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Posted
11 minutes ago, Bama Llama said:

Trump and Musk both make me puke.  That said, show me NASA landing a huge booster smack on the “X” mark on the deck of a fucking barge at sea, no less, and then I’ll concede an edge to NASA.  Then again, I made a C in high school physics so WTF do I know? I know I will die and be cremated and my ashes will be scattered to the four winds with me ever having voted for a Republican candidate in a presidential election. And I have voted in all them since 1972, inclusive.  And Joe Namath was across the goal line in the Orange Bowl. And the score is still Texas 21, Alabama 17. I don’t trust “the cloud,” either. 

Of course they can, its just shitty calculations nobody bothered to because nobody cared, and before people still harp but duh that was the frugal genius of Musk, he is still beholden to the fuel tyranny equation. Which still means extremely expensive launches.

Musk is a con man

https://faustusnotes.com/2022/11/23/how-much-do-spacex-rocket-launches-really-cost/

Conclusion

The final conclusion of all of this is that SpaceX are lying about the price to launch stuff into space on their rockets, and the media are uncritically repeating their fabricated price without checking its validity, comparing it with other prices available on the SpaceX website, comparing it with the prices that would be implied by SpaceX’s government contracts, or looking at the evidence from actual SpaceX flight data. The true price of launching stuff into space on a SpaceX rocket is likely more like $6,000/kg, more than twice the number they are citing.

It is also clear that reusability has not driven down the price of launches. Reusability incurs a payload penalty, since the rocket needs to be stronger and some fuel needs to be reserved for re-entry. Reusability is also not a radical new idea: the space shuttle’s booster rockets were reusable, and SpaceX’s sole advance on this 1980s technology has been to land them on a barge rather than beside one. This likely speeds up the time to return them to use, and slightly reduces the penalty incurred for robustness (since the rockets don’t need to resist the crash into the water) but it also significantly increases the amount of reserve fuel needed for re-entry. In fact United Launch Alliance (ULA), a SpaceX competitor, analysed reusability and found that it does not necessarily deliver much cost benefit for these reasons. There are formulae for the calculation of how many re-uses are needed for a recyclable rocket to be cheaper than an expendable one, available at the documents linked in this discussion board, and they suggest that in general it only reduces costs in the long-run by about 5%. So no, SpaceX has not revolutionized anything in this regard either.

So in conclusion, SpaceX is not revolutionizing space travel, it has not driven prices down at all relative to the long-term trend, launches with SpaceX cost considerably more than their PR suggests, and SpaceX is essentially a low-quality internet service provider with a side-hustle in military contracting, being heavily propped up by murky venture capital. Elon Musk is not, and never will be, anything except a scammer, and in future decades people will look back on how he was viewed in this period with confusion, scorn and disbelief.

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Posted
24 minutes ago, Bama Llama said:

Trump and Musk both make me puke.  That said, show me NASA landing a huge booster smack on the “X” mark on the deck of a fucking barge at sea, no less, and then I’ll concede an edge to NASA.  Then again, I made a C in high school physics so WTF do I know? I know I will die and be cremated and my ashes will be scattered to the four winds with me ever having voted for a Republican candidate in a presidential election. And I have voted in all them since 1972, inclusive.  And Joe Namath was across the goal line in the Orange Bowl. And the score is still Texas 21, Alabama 17. I don’t trust “the cloud,” either. 

Ooooh, they landed a booster on the deck of a barge.  NASA put men on the fucking moon, dipshit.

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Posted
40 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:


 

Just to clarify further:

 

image.png.1027e03e108eb7726071e06703325b11.png


Shocking I know, but he was an advisor for Ron Paul.  I assumed when I started seeing his tweets it was a parody account.   Nope.  
 

also, there is zero % chance he was fucking anyone other than his hand. 

Posted
28 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Ooooh, they landed a booster on the deck of a barge.  NASA put men on the fucking moon, dipshit.

Grand salami!

Posted (edited)

https://babylonbee.com/news/judge-determines-trump-will-get-the-nation-on-weekdays-while-musk-gets-every-other-weekend-and-holidays

 

Quote

Judge Determines Trump Will Get The Nation On Weekdays, While Musk Gets Every Other Weekend And Holidays

As the American people sat back helplessly and watched a once-close relationship fall apart, a judge issued a ruling that President Donald Trump would get the nation on weekdays, while Elon Musk would get it every other weekend and on holidays.

The tumultuous split of the previously happy billionaires grabbed headlines this week, culminating in both parties going to court to seek a fair custody agreement of the United States of America.

"We got a good deal, though I do believe the nation belongs with me," Trump told reporters after the judge's ruling was announced. "A president is like a father. I am the father of this country. The best one it has ever had, maybe ever. Except for George Washington. But he had a ponytail. You can't really trust a guy with a ponytail, from what I've been told. But Elon can still visit. For now. If he keeps this up, that might change. He should be careful, believe me."

Musk was diplomatic in his response to the judge's decision. "We will abide by the court order," he said in a statement. "It's important for America to know that President Trump and I still love each other, it's just a different type of love now than it was before. We still want what's best for this country, we are just living different lives now. This isn't America's fault. Sometimes, billionaires just grow apart."

At publishing time, the White House issued a statement clarifying that President Trump would be responsible for taking the nation to all of its baseball practices and piano lessons. 

Edited by Superhero
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Posted (edited)
1 minute ago, Ted Lange said:

He ain’t doing shit   TACO

 

“So we’ll see what happens.”

One of my least favorite phrases of his, probably only behind tremendous. 

Edited by Biff Tannen
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Posted
2 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Ooooh, they landed a booster on the deck of a barge.  NASA put men on the fucking moon, dipshit.

And got them home. That's always been the most amazing part of the whole thing to me.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

The reusable, landable boosters were built on top of original NASA designs that were never built because they were deemed too costly at the time. NASA put people on the moon, multiple times, almost 60 years ago. NASA has successfully landed and operated like a dozen different rovers or other vehicles on fucking Mars, starting in the 1970s. NASA operated a fully reusable and highly successful (aside from a pair of spectacular and deadly failures) space plane for 30 years, starting in the early 1980s. There is a much longer list than this I'm not going to bother going into, I think you get the point.

SpaceX has nothing, and I mean NOTHING on NASA. This is why it is such a complete fucking travesty that it has basically been allowed to absorb a great deal of NASA, aside from special operations like JPL.

Yes, NASA has been increasingly abdicating to private industry, starting, surprise, during the Reagan administration.

So, yeah, comparing today's hollowed-out NASA to SpaceX, or Boeing or whatever, is unfavorable.

Comparing Mercury, Gemini, Apollo NASA to SpaceX is a big win for NASA.

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Posted
3 hours ago, Bama Llama said:

show me NASA landing a huge booster smack on the “X” mark on the deck of a fucking barge at sea, no less, and then I’ll concede an edge to NASA

How about the rest of the rocket?

Posted

Going back to SpaceX as a company and the cancelling of the contracts, often overlooked is the economic ideology of fascism: corporatism, officially third way economics (but everyone and their grandma invented a third way economics at least once), the idea was that the commies did nationalizations and the capitalists did the invisible hand. Fascists were "smarter" though, they would command industry without taking it over like the commies, but would let the ideologically aligned oligarch profit and control the government.

This is why Russia is currently fascist rich people making lots of money but they had to kiss the ring of dear leader, otherwise they are not only stripped of government contracts but the oligarchs are imprisoned, shot, etc.

Guess Donny's prefered economic model?

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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yes, NASA has been increasingly abdicating to private industry, starting, surprise, during the Reagan administration.

So, yeah, comparing today's hollowed-out NASA to SpaceX, or Boeing or whatever, is unfavorable.

Comparing Mercury, Gemini, Apollo NASA to SpaceX is a big win for NASA.

Even today, NASA is still the gold standard because of its R&D prowess. Mainly because of entities like JPL (which is unquestionably unmatched worldwide) that has managed to remain in the public sector, free of the meddling of capital interests, and remain managed/administered by one of the top academic scientific research institutes in the world.

I think people often forget that these private space agencies all borrow heavily from and heavily collaborate with NASA R&D (not just SpaceX) and are not shitting out these technologies and vehicles on their own. Not saying this is a good thing, private space agencies should all fuck off, shrivel up and die.

The only good way to research, develop, manufacture, assemble, and utilize space vehicles is when the project is managed by public sector engineers. Period. Anyone who argues against that is a complete fucking moron with no understanding that history has already well vindicated this position.

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Posted
Even today, NASA is still the gold standard because of its R&D prowess. Mainly because of entities like JPL (which is unquestionably unmatched worldwide) that has managed to remain in the public sector, free of the meddling of capital interests, and remain managed/administered by one of the top academic scientific research institutes in the world.
I think people often forget that these private space agencies all borrow heavily from and heavily collaborate with NASA R&D (not just SpaceX) and are not shitting out these technologies and vehicles on their own. Not saying this is a good thing, private space agencies should all fuck off, shrivel up and die.
The only good way to research, develop, manufacture, assemble, and utilize space vehicles is when the project is managed by public sector engineers. Period. Anyone who argues against that is a complete fucking moron with no understanding that history has already well vindicated this position.

A private company can build a road from Round Rock to Kyle, but they can’t build a road from LA to Jacksonville. It’s a scale issue. Big projects require big resources or corners have to be cut and you get…

giphy.gif
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Posted
12 hours ago, linux said:

Of course they can, its just shitty calculations nobody bothered to because nobody cared, and before people still harp but duh that was the frugal genius of Musk, he is still beholden to the fuel tyranny equation. Which still means extremely expensive launches.

Musk is a con man

https://faustusnotes.com/2022/11/23/how-much-do-spacex-rocket-launches-really-cost/

Conclusion

The final conclusion of all of this is that SpaceX are lying about the price to launch stuff into space on their rockets, and the media are uncritically repeating their fabricated price without checking its validity, comparing it with other prices available on the SpaceX website, comparing it with the prices that would be implied by SpaceX’s government contracts, or looking at the evidence from actual SpaceX flight data. The true price of launching stuff into space on a SpaceX rocket is likely more like $6,000/kg, more than twice the number they are citing.

It is also clear that reusability has not driven down the price of launches. Reusability incurs a payload penalty, since the rocket needs to be stronger and some fuel needs to be reserved for re-entry. Reusability is also not a radical new idea: the space shuttle’s booster rockets were reusable, and SpaceX’s sole advance on this 1980s technology has been to land them on a barge rather than beside one. This likely speeds up the time to return them to use, and slightly reduces the penalty incurred for robustness (since the rockets don’t need to resist the crash into the water) but it also significantly increases the amount of reserve fuel needed for re-entry. In fact United Launch Alliance (ULA), a SpaceX competitor, analysed reusability and found that it does not necessarily deliver much cost benefit for these reasons. There are formulae for the calculation of how many re-uses are needed for a recyclable rocket to be cheaper than an expendable one, available at the documents linked in this discussion board, and they suggest that in general it only reduces costs in the long-run by about 5%. So no, SpaceX has not revolutionized anything in this regard either.

So in conclusion, SpaceX is not revolutionizing space travel, it has not driven prices down at all relative to the long-term trend, launches with SpaceX cost considerably more than their PR suggests, and SpaceX is essentially a low-quality internet service provider with a side-hustle in military contracting, being heavily propped up by murky venture capital. Elon Musk is not, and never will be, anything except a scammer, and in future decades people will look back on how he was viewed in this period with confusion, scorn and disbelief.

I'm sorry. I hate Musk. But this post is absolute nonsense. SpaceX has single handedly taken over the launch industry because of its cost and cadence advantage with re-use. ULA barely does anything anymore. Russia dominated the launch space just 15 years ago and disappeared because of SpaceX. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

The only good way to research, develop, manufacture, assemble, and utilize space vehicles is when the project is managed by public sector engineers. Period. Anyone who argues against that is a complete fucking moron with no understanding that history has already well vindicated this position.

People arguing otherwise don't care about science and exploration - the most important thing to them is sweet sweet profit. If there's no profit, it's not worth doing in their view 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

I'm sorry. I hate Musk. But this post is absolute nonsense. SpaceX has single handedly taken over the launch industry because of its cost and cadence advantage with re-use. ULA barely does anything anymore. Russia dominated the launch space just 15 years ago and disappeared because of SpaceX. 

i only really started hating musk a couple of years ago but tolerated him for what he was doing to, yes, i will repeat it, make humanity a multi-planetary species

i stopped cheering for starship in january

with those caveats......

@Brian Fantana posted this which got the most rep in this thread so i'll re-post.... and before my replies, i am paging @RamjetFDO for his take on this topic....  for those that don't know he worked in the shuttle program

Quote

 The reusable, landable boosters were built on top of original NASA designs that were never built because they were deemed too costly at the time. NASA put people on the moon, multiple times, almost 60 years ago. NASA has successfully landed and operated like a dozen different rovers or other vehicles on fucking Mars, starting in the 1970s. NASA operated a fully reusable and highly successful (aside from a pair of spectacular and deadly failures) space plane for 30 years, starting in the early 1980s. There is a much longer list than this I'm not going to bother going into, I think you get the point.

SpaceX has nothing, and I mean NOTHING on NASA. This is why it is such a complete fucking travesty that it has basically been allowed to absorb a great deal of NASA, aside from special operations like JPL. 

@RamjetFDO i know this forum is not your cup of tea however your take is backed by more street cred than anyone else on this board..... 

Posted
19 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i only really started hating musk a couple of years ago but tolerated him for what he was doing to, yes, i will repeat it, make humanity a multi-planetary species

Arrested Development Eye Roll GIF

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Posted
2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Oh the one that everyone has known about for a decade and didn’t make one damn but of difference?  Neat

Pretty sure that’s the joke.

Posted
1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

I'm sorry. I hate Musk. But this post is absolute nonsense. SpaceX has single handedly taken over the launch industry because of its cost and cadence advantage with re-use. ULA barely does anything anymore. Russia dominated the launch space just 15 years ago and disappeared because of SpaceX. 

It has taken over because it is backed by large amounts of venture capital, once it dries up and assuming the market remains open tender they will go back in line, and yes that includes starship's incremental nonsense, so much so for "revolution"

Had you bothered to read my link

 

image.thumb.png.4bc08db00bac898fbfc5fb7096c1f7f6.png

That is it that is why spaceX managed to disloge Russia, it finally started being as cheap as the rockets the Soviets were launching in the 80s under communism and Russia in the 90s, that is it.

Posted

Any rocket system is incredibly STUPID and should ONLY be used to build systems that do not rely on carrying fuel that you need to burn so that you carry more fuel that you need to burn.

There is like literally like a few people capable of understanding this dilemma and venture capital sure as hell is not strategic enough for it, let alone orange morons and ketamine addicted con men.

Posted

So like everything else with this fucking guy this thing is going to have a 36-48 hour shelf life before we get distracted and move on to something else right?

 

idiocracy-dumb.gif

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Posted
54 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i only really started hating musk a couple of years ago but tolerated him for what he was doing to, yes, i will repeat it, make humanity a multi-planetary species

Ray Liotta Lol GIF

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Posted
6 minutes ago, linux said:

It has taken over because it is backed by large amounts of venture capital, once it dries up and assuming the market remains open tender they will go back in line, and yes that includes starship's incremental nonsense, so much so for "revolution"

Had you bothered to read my link

 

image.thumb.png.4bc08db00bac898fbfc5fb7096c1f7f6.png

That is it that is why spaceX managed to disloge Russia, it finally started being as cheap as the rockets the Soviets were launching in the 80s under communism and Russia in the 90s, that is it.

Your link is nonsense. Your reasoning is nonsense. I don't even know what point you think you're making with that chart. Yes, reusability drove prices down. Yes, lower prices allowed SpaceX to take over the launch market. That's the exact opposite of what you said in your prior post. You apparently believe that "venture capital" is cool with just throwing away money. That isn't how it works. 

Posted
14 minutes ago, linux said:

Any rocket system is incredibly STUPID and should ONLY be used to build systems that do not rely on carrying fuel that you need to burn so that you carry more fuel that you need to burn.

There is like literally like a few people capable of understanding this dilemma and venture capital sure as hell is not strategic enough for it, let alone orange morons and ketamine addicted con men.

What on earth does this mean? You want to build a perpetual motion machine? Or a just a purely solar powered spacecraft? 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

What on earth does this mean? You want to build a perpetual motion machine? Or a just a purely solar powered spacecraft? 

Where we are going, we don't need roads. 

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Your link is nonsense. Your reasoning is nonsense. I don't even know what point you think you're making with that chart. Yes, reusability drove prices down. Yes, lower prices allowed SpaceX to take over the launch market. That's the exact opposite of what you said in your prior post. You apparently believe that "venture capital" is cool with just throwing away money. That isn't how it works. 

Of course venture capital is not cool with throwing away money, that is why it is a failure in the long run.

Musk promised dreams of ultra cheap launches so much so that they conned space dreamers (like me, but I never fell for it), had he promised REAILITY aka just marginally cheaper launches than what the Soviets were doing in the 80s his cult would not be where it is today.

China is building maglev launch systems, venture capital failed Spin Launch which has pivoted to rockets, to get the morsels to survive 

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3303761/china-bid-challenge-giant-spacex-deploying-maglev-rocket-launch-pad-2028

Yeah if the species goes multiplanetary it will be Musk preventing it from happening more than thanks to him. Launch assisted should have been the only priority even before the Apollo project which in itself was a dead end.

15 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

What on earth does this mean? You want to build a perpetual motion machine? Or a just a purely solar powered spacecraft? 

I already explained above.

Posted
12 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Please, please, please start a third party.

What's the platform for Musk's "middle 80%" party? Winding down the entire federal government and tweets about the great replacement theory? It's become painfully clear to me that my views are out of the U.S. mainstream, but maybe a little further than I thought I guess.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Im_smarter_then_you said:

Yep. I choose to believe.  
 

image.thumb.png.b166b2504c7955b097d6e3197567db8e.png

Obvious satire since both of them pee sitting down.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, linux said:

Of course venture capital is not cool with throwing away money, that is why it is a failure in the long run.

Musk promised dreams of ultra cheap launches so much so that they conned space dreamers (like me, but I never fell for it), had he promised REAILITY aka just marginally cheaper launches than what the Soviets were doing in the 80s his cult would not be where it is today.

China is building maglev launch systems, venture capital failed Spin Launch which has pivoted to rockets, to get the morsels to survive 

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3303761/china-bid-challenge-giant-spacex-deploying-maglev-rocket-launch-pad-2028

Yeah if the species goes multiplanetary it will be Musk preventing it from happening more than thanks to him. Launch assisted should have been the only priority even before the Apollo project which in itself was a dead end.

I already explained above.

 

24 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Your link is nonsense. Your reasoning is nonsense. I don't even know what point you think you're making with that chart. Yes, reusability drove prices down. Yes, lower prices allowed SpaceX to take over the launch market. That's the exact opposite of what you said in your prior post. You apparently believe that "venture capital" is cool with just throwing away money. That isn't how it works. 

 

1 hour ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i only really started hating musk a couple of years ago but tolerated him for what he was doing to, yes, i will repeat it, make humanity a multi-planetary species

i stopped cheering for starship in january

with those caveats......

@Brian Fantana posted this which got the most rep in this thread so i'll re-post.... and before my replies, i am paging @RamjetFDO for his take on this topic....  for those that don't know he worked in the shuttle program

@RamjetFDO i know this forum is not your cup of tea however your take is backed by more street cred than anyone else on this board..... 

can y'all take this to the spacex thread or the main elon thread? this thread is for elon and trump catfight

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