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Hacker News has a huge boner for Elon Musk. They forget that others beat Musk and are well known for beating Musk (re: spaceships).

• rbanffy 10y ago
  Only in the most literal sense they could be called spaceships. They are no more spaceships than a swimming suit is a boat.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    Those two sentences are contradictory. A swimming suit is not a boat, especially in "the most literal sense." A suborbital manned spacecraft, OTOH, is a spaceship in every sense. (It's neither an orbital spaceship nor, say, an interplanetary spaceship, but it's definitely a spaceship.) Saying they aren't is like saying a riverboat isn't a boat because it's not ocean-going.
    • rbanffy 10y ago
      A suborbital spaceship is analogous to a boat that can go into waters, just as long as they are knee-deep. It can touch space, but a ship is not defined by its ability to touch the water.