6 ms·

That's tons of work. Lots of heart and soul went into that. I can still be sad for people even if we didn't lose people.

artursapek 10y ago
Not to mention money. $200MM investment into space, gone. https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-7052-11e6-bdcb-0e8f1ac0db67 https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-70...
- db48x 10y ago
  The money didn't disappear, it paid the people working on the project all the way down to the miners who dug up the minerals and the fast-food workers who made the cheeseburger that engineer bought that one time. It did fail to earn a return, however.
  - 300bps 10y ago
    You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...
    - jonknee 10y ago
      No, in this field sometimes stuff blows up unexpectedly and it's part of the cost of doing business. It's like feeling bad for a life insurance company when someone dies.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - snowwrestler 10y ago
      Not really, since he did note that the money will fail to earn a return.
    - intopieces 10y ago
      Not quite. The Broken Window Fallacy hinges on the fact that the son breaks the window for a reason that doesn't further any other economic cause. That is, he didn't break the window for research, so nothing new was gained from it. Resources were merely shifted from the shopkeeper to the glazier. When it comes to innovation, however, failure is often the impetus to more efficient design. Not only was that $200m shifted from Musk/Investors to SpaceX, et al, but it also went to informing the process and improvements for the entire project, and future projects by other companies. We wish we could learn these things more cheaply, sure. But that doesn't mean the world or company would have been better off in the long run had the incident not occurred -- it's too soon to tell, and we might never know.
      - tamana 10y ago
        You can't say that all mistakes are worthwhile just because they reach us that we shouldn't make those mistakes... We already knew that. That wasn't research, it was a prelaunch test, and it failed.
        incongruity 10y ago
        That's not what we're learning. We're learning how not to make those mistakes. That yields: 1) Lower risk launches in the future through better process and better design 2) Possibly cheaper/better hardware redesigned due to the issues uncovered today. Yes, it is probably lower ROI than that payload getting into space, but it does mean it's not a total loss and not simply a broken window fallacy. It's more akin to if the window maker also tried to learn/test harder to break windows with each one she installed. Then, each broken window would be an experimental outcome instead of just a lost window.
        kiba 10y ago
        There's no way to get around making mistakes no matter how careful you are. It's inevitable for non omniscient beings.
    - timdiggerm 10y ago
      Even if they are (which is apparently disputed), pointing out that someone is using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong. Next time, you should try saying something more substantive than "Fallacy!"
      - matt-attack 10y ago
        > using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong I thought that is precisely what using a fallacy makes you. It's what the word fallacy means. It essentially means a "false statement".
        mikeash 10y ago
        Fallacy means faulty reasoning, not a false statement. It is possible to use faulty reasoning to arrive at a correct statement. For example, "The sun rises each day, because if it didn't then everyone would die." That's the fallacy of an appeal to consequences, yet the conclusion (the sun rises each day) is correct.
        elmigranto 10y ago
        Well, everyone would die, though :)
        mikeash 10y ago
        Of course! The only incorrect thing in there is "because."
        psahabu 10y ago
        This line of reasoning is itself a fallacy. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html
        riboflava 10y ago
        Furthermore there are other forms of reasoning than pure deduction. If you allow probabilistic inference, which is how humans generally operate intuitively, many deductive fallacies turn into probabilistic theorems.
    - JohnStrange 10y ago
      I'm kind of skeptical about this alleged fallacy, where I have to admit that I'm not an economist. The usual formulations of it seem to be something crucial missing. I've heard that many producers of goods deliberately introduce failure points, e.g. in electronics by using cheap solder or capacitors with a limited lifetime. Buttons also fail way too easily. Or think of batteries that cannot be replaced. Do they all commit this fallacy, too? Do they harm the economy and therefore indirectly also themselves? Or is it a matter of how long the window is used before it is broken? If so, how long? You could also make nearly unbreakable glass (buttons, rockets, etc.) but at very high costs for the company and therefore also the consumer. What role do the costs play in all of this? Is it an equilibrium? When does the fallacy start and normal 'crap product' cycle end? I've never seen any explanation of this alleged fallacy that answers any of these questions.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - clock_tower 10y ago
        My reading of it: there's a continuum in production philosophy from throw-away culture to built-to-last products, and the broken-window fallacy (which Krugman, IIRC, doesn't think is a fallacy at all) is the extreme end of throw-away culture. Building to last means high up-front costs, little flexibility (think of the Empire State Building and how much it must have cost to install air conditioning in it), but beautiful products with low total cost of ownership; throw-away goods are low on up-front costs, and they make it easy to respond to new technology, but they have a high total cost of ownership and they tend to be pretty ugly as well. A society which focuses on quality will be wealthier and more beautiful (look at Europe's low GDP and high standard of living), but one that's constantly rebuilding junk will be more equal; every 1970s Volvo still owned by an old-money family in 2016 is a Ford assembly-line worker without a job, or thereabouts...
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        > I've heard that many producers of goods deliberately introduce failure points There are a lot of apocryphal claims like this, but little evidence. Most manufacturers design for an expected life of the product, and making it last longer than that is a waste of money and resources. For example, you could design a computer to last for 20 years, but what would be the point? Computers go hopelessly obsolete in about 5 years. The only people who care about longevity of it are a handful of collectors. Fashionable clothing is not made to last because people don't wear out-of-fashion clothes. It's pointless to make them to last. Cars are designed to last for 10 years. Airliners are designed to last for 65,000 flight hours. Products that are useful long term are usually made to last, like tools.
    - db48x 10y ago
      No, I said that the money was spent, not lost; it didn't just vanish. They didn't bury it in the back yard and then forget about it, or set it on fire. They've definitely lost future income though, even if they rebuild the satellite and launch it successfully a few years from now. (I know that you usually build a test version of your space hardware, for tests that might be destructive. I wonder if any of those have ever been launched insted?) It was also spent on something they wanted to spend it on, rather than something they were forced to spend it on. It's still an interesting point though, because they spent it on something that carried significant risk. Does spending money on a glass window, which carries the risk of a broken window, work in the same way? I've not considered the broken-window fallacy from that perspective before. Perhaps it's not, for the same for the same reason that breaking a window is considered a crime and an exploding rocket generally is not.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  Is that the manufacturing cost, or does it include the development cost? Making another should be cheaper than making the first one; and this is Amos-6 -- how different is it from Amos-5?
  - AdrianoKF 10y ago
    Judging by the Wikipedia articles, Amos-5 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-5) and Amos-6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-6) use entirely different satellite buses. Amos-5 uses the Russian-built Ekspress 1000H, while Amos-6 is only the second satellite to use the Israeli AMOS 4000.
- thegranderson 10y ago
  I would guess they lost a lot less than the $200m initial investment, which included design & development of both the satelite and ground control systems. My assumption would be that only the satellite itself was destroyed in this explosion. From the quote below, they reference $85 to cover launch, insurance, and 1 year of operating costs. Presumably that insurance would cover some of the costs of an event like this? Quote from an article on this (http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-1000759794 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-1000759794) Spacecom Satellite Communications' (TASE:SCC) board of director has authorized management to sign a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) to build and buy the Amos 6 communications satellite for $200 million. IAI will build the satellite and its ground control systems, and will provide operating services. The company plans to launch the Amo6 in the first quarter of 2015, and its operating life will be at least 16 years. Spacecom estimates that the cost of launching, insuring and one year's operation of the Amos 6 will be $85 million. The company has to pick a launch company. Spacecom said that it will seek financing for the Amos 6 from IAI and foreign sources.
- falcolas 10y ago
  I would be quite surprised if the payload was not insured. Doesn't make it any easier on the people who poured their lives into the effort, but the owner will not be out any substantial investment capitol; just potential earnings until its replacement can be pushed up.
tomjen3 10y ago
The actual chips may have to be made again, but code that has been written once should be fine to just load on again. Yeah it sucks, but it could have been a lot worse.
Bud 10y ago
One could also feel sad for the (possibly millions) of people in Africa who were depending on this satellite launch to give them internet service. The difference between having internet, and not having it, is huge, especially in the developing world. This has real human consequences.

artursapek 10y ago

Not to mention money. $200MM investment into space, gone. https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-7052-11e6-bdcb-0e8f1ac0db67 https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-70...

db48x 10y ago
The money didn't disappear, it paid the people working on the project all the way down to the miners who dug up the minerals and the fast-food workers who made the cheeseburger that engineer bought that one time. It did fail to earn a return, however.
- 300bps 10y ago
  You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...
  - jonknee 10y ago
    No, in this field sometimes stuff blows up unexpectedly and it's part of the cost of doing business. It's like feeling bad for a life insurance company when someone dies.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    Not really, since he did note that the money will fail to earn a return.
  - intopieces 10y ago
    Not quite. The Broken Window Fallacy hinges on the fact that the son breaks the window for a reason that doesn't further any other economic cause. That is, he didn't break the window for research, so nothing new was gained from it. Resources were merely shifted from the shopkeeper to the glazier. When it comes to innovation, however, failure is often the impetus to more efficient design. Not only was that $200m shifted from Musk/Investors to SpaceX, et al, but it also went to informing the process and improvements for the entire project, and future projects by other companies. We wish we could learn these things more cheaply, sure. But that doesn't mean the world or company would have been better off in the long run had the incident not occurred -- it's too soon to tell, and we might never know.
    - tamana 10y ago
      You can't say that all mistakes are worthwhile just because they reach us that we shouldn't make those mistakes... We already knew that. That wasn't research, it was a prelaunch test, and it failed.
      - incongruity 10y ago
        That's not what we're learning. We're learning how not to make those mistakes. That yields: 1) Lower risk launches in the future through better process and better design 2) Possibly cheaper/better hardware redesigned due to the issues uncovered today. Yes, it is probably lower ROI than that payload getting into space, but it does mean it's not a total loss and not simply a broken window fallacy. It's more akin to if the window maker also tried to learn/test harder to break windows with each one she installed. Then, each broken window would be an experimental outcome instead of just a lost window.
        kiba 10y ago
        There's no way to get around making mistakes no matter how careful you are. It's inevitable for non omniscient beings.
  - timdiggerm 10y ago
    Even if they are (which is apparently disputed), pointing out that someone is using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong. Next time, you should try saying something more substantive than "Fallacy!"
    - matt-attack 10y ago
      > using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong I thought that is precisely what using a fallacy makes you. It's what the word fallacy means. It essentially means a "false statement".
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Fallacy means faulty reasoning, not a false statement. It is possible to use faulty reasoning to arrive at a correct statement. For example, "The sun rises each day, because if it didn't then everyone would die." That's the fallacy of an appeal to consequences, yet the conclusion (the sun rises each day) is correct.
        elmigranto 10y ago
        Well, everyone would die, though :)
        mikeash 10y ago
        Of course! The only incorrect thing in there is "because."
      - psahabu 10y ago
        This line of reasoning is itself a fallacy. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html
        riboflava 10y ago
        Furthermore there are other forms of reasoning than pure deduction. If you allow probabilistic inference, which is how humans generally operate intuitively, many deductive fallacies turn into probabilistic theorems.
  - JohnStrange 10y ago
    I'm kind of skeptical about this alleged fallacy, where I have to admit that I'm not an economist. The usual formulations of it seem to be something crucial missing. I've heard that many producers of goods deliberately introduce failure points, e.g. in electronics by using cheap solder or capacitors with a limited lifetime. Buttons also fail way too easily. Or think of batteries that cannot be replaced. Do they all commit this fallacy, too? Do they harm the economy and therefore indirectly also themselves? Or is it a matter of how long the window is used before it is broken? If so, how long? You could also make nearly unbreakable glass (buttons, rockets, etc.) but at very high costs for the company and therefore also the consumer. What role do the costs play in all of this? Is it an equilibrium? When does the fallacy start and normal 'crap product' cycle end? I've never seen any explanation of this alleged fallacy that answers any of these questions.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      My reading of it: there's a continuum in production philosophy from throw-away culture to built-to-last products, and the broken-window fallacy (which Krugman, IIRC, doesn't think is a fallacy at all) is the extreme end of throw-away culture. Building to last means high up-front costs, little flexibility (think of the Empire State Building and how much it must have cost to install air conditioning in it), but beautiful products with low total cost of ownership; throw-away goods are low on up-front costs, and they make it easy to respond to new technology, but they have a high total cost of ownership and they tend to be pretty ugly as well. A society which focuses on quality will be wealthier and more beautiful (look at Europe's low GDP and high standard of living), but one that's constantly rebuilding junk will be more equal; every 1970s Volvo still owned by an old-money family in 2016 is a Ford assembly-line worker without a job, or thereabouts...
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      > I've heard that many producers of goods deliberately introduce failure points There are a lot of apocryphal claims like this, but little evidence. Most manufacturers design for an expected life of the product, and making it last longer than that is a waste of money and resources. For example, you could design a computer to last for 20 years, but what would be the point? Computers go hopelessly obsolete in about 5 years. The only people who care about longevity of it are a handful of collectors. Fashionable clothing is not made to last because people don't wear out-of-fashion clothes. It's pointless to make them to last. Cars are designed to last for 10 years. Airliners are designed to last for 65,000 flight hours. Products that are useful long term are usually made to last, like tools.
  - db48x 10y ago
    No, I said that the money was spent, not lost; it didn't just vanish. They didn't bury it in the back yard and then forget about it, or set it on fire. They've definitely lost future income though, even if they rebuild the satellite and launch it successfully a few years from now. (I know that you usually build a test version of your space hardware, for tests that might be destructive. I wonder if any of those have ever been launched insted?) It was also spent on something they wanted to spend it on, rather than something they were forced to spend it on. It's still an interesting point though, because they spent it on something that carried significant risk. Does spending money on a glass window, which carries the risk of a broken window, work in the same way? I've not considered the broken-window fallacy from that perspective before. Perhaps it's not, for the same for the same reason that breaking a window is considered a crime and an exploding rocket generally is not.
Symbiote 10y ago
Is that the manufacturing cost, or does it include the development cost? Making another should be cheaper than making the first one; and this is Amos-6 -- how different is it from Amos-5?
- AdrianoKF 10y ago
  Judging by the Wikipedia articles, Amos-5 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-5) and Amos-6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-6) use entirely different satellite buses. Amos-5 uses the Russian-built Ekspress 1000H, while Amos-6 is only the second satellite to use the Israeli AMOS 4000.
thegranderson 10y ago
I would guess they lost a lot less than the $200m initial investment, which included design & development of both the satelite and ground control systems. My assumption would be that only the satellite itself was destroyed in this explosion. From the quote below, they reference $85 to cover launch, insurance, and 1 year of operating costs. Presumably that insurance would cover some of the costs of an event like this? Quote from an article on this (http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-1000759794 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-1000759794) Spacecom Satellite Communications' (TASE:SCC) board of director has authorized management to sign a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) to build and buy the Amos 6 communications satellite for $200 million. IAI will build the satellite and its ground control systems, and will provide operating services. The company plans to launch the Amo6 in the first quarter of 2015, and its operating life will be at least 16 years. Spacecom estimates that the cost of launching, insuring and one year's operation of the Amos 6 will be $85 million. The company has to pick a launch company. Spacecom said that it will seek financing for the Amos 6 from IAI and foreign sources.
falcolas 10y ago
I would be quite surprised if the payload was not insured. Doesn't make it any easier on the people who poured their lives into the effort, but the owner will not be out any substantial investment capitol; just potential earnings until its replacement can be pushed up.

tomjen3 10y ago

The actual chips may have to be made again, but code that has been written once should be fine to just load on again. Yeah it sucks, but it could have been a lot worse.

Bud 10y ago

One could also feel sad for the (possibly millions) of people in Africa who were depending on this satellite launch to give them internet service. The difference between having internet, and not having it, is huge, especially in the developing world. This has real human consequences.