9 ms·
I watched this video when it first came out (if you're not following Grady both his channel and recent book are excellent) and I think this part was particularl
by CSMastermind 3y ago
I watched this video when it first came out (if you're not following Grady both his channel and recent book are excellent) and I think this part was particularly well put:
> That’s the nature of SpaceX and why many find them so exciting. Unlike NASA that spends years in planning and engineering, SpaceX uses rapid development cycles and full-scale tests to work toward their eventual goals. They push their hardware to the limit to learn as much as possible, and we get to follow along. They’re betting it will pay off to develop fast instead of carefully.
> But this wasn’t just a test of the hardware. It was also a test of federal regulations and the good graces of the people who live, work, play, and care about the Boca Chica area. And, SpaceX definitely pushed those limits as well with their first orbital test.
- res0nat0r 3y agoSounds like the same techbro idiocy that got people killed just the other week. Rush replied four days later, saying that he had “grown tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation and new entrants from entering their small existing market.” He understood that his approach “flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy, but that is the nature of innovation,” he wrote. “We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.” https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan...
- kortilla 3y agoExcept the difference is, you know, risk to life.
- res0nat0r 3y agoBlowing up a landing pad, trashing the local environment and sending massive amounts of concrete flying hundreds of yards not killing anyone is in fact techbro idiocy. Not doing something stupid like that has in fact been understood since launches in the 1960's.
- ben_w 3y agoWhile the stage zero stuff was clearly dumb, I don't know if it was "risk to life" dumb given the exclusion zone. My ignorance permits the possibility that exclusion zone wasn't big enough, for example. But it did have an exclusion zone, and Musk gave it, what, 50% odds of making it past the launch tower? Or was 50% a different test launch?
- neffo 3y agoI believe it was acknowledged that the lean of the rocket immediately after launch was unintentional possibly due to the damage of the pad, and later (for possibly unrelated reasons) the thrust vectoring failed completely. Given it took more than 30 seconds for the flight termination to take effect there was definitely non-zero risk there for staff or potentially even the observers a half-dozen miles away.
- ben_w 3y agoWhile the FTS needs improvement, my (limitied) understanding is that its ineffectiveness was due to the fuel tank being almost empty at the time, and while in extremely thin air. (But this is what I get as an untrained watcher of Scott Manley videos, I'm not a rocket scientist nor a pilot so I assume I only half-understand what he says, and what he says is necessarily a summary or the videos would be x10 longer).
- phire 3y agoThe entire goal of Starship is to carry human passengers. Oceangate also started with unmanned test dives before they declared their submersible to be safe for humans. It's not directly comparable. Oceangate didn't do that many test dives and never tested their sub to destruction, and SpaceX is working with several government agencies on certifying Starship (both Nasa and FAA). But there are parallels in attitudes that should be drawn and compensated for.
- Dylan16807 3y ago> Oceangate also started with unmanned test dives before they declared their submersible to be safe for humans. They were reusing a material that is not safe to reuse that way. If they were only testing the design, it's unlikely anyone would be dead.
- Scalene2 3y agoMaterial selection is part of the design.
- Dylan16807 3y agoSelection and use. Either "reusable carbon fiber" is the design, and you need to test what it takes to break that. Or "single use carbon fiber" is the design, and you need a new hull each trip. They did neither. They didn't stress test the reusability before putting people on board, and that's both one of their biggest mistakes and one of their biggest differences from SpaceX.
- yard2010 3y agoAhhh the future. In which techbros idiots whining about regulations and then make mistakes that kill people or leave them with no money. This is why we can't have nice things
- gizajob 3y agoWe’ve got heaps of nice things because of techbros. Techbro Steve Jobs pumped out heaps of nice things, the main one being the device held in the hands of every girl on insta, without her even realising the complexity of what it took to do
- yard2010 3y agoIn today's standard I don't think Steve Jobs would have been a techbro. At least not one like this prick Rush or SBF.. But who can tell, every coin has 2 sides I guess
- gizajob 3y agoI agree, so I guess I was commenting on the fact that successful techbros we don't mind so much, it's just the unsuccessful or egregious ones that stand out.
- the_third_wave 3y agoThat iPhone you're using? More people died for it than did for the whole of the (Western) space program.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TheDudeMan 3y agoNo, that was just regular idiocy.
- inglor_cz 3y agoSpaceX has never had a human fatality so far, not even among the ground crew, which is a lot better than the Apollo or the Space Shuttle program, or even some smaller space startups like Scaled Composites. It is typical for large engineering enterprises to rack up fatalities over time, but SpaceX stands at 0 after existing for 21 years, which is actually a remarkable achievement. Of course, they were lucky sometimes; but so were the others in the list. SpaceX's development program is explosive, but I see no evidence that they are "techbro idiots" who risk actual human lives. The stuff that explodes is remotely controlled hardware, and I am personally fine with that. You can't have rapid technological development with at least some negative externalities.
- yard2010 3y ago[flagged]
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoI think these comments are just because of Elon hate. There are literally a total of 9 residents in Boca Chica who are likely just staying because they like to watch spacex. And FAA violation was largely a myth spewed by newspapers to cater to same audience. The investigation from FAA was normal procedure for any incident like this.
- bpye 3y agoThe article also mentions environmental damage to nearby wetlands and a fire starting in a state park. Whilst immediate risk to life may have been low, the damage to the natural environment is very real.
- inglor_cz 3y ago"the damage to the natural environment is very real." We make tradeoffs between protection of nature and technological civilization all the time. Boca Chica has some qualities that are relevant to the cosmic industry and hard to replicate elsewhere: a mostly empty sea to the east of the site, low population, closer to the Equator than most of the US. I like nature, but I also like technological progress and it isn't obvious to me that the relatively low-level damage to the environment there (it is not as if the place was devastated Hiroshima-style) should automatically trump everything else.
- pleaselegalize 3y agoWhat is this technological progress bringing to humanity? SpaceX is a private company making private research using public funding and peoples delusions with space exploration. Maybe we won't need to colonize some other planet if we don't trash our current planet to save shareholders some dollars in the name of "technological progress" .
- inglor_cz 3y agoThis is a pretty nihilist take. We don't "need" anything but food, water and the most rudimentary shelter in colder weather. Surely we don't "need" anything like computers, electricity and programmers gabbing on HN. But humanity in its current size definitely needs some industry, and industry is actually becoming less polluting with technological progress. I am 45 and I grew up in an industrial city; both the air and the water there have become a lot cleaner during my lifetime, because a richer and more developed society can afford better protections. When I was a kid, neither a butterfly nor a fish could survive in Ostrava, today there is plenty of both. Also, judging someone's else's interests as "delusions" is pretty rude. Who are you to distribute such labels to others?
- csunbird 3y ago> the good graces of the people who live, work, play, and care about the Boca Chica area Hasn't SpaceX tried to buy the whole village to avoid any kind of lawsuit happening after those kind of incidents?
- ben_w 3y agoVillage yes, but there's a city not too far away, too.
- Kwpolska 3y agoThat part wasn't well put, it was absurd techbro bullshit. Developing fast instead of carefully works if you're making a ride hailing app or a takeout ordering app or a social network. It absolutely doesn't if you're building a rocket. If Uber experiences a catastrophic failure, some people might end up earning less money, some people might be late or miss important events. If a rocket experiences a catastrophic failure, debris may destroy the environment around it (as it did) and people on board may die (as they would have if there were any).
- Alghranokk 3y ago> It absolutely doesn't if you're building a rocket. With all due respect, it obviously does work; on account of the Falcon 9 rocket being the safest (and cheapest, given its capability) rocket ever.
- airgapstopgap 3y agoThis is quite an amusing way to describe it. Clearly motivated, too. > debris may destroy the environment around it "Destroy the environment" invokes some rather grandiose associations for what is essentially pulverizing a steel tube in the middle of nowhere. > and people on board may die Perhaps you have missed the part where those tests are conducted with the explicit intention of figuring out failure modes. SpaceX Crew Dragon is "one of two U.S. human-rated orbital transport spacecraft". This is a result of the same developmental process.
- piva00 3y ago> "Destroy the environment" invokes some rather grandiose associations for what is essentially pulverizing a steel tube in the middle of nowhere. This cavalier attitude to what it means to affect the environment is exactly what brought us to a steady march into climate disaster. The middle of nowhere is still an environment for other species, not showing a little respect or consideration for that is exactly the kind of moral arrogance from humankind we need to look into and fix.
- airgapstopgap 3y ago
- 7e 3y agoNo, this is just like the Space Shuttle and OceanGate. Surprises (likely fatal) will keep popping up in this rocket until the day it’s taken out of service, because it’s just thrown together.
- apple4ever 3y agoThis thing was far from "just thrown together". I don't think it's like the Space Shuttle either.
- 7e 3y agoHave you seen the factory that makes it? It’s a midden heap.
- Shawnj2 3y agoNot the same thing but a significant number of SpaceX employees also work at Starbase lol