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I am getting tired of hearing and reading the constant attempts to put a spin on this event. A partly failed test run has an obvious interpretation, nobody is c

I am getting tired of hearing and reading the constant attempts to put a spin on this event. A partly failed test run has an obvious interpretation, nobody is concerned about investors pulling out of SpaceX, and they will have the new one stacked before long. Why dress it up? One might say that the rocked had enough spin already.

areoform 4y ago
I'm the author. It's not spin. It's about preserving and bringing back the early spirit of what made rockets progress so quickly. Yuri Gagarin's launch on Vostok 1 and the launch of Apollo 11 are 8 years 3 months 4 days apart. Or, 3,017 days. For reference, it took 11 years between SLS' announcement and an uncrewed launch. It'll be around twice the time difference between Vostok 1 and Apollo 11 before the SLS delivers humans to the moon. Humanity progressed so quickly during Project Apollo because they were accepting of "failure" and willing to embrace the associated risk. Post-Apollo and post-Challenger, this willingness and risk appetite completely disappeared leading to paralysis. When we call something as awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) as yesterday's test a "failure," we are implicitly rejecting the Apollo paradigm and embracing the SLS one. I think it's harmful for humanity, in the long run, to do so. We should build and launch more rockets. Some of them will explode. Such is life.
- Haga 4y ago
  [dead]
- kragen 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - areoform 4y ago
    I like to think that everyone is engaging in good faith and they believe what they do for a reason. Also, I owe you an email! I'm writing it now :)
    - kragen 4y ago
      wonderful!
- hikawaii 4y ago
  Absolutely bless. People are mad about whatever dumb thing Elon did with Twitter this week. Even when applied to Twitter, the question presents itself: Are you really happy with what it was before? The only path from "then" to "better" is through "doing lots of stuff, some of it stupid".
- robotresearcher 4y ago
  Apollo cost a nontrivial fraction of GDP. It was risky indeed, but we shouldn’t forget that the project had spectacular resources available, far more than SLS. IIRC Apollo cost around a quarter trillion dollars in today’s money.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - DennisP 4y ago
    On the other hand, Starship is costing less to develop than SLS, but with a bigger rocket, groundbreaking* new engines and full reusability while SLS is a disposable with warmed-over Shuttle technology. * (Admittedly a little too groundbreaking.)
- guenthert 4y ago
  That wasn't some college guys blowing up a lab, this was a pretty costly failure. Surely the reliability of the engines could have been tested without the spaceship part of the stack. Someone took shortcuts and paid for it.
  - the_mungler 4y ago
    Not really. How would you test a rocket engine at low atmospheric pressure? You can't exactly stick a rocket engine in a vacuum chamber and light it. Then once you're launching something into space, you may as well have a first stage to go along with it. Are you saying they should have launched the booster stage by itself? Why? What would they learn from that? Would you ever expect them to launch a booster on it's own in practice?
amoss 4y ago
An interpretation that is obvious can be easy to arrive at - but that does not make it correct, only low effort. If the test had not failed then it was not ambitious enough. If they had not pushed the rocket to its current breaking point then they would not have learned as much about it, or its current modes of failure. Sometimes it is worth looking past the obvious interpretation. I thought the article was a good read, kudos to the author.
kashkhan 4y ago
"if you are not failing you are not trying hard enough."
HopenHeyHi 4y ago
Why? The world is filled with unwarranted hype and spin and yet this particular instance stands out especially to exasperbate you so? Do you go around whenever a new album is about to drop and tell people the single is meh and they should in fact not be excited? What is your actual motivation here to take the wind out of peoples sails? If the spin is unwarranted gravity, as we saw, will take care of it without your input. If the hype is unwarranted it will evaporate on its own even without your input. So what are you contributing here? How does your attitude benefit anyone/thing? Pessimism is perfectly fine don't get me wrong - but if you are so pessimistic why even bother to make this sort of remark..

areoform 4y ago

I'm the author. It's not spin. It's about preserving and bringing back the early spirit of what made rockets progress so quickly. Yuri Gagarin's launch on Vostok 1 and the launch of Apollo 11 are 8 years 3 months 4 days apart. Or, 3,017 days. For reference, it took 11 years between SLS' announcement and an uncrewed launch. It'll be around twice the time difference between Vostok 1 and Apollo 11 before the SLS delivers humans to the moon. Humanity progressed so quickly during Project Apollo because they were accepting of "failure" and willing to embrace the associated risk. Post-Apollo and post-Challenger, this willingness and risk appetite completely disappeared leading to paralysis. When we call something as awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) as yesterday's test a "failure," we are implicitly rejecting the Apollo paradigm and embracing the SLS one. I think it's harmful for humanity, in the long run, to do so. We should build and launch more rockets. Some of them will explode. Such is life.

Haga 4y ago
[dead]
kragen 4y ago
[flagged]
- areoform 4y ago
  I like to think that everyone is engaging in good faith and they believe what they do for a reason. Also, I owe you an email! I'm writing it now :)
  - kragen 4y ago
    wonderful!
hikawaii 4y ago
Absolutely bless. People are mad about whatever dumb thing Elon did with Twitter this week. Even when applied to Twitter, the question presents itself: Are you really happy with what it was before? The only path from "then" to "better" is through "doing lots of stuff, some of it stupid".
robotresearcher 4y ago
Apollo cost a nontrivial fraction of GDP. It was risky indeed, but we shouldn’t forget that the project had spectacular resources available, far more than SLS. IIRC Apollo cost around a quarter trillion dollars in today’s money.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- DennisP 4y ago
  On the other hand, Starship is costing less to develop than SLS, but with a bigger rocket, groundbreaking* new engines and full reusability while SLS is a disposable with warmed-over Shuttle technology. * (Admittedly a little too groundbreaking.)
guenthert 4y ago
That wasn't some college guys blowing up a lab, this was a pretty costly failure. Surely the reliability of the engines could have been tested without the spaceship part of the stack. Someone took shortcuts and paid for it.
- the_mungler 4y ago
  Not really. How would you test a rocket engine at low atmospheric pressure? You can't exactly stick a rocket engine in a vacuum chamber and light it. Then once you're launching something into space, you may as well have a first stage to go along with it. Are you saying they should have launched the booster stage by itself? Why? What would they learn from that? Would you ever expect them to launch a booster on it's own in practice?

amoss 4y ago

An interpretation that is obvious can be easy to arrive at - but that does not make it correct, only low effort. If the test had not failed then it was not ambitious enough. If they had not pushed the rocket to its current breaking point then they would not have learned as much about it, or its current modes of failure. Sometimes it is worth looking past the obvious interpretation. I thought the article was a good read, kudos to the author.

kashkhan 4y ago

"if you are not failing you are not trying hard enough."

HopenHeyHi 4y ago

Why? The world is filled with unwarranted hype and spin and yet this particular instance stands out especially to exasperbate you so? Do you go around whenever a new album is about to drop and tell people the single is meh and they should in fact not be excited? What is your actual motivation here to take the wind out of peoples sails? If the spin is unwarranted gravity, as we saw, will take care of it without your input. If the hype is unwarranted it will evaporate on its own even without your input. So what are you contributing here? How does your attitude benefit anyone/thing? Pessimism is perfectly fine don't get me wrong - but if you are so pessimistic why even bother to make this sort of remark..