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Maybe one day Space X will be as advanced as government funded rocketry was 40 years ago, we'd better just keep throwing money at them to make sure.
I know we all like to hate on Elon around here, but as a space nerd and someone who’s been following SpaceX and the development of Starship pretty closely, I just wanted to give my 2 cents.
While this was a failure, it was certainly very successful in that it performed better than the 1st flight. All 33 engines on the booster performed flawlessly through to MECO, hot staging went well with the ship continuing on and nearly reaching the desired orbital energy. SpaceX’s stated goals are to iterate quickly and fail often. I have no doubt that they will nail this sooner or later.
One last note - SpaceX are still miles ahead of anyone else. The Falcon 9 is still the only orbital class rocket to have successfully landed - and they have done that nearly 250 time now. My point being, it’s easy to laugh and say “haha Elon’s rocket blew up again” but let’s not diminish the accomplishments. SpaceX continues to push the envelope and before long Starship will be carrying humans to the moon. Glory to the workers who are making it happen 🫡
Miles ahead of any other private companies. Decades behind any government funded space program. Turns out trying to turn space flight into a for-profit business is terrible for efficiency.
Decades behind any government funded space program
Which government space programs have landed and re-used rockets, let alone done it 250 times? That has brought down costs immensely. And Starship is literally the most powerful rocket ever built.
Now, it is important to note that most of the current success of SpaceX can be attributed to government funding (i.e. NASA contracts). But to say they are decades behind doesn’t even make sense.
I think we may be measuring success very differently here. I'm not measuring it by how much money a billionaire can save, I'm measuring it via practical positive results for humanity. A billionaire vanity project is hardly going to benefit the rest of us, especially when all their progress is patented and others are prevented from using the same designs. Flights to the ISS still use old surplus Soviet rockets. Rockets designed decades ago. If SpaceX is at the forefront of humanity's space exploration, why are they lagging behind things we've already managed to achieve decades ago?
Don't fall for the techbro hype and spin around Musk. SpaceX is not doing anything other than privatising space travel and ensuring it is only accessible to the wealthiest of the wealthy. And it is doing it on the taxpayer's dime, but with none of the benefits to the taxpayer that programs like NASA provide.
EDIT: Oh shit, I challenged the word of our Lord and Saviour Elon Musk, and in my folly have summoned the techbros.
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You don’t know what you’re talking about. SpaceX has been supplying the ISS for a decade, as well as bringing humans to the ISS. You want to talk about wasting taxpayer money, well that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than sending them to Kazakhstan.
Sad to see the support you’re getting here. I’m no Musk fanboy but I am a SpaceX fan and we can’t deny the achievements they’ve made.
Playing devil's advocate - it looks like the main advancement made by SpaceX is the reusable rockets. Do you think this has a material benefit to space travel going forward?
In terms of the real economy, I would think this is beneficial.
Devil advocacy aside, I'm skeptical that reusable rockets should take priority over other possible areas of advancement; and of course, the inefficiencies and waste of the private sector should go without saying.
It certainly has potential, but again, reusable rockets aren't an entirely new concept either (look at the space shuttle for example). My main problem is that they patent their designs, so any successes they have don't benefit humanity, they only benefit SpaceX's stockholders.
Lol. So much effort to disregard an effort that's clearly leading the technology just because it has a billionaire associated with it.
If it helps you cope, musk wasn't even close to a billionaire when they started SpaceX. There are thousands of the best workers in the industry working at SpaceX.
SpaceX is a shithole compared to NASA...
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/
https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-workers-took-adderall-slept-bathroom-iv-treatments-deadlines-report-2023-11
Space shuttle and X-37s technically qualify as the government landing rockets and re-using them, also DC-X, the first upright landing rocket.
Is that the rocket which was delayed for months and libs on lemmy frothed it's not an obstacle and i asked them if they would prefer explosion? Ha.
From what I've heard, it got up to 148km above sea level before they activated its self-destruct feature
