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In your simplest web software, there's the first 80% and the second 80%. With projects like this, which are literally life and death, there's many more 80%s to
by darkerside 5y ago
In your simplest web software, there's the first 80% and the second 80%. With projects like this, which are literally life and death, there's many more 80%s to be considered and executed.
Do you ask why space travel is expensive? It's arguably much simpler than this is.
- jjk166 5y agoIf a rocket explodes, the astronauts die. If a pair of goggles fails, the soldier takes them off. These are the same people who equipped soldiers in Vietnam with a rifle that jams due to mud. The idea that military hardware has to be many times more reliable than space hardware is absurd.
- darkerside 5y agoSometimes the rocket fails but the astronaut makes it back (Apollo 13). Sometimes the goggles fail, and the soldier misjudges a drop and breaks his leg, or walks into a known blast radius and dies, or misidentifies and kills a civilian. Either way, if this is worth doing -- and I agree with you that it's a big, big if -- it is worth doing right.
- jjk166 5y agoAstronauts surviving a failure is a once in a generation event that gets memorialized forever in movies and literature. Soldiers' equipment failing is a Tuesday. Increased situational awareness has value, but it is a clear case of diminishing returns. Exactly what the cutoff ought to be is debatable, but that the cutoff exists is certain.
- darkerside 5y agoAnd this is an argument for investing less? Just because you are personally normalized to something doesn't make it acceptable.
- wespiser_2018 5y agoAgreed. We've been to space, understand the risks, and have a decent understanding that X dollars pays for Y in LEO. This is an almost entirely greenfield project, so who knows if the deliverables will even be useful.