this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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the thing about spacex is everything they do is because of nasa and government.
the only thing spacex has going for it is the fact that they can spend a billion dollars exploding a rocket five times before it slightly works the sixth whereas the government can't do that.
As someone who does know about this field, and absolute despise Musk, that's not quite true. SpaceX is very successful thanks to help from the US government, and despite the influence of Musk, but also because they are a team of very competent people who have actually innovated and pushed the boundaries of launch vehicles. To say they have nothing going for them and are being propped up by the government is not at all accurate, and they have been much more succesful than traditional government contractors.
That isn't what they're saying though, is it? They're saying that SpaceX has the ability to fail more than NASA, because they're not a government organization funded solely by taxes.
Admittedly I think the biggest failures that hurt NASA were incidents when people, not rockets, blew up. It'll be interesting to see if things change if/when there is a death from a SpaceX rocket.
People die in work related incidents all the time. The only thing different about deaths from NASA incidents is that they are (usually) spectacular incidents (like massive explosions or cabin fires…not good things, just stunning) and high-profile.
SpaceX does well because they basically ignore Elon.
That's definitely true. That should still not take away from the accomplishments of the SpaceX engineers. ULA had the same exact opportunities but completely wasted them.
Oh sorry yeah that was poorly worded. I don't mean to say that SpaceX engineers are failures, what they've accomplished is nothing short of incredible. But failure is an inevitable part of the engineering process of iterating and improving your solution. NASA doesn't have the luxury of quick iteration cycles like SpaceX does (comparatively), because each iteration means more money out of the taxpayers' pockets.
Yes, it's a help, not the only thing they have going for them.
At first, I was like, "now that the governments haven't pursued space for 20-30 years, I think it's great that the private sector can finally push for space exploration and inventions and space stuff."
But now...I don't really like the idea of Space X sending up and downing thousands of satellites including heavy metals through our atmosphere every year, just to keep a shitty proprietary network online.
It's my atmosphere, but it's not my network. Space X can fuck off my night sky for all I care.
Also in the next couple of years, they're expecting so many "retirements" of satellites that they can't guarantee safety for the people on the ground. They're literally expecting an "acceptable" number of people to die from this.
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/falling-spacex-satellites-faa-report-space-junk/
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/space-news/2023/10/19/faa-warning-falling-spacex-satellites-will-soon-pose-fatal-risk-for-earthlings/
Etc.
"‘The problem isn’t the Starlink satellites surviving, reentering, hitting somebody,’ says Moriba Jah, an associate professor at UT Austin. ‘The problem is other older objects.’"
Boeing and Lockheed Martin also spent billions of government dollars blowing up rockets, but SpaceX is still cheaper and delivering faster.
Do not downplay their engineering accomplishments.