Mastodawn

Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦

@raumfahrttutnot That's not even remotely plausible. Nobody else has SpaceX's launch capacity or costs, or even remotely close. The closest example would be the Chinese government, which is obviously a non-starter.

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot Thats sadly right, #Boeing should build better spacecraft, if #NASA wants the mere option to operate without #Musk.

And #Europe should better become more of the quirky continent that maybe never will get so many influencers and social Media channels praising them like #Musk has, but actually builds functional, rock-solid spacecraft and could, with some more courage, also create functional, rock-solid manned spacecraft.

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot They're all way too conservative with their development processes, due to an institutional complacency that arose from having too little competition decade after decade.

Like, Europe is just started working on a competitor to SpaceX....

... to their *Falcon 9*. Not Starship. Starship will be inserting payloads while ESA's next rocket is still just concept drawings competing with a nearly 1 1/2 decade-old launch vehicle.

RTN Aug 31, 2024

@nafnlaus @urwumpe
#Starship has to prove that it can deliver at least anything (aside from data).

Starship has to prove that will make human moon landings possible again. Will it? Today there are no starship based tankers oder landers ..

@raumfahrttutnot @urwumpe Starship doesn't have to do anything with the moon to replace Falcon 9; the moon is a very small market. It's already gone orbital (hasn't been recovered yet, but it can already get there).

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot Right now, Starship is nothing more than one expensive show that is again years behind Musks loudmouthed announcements and gets reduced in capability in every design iteration without the yes men caring.

I wouldn't compare it too favorable to any government agency doing the same with more stakeholders messing with the program.

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot I saw numerous comments almost word-for-word like yours while watching the development of Falcon 1, and then once again during the development of Falcon 9.

Starship has already made it to orbit. It's not ready to launch commercial payloads yet, but it's very much not just "an announcement".

RTN Aug 31, 2024

@nafnlaus @urwumpe
NASA made it to the moon. Earlier in history. With men to it´s surface. Why they did not do it again long since?

Because a is not b.

History and luck of Falcon 9 is not necessarily that of starship.

@raumfahrttutnot @nafnlaus Also, I just work though some old historic #NASA documents about the early days of the Space Shuttle and the Modular Space Station. Its amazing how much technology considered there never made it into anything at all, while the development was strongly influenced by current events(oil crisis!) and rapid direction changes.

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot I follow SpaceX since they were more into submarines than rocket or spacecraft.

I remember the past and when what was announced. Hell, I even know that Falcon 5 existed and was quite content that SpaceX resumed were the DC-X had left with Grasshopper.

Yes, #RETALT might not have had the funny videos, but it'll have more lasting impact on the generation of rockets following the Ariane 5 than Falcon 9 1.1 has on Spaceship.

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot "I follow SpaceX since they were more into submarines than rocket or spacecraft. "

Um, what? Are you talking about the Thai cave thing? Because that's way late in their history, and was a Musk side project that he dragged like three SpaceX engineers into for like a week. If you're not talking about that then I have no idea, as it was founded from the beginning for rocketry.

SpaceX's first launch was in 2006, and I was eagerly watching the livestream.

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot Sadly you had to sell your sense of humor sometime along the way for getting the submaritime hint (The first SpaceX flight ended in a reef, just 1 km downrange).

SpaceX was already founded in 2002 and claimed then to launch their first rocket in 2004. And had their rather idiotic (dis-)information policy since day one, which weirdly his fans don't seem to bother: they just retcon everything.

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot What are you talking about re: 2004? They only got access to Vandenburg during 2004 and started on the ground systems, with the first rocket not arriving for engine tests until 2005 (wherein they had to move again to Omelek)

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot They claimed in 2002, to be ready to launch in 2004. Also they claimed that the Falcon 1 first stage shall be reusable, which was never achieved and which still was less than what the less wealthy competition at that time promised, e.g. Kistler Aerospace.

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot So you're talking about "startup happens to miss ambitious timeline in a field that's been a graveyard for startups", not "startup lies about having launched a rocket when they didn't".

SpaceX missing a timeline wasn't anything unusual in the field. SpaceX *making it to orbit at all* was, by contrast, *very* unusual.

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot Secondly, they got a COTS contract for a much larger rocket, so in what world do you think they should have continued F1 devel? They switched reusability work to F9, and *succeeded*, spectacularly.

Third, Kistler was "the incumbent". It had big names. It had invested $600M into the K1, before landing $227M more from NASA. *SpaceX* was the plucky upstart. Falcon 1 was developed on $90-100M. And yet Kistler went nowhere.

Urwumpe Sep 1, 2024

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot We will never know, how much money Musk put into SpaceX alone. We only know that the successful flight of Falcon 1, with a lot of Airforce support BTW, was more a case of luck than successful engineering. Like others observed: SpaceX not only reduced the max. payload mass in the user manual every 6 months, launching a satellite that was only ⅓ of that mass required a much longer 2nd stage burn than stated before launch.

Urwumpe Sep 1, 2024

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot I can only tell so much 100 Million is shit Elon Musk says. The real costs are likely much higher towards the one billion range. Especially the labor costs wouldn't work out.

Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦Sep 1, 2024

@urwumpe @raumfahrttutnot Given that Musk only earned upwards of $175M from the sale of Ebay, pretax, it absolutely was not.

And again: the "unusual thing" wasn't delays or changes in payload, it's *that they succeeded at all*.

Louis Botelho Aug 31, 2024

@nafnlaus @raumfahrttutnot terrible arguments with strong biases when people attack SpaceX or Tesla. Very good arguments with mostly fair opinions when they attack Elon's politics. It's a shame that some very smart people think that SpaceX and Tesla are terrible companies, their weak arguments make me question all of their opinions.

Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦Sep 1, 2024

@Louisbotelho17 @raumfahrttutnot We saw with years and years of TSLAQ throwing away their life's savings that "betting against a major corp because you personally hate the CEO" is a dumb bet.

Tesla and SpaceX's fortune was that Elon attracted together a ton of talented ideological nerds who got the job done. Their future misfortune is now that the ideology he preaches is not climate change and Mars, but hate.

Attracts a very different crowd..

Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦Sep 1, 2024

@Louisbotelho17 @raumfahrttutnot Common:

Interviewer: "Why'd you work so hard to become an expert on innovative battery cell design?"

Engineer: "Because I want to fight climate change!"

---

NOT Common:

Interviewer: "Why'd you work so hard to become an expert on innovative battery cell design?"

Engineer: "Because I hate minorities, jews, and queers!"

***

It's the reversal of the talent-attraction that worries me about the companies future (more Tesla than SpaceX, but still)