4 ms·
I haven't watched launches since the space shuttle days. I have watched both of the Starship launches, and will watch all of them that I can. Excitement about
by bradley13 3y ago
I haven't watched launches since the space shuttle days. I have watched both of the Starship launches, and will watch all of them that I can.
Excitement about space is back with a vengeance!
- DinaCoder99 3y ago> Excitement about space What does this even mean if we can't scrape together funding for NASA
- inglor_cz 3y agoIt means that the field has grown a lot, and is now more diverse than ever. NASA is great in some tasks (interplanetary probes etc.), but not so great in others (getting people into orbit). That is quite normal in every quickly developing field: specialization. As an analogy, Microsoft is quite good at Windows on desktop, but failed miserably with Windows Mobile, and other players are dominating that field.
- Xirgil 3y agoIt means that private industry is doing a better job of allocating funding and meeting demand.
- user_7832 3y agoI think NASA also has higher public/pr standards they’re held to. A few spacex failures no one cares much about. If nasa fails a few times everyone (particularly more conservative leaning folk) starts complaining about their precious taxpayer money. Hence NASA likely sticks to project that are very low risk. I’m not saying this is good or bad per se, but public opinion is what it is. It’s also a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don’t with nasa - play safe and people complain they’re not doing much, why are they funded. Play more risky and inevitably end up with a failure, get questioned why they’re wasting money. I don’t think I’ve seen much criticisms of when SpaceX or blue origin win govt grants for funding. Again, this isn’t to say that enterprises don’t deserve govt support if they’re truly helping (lobby concerns aside). But it’s a multifaceted issue.
- thegrim22 3y agoThere's also a political angle since NASA represents the US. If anything goes wrong with a NASA project it's a massive propaganda opportunity for agitators and rival countries to mass spam the internet about how horrible America has become, what a laughing stock, etc., etc., doing everything they can to push their anti-US propaganda as hard as they can. There's more repercussions for NASA to fail at something than a private company.
- inglor_cz 3y agoThis is an interesting angle that I haven't thought of. NASA projects carry a lot more gravitas than "move fast and break things" Musk projects. If something explodes at SpaceX, as long as people aren't hurt, no one really cares. People who dislike Musk will simply point at the debris and say: "We told you he's an idiot" and people who like him will rush to his defense, but the standing of the US as a whole isn't on the line.
- Xirgil 3y agoSpaceX absolutely gets a lot of criticism. There's people shouting to nationalize it for crying out loud.
- alemanek 3y agoI think it is more that SpaceX has a fail fast engineering culture and was clear about that from the start. I mean they made a blooper real “How not to land an orbital rocket booster”. Also SpaceX’s launch stream production quality and PR has been surprisingly good from the start as well.
- DinaCoder99 3y agoThis is hardly surprising in a society that prefers to dole money to contractors rather than invest in any practical technology. What value has SpaceForce demonstrated to justify its investment? That's just graft.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoThe Obama administration opened the doors for private companies to do what they're doing now. NASA is moving more to the roles of regulator, purchaser of services, and deep space science. Seems to be a better path now than the one we were on before opening spaceflight to commercial entities.
- lupusreal 3y agoWho says NASA isn't getting funding? They're getting billions of dollars for Artemis. If your complaint is that NASA is contracting out to companies... they always have.
- robertoandred 3y agoDidn't SpaceX stop streaming their launches?
- inemesitaffia 3y agoIt's on Twitter and NASAspace flight on YouTube. You might even be able to get a periscope link
- rozab 3y agoTheir own streams are now only on Twitter, but 3rd parties like NasaSpaceFlight run their own streams, usually with worse visuals but better commentary
- rockemsockem 3y agoEveryday astronaut is, last I checked, the only one on YouTube streaming starship launches in 4k. And in my experience there's less commentary, just the SpaceX audio.
- sebazzz 3y agoThe Launch Pad on YouTube proxies most streams verbatim, so it is a good alternative.
- dev1ycan 3y agoYeah I disagree on NasaSpaceFlight being "better commentary"...
- rockemsockem 3y agoBig time. Just wish they'd be quiet half the time.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoI wouldn't notice. I stop watching them, because they got boring. Let me say that again: space launches got boring. I hoped, but never believed, I'll live long enough to see this happen.
- akira2501 3y ago> Excitement about space Genuinely, or just because the marketing for it is that good?
- blendergeek 3y agoStarship is the most powerful rocket in history and should be the first ever orbital launch system that is fully reusable. I don't know what you consider to be "genuinely" exciting, but I would consider entirely new generations of rocket launch tech to be genuinely exciting.
- gibolt 3y agoStarship is expected to be 3x as powerful as the Saturn 5, once 'complete'. The size+weight+frequency of payloads this enables will drastically alter the industry and how we interact with space. Edit: Image for scale of other rockets: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-the-size-of-the-worlds-rockets-past-and-present/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-the-size-of-the-w...
- ordu 3y agoWhat the difference? Do you think people pretend to be interested in a product when marketing is good? I think they become genuinely interested. People pretend when there are some benefits from pretending, social or monetary or whatever. I can say for myself that my excitement about space is genuine, but I cannot say is it a result of the marketing. When two Falcon 9 boosters land side by side with a sub-second interval is it marketing or engineering excellence? I do not care, I like that moment, it seemed unreal at the time, it changed my perception of what is real and what is not. In other words it changed my perception of reality. It is a big deal, and I cannot care less if it is a marketing.
- foreverobama 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wolverine876 3y agoRovers and helicopters on Mars, leaving the solar system, close-ups of Pluto, asteroid material brought back to Earth, etc. etc. Those weren't exciting, but reaching orbit real cheap is?
- soperj 3y agoI was excited about a number of those things, but the production values on some of them (leaving the solar system, helicopter on mars) was pretty bad.
- wolverine876 3y ago> the production values on some of them (leaving the solar system, helicopter on mars) was pretty bad What does that mean? The videos aren't slick enough? Personally, my excitement isn't based on hucksterism. The worst sophists (and megalomaniacs) will have the best self-promotion and slickest videos.
- pests 3y agoRight, this isn't a movie we're making...