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Measuring Apollo's start point in 1961 can be very misleading. Apollo was the culmination of a more or less continuous development process stretching back to th
by icegreentea2 3y ago
Measuring Apollo's start point in 1961 can be very misleading. Apollo was the culmination of a more or less continuous development process stretching back to the early 50s with the start of the ICBM programs.
For example, the F-1 engines that powered Saturn V first stage actually began development in the late 50s, with the first static firing happening in 1959. The (in)famous combustion instability challenges of the engine were solved by 1961.
Apollo had a tremendous running start in many areas - to say nothing of having the resources and know-how of the entire US military-aerospace-industrial complex at it's disposal. This isn't to minimize what an accomplishment Apollo was. I just don't think you can meaningfully compare the timelines of what SpaceX is trying to do with Starship, and what Apollo accomplished.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoTrue, but in same way SpaceX has also been in the rocket business for over 20 years, and building upon know how and organizational expertise gained from the Falcon 9.
- FeepingCreature 3y agoWiki says Raptor development started in 2009-2012 with no predecessor, with first test firing in 2016.
- jholman 3y agoSince this is a thread about pedantry (rocketry pedantry), I'll allow myself to be pedantic about words. "A wiki" is a type of software. But when you use "Wiki" as a proper noun, referring to one specific instance, that's the name of Ward's Wiki, the original wiki, also known as wikiwikiweb, available at wiki.c2.com . I'm guessing that you were not citing Ward's Wiki, but were rather citing some other site, in particular the site that contains this advice on citing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_abbreviate_%22Wikipedia%22_as_%22Wiki%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_abbreviate_%...!
- FeepingCreature 3y agoWhile we're at pedantry, English is a descriptivist language... I guarantee you that when I say "the wiki", approximately nobody thinks of Ward's. (Yes, I think Wikipedia's Don't Abbreviate... page is just wrong about this.)
- kbenson 3y agoIt's entirely context dependent. For me and the people I deal with (which deal with various wikis in our lives for both work and play), "the wiki" refers to the specialized wiki on the topic we are speaking (for work it's the work wiki, for the game were playing it's the wiki for the game, etc), and Wikipedia is used to refer to Wikipedia, because it's not specific to anything. If someone just mentioned "the wiki" or "wiki says" in a conversation and was intending to imply Wikipedia, it would just confuse me by making me think there's some specific wiki they were referring to that I missed previously or they weren't clear in communicating, unless we were specifically referring to Wikipedia earlier.
- mathgeek 3y agoYou should note the banner at the top of your reference: > This is a humorous essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and is made to be humorous. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. This essay isn't meant to be taken seriously.
- howenterprisey 3y agoThe humor tag is there because the community is self-aware that it's mildly pedantic. The views of the essay are held by a strong majority of the community at least. Nobody ever abbreviates Wikipedia as "wiki"; we have far too many wikis floating around and it would be confusing.