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It is hard to convey how "sustainable" this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to
by ChuckMcM 6y ago
It is hard to convey how "sustainable" this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.
All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of "uneconomical but useful". Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close.
And the last thing I'm feeling is the amazement at how much technology has evolved to get us to this point. I imagined as a child that the Apollo program would lead to a factory of rockets that launched people to orbit, to the Moon, and even to Mars on demand. And seeing what SpaceX has done to get to this point, it is clear to me that was never even close to possible. The Russian program is great in that way. It shows what that path might have looked like. And yes we could have refined the making of F1 engines, the construction of boosters, and just pushed that, but that leads to a steady state that is below what you need to run a program like this with a net positive economic outcome.
So very impressed guys, congratulations!
- jvanderbot 6y agoThis is what it should have been a decade or two ago. The infusion of expertise from gov-sponsored / R&D to commercial should have been accelerated long ago. Happy to see Lars and others matching up with entrepreneurs and a new generation to get things done.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rrmm 6y agoYay! Finally, a good thing happened!
- Reedx 6y agoA new normal has just been defined. Amazing to see. "Thank you for flying with Falcon 9 today", as though it's an airplane.
- hsnewman 6y agoWouldn't it be "Thank you for flying with Spacex today"?
- Gene_Parmesan 6y agoYou'd think so, but that's what they said to the astronauts on the stream today.
- spopejoy 6y agoSo many cheeky touches! It's such a different vibe than the NASA launches of old. It's old news but I still was caught off guard by announcers flatly referring to "Of Course I Still Love You" EDIT this is not a criticism, I really like it. Maybe "cheeky" is the wrong term, I'm bad with Anglicisms
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- plerpin 6y agoThe name felt like a nod to Iain Banks' Culture series, whose AI-piloted spaceships had pretty funny names. https://concord.fandom.com/wiki/Iain_M._Banks_Culture_Universe_Spaceship_Names https://concord.fandom.com/wiki/Iain_M._Banks_Culture_Univer... (ctrl-f for Windward)
- trothamel 6y agoIt explicitly is.
- shrimp_emoji 6y agoIronic since the Culture is anti-capitalist. xD
- antepodius 6y ago
- jl6 6y agoNot to detract one iota from this amazing achievement, but what definition of sustainable are you thinking of? This was still paid for by the government.
- rrmm 6y agoSpaceX has brought the costs down a lot. Around $500mil for a shuttle launch.
- cma 6y agoDidn’t shuttle have a larger payload? Up to 8 people and larger cargo. NASA gave a $55million estimate on cost per seat on crew dragon, which would be about $440 million to launch 8 people. Not sure that is factoring in reusability once they are willing to use that for crew missions (or offset price reusing crew boosters on non crewed missions). Another issue with shuttle was reliability though. It may take hundreds of flights to know how much it is improved with crew dragon, but it seems to have better launch abort capabilities etc.
- rrmm 6y agoYeah there's definitely a capability gap. The issue is many of the capabilities weren't necessary or used on every flight. Stuff like spacelab missions can probably be done using the ISS. Some of the military capabilities are moved to X-37. Certain of the satellite launching capabilities of the shuttle were hampered by safety concerns post challenger/columbia. The ability to retrieve and return large cargo is still missing, but it doesn't appear many people are clamoring for it. It'd be nice if we could continue to service Hubble going forward, but that's mostly nostalgia talking. The Shuttle was supposed to do everything for everyone and it met with predictable results. The promised economies and launch rates were never realized. The safety issues inherent with the design made its continuation nearly impossible. Having cheaper, mostly reusable launchers that have capabilities that people actually use is way more valuable.
- fpoling 6y ago2 people in the shuttle crew were pilots trained to land the shuttle. That was their primary job. Surely they were capable to do other things, but they could not be sent into the space for months and keep their skills intact. So the real number of seats was like 6.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination. The ISS is definitely not a commercial project. There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture. While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more efficient path to orbit, the purpose of the mission is not commercial. Crew Dragon's existence is funded by the need to move people to and from the ISS. Without the ISS, Crew Dragon would exist. I hold off on the "commercial" designation until the customer funding the mission actually intends profit. What we need is a commercial, money-making, reason to launch people into orbit. Astronauts fly for science. They fly for national pride. They fly to demonstrate engineering excellence. They don't fly to make money. I'm a big spacelaunch fan but I just don't see any commercial reason to launch people into space. (Space hotels for billionaires might be a niche but that doesn't seem sustainable imho.)
- babesh 6y agoYou just need to look further. You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable. Read https://www.amazon.com/Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Possibility/dp/1633885348 https://www.amazon.com/Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Pos... Also with that short term outlook you wouldn’t have many things. The Internet was not initially commercial. It was designed to provide communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet here we are now and we have reaped immense benefits from that investment. It’s blindingly obvious that spaceflight makes sense to invest in. The issue is that the level of investment is large and the time horizon before a return is long. Sometimes government takes that role.
- sandworm101 6y agoThat's what I meant by "hold off". It isn't commercial until it is. Government-sponsored developmental programs may one day pave the way for commercial operations, but that hasn't happened yet. And the concept of space-mining likely will not involve people. We are already replacing men with machines in mines on earth because of associated costs. I imagine the first space miners won't be guys in spacesuits carrying shovels. They will be machines.
- Animats 6y agofactory of rockets Rocket factories existed over 50 years ago. But they were making ICBMs.[1] The big change is that it's now possible to make money launching. [1] https://youtu.be/Pqw9YOOOuKk https://youtu.be/Pqw9YOOOuKk
- sandworm101 6y agoRockets were being made long before 50 years ago. There were plenty of rockets in WWI. And there were smaller rockets going back to before the US war of independence (ie "the rocket's red glare"). If we are talking big metal things that fly into space being produced on an assembly line, then those operating in Germany during late WWII making the V2s (75years ago) were probably the first rocket factories. But I'm not going to clap for them.
- jandrewrogers 6y agoTechnically, military rockets were not a thing that existed at the time of the US war for independence. The phrase "the rocket's red glare" refers to Congreve rockets, which were invented in the 19th century following the introduction of rockets into modern military use in India at the end of the 18th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_rocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_rocket
- jwilliamson 6y agoThe Congreve rockets were inspired by the rockets used by Mysore starting in 1780. So there were military rockets in use at the time of the US war of independence, they just weren't being used by either of the combatants in that war.
- mr_toad 6y agoRockets with orbital capability are a whole different ballgame. (The Mongols used rockets several hundred years ago, but back then no one even knew what an orbit was).
- jessaustin 6y ago
- qubex 6y ago> It is hard to convey how “sustainable” this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. I understand your sentiment, but I’m also profoundly unsettled by the idea that commerce and capitalism are reaching beyond the clutches of our planet. Today is definitely a threshold, but what that threshold means, in a broader sense, is not clear to me. As liberals we celebrate the entrepreneurial slam-dunk and as technologists we admire the elegant engineering. But maybe I’m jaded, but I fear the profit motive is going too far. We live in a truly extraordinary moment socioeconomically. Never before in the history of mankind had so much activity been predicated upon commercial viability — and never before had so much gone undone simply because it is unprofitable. Spacefaring nations’ governments have not abdicated spaceflight, and indeed they’re likely to militarise their approach ever more. But now we have private enterprise ferrying people up there too. “Sustainable”... what a funny word. When have commercial ventures ever been “sustainable”? A sustainable commercial venture tends to be one that externalises most of its costs (look at the sustainability of bulwarks of 20th century commercial ventures, such as the automotive industry and its bedfellow oil & gas). I will say I’m glad that manned spaceflight is no longer the prerogative of a couple of extraordinarily well-heeled superpowers. But...
- orangecat 6y agoI fear the profit motive is going too far. And I hope it goes further. We've seen what happens when decisions are made on the basis of political expedience rather than cost-effectiveness: you get SLS. Or more accurately, you don't get SLS.
- icelancer 6y agoAmen. SLS is an embarrassment. It is clear who should be handling the future of spaceflight after today.
- nickik 6y agoWow, I hate the philosophy behind this comment so much. The it must be exhausting to look at the world threw such a pessimistic lenses. Its like human commerce is some cancer and if business and capitalist spreads the then the cancer will grow and take over the universe ultimiatly leading to the end of the universe because the inherent un-sustainability. If we only could achieve things with the pure power of love, our achievements would be so glorious without the dirtying influence of the profit motive. > Never before in the history of mankind had so much activity been predicated upon commercial viability No idea of how you get to that or how you would actually show that this is correct. > and never before had so much gone undone simply because it is unprofitable. Again, based on what? How you measure that? Can you show hard numbers that this is true in any way? And even if it was, is it it not better that there so many things in the first place, as opposed to the waste majority of history? > Spacefaring nations’ governments have not abdicated spaceflight, and indeed they’re likely to militarise their approach ever more. By any measure human space flight in particular and space-flight in general is less military driven now then ever before. > When have commercial ventures ever been “sustainable”? By any measure most humans care about they are very sustainable. Nothing is sustainable for infinity. In the comment above it was clearly meant that it is sustainable compared to congress driven political budget cycles. Or more likely at least for a decade or two there will very likely be a commercial way to get to space. > A sustainable commercial venture tends to be one that externalises most of its costs (look at the sustainability of bulwarks of 20th century commercial ventures, such as the automotive industry and its bedfellow oil & gas). Its utterly and completely wrong to claim that MOST of the cost is externalized, that is just simply bad math even in industries with a lot of external cost. And then you pick automotive and gas as examples, you do understand that selling of vegan hamburgers is also a commercial venture. Are you saying humanity is not sustainable because we can only have 7 billion people because of commercial ventures. Would going back to 100M human living as hunter gathers in a totally non commercial way be 'sustainable' enough for you? Any the automotive industry is very sustainable and will not go away for a very, very, very long time, there is no indication that we are gone run out of gas anytime soon either, not for decades and more likely never. Far more likely that we are gone come up with something better and basically not use gas much anymore, but it will still be commercially available at that point.
- linkmotif 6y agoI don't understand how SpaceX is "commercial." As I understand it, they exist because the US Government wants to have a space program. Yes, they can launch satellites, but how many for-profit non-state entities can use these things? It seems like SpaceX is possible because there are governments out there with money to burn.
- xjlin0 6y agoLots of people use GPS&map. Even EU/Ru/China developed their own GPS. Military industry wants to have weapons in the space. And for saving the earth we still need satellites monitor our poor earth. Not to mention other goals like deploying internet/phone service to everyone, etc. Lunching Satellites definitely is commercial. GPS/map plus ads&directory is already printing money...
- ralusek 6y agoStarlink, for one.
- dianastamm 6y agoI cringed when I saw the Tesla car though. Kinda cheapened the whole thing for me
- Diesel555 6y agoI thought it was awesome. I'm going to create the electric car market no-one thought possible and many companies paid to lobby to create laws to stop.... and put it into space.
- davidkamMN 6y agome too
- oska 6y agoBit of a strange criticism. They've got to drive out in something, why not an electric vehicle? And the spacesuits are bulky and difficult to move in, so the falcon doors on that Tesla model make sense for easy egress.
- mongol 6y agoThey used to use the "Astronaut transfer van" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_transfer_van https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_transfer_van but I guess it is too old now
- oska 6y agoThanks for the link. I see from that article that Boeing have commissioned a new customised Airstream van to transport crew out to the Starliner. So looks like responsibility for crew transport to launch is up to the commercial provider and so again, completely sensible for SpaceX to use vehicles from its sister company, as appropriate.
- dianastamm 6y agoIt’s a marketing thing
- globular-toast 6y agoYou seem to equate being commercially viable with being sustainable but I think you are forgetting that the vast majority of the current economy is unsustainable. The only difference is the government was honest about it.
- gdubs 6y agoTotally. Seeing the rocket successfully land is still stirring. I remember the first time I saw SpaceX land those two rockets together, I felt like I was living through history. With all the insanity plaguing the world right now, it’s amazing to have a parallel track of optimistic discovery and exploration. It gives me hope.