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Very few organizations and even countries can develop both a launch vehicle and a satellite. Botswana has done fine to develop a satellite that integrates onto
by parsimo2010 2y ago
Very few organizations and even countries can develop both a launch vehicle and a satellite. Botswana has done fine to develop a satellite that integrates onto a rideshare launch. They aren't working with anything close to the headcount or budget of NASA or even the ESA.
Edit (rather than reply and make the comment chain long): It's fine that you read it that way. I figure that if the article were about a launch vehicle then it would have been the rocket's name in the title, and if the article were about the satellite then it would have the satellite's name (BOTSAT-1). If Botswana had developed both an orbital launch vehicle and their first satellite then I'd bet the headline would have been sensational.
- echoangle 2y agoMaybe my comment should have been more clear. I don’t think it’s surprising or bad that they don’t have their own launch vehicle, I just found the headline a bit misleading because it could sound that way. It’s still a great achievement.
- hnuser123456 2y agoI get what you're saying, something like "Botswana successfully begins orbital operations of its first satellite" would be more accurate, but simply not clickbaity enough.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoIt's standard language used by the press. As explained further up the comment chain, very few nations have the capability to even put a satellite into orbit. The notability is that they have a satellite up for their purposes; they're not trying to claim that they did the launch themselves. If this were some random corporation, none of you wouldn't have blinked an eyelid at a title like "Megacorp successfully launches first satellite" when all but 3-4 companies in the world rely on someone else to do the launch. There's more hair-splitting going on here than in a hair salon.
- closewith 2y agoThat seems an uncharitable read of the GP. I too assumed from the headline that by using the verb launch, it was referring to an indigenous vehicle.
- tonyhart7 2y agowe talking about Botswana here, not disrespect to botswana but you can't launch rocket with some serious publication first we know that china would have rocket back then because scientific advancement, you cant skip steps
- teruakohatu 2y agoWhile I agree with the sentiment, my tiny island nation with a population of 5m people was able to develop satellite launch capabilities. It’s more a case of does it make economic or strategic sense to do so. For most countries it wouldn’t.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoHow much of that US/NZ effort was NZ though?
- teruakohatu 2y agoA lot, but I do take your point. It is not our only space venture. Our universities are churning out aerospace engineers. It annoys STEM academics that the space industries keeps "poaching" the best grad students. To the best of my knowledge, the company is not a strategic priority for New Zealand, we do not absolutely need to launch our own satellites. It is purely a commercial venture. They had no choice but to make it a joint effort. If it was not a joint effort they would have far fewer customers and a extremely limited supply chain. Quite a while ago when I met an MP who seemed interested in space. I asked if anything could be done to keep/inceltivize future space ventures fully on-shore. They shrugged their shoulders and said no.
- mmooss 2y agoIs NZ possibly the worst country to launch from (due to geography and geometry)? Yes, I know you can launch from other locations, and my question is more of a curiosity.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoIt's certainly not the worst, since it has plenty of empty ocean to the east and west. A necessity for kind of safe launches. Of course a location closer to the equator would be nice, but it could be worse. Just remember that the best place the EU came up with is in south America. Places like mainland Netherlands probably qualify for the worst places to launch orbital rockets from.
- Dylan16807 2y ago> Very few organizations and even countries can develop both a launch vehicle and a satellite. I would remove the last three words from that. Launch vehicles are hard. Satellites are easy. This is a cubesat, even.
- fastasucan 2y agoWhy remove it? It doesn’t change what they say.
- kortilla 2y agoBecause it’s not clear which of the two things makes doing both hard. Developing a basic satellite is very straightforward at this point and there are countless unrecognizable companies that help do this.
- fastasucan 2y agoIts not clear which is hard, yet there are hundreds in the comments pointing it out.
- Dylan16807 2y agoIt's not clear from the original bad phrasing.
- Dylan16807 2y agoIt's like saying "it's really hard to build both a nuclear reactor and a quadcopter". It's technically true but makes the second one sound a lot harder than it really is. A hobbyist can make a cubesat, and if they do something clever they might even find a grant to pay for the launch.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoLaunch vehicle development program: $1 billion Cubesat: $100k You remove it because of the 4 orders of magnitude.
- lolinder 2y ago> Edit (rather than reply and make the comment chain long): Sorry to go meta here, but this is just rude, both to OP and to other readers. For OP, you're effectively pre-empting what they say with your own counterargument, and even more so you're removing the ability for them to counter your counter. You're essentially using the edit feature to end the conversation and ensure you have the final word. For other readers, you're introducing confusing non-linear flow. Just reply. It's not hard, and as you can see below you didn't actually prevent a subthread from forming.
- pc86 2y ago> Sorry to go meta here, but this is just rude, both to OP and to other readers. ... You're essentially using the edit feature to end the conversation and ensure you have the final word. I've noticed this more and more, especially on more controversial topics (which this is certainly not). Adam makes a statement, Betty responds. Adam responds, and Betty edits her initial response and conversation ends, likely because Adam didn't see the edit.
- Aeolun 2y agoIsn’t that fine? Not all of those conversations have to be taken to the end.
- appleorchard46 2y agoMm, as long as the edit is clear it seems like a good way to avoid unproductive arguments. Adam makes a statement, but the responses show the statement was unclear and/or leads into tangential arguments. An edit can clarify the initial statement for future readers without getting the original poster stuck in the back-and-forth necessary to escape whatever quagmire the unedited version created.
- noduerme 2y agoImagine you're having an in-person conversation with someone in a crowded restaurant. Rather than addressing their next response to you, they wait until you go to the bathroom. Then they turn to everyone at the next table and say, "that guy doesn't get it, but fine." I personally think that in a no-holds-barred debate, you don't bother trying to convince your interlocutor of anything. You focus on persuading everyone else in the room. But it's rude to treat every polite conversation as a smackdown debate. Such a strategy can also backfire by turning off your intended audience, as evidenced here.
- aravindputrevu 2y agoSo true. I think most people don't realise how hard it is really to build a engine that works.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- harpiaharpyja 2y agoYeah, and that's exactly what makes the title into clickbait.