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>You've got a lot of HN Karma, but you haven't yet learned that people here prefer evidence-backed arguments to ad-hominem attacks? Your evidence is: >I was p

>You've got a lot of HN Karma, but you haven't yet learned that people here prefer evidence-backed arguments to ad-hominem attacks? Your evidence is: >I was peripherally involved in that scene during the 1990s and had many people at NASA and LockMart tell me personally, quite explicitly, that specific impulse was very nearly the sole determinant of rocketry... Feel free to look at the kind of arguments cited during the fuel-density wars on sci.space.policy if you want a feeling for the kind of vehemence with which this opinion was expressed. Your entire point is based on bulletin board discussions and anecdotal evidence from being peripherally involved with rocketry in the 90s (which given context, I'm taking to mean "I hung out in space forums and bulletin boards and talked with people who claimed to be rocket engineers.") I enjoyed reading both of your posts about this (with a grain of salt), but it's a bit silly to call someone out for lack of evidence after writing several hundred words without a single piece of hard evidence supporting it.

nkoren 10y ago
> Your entire point is based on bulletin board discussions and anecdotal evidence from being peripherally involved with rocketry in the 90s (which given context, I'm taking to mean "I hung out in space forums and bulletin boards and talked with people who claimed to be rocket engineers.") Oh for fuck's sake. I don't like arguments from authority, but if you really want one: yes, I hung out on internet space forums in the 90s and am thus aware of their contents. But I also was a member of the Space Access Society and regular attendee of its conferences; an organiser for the National Space Society and regular attendee of its conferences; and an organiser and founding member of the Mars Society and regular attendee of its conferences. In this context, I was personally well-acquainted with folks like Gary Hudson, Robert Zubrin, and Buzz Aldrin, as well as innumerable lesser-known individuals from NASA, Boeing/Lockmart, and the various alt.space renegades. The stories I tell come directly from my contacts with them. Furthermore, the "evidence" I provided was citations of the NASP[1], the X-33[2], and the SLI[3]. The first two represented NASA's flagship attempts to develop new space-launch systems during 80s and 90s; they failed due to weight growth and integration problems stemming from over-optimisation of the (LH2) propulsion system at the expense of all the rest of the vehicle's systems. By the time of the SLI in 2000, RP1 was starting to find a (small) place at the table again, but the program still failed due to too narrow a focus on propulsion optimisations. I figured that anybody familiar with the space industry (as the person I was replying to seemed to be) should be familiar with these failures and their underlying causes; they are not exactly secrets. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_X-30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_X-30 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_Initiative

nkoren 10y ago

> Your entire point is based on bulletin board discussions and anecdotal evidence from being peripherally involved with rocketry in the 90s (which given context, I'm taking to mean "I hung out in space forums and bulletin boards and talked with people who claimed to be rocket engineers.") Oh for fuck's sake. I don't like arguments from authority, but if you really want one: yes, I hung out on internet space forums in the 90s and am thus aware of their contents. But I also was a member of the Space Access Society and regular attendee of its conferences; an organiser for the National Space Society and regular attendee of its conferences; and an organiser and founding member of the Mars Society and regular attendee of its conferences. In this context, I was personally well-acquainted with folks like Gary Hudson, Robert Zubrin, and Buzz Aldrin, as well as innumerable lesser-known individuals from NASA, Boeing/Lockmart, and the various alt.space renegades. The stories I tell come directly from my contacts with them. Furthermore, the "evidence" I provided was citations of the NASP[1], the X-33[2], and the SLI[3]. The first two represented NASA's flagship attempts to develop new space-launch systems during 80s and 90s; they failed due to weight growth and integration problems stemming from over-optimisation of the (LH2) propulsion system at the expense of all the rest of the vehicle's systems. By the time of the SLI in 2000, RP1 was starting to find a (small) place at the table again, but the program still failed due to too narrow a focus on propulsion optimisations. I figured that anybody familiar with the space industry (as the person I was replying to seemed to be) should be familiar with these failures and their underlying causes; they are not exactly secrets. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_X-30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_X-30 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_Initiative