831–840 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is just the capsule though? There's no stage under them/another cylinder? Module Trying to imagine how big the thing is like 10x10 feet room
ABC News says 330 habitable cubic feet or about the interior space of two minivans.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That we probably could have developed without the space program for a fraction of the cost, if we're being honest I don't think so. Some people are good at small tasks and stewardship. Some people want to ambitiouslyl build. If there isn't a space program, the engineers who were inspired to join NASA cannot be assumed to have gone into semiconductors or material science. They probably wound up, in the alternate tim…
> If there isn't a space program, the engineers who were inspired to join NASA [...] probably wound up, in the alternate timeline, bureaucrats or financiers. I guess this is why in this timeline, all engineers in the world are at NASA working on sending humans to space, and everybody else in the world is a bureaucrat. Do you actually know any kind of engineering that is not happening at NASA? Because it may explain y…
Finance literally bids rocket scientists away from the satellite industry. The result is that erstwhile scientists, people who in another age dreamt of curing cancer or flying to Mars, today dream of becoming hedge fund managers.
Personally, I'd also add "Big Tech" to the list, as per a more recent quote:
The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If there isn't a space program, the engineers who were inspired to join NASA [...] probably wound up, in the alternate timeline, bureaucrats or financiers. I guess this is why in this timeline, all engineers in the world are at NASA working on sending humans to space, and everybody else in the world is a bureaucrat. Do you actually know any kind of engineering that is not happening at NASA? Because it may explain y…
> guess this is why in this timeline, all engineers in the world are at NASA How does this follow? Are you arguing the Moon programs didn’t increase American engagement in STEM? The point is the people who worked on a partial solution to a terrestrial problem because they were working on space may not be inspired—or incentivized—to work on that problem directly. We’re willing, as a society, to spend big on the Moon.…
Nope. You are arguing that without a space program, people don't go into STEM and instead become "bureaucrats or financiers". I am saying that this is preposterous.
> We’re willing, as a society, to spend big on the Moon.
No. Society doesn't have a say in how that money is being spent, that's my original point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're thinking of passenger service, perhaps it is a bit unattractive in the short term. No good launching and landing spots. But for military use - think logistics. Rapid delivery of equipment to unusual places. This applies to civilian purposes as well. All kinds of use-cases for speeding up cargo. The entire economics of Starship and rapid reusability was presented at the beginning of the Starbase work, way ba…
> You might want it to be fiction, but he's been very good at figuring out business plans to leverage his ultimate goals. Not very good on delivering tech though, which is what makes it more fiction than not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But they’re ridiculously good at not persisting with stupid. They are persisting with HLS though.
Ughhh, Elon Moosk amirite? Such a fraud, because [???] I don't really understand why these kinds of comments persist except as some pathological cope when confronted with a world that doesn't work the way you want it to. It's not convincing, it immediately outs you as a zealot, it's counterproductive in every single way. Why keep doing it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But they’re ridiculously good at not persisting with stupid. They are persisting with HLS though.
Ughhh, Elon Moosk amirite? Such a fraud, because [???] I don't really understand why these kinds of comments persist except as some pathological cope when confronted with a world that doesn't work the way you want it to. It's not convincing, it immediately outs you as a zealot, it's counterproductive in every single way. Why keep doing it?
watched this with teary eyes. it truly shows what we can do when we come together and challenge ourselves for the greater good of humanity.
Same. I watched Apollo 11 launch in 1969 when I was four. Watched on our neighbor's TV. We didn't have one. Imagine what we could accomplish if we didn't suck.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Far too dangerous and noisy for that to ever happen, surely. And too fragile/explodey for niche military uses (long range troop drops?)
If you're thinking of passenger service, perhaps it is a bit unattractive in the short term. No good launching and landing spots. But for military use - think logistics. Rapid delivery of equipment to unusual places. This applies to civilian purposes as well. All kinds of use-cases for speeding up cargo. The entire economics of Starship and rapid reusability was presented at the beginning of the Starbase work, way ba…
Surely it's too fragile/explodey for military use - the whole thing's a very volatile fuel tank - could it survive being shot at, even a single high-powered rifle bullet (during landing, or even post-landing) without going boom?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Starship "making LEO" is not a significant challenge--the existing flights have explicitly targeted a (very slightly) suborbital trajectory. They could have done otherwise at any point, but for now it's more important to guarantee that the stage comes down immediately. None of their current objectives require more than ~1/2 of an orbit. Starship v3 flying will be a significant leap, though. It's the first with the Ra…
> Starship "making LEO" is not a significant challenge Of course it is. I say this as someone who sturdied astronautics. You’re broadly correct, though. My point is the action shifts to Hawthorne and West Texas for the next year or so. Then pivots back to NASA for Artemis IV.