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

SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

floridatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 230 posts

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#101

Post by enraged_camel »

icelancer wrote: post #56
jmadsen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Of course, this inefficiency plays well into the politics of one of the parties, who hold a religious belief that private enterprise is always more efficient than government" Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable.

>>Which is beyond ironic to anyone who's worked in the corporate world, but I guess that's for another thread. >>This idea they have that private enterprise naturally evolves toward the most efficient system is laughable. Work in private industry AND government and you might find the comparison a bit more apt, not that I'm a Republican.

I'm a business analyst and work with both private sector and government clients. From about a decade of analyzing how each type operates, I can tell you that the amount of bullshit that goes on in them is about the same level.

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#102

Post by navaati »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #80
ghostcluster wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the idea itself isn't new, but space tech has been stagnant for decades before a company like SpaceX appeared on the scene

No, the original comment claimed that the USSR boosters we're designed to glide and land, which they never were. And rockets landing and taking off many times is a very old idea, also not invented in USSR in the 70's.

Tintin !

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#104

Post by nomercy400 »

So, is SpaceX now eligible for contract-breach money from the government for this delay? I assume SpaceX 'rents' the facility at KSP from the government. If that facility shuts down, then the government isn't upholding their part of the deal with SpaceX.

Say, as a company I had a deal where I rent an office, and the owner of the office decides for 2+ days I have no access to my office, because one-sided reasons, I can claim lost revenue from the owner, right?

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#105

Post by r3bl »

ygra wrote: post #77
mkl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what tmux and screen are for. Windows 10's infuriating restart requirements don't affect my ssh sessions.

Isn't it generally a bad idea to rely on everything (power, network, OS) to remain stable to keep an SSH session open, just so processes on the other end don't get terminated?

There's also mosh[0], as an SSH replacement that is designed to keep the session open regardless of how long you lose the connection.

[0] https://mosh.org/

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#106

Post by alkonaut »

lambda wrote: post #41
bambax wrote: post #28

As a foreigner the whole government shutdown is a thing of wonder: how does it work exactly? For instance, is there no police anymore? How does Congress stay in session during a shutdown? Where does electricity in federal buildings come from if the Federal govt can't pay for it?

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the federal level. Police, fire departments, emergency first responders mostly employed at that level, and when the federal government is involved, a lot of it is in doing some coordination between states, setting standards, funding for various programs, and so on…

What I don't understand is this: why not just change the process so that unless there is any change in funding decided politically, funding always continues as-is?

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#107

Post by alkonaut »

bsimpson wrote: post #60
bambax wrote: post #28

As a foreigner the whole government shutdown is a thing of wonder: how does it work exactly? For instance, is there no police anymore? How does Congress stay in session during a shutdown? Where does electricity in federal buildings come from if the Federal govt can't pay for it?

This is the thing that blew my mind last time: The shoreline of San Francisco is a national park (donated when the military base here closed). There's a restaurant on the shore called Cliff House, whose landlord is the US government. During the shutdown, the government forced the restaurant, a private establishment, to close. The owners and the kitchen staff were not allowed to make a living. And because they aren't…

The way I understood things is that if you are lucky (e.g. if you are military) you get paid when government is funded. If you are less lucky, you are simply furloughed and NOT paid for the time the government was shut down. For example: civilian employees in the military.

(The fact that the dysfunction alone of US government needs a whole dictionary is amusing: gerrymander, filibuster, furlough, ....)

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#108

Post by dEnigma »

nomercy400 wrote: post #104

So, is SpaceX now eligible for contract-breach money from the government for this delay? I assume SpaceX 'rents' the facility at KSP from the government. If that facility shuts down, then the government isn't upholding their part of the deal with SpaceX. Say, as a company I had a deal where I rent an office, and the owner of the office decides for 2+ days I have no access to my office, because one-sided reasons, I ca…

From the context it is clear that you meant "KSC" instead of "KSP", but I think the typo is quite interesting.

For those unaware: KSP = Kerbal Space Program, a video game about space exploration

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#109

Post by pjc50 »

alkonaut wrote: post #106
lambda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to understand about the US is that it is actually a federation of states. Much of the day-to-day work happens at the state or local level, not at the federal level. Police, fire departments, emergency first responders mostly employed at that level, and when the federal government is involved, a lot of it is in doing some coordination between states, setting standards, funding for various programs, and so on…

What I don't understand is this: why not just change the process so that unless there is any change in funding decided politically, funding always continues as-is?

The whole setup is stupid, due to a chain of constitutional oddities. There's no distinction between budget votes and other kinds of votes. Most other systems, Westminster-style or otherwise, have a process which results in either a budget being passed or a fresh election being held which should result in a majority capable of passing one.

The US system has elevated a denial of service attack (filibuster) to the status of important democratic ritual. This doesn't help either.

("Funding continues as-is" may be rendered impossible by external factors, as in the Greek budget crisis.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_supply

Re: SpaceX can't test fire its Falcon Heavy rocket due to the government shutdown

#110

Post by freeflight »

moonka wrote: post #78
ygra wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did go through with a Wet Dress Rehearsal on Saturday, though, which already validates many things just prior to engine ignition. So if they were confident to continue with a static fire on Monday and there were no other issues known I'd say it's fair to blame it on the shutdown. Of course, more issues could arise during the test, but we won't know now.

Shutdown started at Midnight Friday though didn't it?

Officially yes, but I can imagine there being some bureaucratic delay until it's in full effect/everybody got the news. Not a lot of time between midnight Friday and Saturday.

In German radio news, the US correspondent explained that the weekend should still be fine, with full effects of the shutdown beginning around Monday with the new week.

Post reply on HN