• gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    23 days ago

    It’s also due to the fact that Boeing seems to no longer be capable of building a spacecraft that doesn’t constantly fucking break, and the regime is conscious of the fact that killing the entire crew of the first manned mission to the moon in nearly a half century would be Very Bad Optics.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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      23 days ago

      And if that wasn’t bad enough SpaceX is basically dead in the water. Presumably because Musks general radiation of incompetent malice has probably purged anyone who could’ve made their shitty rockets work without being spread across the fucking gulf.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          They seem to either be incapable or unwilling to revise their design to stop the damned rockets from constantly exploding. If NASA had the same failure rate for a new rocket back in the 50s of 60s they’d have been canned. Hell if the Soviets had a similar failure rate the entire team wouldve been sent to the gulag.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            23 days ago

            What are tou talking about?

            Falcon 9 is fine.

            Starship & Booster are continuously improving. When you see that a starship blew up, what’s probably conveniently left off from the headlines you read is its a major revision. New engines, longer, different flaps etc. The last one went up and down wonderfully. The next one launching is v3 and has the latest engines and hundreds of changes and will probably go boom and maybe even the one after that.

            They’re literally removing heat tiles from critical areas to see what happens.

            In no way is SpaceX messing up here though.

            Nobody has ever developed a rocket in the open like this before where stuff breaking is expected and normal.

            Edit: Attaching image of their engines for example. That v3 is not a render. This is a brand new engine type (full-flow staged combustion fuel cycle), never flown before SpaceX built one and flew it. Russia built one in theory, but never flew it.

            • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              Nobody has ever developed a rocket in the open like this before

              dude, please read up on the space race. we have designed rockets in the open before. they blew up far less frequently.

              • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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                23 days ago

                None of that was like what SpaceX is doing.

                There were failures in the race and they were testing things, but failures weren’t the expected outcomes and part of the planned development cycle. Like they still don’t even know how to make a reusable heat shield which is fundamental to this working.

                SpaceX has built a manufacturing line to churn these things out and is like we think this might work, let’s try it in flight hardware. Oh okay that didnt work, let’s try something else. Oh okay that did work now, but if we do this does it still work because if it does we can eek out 2% more performance. Oh shit now we have a brand new mark 2 engine. Does it sill work? Let’s make it longer now with more fuel and new tanks!

                Starships blowing up is part of how they are iterating. No one else has done it this way, or so publicly.

                The government cant handle things like this because people like you look at it as a failure and shit gets shut down. If they IPO its also going to cause issues for the same reason.

                Meanwhile SpaceX has designed, built, flew and landed two orbital boosters before anyone landed one. They fucking caught it in chopsticks.

            • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip
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              23 days ago

              The pic reminds me of a youtuber who debunks SpaceX bullshit almost exclusively. I don’t remember the specifics, but he claimed that the v3 seen here is basically a fantasy.

              Seriously, do not trust Musk to build something that works reliably under high stress. Esp. do not entrust human beings to anything Musk builds.

              • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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                23 days ago

                Ah yes, something that an arm chair rocket scientest says can’t exist

                This is it firing.

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJdu5ee_ohA

                This is the clean side of it

                This is looking at the vertical slice head on we see in the original image where we see it as only the vertical part of it. There were other pictures where that 1st one came from with other angles as well, they weren’t hiding anything with a specific shot.

                People said it was impossible to propulsive land a orbital booster, and said it would also be impossible to land it on a barge in the ocean.

                SpaceX lands a orbital rocket on a barge in the ocean.

                People said even if you can reuse a rocket, it’ll never be affordable to do so. One very prominent space person (someone in boeing or something) said, you’d have to fly it 10 times to even be worth making one!

                SpaceX flew their first Falcon 9 for the 33th time last week.

                People said no ones going to want to use a re-used rocket

                SpaceX has people including government agencies specifically looking for used rockets as they’re now flight tested.

                People said even if you can relaunch a rocket, there isn’t enough things to put into space to even warrant having one

                SpaceX develops Starlink to create a use case for their new rocket.

                People said Starlink would never be profitable, you have to keep sending new satellites up they’ll never make money!

                SpaceX’s starlink division is now profitable and accounts for more revenue than the rest of the business. (satellites coming down now don’t matter as they can be profitably replenished. All them coming down means is bandwidth capacity will stagnate IF technology doesn’t improve to increase it when more go up)

                People thought it was nuts they were going to try and catch Super Heavy booster on 2 chop sticks

                SpaceX lands it on their first, and subsequent tries.

                The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on, and they keep doing it.

                Falcon 9 is the most reliable rocket we have, and you’re sitting here going don’t trust musk to build something reliable lol.