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It's a step, but not a first step - it's the second step along the nations/large/medium/small/people road Nor have they actually put anyone in space. The firs

It's a step, but not a first step - it's the second step along the nations/large/medium/small/people road Nor have they actually put anyone in space. The first stage landing is great, but again it's not new -- SpaceX have been doing this for a few years now. Last year's Falcon Heavy, especially the two rockets landing simultaneously on live tv, felt very futuristic. This isn't anywhere near as impressive as that from a "wow" perspective . The MaxQ abort test probably will be, especially if live-streamed. Scientifically, in the last 10 years we've landed on comets, brought bits of asteroids back to earth, driven a rover on an asteroid, landed on the far side of the moon, explored rocks billions of miles away. Any 'new commercial space age' started at least 7 years ago when spacex started being paid for these types of launches - a commercially developed rocket being used for commercial purposes, but companies have had access to space for decades - everytime I point a BGAN at the sky to get communications in the desert I'm using a private company's infrastructure. If you're just talking about a new crewed space exploration age, SpaceX has immense promise, but that's all it is - promise. Once it is delivering people to orbit, which a 50 year old technology currently does, and hopefully progresses further, then that's great. But this is just another minor step on the road. If America was still launching people to the ISS on Apollo, and a Chinese company did a test flight to the ISS using SpaceX technology, I very much doubt there would be as much excitement as there is for this launch. If dearMoon puts private people round the moon, the first people to leave LEO for 50 years, I'll be ecstatic. But I'm also cautious -- SpaceX announced a crewed lunar flyby for launch in 2018.

avmich 8y ago
That's in a large part subjective. For some until we have truly groundbreaking physics with applications which allow doing something considered strictly impossible with previous science, it's not worthy of consideration. For others, just watching slowly unrolling results of decades of development - in electronics (hardware on board of Falcons), computers (organization of that hardware into bigger complex structures, software), organization of enterprises (venture capitalism able to support risky ventures, accumulation of wealth to individuals, ability to optimize for non-immediate or non-financial goals, cooperation with government), methods of material tuning (heat shield, tank bodies, engine) is demonstration enough of the progress being made. We can easily, within few years forget how hard is a particular achievement. Remember how fast Apollo flights started to be considered boring. Or we may turn to those who work on complex problems as we speak, imagine how hard would it be for ourselves doing that and appreciate and honor actual work which leads to these demonstrations. The choice is definitely ours to make.
ncallaway 8y ago
> It's a step, but not a first step - it's the second step along the nations/large/medium/small/people road Cool! I agree, but did anyone claim it was the first step? Magellan or Captain Cook weren't the first steps of their day, either. Nor were the Apollo missions first steps. The Mercury missions had come first! Why can't we be exciting, and have that feeling of exploration for each step? Why should only the first step be exciting? I reject the notion and would argue that every step in pushing our boundaries further out is exciting. > The first stage landing is great, but again it's not new -- SpaceX have been doing this for a few years now I feel like you and I have different time-horizons for what counts as "the dawn of a new space age". When areoform said we were at that dawn I didn't take it to mean on this day we are at that dawn. The dawn of a new age takes a while. This decade is the dawn of a new space age, not necessarily this specific day. At least, that's how I interpreted the comments.
- isostatic 8y ago
  > Cool! I agree, but did anyone claim it was the first step? Yes, the person I responded to said "This is a huge first step on the ladder." This is a tiny step. Come summer when there's actual people on board then yes, it's a significant step towards forward movement, having being going pretty much nowhere since the 70s. I think the biggest step recently, beyond landings or space flight or even a lunar return mission, is the live streaming of launches on youtube. SpaceX feels more futuristic and accessible because they drive that engagement, something not seen since the days of Challenger in 86. I disagree about the dawn. The dawn of the space age was October 4th 1957.
  - ncallaway 8y ago
    > Yes, the person I responded to said > "This is a huge first step on the ladder." Ha! Fair enough! The person you responded to was me, and I did write that. I guess "first step" was not actually an important part of my claim, so I didn't think about it as I was writing it. I'd agree that I should have written "this is a huge next step on the ladder", and not claimed it as the first step. > This is a tiny step. Come summer when there's actual people on board then yes, it's a significant step towards forward movement, having being going pretty much nowhere since the 70s. Eh, I think of the launch today, the in-flight abort, and DM-2 as all part of the same step. Fair enough if you don't consider it "done" until DM-2. I probably won't consider the step "done" for a couple of years (when commercial crew is as routinized as commercial cargo and booster re-use), but I would definitely consider today a major milestone. It's the first operational flight of the hardware! > The dawn of the space age was October 4th 1957. Sure, that's true. I mean, it's pretty semantic at this point, but areoform had originally written: "We're at the dawn of a new space age." I was using that as my reference for being at dawn. I think it's pretty reasonable to say we're right at the cusp of an exciting decade of development in space, in a way that we haven't been for half a century. I'm not going to stop being excited about that!

avmich 8y ago

That's in a large part subjective. For some until we have truly groundbreaking physics with applications which allow doing something considered strictly impossible with previous science, it's not worthy of consideration. For others, just watching slowly unrolling results of decades of development - in electronics (hardware on board of Falcons), computers (organization of that hardware into bigger complex structures, software), organization of enterprises (venture capitalism able to support risky ventures, accumulation of wealth to individuals, ability to optimize for non-immediate or non-financial goals, cooperation with government), methods of material tuning (heat shield, tank bodies, engine) is demonstration enough of the progress being made. We can easily, within few years forget how hard is a particular achievement. Remember how fast Apollo flights started to be considered boring. Or we may turn to those who work on complex problems as we speak, imagine how hard would it be for ourselves doing that and appreciate and honor actual work which leads to these demonstrations. The choice is definitely ours to make.

ncallaway 8y ago

> It's a step, but not a first step - it's the second step along the nations/large/medium/small/people road Cool! I agree, but did anyone claim it was the first step? Magellan or Captain Cook weren't the first steps of their day, either. Nor were the Apollo missions first steps. The Mercury missions had come first! Why can't we be exciting, and have that feeling of exploration for each step? Why should only the first step be exciting? I reject the notion and would argue that every step in pushing our boundaries further out is exciting. > The first stage landing is great, but again it's not new -- SpaceX have been doing this for a few years now I feel like you and I have different time-horizons for what counts as "the dawn of a new space age". When areoform said we were at that dawn I didn't take it to mean on this day we are at that dawn. The dawn of a new age takes a while. This decade is the dawn of a new space age, not necessarily this specific day. At least, that's how I interpreted the comments.

isostatic 8y ago
> Cool! I agree, but did anyone claim it was the first step? Yes, the person I responded to said "This is a huge first step on the ladder." This is a tiny step. Come summer when there's actual people on board then yes, it's a significant step towards forward movement, having being going pretty much nowhere since the 70s. I think the biggest step recently, beyond landings or space flight or even a lunar return mission, is the live streaming of launches on youtube. SpaceX feels more futuristic and accessible because they drive that engagement, something not seen since the days of Challenger in 86. I disagree about the dawn. The dawn of the space age was October 4th 1957.
- ncallaway 8y ago
  > Yes, the person I responded to said > "This is a huge first step on the ladder." Ha! Fair enough! The person you responded to was me, and I did write that. I guess "first step" was not actually an important part of my claim, so I didn't think about it as I was writing it. I'd agree that I should have written "this is a huge next step on the ladder", and not claimed it as the first step. > This is a tiny step. Come summer when there's actual people on board then yes, it's a significant step towards forward movement, having being going pretty much nowhere since the 70s. Eh, I think of the launch today, the in-flight abort, and DM-2 as all part of the same step. Fair enough if you don't consider it "done" until DM-2. I probably won't consider the step "done" for a couple of years (when commercial crew is as routinized as commercial cargo and booster re-use), but I would definitely consider today a major milestone. It's the first operational flight of the hardware! > The dawn of the space age was October 4th 1957. Sure, that's true. I mean, it's pretty semantic at this point, but areoform had originally written: "We're at the dawn of a new space age." I was using that as my reference for being at dawn. I think it's pretty reasonable to say we're right at the cusp of an exciting decade of development in space, in a way that we haven't been for half a century. I'm not going to stop being excited about that!