SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#521

Post by runarberg » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

avmich wrote: post #467

ric2b wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the tax payer has paid for nearly all of this and the goal was certainly not for some billionaire couple to get into the hundred mile high club.

Yes, the goal was for everybody to get into the club. Billionaires wold just get there faster, for a fee. Similarly like it happened with aviation. Sergey Korolev was pretty comfortable with the idea.

Aviation gets us from a place where people live to another place where people live. Everyday people are still not going on tourist visits to Antarctica. There is no reason to believe everyday people will go on rockets that takes them to space in any foreseeable future.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by noizejoy » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

jacobush wrote: post #465

runarberg wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the 1910s any more. We don’t risk other peoples lives on exploration. Heroic though it might seem, it is ultimately foolish. We are already exploring the solar system with machines. And there is no reason to risk the explorers life for a more limited and more expensive ways to explore.

A machine can not tell us how it felt to be there, and write a poem about it.

but a good sci-fi writer can

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by gridspy » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

nickik wrote: post #400

tsimionescu wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine the thought process that feels that the IP being owned by a private company who answers to no one and has no accountability to anyone is 'more sustainable' than it being owned by the public through a non-military organization (NASA)...

Because NASA isn't just free do things with that knowledge even if somebody could pay. You live in a total fantasyland when you believe that NASA just having some IP does any good for anybody. You need manufacturing base and a business model to sustain commercial operation. NASA is a government agency that gets its priority sets by a congress that is not very interested in space flight, and putting the budget whereve…

You make a lot of good points, but it's not quite as grim as the picture you have drawn.

NASA had a great deal of knowledge from previous projects which they shared liberally with SpaceX from very early on in their development. Engines such as the Merlin are heavily influenced from NASA IP.

So in essence NASA still is a clearing house of knowledge, and much of the info learned by NASA and SpaceX to date continues to be shared with other providers to the benefit of all.

I do agree however with the sentiment that SpaceX can sell seats or rocket flights in a way that NASA was never set up to do.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by rst » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

plerpin wrote: post #453

spopejoy wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many cheeky touches! It's such a different vibe than the NASA launches of old. It's old news but I still was caught off guard by announcers flatly referring to "Of Course I Still Love You" EDIT this is not a criticism, I really like it. Maybe "cheeky" is the wrong term, I'm bad with Anglicisms

The name felt like a nod to Iain Banks' Culture series, whose AI-piloted spaceships had pretty funny names. https://concord.fandom.com/wiki/Iain_M._Banks_Culture_Univer... (ctrl-f for Windward)

It is. The other one is Just Read The Instructions.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by rossdavidh » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

Does anyone have a link to a video of the booster landing? I could only find a still shot.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by shrimp_emoji » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

trothamel wrote: post #517

plerpin wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name felt like a nod to Iain Banks' Culture series, whose AI-piloted spaceships had pretty funny names. https://concord.fandom.com/wiki/Iain_M._Banks_Culture_Univer... (ctrl-f for Windward)

It explicitly is.

Ironic since the Culture is anti-capitalist. xD

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by mncharity » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:48 AM UTC

PaulVYoung wrote: post #406

For me, the best thing about today (among so many wonderful things) is the pure and utter inspirational value of every moment. I remember being glued to my tv when I watched the first shuttle launch in 81. For me, that inspired a lifelong passion for astronomy, which led to a PhD, and eventually a successful tech career. Today, I sat with my daughters and watched the launch live and then went outside an hour or so la…

I thought this[1] was nicely done, and potentially inspiring for students.

[1] Planet Hunter https://vimeo.com/419873718

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by xjlin0 » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #363

stickfigure wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable. Why would you want to send humans to get it? Space is really inhospitable for humans, but machines seem to like it just fine. Offshore oil and gas mining is rapidly being automated, and if they could, they would eliminate humans from the process altogether. Nobody wants to go out and live on a frozen windblown metal can full of industrial machinery, i…

I don't know much about the intricacies of asteroid mining, but human beings are very capable entities. As great as machines like the Mars rovers are, there's no comparison. A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. When I was reading the daily diaries of one of the rover drivers, it was incredible how much effort and thought went into the most trivial activities. A…

Once the job finished, the machine is dispensable, but the astronaut definitely wanna go home, which will cost much much more.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by gridspy » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

sunstone wrote: post #394

aeturnum wrote: post #205

How wonderful! Congratulations to the entire Space X team, this is a real accomplishment and I'm sure not one that came easily. It's exciting to see relatively small companies fulfilling roles that people thought might require massive military contractors. Elon is an interesting figure. He is, I think, a paradigmatic example of the imperfect creator. His undeniable success in difficult endeavors can create an aura of…

Perhaps a more interesting comparison is between Elon the CEO of Tesla and Elon the CEO of SpaceX. You may notice that these are two very different personalities that serve two different corporate requirements. The Elon of SpaceX introduces himself as "I'm proud to be here representing the SpaceX team." The Elon of Tesla is smoking up on camera, throwing humongous ball bearings at the Cybertruck windows, sleeping in…

I think you're actually seeing Falcon flights have become more routine - it's moved from innovation to operation. So Elon is less hands-on, focusing instead on the innovation around starship (and Tesla).

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

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Post by HideousKojima » Sun, May 31, 2020, 1:54 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #343

TheDong wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you build it, they will come" suffers from confirmation bias. You can easily look back at things people have built and people have come to (computers, planes, cars, etc)... But there are far more things people built that no one came for, and which we don't even know of because no one wanted them. Solar roadways is an example of something that was an infrastructure project that was built out in a few places, and b…

Weren't solar roadways just bullshit and rather thoroughly debunked from the engineering POV from the very start? Concorde also AFAIR was a victim of oil prices. There is perhaps a bit of confirmation bias in this view, but I see people usually erring in the other direction. E.g. there's no such thing as "too fast Internet" today, people find new ways to suck up all available bandwidth.

Solar Roadways was also obviously going to be several orders of magnitude more expensive than traditional asphalt, even with very generous estimates in in Solar Roadways's favor, but people still dumped a few million into that scam. And several governments (i.e. France) even wasted money on larger implementations of it despite failing even the most optimistic back of the envelope calculations.