Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which will backfire spectacularly when Obama is re-elected.
What makes you think Obama will be allowed to run?
They already thought of that. He won't:
NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
581–590 of 1001 posts
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
China's stated goal is to get people on the moon by 2030. This may slip by a year or two, but probably not much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog... The main hurdle is the CZ-10 rocket, which has not flown yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_10 But they have plenty of rocketry experience and the YF-100K engine they'll use for CZ-10 has successfully flown on the CZ-12: https:…
I’m still wanting a great explanation why we could do it in the 60s, but China can’t do it until 2030s. The reason I’m told we don’t do it today, is that we don’t want to. OK, China does, so what is the hold up that applies now?
2030 is just a little over 4 years away. They have a lot of hardware to develop and test. It takes time to develop good hardware, as the US is also realizing (again). It was about 7 years between the first flight test of any Apollo related vehicle and Apollo 11.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, that’s false. Miniaturization was already underway before the Space Race. The space program absolutely benefited from it, yes. But NASA wasn’t at the forefront of those developments.
I was talking about rapid miniaturization, not just miniaturization in general, which I agree was underway before any space development. NASA literally had departments and budgets dedicated to miniaturization.
I’ll give you an example: the technology in the Instrument Unit on the Saturn V, which was the computer that controlled the Saturn V during launch, was largely derived from System/360. By technology here I mean things like the Unit Logic Devices (ULDs) out of which the logic boards in the Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC) were made. No surprise, I suppose, given that it was contracted to IBM’s Federal Systems Division.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#584Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX has already successfully landed and reused a booster, which is the most expensive part of the rocket. As for the reentry problem, that seems to have been solved in the last couple of test flights. Still much more economically viable than SLS even if they can't reuse the upper stage.
Booster re-usability is only the first half of the problem. It's the second stage re-usability that makes Starship viable despite its massive second stage. The re-entry heating is trashing their second stages which would make the killer feature of Starship, fast turnaround, impractical. Also, as far as I can tell from their last test video, they are still shredding their Flaperons at the joint.
Who cares? Even if they never solve the flap issue, the cost of bolting on new flaps every flight is minimal.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#585Why does this sounds so... Entitled? NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves... Now suddenly there is a new moon race and they start pointing to a public company that is not sticking to a schedule. A company that does some impressive things, and has helped them out (probably not out of the goodness of their hearts, but hey), and is doing things they could not. I would be an adult a…
> NASA regresses so far that they are now unable to do anything by themselves
they handed lots of space exploration stages to private industries, companies like spaceX got decades worth of knowledge exchange and access to nasa facilities.
Somehow people with no skin in the game shout the most stupid things these days.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX and to a much lesser extent Tesla are good examples. Excluding those for a minute, what else does the US have world-leading manufacturing of? Semiconductors? Nope. High speed rail? Nope. Auto industry? Nope. Major infrastructure projects like bridges, tunnels, airports, etc? Nope. Electronics (phones/laptops/etc)? Nope. ????? The US is not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse.
Why mention Tesla in here? They produce 1.8M cars/year while GM and Ford produce 6M and 4M, respectively. (2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_manufacture... )
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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#587There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…
Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy? Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thi…
My first job out of law school was at a 176 year old law firm. New lawyers were socialized to identify with the past achievements of the firm, like helping J.P. Morgan build the railroads. There was a good reason for that: it socializes people to adhere to a culture and practices that have proven to be effective.
You’re right that, if overdone, it can lead to complacency. But if you treat every generation as a blank slate, you abandon the valuable capital of experience.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#588I can imagine SpaceX choosing to self-finance a mission to the moon and beat NASA at it.
I can imagine SpaceX and Blue Origin still sitting ducks if it was not for full knowledge sharing and access to nasa facilities.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX and to a much lesser extent Tesla are good examples. Excluding those for a minute, what else does the US have world-leading manufacturing of? Semiconductors? Nope. High speed rail? Nope. Auto industry? Nope. Major infrastructure projects like bridges, tunnels, airports, etc? Nope. Electronics (phones/laptops/etc)? Nope. ????? The US is not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse.
It is a rent extraction/wealth transfer powerhouse. At least for now.
I'm not sure which company you're referring to here but I do here this claim a lot about SpaceX and while i'm anti-rent-seeking I don't see SpaceX as a rent-seeking company. Yes it has gotten some grants to develop particular programs and promises from the US government to buy services but all up we're talking about (IIRC) $10-20 billion.
We just gave $40 billion to Argentina for pretty much no reason whatsoever.
Now the US government has spent a whole lot more on SpaceX but they're buying services.
SpaceX is an incredible bargain compared to the alternatives like ULA.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have a pretty good chance, actually. They are almost done with the hard parts of the Starship.
> They are almost done with the hard parts of the Starship. That's what Musk wants you to believe. In reality, reusability was the Achilles heel of the space shuttle, due to the thermal insulator tiles that could be easily damaged during reentry, so they had to be rechecked rigorously before the next flight, and the damaged tiles replaced. We haven't seen any of that - so far only the booster was reused, somewhat, as…
Good thing SpaceX learned from that mistake and built a much simpler heat shield out of identical tiles that can be cheaply and easily replaced.