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SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

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Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#91

Post by damon_c »

JanSolo wrote: post #75
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they traded sometimes dangerous moving parts that could lead to a mission fail to a rarely dangerous pressurized vessel that would lead to casualties? Is this a case of not seeing safety's big picture? Cutting accidents in half (or by whatever) is great, but not if that means the remaining accidents are fatal. A more frequent controlled failure is a much better scenario, but I imagine hurts the bottom line too muc…

I think it's very hard to make that determination. In spaceflight, all accidents are likely to be fatal. Also, I have no problem with a profit-motive; killing your passengers is very bad for business.

Yes in this market, the invisible hand will tend to ensure the success of companies that don't blow up their passengers.

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#92

Post by sliverstorm »

marze wrote: post #69
mixmax wrote: post #23

What this weeks events show us is that space travel is hard. Really hard. Most systems operate in extreme conditions, sometimes bordering on the improbable. Thousands, sometimes millions of horsepower in an engine smaller than a car, cryogenic liquids at -200 degrees celsius cooling a nozzle that is 3000 degrees celsius 5 millimeters away, heatshields designed to absorb obscene amounts of heat, the list just goes on…

Some say this is an "inevitable" result of pushing boundaries. No. This is the result of a poorly managed program. What they are doing is much easier than the Apollo program, which was well managed and had no in-flight failures that resulted in loss of life, while accomplishing an infinitely harder task. This is a tragedy, obviously. But the program is about six years behind schedule, been going for 10 years. The mos…

Some say this is an "inevitable" result of pushing boundaries. No. This is the result of a poorly managed program.

Some of the boundaries that are being pushed are how much oversight, how meticulous, etc you have to be. In other words, how well you have to manage the program, how tight a ship you keep.

Keeping a tight ship raises costs, and isn't the big emphasis of all this privatized space travel on reducing costs?

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#93

Post by pessimizer »

robertfw wrote: post #41
atlantic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is commendable, and is what drives the human race forward. Without these fearless men we wouldn't have gone to the moon. We wouldn't have explored the depths of the ocean. We wouldn't have flown the skies. That's one way of looking at the matter. Another is that without this untrammelled technological evolution (I hesitate to use the word "progress") we wouldn't be living through the greatest mass extinction e…

I think you'll find that it hard to argue that the efforts of exploration are linked to our industrial pillage of the planet.

>I think you'll find that it hard to argue that the efforts of exploration are linked to our industrial pillage of the planet.

It might be hard to argue that our industrial pillage of the planet is solely a result of exploration. Anything weaker than that and I think you have the tougher position.

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#94

Post by revscat »

ceejayoz wrote: post #83
revscat wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting downvoted, but I actually agree with you. Space travel is awesome, but so is living, and right now we are not living in a way that is sustainable over the short term. Space travel is, for me, an anachronistic hold-over from people who grew up with Heinlein, Asimov, etc., but is not something that is realistic given the environmental situation. Realistically, any vehicle that is dependent upon currentl…

> Space travel is awesome, but so is living, and right now we are not living in a way that is sustainable over the short term. Space travel is fundamental to the human species living sustainably in the long term. Correcting greenhouse gasses doesn't help us if the next day we find a planet-killer asteroid is a few weeks away.

While true, it is also not as direct of a threat. CO2 is affecting us now, whereas asteroids, etc., are (thankfully) only possibilities. Serious ones, to be certain, but not immediately threatening.

CO2 is a direct and immediate threat.

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#95

Post by atlantic »

revscat wrote: post #70
atlantic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is commendable, and is what drives the human race forward. Without these fearless men we wouldn't have gone to the moon. We wouldn't have explored the depths of the ocean. We wouldn't have flown the skies. That's one way of looking at the matter. Another is that without this untrammelled technological evolution (I hesitate to use the word "progress") we wouldn't be living through the greatest mass extinction e…

You are getting downvoted, but I actually agree with you. Space travel is awesome, but so is living, and right now we are not living in a way that is sustainable over the short term. Space travel is, for me, an anachronistic hold-over from people who grew up with Heinlein, Asimov, etc., but is not something that is realistic given the environmental situation. Realistically, any vehicle that is dependent upon currentl…

Thanks. I expected the downvotes. But it breaks my heart that we have such a beautiful planet and we treat it like a trash heap, all the while dreaming of Mars and whatnot. Let's put our own house in order before we go off travelling.

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#96

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

melling wrote: post #65
Turing_Machine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people want to do stuff now , not a hundred years from now, and they don't insist on perfect safety. The test pilots were fully aware of the risk, and I honor them for it. There are a lot of people like that. Mountain climbers. Surfers. Volunteer soldiers. Alaskan crab fishermen. You don't see anyone proposing that crabbing be banned until we can develop automated machines to do the job, right?

I didn't say ban manned space flight. We keep trying to restart our space program by sending people to Mars. I think we should start a more extensive national unmanned space program. For example, if the Hubble, or its replacement, needs to be fixed, we should have an unmanned answer, for instance. We should start building on Mars without humans. If our machines can't do that yet, then we should invest in them until t…

I guarantee you that if there was sufficient profit motive, you'd see hundreds of companies being formed to go to space.

Right now the risk makes it too expensive, so the profit isn't there. Much of the work Virgin Galactic and the others are doing will lower the cost eventually. When it gets low enough, there will be people lining up around the block to become asteroid miners, etc.

Lack of willing people will never be a problem.

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#97

Post by sliverstorm »

revscat wrote: post #70
atlantic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is commendable, and is what drives the human race forward. Without these fearless men we wouldn't have gone to the moon. We wouldn't have explored the depths of the ocean. We wouldn't have flown the skies. That's one way of looking at the matter. Another is that without this untrammelled technological evolution (I hesitate to use the word "progress") we wouldn't be living through the greatest mass extinction e…

You are getting downvoted, but I actually agree with you. Space travel is awesome, but so is living, and right now we are not living in a way that is sustainable over the short term. Space travel is, for me, an anachronistic hold-over from people who grew up with Heinlein, Asimov, etc., but is not something that is realistic given the environmental situation. Realistically, any vehicle that is dependent upon currentl…

any vehicle that is dependent upon currently available propulsion systems is a waste of time.

So... what, we just halt development of all vehicles, globally, period? Bye-bye trains, planes, cars, bicycles, and buses?

You can't develop the future of transportation or the future of propulsion systems if you literally shut down global commerce.

Besides, an airplane (for example) is not wedded to the engine. Developments in prop planes carried over directly to jet planes, once the jet engine matured. Any future propulsion system that can replace jet engines will probably not be hard to work into many plane designs of the day.

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#98

Post by jack-r-abbit »

larrys wrote: post #79
jcrites wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most systems operate in extreme conditions, sometimes bordering on the improbable. Indeed. Your statement reminds me of an insightful engineering article, "How Complex Systems Fail": http://www.ctlab.org/documents/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fai... . A few relevant observations from the article that resonate with me: > 1) Complex systems are intrinsically hazardous systems. > 4) Complex systems contain changing mixtu…

The other thing to keep in mind with new complex systems is that they will inevitably go thorough a phase where things are discovered over time. At the start "n" is small 1 flight, 5 flights etc. It's pretty much a given that there will be failures it's just a matter of when and how critical a failure. The failures would be loaded toward happening early on and then fixed so that one particular failure shouldn't happe…

This makes me think of all those crazy warning labels that warn you not to do some incredibly stupid thing (ie "don't use the hair dryer while sleeping"). You know every dumb warning has some sort of story behind it. :)

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#99

Post by greeneggs »

phkahler wrote: post #62
melling wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone dying is devastating. Trying to conquer space a handful of people at a time is the slow and dangerous way of accomplishing this task. We should be building machines to explore the solar system. This can be done for a fraction of the cost, time, and it will allow him to allow us to iterate quickly. In 100 years, more humans will live off earth if we iterate with machines, etc now than if we move slowly trying…

>> We should be building machines to explore the solar system. This can be done for a fraction of the cost, time, and it will allow him to allow us to iterate quickly. One man on mars for a day will be more informative than all the remote hardware we've sent so far. There is no substitute for being somewhere in person.

Can you justify this? I don't understand why that should be. (I also suspect that sending one person to Mars for a day will cost an order of magnitude more than all the remote hardware we've sent so far, so the comparison is unfair.)

Re: SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight

#100

Post by JoeAltmaier »

atlantic wrote: post #95
revscat wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting downvoted, but I actually agree with you. Space travel is awesome, but so is living, and right now we are not living in a way that is sustainable over the short term. Space travel is, for me, an anachronistic hold-over from people who grew up with Heinlein, Asimov, etc., but is not something that is realistic given the environmental situation. Realistically, any vehicle that is dependent upon currentl…

Thanks. I expected the downvotes. But it breaks my heart that we have such a beautiful planet and we treat it like a trash heap, all the while dreaming of Mars and whatnot. Let's put our own house in order before we go off travelling.

There's no reason for everybody to stay home and do housekeeping, then there's a big beautiful universe out there. Dare to dream big!
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