36 ms·

So show me SpaceX somewhere other than the US. SpaceX exists solely because of Musk and the culture in the US that encourages his kind of risk taking. It litera

by mrkstu 6y ago

So show me SpaceX somewhere other than the US. SpaceX exists solely because of Musk and the culture in the US that encourages his kind of risk taking. It literally would/could not occur anywhere else and even now, with the successful example it is setting, other countries are having an extremely hard time replicating it.

ygtx 6y ago
the soviets had a pretty successful space program back in the day...
- mrkstu 6y ago
  They threw the whole resources of a nation state at it to do it as well, vs the bootstrapping of one guy with about a hundred million bucks. It takes the right guy and the right environment to make that kind of magic happen.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    They really didn't. The Soviet space program operated with around a third of the US Space program (about one 200th of the USSR economy in 1970), or the equivalent of, give or take, 30 billion 2020 US dollars, or around 10 times the budget of SpaceX, notwithstanding technological price deflation. With 1970s tech and only ten times the budget, the Soviet space program certainly innovated a lot more than SpaceX did, in all fields, from computer science to basic physics, to metallurgy, to jet engines, and built more ambitious missions.
sudosysgen 6y ago
The impact and innovation of SpaceX is much lesser than that of, for example, NASA or the Soviet space program. Eventually, its capabilities too will be matched, and exceeded, probably by at least one public program.
- mola 6y ago
  So true, most of what spacex is achieving is 1960s government developed technology, yet it is herald as some proof for private sector being better suited for innovation. Most of the technological achievements of the last century we're done by governments, the private sector was very good at productization of these acievements, but it's inherent shortermist thinking actually stifle innovation.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    This is true. SpaceX is applying modern tech to ideas from governments in 60s to 80s. For example, the idea of reusable rockets with the first stage landing vertically actually originated at NASA in the 70s. It wasn't pursued because realizing it at the time would require a human to guide the descent, which makes it very impractical. SpaceX applied modern tech to an old concept, a reusable first stage via powered landing. They didn't do that much innovation. Landing a booster was already a solved problem, now the matter was to scale it up and automate it.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > Landing a booster was already a solved problem It was solved on paper. SpaceX did it. Note, too, that nobody else was thinking about solving this problem in 2001. Or 2011. Space had become a jobs program per ArianeSpace and ULA.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        People landed rockets vertically in real life for decades beforethen. What SpaceX did was to put a second stage on top of that, scale it up, and make it automatically guided. You're going to have a very, very hard time arguing that this is anywhere even near the level of innovation that NASA or the Soviet space program achieved in a third of the company's lifetime. As for the stagnation in space, sure. That's the issue with government programs in our current paradigm, they are heavy and the best course of action is seldom taken. Also, for some reason the US has an aversion for SoEs, so NASA, for ideological reasons, wouldn't have been allowed to make their own reusable launch vehicle and make a profit out of it.

by mrkstu 6y ago

ygtx 6y ago

the soviets had a pretty successful space program back in the day...

mrkstu 6y ago
They threw the whole resources of a nation state at it to do it as well, vs the bootstrapping of one guy with about a hundred million bucks. It takes the right guy and the right environment to make that kind of magic happen.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  They really didn't. The Soviet space program operated with around a third of the US Space program (about one 200th of the USSR economy in 1970), or the equivalent of, give or take, 30 billion 2020 US dollars, or around 10 times the budget of SpaceX, notwithstanding technological price deflation. With 1970s tech and only ten times the budget, the Soviet space program certainly innovated a lot more than SpaceX did, in all fields, from computer science to basic physics, to metallurgy, to jet engines, and built more ambitious missions.

sudosysgen 6y ago

The impact and innovation of SpaceX is much lesser than that of, for example, NASA or the Soviet space program. Eventually, its capabilities too will be matched, and exceeded, probably by at least one public program.

mola 6y ago
So true, most of what spacex is achieving is 1960s government developed technology, yet it is herald as some proof for private sector being better suited for innovation. Most of the technological achievements of the last century we're done by governments, the private sector was very good at productization of these acievements, but it's inherent shortermist thinking actually stifle innovation.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  This is true. SpaceX is applying modern tech to ideas from governments in 60s to 80s. For example, the idea of reusable rockets with the first stage landing vertically actually originated at NASA in the 70s. It wasn't pursued because realizing it at the time would require a human to guide the descent, which makes it very impractical. SpaceX applied modern tech to an old concept, a reusable first stage via powered landing. They didn't do that much innovation. Landing a booster was already a solved problem, now the matter was to scale it up and automate it.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > Landing a booster was already a solved problem It was solved on paper. SpaceX did it. Note, too, that nobody else was thinking about solving this problem in 2001. Or 2011. Space had become a jobs program per ArianeSpace and ULA.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      People landed rockets vertically in real life for decades beforethen. What SpaceX did was to put a second stage on top of that, scale it up, and make it automatically guided. You're going to have a very, very hard time arguing that this is anywhere even near the level of innovation that NASA or the Soviet space program achieved in a third of the company's lifetime. As for the stagnation in space, sure. That's the issue with government programs in our current paradigm, they are heavy and the best course of action is seldom taken. Also, for some reason the US has an aversion for SoEs, so NASA, for ideological reasons, wouldn't have been allowed to make their own reusable launch vehicle and make a profit out of it.