Jump to content

SpaceX


Neonmoon

Recommended Posts

I'm torn here -- 

On one hand - FUCKING BRAVO SPACEX.  That was amazing.  A massive huge success getting the integrated vehicle off the pad, fully through stage one and powered staging, and sub-orbital flight.  Those plasma heating (compression, not "friction", you GenX SpaceX BratPack public affairs dipshits) video feed views were fantastic!

On the other hand - I'm getting very tired of the "oh well, we lost another Starship" casualness.  You are eventually going to run out of taxpayer money (funneled through Elon).

 

image.png.f1ee57215efedd6186b1f494f8eb5f03.png

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, RamjetFDO said:

On the other hand - I'm getting very tired of the "oh well, we lost another Starship" casualness.  You are eventually going to run out of taxpayer money (funneled through Elon).

 

I agree with your sentiment.  It's helpful to consider that other Aerospace Cos just lose that money without launching a thing. 

They just burn that money in the waterfall design process.  Starliner?  When will it fly in production?  

I think that Space X has shown that they can deliver, and perhaps more importantly can capture the public's attention and therefore government cash.   Maybe think of these flights as 75% development 25% marketing

Disclosure:  Fuck Space Elmo

Edited by locodos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, locodos said:

I agree with your sentiment.  It's helpful to consider that other Aerospace Cos just lose that money without launching a thing. 

They just burn that money in the waterfall design process.  Starliner?  When will it fly in production?  

This is actually a very accurate comparison and I agree with you.  Good points.

I'm just of the age and environment that if you launch something that done-did-blown-up, you didn't succeed... and you weren't celebrated for it.  NOW - having said that - yes, I get that I'm yelling at clouds here and "things are different old man".  SpaceX is doing fantastic things when they do actually succeed.  I just don't want them to fail when people are aboard because of the cavalier attitude they have now in these design/test flights.

Much like sports and military training ... "train like you fight means you fight like you train".  It's an operational mindset that was burned into me that I don't think commercial space (in general, but SpaceX specifically since they're the most visible right now) has with their operational teams.  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't that their whole approach? To take risks in order to gather real-world data that in the end leads to faster development than if they just kept refining on the ground. It's a move fast and break things sort of mentality and seems to be the reason for their vast lead over all other commercial space.  Look at how they  learned to land the Falcon 9 boosters. I don't think it's a "cavalier attitude," it's calculated risks and when people on board blowing things up is okay.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, horncyclist said:

Isn't that their whole approach? 

100%.  And as I agreed with @locodos above, it's working for them on their commercial space unmanned product line.

 

Quote

I don't think it's a "cavalier attitude," it's calculated risks and when people on board blowing things up is okay.

Ah... here we go.  "Two things can be true at the same time".  

It's ABSOLUTELY a cavalier attitude that has permeated everything that SpaceX does.  I know guys who work there that I trust, and they're very worried.  They see the social-media-driven generation making decisions based on public and fanboi positive comments rather than taking just a little bit longer and doing things right.  Do you think the technical oversight of not launching IFT-1 with flame trench deflectors was because of anything other than GO-fever and not wanting to be embarrassed on Twitter/X?  A total sense of "we know what we're doing, to hell with those old guys" hubris?

Trust me on this one ... NASA's not immune either.  The Apollo guys didn't have this problem, because they were also pretty much the Mercury/Gemini guys.  On Shuttle, we had a transition where a lot of the Apollo guys were on the way out, but some were still there to try to pass along the culture and the mindset.  Challenger happened just as much because of the bad decisions, misdirected focus, and not applying basic cockpit resource management to the decision processes as due to the technical design flaw.  That was a slap in the face and we learned... until we didn't again with Columbia.  

If you think that this culture of backwards-cap-wearing on console, fanboi-screaming adoration, and casually claiming "success" when failure is the real outcome won't come to bite SpaceX in the ass one day... you're misreading history.  There's nothing wrong with staring out by saying "hey, we're disappointed at the failure of the Heavy booster not performing on flyback and we're puzzled and more than a bit worried about what happened with Starship" and then going on to say, but we'll learn from what did go right, fix what went wrong, and those things won't happen again... but that's not even close to the public presentation that they're putting out there.

The story, sadly, is unfolding in front of us unless something changes and soon.

Again - I WANT them to succeed... but I see what's happening based on history and experience.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)

Yep, the current crop of rocketeers in Boca Chica probably think the Navy’s Vanguard program was a success because the engine ignited at the end of the countdown in 1957 and eventually achieved orbit in 3 of 7 attempts.

 

 

E6BDBD29-2F1F-4A6E-965E-118A64D02EF5.webp

Edited by Armybrat
  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...