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Go back five years, to December 2015, and you’d find most people on Hacker News deride SpaceX’s landing attemps as impossible at worst or economically infeasibl

by marvin 6y ago

Go back five years, to December 2015, and you’d find most people on Hacker News deride SpaceX’s landing attemps as impossible at worst or economically infeasible at best, three weeks before they first succeeded. Hopefully you (like me) were one of the ones cheering them on, but achievements that seem obvious in reterospect usually have had notoriously shaky statements about how obvious they were. Obviously the proponents are vindicated today, but it becomes a dodgy game of definitions when talking about how everyone who really had any insight knew that it was inevitable.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Well the opinions on Hackernews are only a little better than those on DailyMail when it comes to sibjects outside IT industry.
pfdietz 6y ago
Here's an interesting news story about Airbus Defense and Space (formerly Astrium)'s reaction to SpaceX, in January 2014: https://spacenews.com/38891a-hat-tip-to-spacex-as-rebranded-airbus-defence-and-space-takes-flight/#:~:text=A%20Hat%20Tip%20to%20SpaceX%20as%20Rebranded%20Airbus,an%20Airbus%20official%20said.%20%22What%20did%20SpaceX%20do%3F https://spacenews.com/38891a-hat-tip-to-spacex-as-rebranded-... What's fascinating about this is how NO ONE was talking about them getting the first stage to be reusable. Musk's plan looks like it exploited this blind spot. Reusing the first stage was so obviously impossible that even with the evidence of nine first stage engines staring them in the face, they thought this was just to minimize development cost. It was only when the legs went on that the penny dropped. And now, no one else will be able to repeat the free R&D flights that SpaceX got by trying to recover first stages off expendable launches sold at expendable launcher prices.
- marvin 6y ago
  Thanks for digging up the concrete data backing up my claim. I was certain that I correctly remembered every observer that counted being blindsided by SpaceX’s success, in spite of their announcing their progress and stating their intentions time and time again. One really has to be meticulous to stay honest when looking at things in reterospect. And, by extension, when looking at lofty-sounding predictions about the future.

by marvin 6y ago

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Well the opinions on Hackernews are only a little better than those on DailyMail when it comes to sibjects outside IT industry.

pfdietz 6y ago

Here's an interesting news story about Airbus Defense and Space (formerly Astrium)'s reaction to SpaceX, in January 2014: https://spacenews.com/38891a-hat-tip-to-spacex-as-rebranded-airbus-defence-and-space-takes-flight/#:~:text=A%20Hat%20Tip%20to%20SpaceX%20as%20Rebranded%20Airbus,an%20Airbus%20official%20said.%20%22What%20did%20SpaceX%20do%3F https://spacenews.com/38891a-hat-tip-to-spacex-as-rebranded-... What's fascinating about this is how NO ONE was talking about them getting the first stage to be reusable. Musk's plan looks like it exploited this blind spot. Reusing the first stage was so obviously impossible that even with the evidence of nine first stage engines staring them in the face, they thought this was just to minimize development cost. It was only when the legs went on that the penny dropped. And now, no one else will be able to repeat the free R&D flights that SpaceX got by trying to recover first stages off expendable launches sold at expendable launcher prices.

marvin 6y ago
Thanks for digging up the concrete data backing up my claim. I was certain that I correctly remembered every observer that counted being blindsided by SpaceX’s success, in spite of their announcing their progress and stating their intentions time and time again. One really has to be meticulous to stay honest when looking at things in reterospect. And, by extension, when looking at lofty-sounding predictions about the future.