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Private company landing on the moon today

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Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#191

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

kragen wrote: post #117
adityaathalye wrote: post #2

The private lander's mission control looks like the proverbial two-pizza team. Would it that the silent revolution in spaceflight, hidden under the glamour of reusable rockets, is incredibly sophisticated telemetry, communication, on-board automation? A computing stack that's making the 1x mission control a 10x mission control? I understand there will be other teams elsewhere (delivery vehicle, remote sensing etc. et…

better, lighter-weight computing stacks have been a huge boost; that's what made cubesats possible. but the much bigger deal is the dramatic drop in launch costs driven by spacex, even though so far that's only a factor of 3.4 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-e... with lightweight computers driven by the cellphone industry, it became possible for a small team or even individual to launch a l…

The decline in price per kg from Falcon 9 has made a big difference and yet it's nowhere near as impactful as Starship is going to be... falcon 9 is either too powerful for LEO missions and limited by fairing volume( so can't really launch space stations on a falcon 9) or too weak to push further into GEO and into the solar system. Starship will enable a lot of LEO applications previously unthinkable.

Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#192

Post by spiderfarmer »

ethbr1 wrote: post #170
spiderfarmer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US: 40 per 100k NL: 7.1 per 100k I think I'll continue to draw "unreasonable" conclusions.

If you'd wanted to make the stronger case, you could have used those numbers the first time. ;)

I fail to see how you made a valid counter argument though.

Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#193

Post by lukan »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #190
lukan wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they would have build and operated the rocket themself (and not SpaceX), I would consider that a false clickbait headline.

Flying to the moon is the easy part. Landing is the trick.

Flying is not so easy either, and the landing is done by the private company, not by the school.

Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#194

Post by lukan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #184
lukan wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they would have build and operated the rocket themself (and not SpaceX), I would consider that a false clickbait headline.

A decade ago, maybe. Today? SpaceX is commoditizing access to space - we're at the point we can start treating Earth-orbit delivery as a given, i.e. just a service you pay money for.

Earth orbit maybe. But here we are at earth-moon. And the lander is not build or operated by the school/university either.

Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#195

Post by anigbrowl »

dylan604 wrote: post #19
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels unnecessary cynical. I could understand if the spacecraft said "Drink Ovaltine" or something else just advertising with paid placement, but the brand marks on it are just highlighting the organizations the actually built the thing . I was originally confused/skeptical about Columbia, but they did actually contribute to the design and construction of the lander, even if this press release is a little puffed…

Eventually, spacecraft will look like a NASCAR paint job.

Perhaps briefly. Eventually they will look like cargo ships.

Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#196

Post by FredPret »

pierat wrote: post #166
FredPret wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go away, libertarian. I am not one of you. A little bit less anger is called for here. I'm not an American voter but this sort of thing is just a turn-off and pushes people away into the extremes. Wanting lower taxes and more individual freedom != Randian libertarianism, in much the same way as wanting a better safety net != Marxism. You complain about both abortion rights and paying 40% tax. Well, the state is spe…

> A little bit less anger is called for here. I'm not an American voter but this sort of thing is just a turn-off and pushes people away into the extremes. Fair enough, my apologies. However the "Ironically the government could dramatically improve matters by interfering in your private life less" is a direct libertarian dog whistle. And my complaint about 40% tax isn't complaining about the tax per se, but that I wa…

> Fair enough, my apologies.

No problem. I'm not American so there's little point in swaying me one way or the other.

I agree with you on pretty much all of it, but I don't think that my other statement was a libertarian dog whistle. It's just a policy that I think would work - the government is for running the justice system, defence, taking out the garbage, maybe a social safety net depending on who you ask, stuff like that. A little bit of libertarianism (certainly not all of it) is the perfect cure for a Handmaid's Tale scenario.

Just one last point - some countries are certainly much better than others. I'm from Africa, have lived in Europe, and now I live in Canada, which is the best of all in my opinion. The USA though is amazing and far ahead of the rest in many ways - the drawbacks have been discussed but all that economic and social freedom does not count for nothing. I think all advanced countries have something to offer to someone who's aligned the right way. For 40% tax you'd expect a whole lot of nice things though!

Re: Private company landing on the moon today

#197

Post by spiderfarmer »

jeremiahbuckley wrote: post #74
spiderfarmer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Dutch, an additional 5k per month would not buy me the feeling of safety I enjoy in the Netherlands. It's not just medical bills. It's also the crime and rape rates. You don't cover death and trauma with insurance.

Oh, yeah, can't help you there. I was thinking you were commenting as a person in a blue state worried about a red state political policy. There's blue vs red and then there's Europe vs US. A whole different order of magnitude. I mean all the same economic freedom vs policy concerns trade-offs still apply; but I'm well aware that there is a massive rift in risk comprehension going in both directions. The US is huge a…

The lack of thoughtful urban planning is only a small factor. Yes, you have 30% more traffic related deaths, but check all other quality of living related indices and you can only conclude the US is a not even competing.

As a result, check your position in the happiness index and wonder if you, as a country, maybe fail your citizens. The only index where the US is leading is GDP, and that’s not a big factor in anyone’s life.

You can’t put a price on feeling safe. There are lots of tiktok and yt videos of expats living here who explain just that.

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