7 ms·

They developed a new rocket engine and the ability to land upright, both significant engineering challenges, which it seems is what the problem is currently for

by foota 6y ago

They developed a new rocket engine and the ability to land upright, both significant engineering challenges, which it seems is what the problem is currently for fusion (i.e., we need to build and iterate on things that mostly seem they should work)

mulmen 6y ago
They weren't the first to build a new engine or an engine of that type or land upright. They just combined previous achievements in a better way. Their technology is incredible but it is all incremental improvements combined with a sustainable business model.
- yholio 6y ago
  Their major accomplishments were economic, not technological. Their crown jewel Raptor, applies full-flow staged combustion principles that were known and demonstrated on soviet test stands since the 60s. Fusion power still needs to overcome fundamental, hard physics problems.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    My understanding is that the physics are actually pretty well understood but it's just a matter of executing on them. Fusion is possible but we just need someone to actually... do it. Which AFAIK is the point of ITER.
    - donor20 6y ago
      ITER will NOT in any reasonable time frame actually do it, and will not be a commercial success. Talk to someone in physics closer to this. The time scales ITER is operating on are so long term the tech is ancient by the the time they are actually operating it and the path to commercial power is - basically not there I think.
      - mulmen 6y ago
        I don't think ITER was ever intended to be a commercial success and it doesn't have to be. It's literally named the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. It is a research reactor. It goes first to prove it is at least possible to build a power producing reactor. That's all it has to do. Just exist.
      - DubiousPusher 6y ago
        How can the tech be "ancient" if they are the first ones building it, even if slowly. There may be many new designs by the time they deliver on an older one but that hardly makes the tech "ancient".
        erk__ 6y ago
        The design of ITER was finished in 1998. Technology have changed a lot since then,although no one have built any near the size of it because of the expenses that are pretty much guaranteed to not give any money back.
        DubiousPusher 6y ago
        That's fine but to act like new small scale experiments and designs obsolete technology that has never before been developed at scale is silly and frankly runs contrary to how technological and scientific progress are made. I'll never understand the biases of theorists. They act as if all theory isn't deeply indebted to practical learnings. You don't commit to a project like ITER because you believe it will turn out a cutting edge solution to a problem. You do so because you believe that whatever happens, in the end you will harvest many learnings that are widely useful.
        dredds 6y ago
        Obsolete on Arrival is what's implied i think. If deuterium–tritium fusion experiments start sometime after 2035 then it's potentially "ancient tech" given the accelerating tech timelines (singularity) which is exponential in character.
- tintor 6y ago
  First to land upright from orbital flight.
  - madengr 6y ago
    The retro-rockets on 1976 Viking lander in Mars don’t count? Of course that had a parachute to assist, but I think it was still going really fast.
    - mulmen 6y ago
      Sounds like the Russians actually did it in 1971? Also since we are already speaking extra terrestrially Apollo 11 landed propulsively in 1969, with humans on board and it got back to orbit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_1#Lander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_1#Lander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3#Entry,_descent,_landing,_transmission,_and_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3#Entry,_descent,_landing...
  - everyone 6y ago
    Not orbital. Sub-orbital. Only their 1st stage rocket has landed, which mainly goes up, its nowhere near orbital velocity. They plan to land the 2nd stage of starship, which will have reached orbital speeds. But that is a huge challenge that they have not attempted yet.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    On top of the great points made by sibling comments the Apollo Lunar Modules landed propulsively from orbit with an additional party trick of having humans on board. Also Blue Origin actually did propulsive sub-orbital landing from space to Earth before SpaceX, although admittedly from a lower altitude and velocity. Both came after the 1990s era Delta Clipper. Before that there were probably a lot of Apollo era test vehicles. Each one got a bit higher and faster. This is the value SpaceX offers. They're doing the hard work of making things we know are possible also commercially viable.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    When did SpaceX ever do a powered landing from orbital flight? The first ones that did, by the way, are the Soviets in the early 70s.
mdorazio 6y ago
I don't agree the problems are comparable at all. The original Merlin engines were modern iterations of proven technology and vertical landing rockets were already proven technology dating back many decades to the DC-X [1] and Apollo lunar lander. What SpaceX did was cut all the bullshit out of the space launch industry that had grown incredibly lazy due to lack of competitors and revolving doors with the government, and then modernize everything with iterative development. In comparison, commercially viable fusion has never been shown to work in the real world at all. The Raptor engine, however, really is a massive achievement and is somewhat comparable to developing fusion power. But if SpaceX had started with it, they probably would have failed due to how much time, money, and expertise it took to get working. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
- vladTheInhaler 6y ago
  I don't think that landing on the moon with lunar gravity and no atmosphere is at all comparable to surviving hypersonic reentry speeds and landing on such a tiny target. And reading the Wikipedia article, it doesn't sound like the DC-X ever demonstrated a landing from orbit, which is most of the challenge.
  - everyone 6y ago
    Space X have never landed any rockets from orbit. Only their 1st stage has landed, which mainly goes up, its nowhere near orbital velocity.
    - vladTheInhaler 6y ago
      That's fair. Perhaps I should have said "from a trajectory that could plausibly lead it to orbit."
- fastball 6y ago
  Ok, so then someone should start a company that iterates on fission (proven tech like Merlin) and gets the cost of that way down and safety way up, then uses that momentum to work on fusion, which (like the Raptor engine) is a whole 'nother ball game, but you can still use some of the expertise from fission for fusion. The analogy holds!

by foota 6y ago

mulmen 6y ago

They weren't the first to build a new engine or an engine of that type or land upright. They just combined previous achievements in a better way. Their technology is incredible but it is all incremental improvements combined with a sustainable business model.

yholio 6y ago
Their major accomplishments were economic, not technological. Their crown jewel Raptor, applies full-flow staged combustion principles that were known and demonstrated on soviet test stands since the 60s. Fusion power still needs to overcome fundamental, hard physics problems.
- mulmen 6y ago
  My understanding is that the physics are actually pretty well understood but it's just a matter of executing on them. Fusion is possible but we just need someone to actually... do it. Which AFAIK is the point of ITER.
  - donor20 6y ago
    ITER will NOT in any reasonable time frame actually do it, and will not be a commercial success. Talk to someone in physics closer to this. The time scales ITER is operating on are so long term the tech is ancient by the the time they are actually operating it and the path to commercial power is - basically not there I think.
    - mulmen 6y ago
      I don't think ITER was ever intended to be a commercial success and it doesn't have to be. It's literally named the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. It is a research reactor. It goes first to prove it is at least possible to build a power producing reactor. That's all it has to do. Just exist.
    - DubiousPusher 6y ago
      How can the tech be "ancient" if they are the first ones building it, even if slowly. There may be many new designs by the time they deliver on an older one but that hardly makes the tech "ancient".
      - erk__ 6y ago
        The design of ITER was finished in 1998. Technology have changed a lot since then,although no one have built any near the size of it because of the expenses that are pretty much guaranteed to not give any money back.
        DubiousPusher 6y ago
        That's fine but to act like new small scale experiments and designs obsolete technology that has never before been developed at scale is silly and frankly runs contrary to how technological and scientific progress are made. I'll never understand the biases of theorists. They act as if all theory isn't deeply indebted to practical learnings. You don't commit to a project like ITER because you believe it will turn out a cutting edge solution to a problem. You do so because you believe that whatever happens, in the end you will harvest many learnings that are widely useful.
      - dredds 6y ago
        Obsolete on Arrival is what's implied i think. If deuterium–tritium fusion experiments start sometime after 2035 then it's potentially "ancient tech" given the accelerating tech timelines (singularity) which is exponential in character.
tintor 6y ago
First to land upright from orbital flight.
- madengr 6y ago
  The retro-rockets on 1976 Viking lander in Mars don’t count? Of course that had a parachute to assist, but I think it was still going really fast.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Sounds like the Russians actually did it in 1971? Also since we are already speaking extra terrestrially Apollo 11 landed propulsively in 1969, with humans on board and it got back to orbit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_1#Lander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_1#Lander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3#Entry,_descent,_landing,_transmission,_and_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3#Entry,_descent,_landing...
- everyone 6y ago
  Not orbital. Sub-orbital. Only their 1st stage rocket has landed, which mainly goes up, its nowhere near orbital velocity. They plan to land the 2nd stage of starship, which will have reached orbital speeds. But that is a huge challenge that they have not attempted yet.
- mulmen 6y ago
  On top of the great points made by sibling comments the Apollo Lunar Modules landed propulsively from orbit with an additional party trick of having humans on board. Also Blue Origin actually did propulsive sub-orbital landing from space to Earth before SpaceX, although admittedly from a lower altitude and velocity. Both came after the 1990s era Delta Clipper. Before that there were probably a lot of Apollo era test vehicles. Each one got a bit higher and faster. This is the value SpaceX offers. They're doing the hard work of making things we know are possible also commercially viable.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  When did SpaceX ever do a powered landing from orbital flight? The first ones that did, by the way, are the Soviets in the early 70s.

mdorazio 6y ago

I don't agree the problems are comparable at all. The original Merlin engines were modern iterations of proven technology and vertical landing rockets were already proven technology dating back many decades to the DC-X [1] and Apollo lunar lander. What SpaceX did was cut all the bullshit out of the space launch industry that had grown incredibly lazy due to lack of competitors and revolving doors with the government, and then modernize everything with iterative development. In comparison, commercially viable fusion has never been shown to work in the real world at all. The Raptor engine, however, really is a massive achievement and is somewhat comparable to developing fusion power. But if SpaceX had started with it, they probably would have failed due to how much time, money, and expertise it took to get working. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

vladTheInhaler 6y ago
I don't think that landing on the moon with lunar gravity and no atmosphere is at all comparable to surviving hypersonic reentry speeds and landing on such a tiny target. And reading the Wikipedia article, it doesn't sound like the DC-X ever demonstrated a landing from orbit, which is most of the challenge.
- everyone 6y ago
  Space X have never landed any rockets from orbit. Only their 1st stage has landed, which mainly goes up, its nowhere near orbital velocity.
  - vladTheInhaler 6y ago
    That's fair. Perhaps I should have said "from a trajectory that could plausibly lead it to orbit."
fastball 6y ago
Ok, so then someone should start a company that iterates on fission (proven tech like Merlin) and gets the cost of that way down and safety way up, then uses that momentum to work on fusion, which (like the Raptor engine) is a whole 'nother ball game, but you can still use some of the expertise from fission for fusion. The analogy holds!