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You're thinking about this like an engineer rather than a PR consultant or a journalist looking to write a hit piece on Musk. Even now, it's not hard to ask th

You're thinking about this like an engineer rather than a PR consultant or a journalist looking to write a hit piece on Musk. Even now, it's not hard to ask the somewhat specious question of how we can be 70+ years into aerospace tech and we still need our rockets to blow up.

simondotau 4y ago
As though hack journalists need actual reasons to write hit pieces about Musk. They’ll write them no matter what. The articles will generate plenty of clicks, they will have zero impact on anything that matters and they will change nobody’s mind about anything.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Public perception matters (it eventually drives whether a businessman can do business, since all business is trust-based), but Musk buying Twitter has had a lot more effect than any journalist writing about him ever could.
throw-7462637 4y ago
As others mentioned the hit pieces will come anyway. The success that SpaceX has had so far very clearly shows that aiming high and embracing failure is the best way to develop rockets.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  No such thing as bad publicity, I take it?
  - throw-7462637 4y ago
    I would not go as far as that. But pushing boundaries means you will be misunderstood, at least some of the time. It’s par for the course.
    - ravenstine 4y ago
      Fair point, indeed.
dghlsakjg 4y ago
A rocket is a structure designed to be as light as possible while containing as much energy as possible. That combination is inherently explosive in any sort of failure. Historically we can see that there are two modes of rocket development when it comes to failure tolerance. 1. Iterate fast and blow stuff up (e.g. mercury/redstone, spacex) or 2. Iterate slowly, at massive cost, with fewer catastrophic failures (space shuttle, Apollo, SLS). When it comes to safety, the slow and expensive route has a dubious track record. Of course, slow and expensive is producing much more complex vehicles, until today, at least.
pixl97 4y ago
If you're not blowing up at least some rockets you're overbuilding your rocket body hence wasting weight.

simondotau 4y ago

As though hack journalists need actual reasons to write hit pieces about Musk. They’ll write them no matter what. The articles will generate plenty of clicks, they will have zero impact on anything that matters and they will change nobody’s mind about anything.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Public perception matters (it eventually drives whether a businessman can do business, since all business is trust-based), but Musk buying Twitter has had a lot more effect than any journalist writing about him ever could.

throw-7462637 4y ago

As others mentioned the hit pieces will come anyway. The success that SpaceX has had so far very clearly shows that aiming high and embracing failure is the best way to develop rockets.

ravenstine 4y ago
No such thing as bad publicity, I take it?
- throw-7462637 4y ago
  I would not go as far as that. But pushing boundaries means you will be misunderstood, at least some of the time. It’s par for the course.
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    Fair point, indeed.

dghlsakjg 4y ago

A rocket is a structure designed to be as light as possible while containing as much energy as possible. That combination is inherently explosive in any sort of failure. Historically we can see that there are two modes of rocket development when it comes to failure tolerance. 1. Iterate fast and blow stuff up (e.g. mercury/redstone, spacex) or 2. Iterate slowly, at massive cost, with fewer catastrophic failures (space shuttle, Apollo, SLS). When it comes to safety, the slow and expensive route has a dubious track record. Of course, slow and expensive is producing much more complex vehicles, until today, at least.

pixl97 4y ago

If you're not blowing up at least some rockets you're overbuilding your rocket body hence wasting weight.