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Landing a winged aircraft is different than landing a rocket. Starship is designed for mars and its design changes pending mission realities. The fact they're

Landing a winged aircraft is different than landing a rocket. Starship is designed for mars and its design changes pending mission realities. The fact they're progressing so quick is awesome. First engines to use Methane are great - and it shows a mission profile that is correct for a trip to mars - since they can use science to generate fuel while on mars. Uranium wouldn't be a revolution and there is no way it would ever pass certification for leaving earth orbit beyond small decay batteries that have been used for 60+ years. Just because you don't agree with the cool shit going on, doesn't mean it isn't cool. And if it could have been done 60 years ago, it would have been done 60 years ago.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"Just because you don't agree with the cool shit going on, doesn't mean it isn't cool." Dota is cool shit too, but I am not pretending it's an achievement that will be remembered in 3 generations, like the invention of an airplane. I feel your categorisation is fed by being a fan of SpaceX and fails to put things into proper perspective.
- supernovae 5y ago
  No, not a "fan" of spacex, i'm a fan of space in general. my passion is cosmology, where were discovering more about black holes and gravity waves and new kinds of stars and getting closer and closer to possibly figuring out what all the dark matter and dark energy is. But hey, two can play this game, you seem to hate SpaceX so you throw out the sciences and engineering too.. There are multiple space companies sending up tourists now and dropping the cost per kilo of space travel down while creating new tech to do it. Sure, it may look like a rocket is a rocket, but its certainly not the same rockets from the 1960s - these are rockets that can take off, launch multiple payloads and have components return to earth and land from where they started.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "you seem to hate SpaceX" Absolutely not! I love SpaceX and the all-composite Dreamliner, but the benchmark is not 'pretty good', the benchmark being discussed is 'exponentially better than anything that came before', otherwise we don't have 'exponential progress' - perhaps we have linear progress, or quadratic, or asymptotic. I think they are not in the same league as Wernher von Braun or the Wright Brothers - those folks changed the world as we know it, - when Braun was designing rockets, we didnt even know that human body can function in space at all. There were no engines to look at for examples. There was nothing.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"Just because you don't agree with the cool shit going on, doesn't mean it isn't cool." Dota is cool shit too, but I am not pretending it's an achievement that will be remembered in 3 generations, like the invention of an airplane. I feel your categorisation is fed by being a fan of SpaceX and fails to put things into proper perspective.

supernovae 5y ago
No, not a "fan" of spacex, i'm a fan of space in general. my passion is cosmology, where were discovering more about black holes and gravity waves and new kinds of stars and getting closer and closer to possibly figuring out what all the dark matter and dark energy is. But hey, two can play this game, you seem to hate SpaceX so you throw out the sciences and engineering too.. There are multiple space companies sending up tourists now and dropping the cost per kilo of space travel down while creating new tech to do it. Sure, it may look like a rocket is a rocket, but its certainly not the same rockets from the 1960s - these are rockets that can take off, launch multiple payloads and have components return to earth and land from where they started.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "you seem to hate SpaceX" Absolutely not! I love SpaceX and the all-composite Dreamliner, but the benchmark is not 'pretty good', the benchmark being discussed is 'exponentially better than anything that came before', otherwise we don't have 'exponential progress' - perhaps we have linear progress, or quadratic, or asymptotic. I think they are not in the same league as Wernher von Braun or the Wright Brothers - those folks changed the world as we know it, - when Braun was designing rockets, we didnt even know that human body can function in space at all. There were no engines to look at for examples. There was nothing.