7 ms·

SpaceX launches three Falcon 9 rockets in 36 hours

149 points by Tozen 4y ago

WalterBright 4y ago
Wow!
senectus1 4y ago
- cassac 4y ago
  From rogue employees or management?
  - mauvehaus 4y ago
    Yes. And for the love of god (any of them really), could we please get Gwynne Shotwell to take over Elon Musk's twitter account and run it with the competence, diligence, and care with which she's been running SpaceX?
    - throwaway5959 4y ago
      I really wish she got more attention.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        She gets lots of attention. She is speaker at lots of events, has been on TV many times, has received awards and is universally known by anybody who knows anything about space. The only reason people keep saying that is because Musk is basically one of the most famous people alive and thus gets absurdly more attention then here. Shotwell is much better known then pretty much every president of any other space company.
        throwaway5959 4y ago
        I misspoke. I should have said credit instead of attention.
        bpodgursky 4y ago
        If it makes you feel better, she's going to make many billions of dollars if SpaceX continues at anywhere near its current (orbital) trajectory. (which is worth quite a bit of credit imo)
        dotnet00 4y ago
        To be fair, most people couldn't name even one executive of a space company except Musk and Bezos. Shotwell has gotten a lot of professional recognition and is well respected by people into spaceflight, but feels like she doesn't get enough of it in more general circles, even though she makes for an amazing role model.
        adastra22 4y ago
        Maybe not more than Tory Bruno.
    - mlindner 4y ago
      Shotwell explicitly said several times (starting from many years ago) that she won't use twitter. Also while Shotwell is a wonderful and competent president with a great business acumen. She doesn't have a lot of engineering vision for what things should be. SpaceX is kind of dual-run by Shotwell and Elon Musk. He drives forward and pushes forward with crazy ideas and then when they're semi-marketable he hands off the project to Shotwell to clean things up and prune out some of the economics. For example Starlink was Elon driven up until early 2020 or so, after they'd already started selling to customers, after which it was handed off to Shotwell.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        Its not just hand off. They are both involved all the time. Musk doesnt just hand of projects. He continues to work on iterations and so on. And Shotwell is involved from the beginning of each project as well. People that keep pushing idea as if there were 2 SpaceX but in reality there is close cooperation from begin to end.
        mlindner 4y ago
        I was going off of what Shotwell herself said. https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conversation-with-gwynne-shotwell-2020-satellite-executive-of-the-year/ https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conver... Perhaps my interpretation is incorrect, but what I wrote above is what I read out of this (and other interviews). > Shotwell: The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. [Interview done in early 2021.] Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit. > The thing about Starship is, we know how to design rockets and fly rockets. What we have failed to do to date is to design and fly a rocket that is easily producible and fully reusable. It's still hard to produce a Falcon 9. It's a lot of work and it's very expensive. The focus for Starship is to make it highly producible, highly reliable, and 100 percent operationally reusable, both for the first and second stage. That's hard.
    - assttoasstmgr 4y ago
      Is the end game to make Twitter a boring Victorian tea party? Controversy and perversion generate clicks and attention. Without those, Twitter would be out of business.
      - lmm 4y ago
        If twitter can only stay in business through controversy and perversion, maybe it shouldn't.
  - tick_tock_tick 4y ago
    "rogue employees" are a much bigger issue right now with vague demands and bike shedding stalling progress. Obviously if Musk lost his interest in space flight that could very possibly be a death knell for the company but that doesn't seem very likely right now.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Pakdef 4y ago
    From Musk
robonerd 4y ago
They now have 13 Falcon 9 first stages that have flown 13 times each: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters#Block_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b... And another 26 that have flown 12 times each. They've really succeeded in making reuse routine.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  SpaceX has set the bar very high for their competitors.
  - rvnx 4y ago
    Yes, not only SpaceX is pushing the humanity forward directly with its missions, but it's also indirectly pushing all the governments and people who are in too comfortable position (not taking any risk, only playing very safe missions, not innovating because they are afraid to lose a very well paid and prestigious job). Still, it feels sad to see that a few months ago, SpaceX had roughly the same valuation as... Snapchat. It shows ultra short-term greed of investors and a clear lack of vision of VCs to see the mid-term potential of space exploration and travel.
    - eloff 4y ago
      There are crypto companies valued around the level of SpaceX. It's insane where capital is being allocated. Despite his faults, I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk, because he's one of the few entrepreneurs with vision and courage to push humanity forward. While everyone else is doing the stupidest shit with social media, crypto, and other insanity.
      - zerocrates 4y ago
        Whatever Elon's virtues may be, I don't know that "not doing stupid shit with social media and crypto" is among them.
      - pengaru 4y ago
Casteil 4y ago
By pure chance I happened to witness the Globalstar satellite deployment last night along with its propellant plumes with the naked eye - pretty cool (and very uncommon) sight to see over the Midwest US!
assttoasstmgr 4y ago
How did this happen? They said it couldn't be done - the mean tweets and the memes and all.....
- zamadatix 4y ago
  As much as I'm a SpaceX fan this was 3 independent launches of 3 separate rockets over 3 separate days (though they all landed!). While exciting this rate of orbital launching was already done by individual space organizations in the 60s and speaks more about reaching that scale again than proving something can be done. More excitingly the quickest turnaround is just over 21 days, or twice as fast as the quickest space shuttle turnaround. This is still a long ways from the 24 hour turnaround SpaceX is aiming for which often draws heavy doubt (just like the reusability factors used to). As much as I'd like to see a turnaround that quick I don't think that'll come with the Falcon 9 generation, maybe with Starship/Super Heavy if we're lucky though.
NovaVeles 4y ago
I have been one of the more negative folks on SpaceX over the years - there are still big issues with some of their bigger long term claims, however... they sure are doing a damn good job nowadays of just getting to business and making it happen. Steve jobs said it best - Real Artist ship. SpaceX is shipping and getting really good at it. Kudos to all the folks that have made it happen.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  "Shoot for Mars, and if you miss, you'll still end up building a globally dominant rocket company that puts the most powerful nation states to shame and revolutionizes human civilization." ...I think the saying goes something like that.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > revolutionizes human civilization That's overselling putting some satellites in orbit. It's going to help isolated people get internet, and maybe support some science missions, but mostly it's going to be orbiting satellites for other people.
    - palata 4y ago
      One country unilaterally decides that it is fine to pollute the sky for everyone else in the name of profit. One company decides to produce more and more without giving a damn about their ecological impact, in the name of profit. Hardly sounds like a revolution to me.
      - oxplot 4y ago
        > One country unilaterally decides that it is fine to pollute the sky for everyone else in the name of profit. One country allows the entire world to use its global navigation system "for free", build businesses on that technology, save people's lives and benefit from it. One company brings usable Internet connection, the electricity of the 21st century, to anywhere in the world, with a fixed price, often lower than the existing inferior or non-existing ones. > One company decides to produce more and more without giving a damn about their ecological impact, in the name of profit. One company will have accelerated our escape from extinction. > in the name of profit If Space was such a profitable industry, it'd be as crowded as ad and social network markets. It's the exact opposite. To claim it's all for profit, is to admit you shouldn't be trusted with anything money related, as you'd probably lose it all in a blink.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
testbjjl 4y ago
In your face disgruntled, embarrassed employees!

149 points by Tozen 4y ago

WalterBright 4y ago

Wow!

senectus1 4y ago

cassac 4y ago
From rogue employees or management?
- mauvehaus 4y ago
  Yes. And for the love of god (any of them really), could we please get Gwynne Shotwell to take over Elon Musk's twitter account and run it with the competence, diligence, and care with which she's been running SpaceX?
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    I really wish she got more attention.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      She gets lots of attention. She is speaker at lots of events, has been on TV many times, has received awards and is universally known by anybody who knows anything about space. The only reason people keep saying that is because Musk is basically one of the most famous people alive and thus gets absurdly more attention then here. Shotwell is much better known then pretty much every president of any other space company.
      - throwaway5959 4y ago
        I misspoke. I should have said credit instead of attention.
        bpodgursky 4y ago
        If it makes you feel better, she's going to make many billions of dollars if SpaceX continues at anywhere near its current (orbital) trajectory. (which is worth quite a bit of credit imo)
      - dotnet00 4y ago
        To be fair, most people couldn't name even one executive of a space company except Musk and Bezos. Shotwell has gotten a lot of professional recognition and is well respected by people into spaceflight, but feels like she doesn't get enough of it in more general circles, even though she makes for an amazing role model.
      - adastra22 4y ago
        Maybe not more than Tory Bruno.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Shotwell explicitly said several times (starting from many years ago) that she won't use twitter. Also while Shotwell is a wonderful and competent president with a great business acumen. She doesn't have a lot of engineering vision for what things should be. SpaceX is kind of dual-run by Shotwell and Elon Musk. He drives forward and pushes forward with crazy ideas and then when they're semi-marketable he hands off the project to Shotwell to clean things up and prune out some of the economics. For example Starlink was Elon driven up until early 2020 or so, after they'd already started selling to customers, after which it was handed off to Shotwell.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Its not just hand off. They are both involved all the time. Musk doesnt just hand of projects. He continues to work on iterations and so on. And Shotwell is involved from the beginning of each project as well. People that keep pushing idea as if there were 2 SpaceX but in reality there is close cooperation from begin to end.
      - mlindner 4y ago
        I was going off of what Shotwell herself said. https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conversation-with-gwynne-shotwell-2020-satellite-executive-of-the-year/ https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conver... Perhaps my interpretation is incorrect, but what I wrote above is what I read out of this (and other interviews). > Shotwell: The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. [Interview done in early 2021.] Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit. > The thing about Starship is, we know how to design rockets and fly rockets. What we have failed to do to date is to design and fly a rocket that is easily producible and fully reusable. It's still hard to produce a Falcon 9. It's a lot of work and it's very expensive. The focus for Starship is to make it highly producible, highly reliable, and 100 percent operationally reusable, both for the first and second stage. That's hard.
  - assttoasstmgr 4y ago
    Is the end game to make Twitter a boring Victorian tea party? Controversy and perversion generate clicks and attention. Without those, Twitter would be out of business.
    - lmm 4y ago
      If twitter can only stay in business through controversy and perversion, maybe it shouldn't.
- tick_tock_tick 4y ago
  "rogue employees" are a much bigger issue right now with vague demands and bike shedding stalling progress. Obviously if Musk lost his interest in space flight that could very possibly be a death knell for the company but that doesn't seem very likely right now.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Pakdef 4y ago
  From Musk

robonerd 4y ago

They now have 13 Falcon 9 first stages that have flown 13 times each: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters#Block_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b... And another 26 that have flown 12 times each. They've really succeeded in making reuse routine.

WalterBright 4y ago
SpaceX has set the bar very high for their competitors.
- rvnx 4y ago
  Yes, not only SpaceX is pushing the humanity forward directly with its missions, but it's also indirectly pushing all the governments and people who are in too comfortable position (not taking any risk, only playing very safe missions, not innovating because they are afraid to lose a very well paid and prestigious job). Still, it feels sad to see that a few months ago, SpaceX had roughly the same valuation as... Snapchat. It shows ultra short-term greed of investors and a clear lack of vision of VCs to see the mid-term potential of space exploration and travel.
  - eloff 4y ago
    There are crypto companies valued around the level of SpaceX. It's insane where capital is being allocated. Despite his faults, I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk, because he's one of the few entrepreneurs with vision and courage to push humanity forward. While everyone else is doing the stupidest shit with social media, crypto, and other insanity.
    - zerocrates 4y ago
      Whatever Elon's virtues may be, I don't know that "not doing stupid shit with social media and crypto" is among them.
    - pengaru 4y ago

Casteil 4y ago

By pure chance I happened to witness the Globalstar satellite deployment last night along with its propellant plumes with the naked eye - pretty cool (and very uncommon) sight to see over the Midwest US!

assttoasstmgr 4y ago

How did this happen? They said it couldn't be done - the mean tweets and the memes and all.....

zamadatix 4y ago
As much as I'm a SpaceX fan this was 3 independent launches of 3 separate rockets over 3 separate days (though they all landed!). While exciting this rate of orbital launching was already done by individual space organizations in the 60s and speaks more about reaching that scale again than proving something can be done. More excitingly the quickest turnaround is just over 21 days, or twice as fast as the quickest space shuttle turnaround. This is still a long ways from the 24 hour turnaround SpaceX is aiming for which often draws heavy doubt (just like the reusability factors used to). As much as I'd like to see a turnaround that quick I don't think that'll come with the Falcon 9 generation, maybe with Starship/Super Heavy if we're lucky though.

NovaVeles 4y ago

I have been one of the more negative folks on SpaceX over the years - there are still big issues with some of their bigger long term claims, however... they sure are doing a damn good job nowadays of just getting to business and making it happen. Steve jobs said it best - Real Artist ship. SpaceX is shipping and getting really good at it. Kudos to all the folks that have made it happen.

anonporridge 4y ago
"Shoot for Mars, and if you miss, you'll still end up building a globally dominant rocket company that puts the most powerful nation states to shame and revolutionizes human civilization." ...I think the saying goes something like that.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > revolutionizes human civilization That's overselling putting some satellites in orbit. It's going to help isolated people get internet, and maybe support some science missions, but mostly it's going to be orbiting satellites for other people.
  - palata 4y ago
    One country unilaterally decides that it is fine to pollute the sky for everyone else in the name of profit. One company decides to produce more and more without giving a damn about their ecological impact, in the name of profit. Hardly sounds like a revolution to me.
    - oxplot 4y ago
      > One country unilaterally decides that it is fine to pollute the sky for everyone else in the name of profit. One country allows the entire world to use its global navigation system "for free", build businesses on that technology, save people's lives and benefit from it. One company brings usable Internet connection, the electricity of the 21st century, to anywhere in the world, with a fixed price, often lower than the existing inferior or non-existing ones. > One company decides to produce more and more without giving a damn about their ecological impact, in the name of profit. One company will have accelerated our escape from extinction. > in the name of profit If Space was such a profitable industry, it'd be as crowded as ad and social network markets. It's the exact opposite. To claim it's all for profit, is to admit you shouldn't be trusted with anything money related, as you'd probably lose it all in a blink.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

testbjjl 4y ago

In your face disgruntled, embarrassed employees!