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"Sustainability" is a bureaucratic requirement, not a technical requirement. The reason the mission architecture has been stuffed full of reusable components li
by idlewords 3y ago
"Sustainability" is a bureaucratic requirement, not a technical requirement. The reason the mission architecture has been stuffed full of reusable components like Orion, Starship and the Gateway is to make one-off capital expenses into long-term operational expenses that are difficult to cut. This is the same reason important parts of the whole program are being farmed out to ESA.
Starship gets hated on because it's vaporware being promoted by someone with a long track record of creative promise making across multiple fields of endeavor.
- Robotbeat 3y ago“Idlewords” indeed. No one with actual deep knowledge of the space industry thinks Starship is vaporware. SpaceX has been launching more stuff to orbit on Falcon than the rest of the planet combined, and virtually all on a mostly-reusable orbital rocket, the only one that is in operation today. They also have been the sole domestic provider for orbital crew launch in the US since Shuttle retired. This is not “empty promises.” Compare that to New Glenn, for instance, which is years behind schedule. The first orbital rocket from a company that was started before SpaceX.