5 ms·

And CRS-7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_CRS-7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_CRS-7)

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Right, and both of those had some consequences regarding PR. I meant to call attention to the fact that we're doing manned missions soon. It's a bit different having an unmanned rocket explode. Hopefully it won't matter at all. The world might be ready for a "Well, that sucked. Let's move on" type mindset.
- manicdee 9y ago
  When the inevitable human fatalities are realised, we will see that everyone involved had done their best: SpaceX doing everything they can to make their rockets more reliable, a launch escape system that works all the way to orbit, and dozens of successful launches on the same hardware.
  - babyrainbow 9y ago
    > When the inevitable human fatalities are realised, we will see that everyone involved had done their best: Have you seen the movie called "the challenger disaster". If not, you should see it. It might helps to gain a bit of perspective about these things.
    - Inconel 9y ago
      I don't always have the best reading comprehension but this seems somewhat cryptic. I don't have time to watch a movie at the moment but what was the perspective you gained from it? Also, I'm always a sucker for a good space related movie, was it any good? I'm not sure which one you're talking about but these are the two I was able to find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_(1990_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_(1990_film)
      - babyrainbow 9y ago
        http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/ The Challenger Disaster(2013) : Factual drama exploring the truth behind the space shuttle Challenger's 1986 disintegration. Your comment reminded, specifically this part " When the inevitable human fatalities are realized, we will see that everyone involved had done their best:" reminded me of the speech given by someone in charge of the investigation at the start of it.. >I appreciate you all coming together at short notice. We have a huge, vital task ahead of us, upon which might depend the future of manned space flight in this country. Now, I intend for this investigation to follow an orderly and proper procedure. We are not going to conduct it in a manner that is in any way unfairly critical of NASA. Because we believe, and certainly I believe, that NASA has done an excellent job. And I believe that the American people think so too. Anyone? Of course, it turned out to be not so pretty...
        Inconel 9y ago
        So this exchange is veering dangerously close to me going full on SpaceX shill mode, which I have no desire to do, one for the good of the HN community as I don't think that would be appreciated here, but also for the simple fact that I'm off the clock right now and Elon will need to increase my pay if he intents me to run PR on my off hours. Thank you for clarifying your previous post as this is what I was thinking you meant, but I didn't want to say anything without being sure. With that being said, and at the risk of sounding overly defensive, I do find it somewhat unkind to call into question the ethics and professionalism of those who work at SpaceX based on a movie about a completely different set of organizations and corporations. This of course isn't to say that there aren't valuable lessons to be learned from those past events, or that we are somehow immune from making similar mistakes, but implying that if such an event befell a SpaceX launch it would immediately be due to a lack of people giving it their best seems somewhat premature. I do have a well read and marked up copy of both the Rogers Commission Report as well as the CAIB report on my bookshelf, so I can assure you that I and many others do take the lessons learned from those events very seriously. Thanks for the movie recommendation, I'll add it to my to-watch list.
- mikeash 9y ago
  An explosion on a manned flight shouldn't result in anything more than some bruised and disappointed astronauts.
- Inconel 9y ago
  Disclaimer: I work at SpaceX as a technician. Certainly manned missions have an added element of concern due to the risk to human life, but even unmanned failures have consequences beyond bad PR for those involved in the launch. This isn't specific to SpaceX, I'm sure it's the same for anyone involved in the launch industry, and there's no way to sugar coat it, but its an extremely shitty feeling to work on a piece of flight hardware for weeks/months at a time, see it go through build, test, certification, and then see it fail during launch. In many ways it's even worse when you realize that your rocket is carrying a payload that many other people worked just as hard on, often over even longer periods of time, and in the case of some scientific payloads may not have the ability to relaunch due to budget/time constraints, and they have entrusted you to get this payload to orbit and you have failed them. I wish I had a more sophisticated way of describing it, but its overall just a very shitty feeling.
  - issa 9y ago
    Disclaimer: I build web apps that don't really mean much at the end of the day. Not sure if this will help that shitty feeling when things go wrong, but SpaceX has given me an AMAZING feeling that I was a little worried humanity as a whole wouldn't feel again. All the hard work is appreciated!
    - Inconel 9y ago
      I'm just a low level cog in the wheel here, but hearing things like that is certainly very nice. I wouldn't sell yourself short though, rocket launches tend to make for good press, and often make the front page of HN, but anyone who works hard at a job is worthy of respect whether they're building web apps, or spaceships, or anything else.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - mikeash 9y ago
        I just want to add that there are a whole lot of us rooting for you and worrying every time you guys launch, and doing our best to share your pain after the failures. Low level cogs are still important and you're doing amazing stuff.
- babyrainbow 9y ago
  > The world might be ready for a "Well, that sucked. Let's move on" type mindset.... "Well, that sucked (that people are dead)?, but let us move on (like nothing has ever happened?)", is that the mindset you want the world to adopt?
  - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
    Is this not what happened with the Apollo and Shuttle programmes? I'm not saying loss of human life is acceptable but the astronauts know the risks when they sign up.
    - babyrainbow 9y ago
      >but the astronauts know the risks when they sign up. You should see this movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/
  - ufmace 9y ago
    Pretty much, yeah. Exactly what mindset do you want the world to adopt? We don't want to be careless with human lives, but it's also not helpful to play a finger-pointing blame game every time there's an accident.
    - babyrainbow 9y ago
      >but it's also not helpful to play a finger-pointing blame game every time there's an accident.. It sure is helpful if it can prevent loss of human life in the future, even it slows down the "progress" a bit and some company loses some of its valuation and business...

Right, and both of those had some consequences regarding PR. I meant to call attention to the fact that we're doing manned missions soon. It's a bit different having an unmanned rocket explode. Hopefully it won't matter at all. The world might be ready for a "Well, that sucked. Let's move on" type mindset.

manicdee 9y ago
When the inevitable human fatalities are realised, we will see that everyone involved had done their best: SpaceX doing everything they can to make their rockets more reliable, a launch escape system that works all the way to orbit, and dozens of successful launches on the same hardware.
- babyrainbow 9y ago
  > When the inevitable human fatalities are realised, we will see that everyone involved had done their best: Have you seen the movie called "the challenger disaster". If not, you should see it. It might helps to gain a bit of perspective about these things.
  - Inconel 9y ago
    I don't always have the best reading comprehension but this seems somewhat cryptic. I don't have time to watch a movie at the moment but what was the perspective you gained from it? Also, I'm always a sucker for a good space related movie, was it any good? I'm not sure which one you're talking about but these are the two I was able to find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_(1990_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_(1990_film)
    - babyrainbow 9y ago
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/ The Challenger Disaster(2013) : Factual drama exploring the truth behind the space shuttle Challenger's 1986 disintegration. Your comment reminded, specifically this part " When the inevitable human fatalities are realized, we will see that everyone involved had done their best:" reminded me of the speech given by someone in charge of the investigation at the start of it.. >I appreciate you all coming together at short notice. We have a huge, vital task ahead of us, upon which might depend the future of manned space flight in this country. Now, I intend for this investigation to follow an orderly and proper procedure. We are not going to conduct it in a manner that is in any way unfairly critical of NASA. Because we believe, and certainly I believe, that NASA has done an excellent job. And I believe that the American people think so too. Anyone? Of course, it turned out to be not so pretty...
      - Inconel 9y ago
        So this exchange is veering dangerously close to me going full on SpaceX shill mode, which I have no desire to do, one for the good of the HN community as I don't think that would be appreciated here, but also for the simple fact that I'm off the clock right now and Elon will need to increase my pay if he intents me to run PR on my off hours. Thank you for clarifying your previous post as this is what I was thinking you meant, but I didn't want to say anything without being sure. With that being said, and at the risk of sounding overly defensive, I do find it somewhat unkind to call into question the ethics and professionalism of those who work at SpaceX based on a movie about a completely different set of organizations and corporations. This of course isn't to say that there aren't valuable lessons to be learned from those past events, or that we are somehow immune from making similar mistakes, but implying that if such an event befell a SpaceX launch it would immediately be due to a lack of people giving it their best seems somewhat premature. I do have a well read and marked up copy of both the Rogers Commission Report as well as the CAIB report on my bookshelf, so I can assure you that I and many others do take the lessons learned from those events very seriously. Thanks for the movie recommendation, I'll add it to my to-watch list.
mikeash 9y ago
An explosion on a manned flight shouldn't result in anything more than some bruised and disappointed astronauts.
Inconel 9y ago
Disclaimer: I work at SpaceX as a technician. Certainly manned missions have an added element of concern due to the risk to human life, but even unmanned failures have consequences beyond bad PR for those involved in the launch. This isn't specific to SpaceX, I'm sure it's the same for anyone involved in the launch industry, and there's no way to sugar coat it, but its an extremely shitty feeling to work on a piece of flight hardware for weeks/months at a time, see it go through build, test, certification, and then see it fail during launch. In many ways it's even worse when you realize that your rocket is carrying a payload that many other people worked just as hard on, often over even longer periods of time, and in the case of some scientific payloads may not have the ability to relaunch due to budget/time constraints, and they have entrusted you to get this payload to orbit and you have failed them. I wish I had a more sophisticated way of describing it, but its overall just a very shitty feeling.
- issa 9y ago
  Disclaimer: I build web apps that don't really mean much at the end of the day. Not sure if this will help that shitty feeling when things go wrong, but SpaceX has given me an AMAZING feeling that I was a little worried humanity as a whole wouldn't feel again. All the hard work is appreciated!
  - Inconel 9y ago
    I'm just a low level cog in the wheel here, but hearing things like that is certainly very nice. I wouldn't sell yourself short though, rocket launches tend to make for good press, and often make the front page of HN, but anyone who works hard at a job is worthy of respect whether they're building web apps, or spaceships, or anything else.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikeash 9y ago
      I just want to add that there are a whole lot of us rooting for you and worrying every time you guys launch, and doing our best to share your pain after the failures. Low level cogs are still important and you're doing amazing stuff.
babyrainbow 9y ago
> The world might be ready for a "Well, that sucked. Let's move on" type mindset.... "Well, that sucked (that people are dead)?, but let us move on (like nothing has ever happened?)", is that the mindset you want the world to adopt?
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  Is this not what happened with the Apollo and Shuttle programmes? I'm not saying loss of human life is acceptable but the astronauts know the risks when they sign up.
  - babyrainbow 9y ago
    >but the astronauts know the risks when they sign up. You should see this movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2421662/
- ufmace 9y ago
  Pretty much, yeah. Exactly what mindset do you want the world to adopt? We don't want to be careless with human lives, but it's also not helpful to play a finger-pointing blame game every time there's an accident.
  - babyrainbow 9y ago
    >but it's also not helpful to play a finger-pointing blame game every time there's an accident.. It sure is helpful if it can prevent loss of human life in the future, even it slows down the "progress" a bit and some company loses some of its valuation and business...