3 ms·

Why? Why not $20M or at the absolute worse $200M? I feel like if you need to ask a question like "Why can't this thing be built for $20m, or 0.03% of the cited

Why? Why not $20M or at the absolute worse $200M? I feel like if you need to ask a question like "Why can't this thing be built for $20m, or 0.03% of the cited $6bn cost?" then you don't understand the problem well enough.

systemvoltage 4y ago
This is defeatism. Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. Literally everything needs to be questioned. We can do that with humbleness and without arrogance. Last I checked, we are on a tech forum known for starting companies.
- onion2k 4y ago
  Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. They got there by solving some hard problems over multiple decades by understanding the domain and the difficulties in it. They didn't start by saying "Why aren't rockets 1000* cheaper?" They started by saying "What happens if we solve these problems?" and ended up with cheaper rockets. In another domain they might have had a different outcome, or failed to solve the problems.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I can agree with that but also SpaceX absolutely started with the question "Why aren't rockets cheaper". Thus followed resuability with an question "Why are we building single use Rockets?". Either way, we should question all of this. The entire house of Nuclear industry is probably filled with bureacratic termites.
oceanplexian 4y ago
Probably the same reason that SpaceX was able to build human rated orbital rockets with a marginal cost that’s a fraction of what came before. The incumbents are corrupt, the regulations are overbearing and bloated, the government has no interest in solving the problem. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter what we think, the Chinese will continue to advance and deploy the nuclear state-of-the-art and become an energy superpower, while the US and Europe debate the issue until we’re made irrelevant.

systemvoltage 4y ago

This is defeatism. Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. Literally everything needs to be questioned. We can do that with humbleness and without arrogance. Last I checked, we are on a tech forum known for starting companies.

onion2k 4y ago
Someone asked that question and is building 100x cheaper rockets. Soon to be 1000x cheaper. They got there by solving some hard problems over multiple decades by understanding the domain and the difficulties in it. They didn't start by saying "Why aren't rockets 1000* cheaper?" They started by saying "What happens if we solve these problems?" and ended up with cheaper rockets. In another domain they might have had a different outcome, or failed to solve the problems.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I can agree with that but also SpaceX absolutely started with the question "Why aren't rockets cheaper". Thus followed resuability with an question "Why are we building single use Rockets?". Either way, we should question all of this. The entire house of Nuclear industry is probably filled with bureacratic termites.

oceanplexian 4y ago

Probably the same reason that SpaceX was able to build human rated orbital rockets with a marginal cost that’s a fraction of what came before. The incumbents are corrupt, the regulations are overbearing and bloated, the government has no interest in solving the problem. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter what we think, the Chinese will continue to advance and deploy the nuclear state-of-the-art and become an energy superpower, while the US and Europe debate the issue until we’re made irrelevant.