SpaceX wins $440M contract with NASA to develop Space Shuttle successor

Is anything necessary? It's easy to define away the necessity of anything, even living. The point of manned space exploration is ultimately about colonization. The point is for people to go, to do, to live. And you can't get that with robots no matter how hard you try.

We can no doubt learn the secrets of the Universe through robots, and we very much should do so. But there is more to the Universe than just studying it. We should touch it. Play in it. Live in it.

I think that's being overly and unnecessarily cautious. If we wait until there's no risk then we'll end up waiting far too long. There's always going to be some risk. There's a ton of risk just in getting out of the house and driving on the road. But there's risk in sitting on your ask at home too. Also, a great many astronauts are more than willing to take these risks. If you look at the Gemini program, for example, where astronauts knowingly strapped themselves in to a capsule on top of a modified ICBM which had up until that point around a 1/3 failure rate.

Personally I think that engineering even safer manned spaceflight systems is a good idea and a very worthy goal but I think if our choice was to explore the Solar System with a vehicle no safer than the Soyuz or to stay at home the choice has to be to explore, every time.

> P.S. I'm not arguing either way on whether or not SpaceX will be safer or not than some marker. I'm sure they'll have among the safest launch vehicles ever flown. But my points so far have been 1) Beware people putting numbers or otherwise strong claims on reliability and 2) I've been trying to kick the tyres of the mental tools and reasoning people from a software background bring to bear when trying to understand things like space hardware. There is a lot more to it.

Now this I definitely agree with. I may have misunderstood your initial comment, but I was only trying to argue generally against the idea that Elon Musk is somehow out of line for saying that F9/Dragon will be the "safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown" because what else do you expect him to say? "We'll make it, uh, as safe as we can, I guess. Safety's a difficult concept, and rocket science is hard, y'know?"

You and I both have experience in space hardware (my guess is that you have more experience than I), so we both know how rediculous it is to put a number on things, but in this thread, we were arguing the same position from different directions. You against the sentiment of "of course it will be safe" and me against "they can't possibly know how safe it will be." Does that make sense?

So, dropped the space elevator subject? Did you watch the video? I'm still waiting for your explanation of how the video is wrong and space elevators are practical.

And no, I'm not a partisan anything. The disproportionate influence of those with power in the US is harmful to the interests of every part of the political spectrum, from left to right (including libertarians). With a government more beholden to the people than those in power we might not have better policies or politicians, but at least it would be 'our' fault. This the basic premise of the book I recommended. Which, by the way, was written by a former fan of Reagan and is non-partisan. Would you be so kind as to link me to specific information that you think is well researched and well written, as I have?

1. Oh, so you're saying that the banks were OK with the fact that Americans were still distrustful of them and keeping their money in gold rather than in banks?

2. Are you saying there's a global political class? Besides, the most recent (partial) nationalisation of an oil company (in Argentina) has what seems like the overwhelming support of the people.

3. You're really not giving me much to go on. All I have is "absurd nationalisations of the 1970s" which I'm now guessing refers to more stuff that happened in other countries, mostly not in "the West."

4. The size of SpaceX relative to our economy is relevant if you're trying to say the bank bailout of GM takeover is the precedent that the government will use. And the gov't didn't take a controlling stake in any of the bailed out banks. But, as you say, the future is not the past, so why bother establishing precedent for something?

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> after all, we know Musk didn't 'build it on his own'.

That you have never bothered to find out the context in which Obama said that is very telling. Here it is[0]:

> If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.[1] There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

So, in the sentences before what gets quoted, Obama is talking about "this unbelievable American system" that includes roads and bridges. And it's true that if you built a business, it's likely you did not build the roads or bridges we have today. So, isn't it reasonable to assume that Obama's 'that' referred to those same roads and bridges? Especially when his next point is that government research created the internet. If he really meant to say "you didn't build your business" wouldn't it have been a non-sequiter? And the gov't created the internet "so that all the companies could make money off the internet"

And you can't tell me that SpaceX, of all companies, hasn't benefitted from US infrastructure. They employ former gov't engineers, they transport their rockets between LA, Texas, Marshall Islands, and Florida using roads, bridges, and ports. Paypal wouldn't have existed without the internet. Even if Musk earned his money some other way, SpaceX uses the internet and its technologies extensively. I'm sure most of their employees went to public schools at some point. They're using NASA's launch facilities at Cape Canaveral.

> The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

Pro tip: when someone says "the point is" what usually follows is their point. And in his main point, Obama acknowledges that success is partly due to intrinsic aspects of the individual. And he's not proposing that the government do everything, he's proposing that the government do things like provide fire fighting services[2]. The thing is, those still have to be paid for, which is why he gave that speech asking corporations to pay more taxes.[3]

Here is the same explanation delivered with more humor: http://bit.ly/P2kMWC

If you're still not convinced, what would it take?

[0] Source of transcipt: http://abcn.ws/MrrLdi

[1] And there's no question that Elon Musk received help. One example: he was strapped for cash at one point recently and borrowed money from friends (had plenty of assets, not enough liquid assets)

[2] And even a libertarian would have to agree that the government should do that. Along with national defence, it is a public good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

[3] Whether that is the best way to pay for things is a separate debate I'm not interested in having here.

Yeah, and guns are vastly more reliable than rockets or missiles, too. Sometimes old and simple is the way to have high reliability, sacrificing performance.