Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

Post by grecy » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

nixpulvis wrote: post #217

grecy wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a friend of mine once said: "progress when you're going the wrong direction, is turning around". I disagree strongly. Progress in the wrong direction still teaches you things, and it means you're moving and you've overcome the inertia of doing nothing, which is half the battle. Failure isn't trying and not reaching your goal. Failure is never trying.

By that definition, Hitler was pretty successful. Yes, learn from your mistakes. No, don't actively go in the wrong direction.

Post by _Microft » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

baking wrote: post #210

grecy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime? That's exactly the premise of Starlink. SpaceX know they can launch those things 100x cheaper (1000x ?) than ever before in history, so they're churning them out and throwing them up. Even though the ones going up right now aren't "finished" it doesn't matter, because replacing them with new and better ones is so cheap.

400 Starlink satellites per Starship launch costing $2M is $5,000 per satellite per launch. Basically nothing compared to the eventual mass-produced cost to make each satellite which might be $100,000. https://youtu.be/Exd1IO52exs?t=361

Post by ASalazarMX » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #56

The pace of innovation here is absolutely ludicrous. They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks ? They've gone from a production rate of one prototype in 8 months to one prototype every 2 weeks in less than a year. They doubled the size of their workforce in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna have to agree with the article author here: this is absolu…

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

giantrobot wrote: post #279

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're taking it too literally. No one is suggesting we wear mammoth pelts, only that our efforts will have to be gradual. If we want to survive as a race in the long long term, we have to start colonizing at some point. I just don't see why you're so pessimistic. Let these people go after their dream.

Colonization efforts off Earth can't be gradual. There is a baseline infrastructure necessary for people to live. There are no readily available resources on Mars that exist like they do on Earth. There's no safe places for people on the planet. Everything people need to survive needs to be brought from Earth. Every aspect of life on Mars needs to be bootstrapped from absolutely nothing. There's no working models for…

Post by nickik » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

ilyich wrote: post #282

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #232

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I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. The best example being Korolev, possibly the greatest rocket designer in history (certainly up there with Von Braun and Xuesen, and in my opinion more impressive), who died because he was sent to the Gulags by a bitter politician (this is an incredibly sho…

The only fucking idiot among top Soviet politicians was Gorbachev who sold one of the world's biggest economic, scientific and military powers just for 30 pieces of silver. His predecessors were no idiots at all. They are depicted as complete morons by the western propaganda - it's true. But propaganda and reality are two completely different things. I would advise you to learn history instead of blindly believing th…