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> The public and decision makers react irrationally to any failure, putting funding for other missions and the entire program in jeopardy. NASA and ESA have to
by exmadscientist 2y ago
> The public and decision makers react irrationally to any failure, putting funding for other missions and the entire program in jeopardy. NASA and ESA have to make some extremely suboptimal decisions to make sure that funding doesn’t get catastrophically cut.
Which, incidentally, is one of the key reasons SpaceX has had the success they have: they're set up to handle failure and avoid this politics. How many Starships have blown up? If Starship were a NASA program, how many explosions ago would it have been cancelled? And yet this approach to risk is pretty effective!
- mmooss 2y agoIsn't that partly or largely due to Musk's influence? Like many powerful influencers, Musk can reliably rally supporters to even an unreality. Compare the responses to a failure by Boeing or SLS and to a failure by SpaceX. Also, SpaceX hasn't had a serious non-experimental failure yet (?). I'm sure their PR is preparing for that eventuality, but when non-fans are upset over a bad outcome and then learn about the risk tolerated, they will swing from admiring risk to condemning it. Imagine the Congressional committees. Even if SpaceX is super-conservative when flying humans (which we shouldn't assume - cultures tend to be consistent), if someone dies then all that risk-seeking behavior will be attacked. (To be clear, as long as SpaceX can manage risk in production - i.e., with high-value payloads such as people and NASA flagships - I think they and everyone else should use risk efficiently.)
- 15155 2y ago> Also, SpaceX hasn't had a serious non-experimental failure yet SpaceX had an explosive failure in 2016 with a commercial payload onboard.
- mmooss 2y agoThanks. How valuable was the payload?
- thimabi 2y agoVery valuable. It contained a Facebook satellite (actually a French one) that was to provide internet connectivity to Africa.
- jiggawatts 2y ago“Meta connectivity”
- mmooss 2y agoBy some measure they all are very valuable, but it wasn't a NASA flagship mission or human beings, for example. Most importantly, the public didn't care.
- KoftaBob 2y agoThe rocket was carrying the Amos-6 communications satellite, which was destroyed in the explosion. This satellite was owned by Israeli company Spacecom and valued at nearly $200 million.