reply on HN