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That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
by sanex 11mo ago
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
- dylan604 11mo agoSeems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
- ceejayoz 11mo agoIt worked pretty well for F9.
- BoredPositron 11mo agoMostly because the whole landing thing was pretty novel.
- WorkerBee28474 11mo agoNASA still had much smaller jumps in capability between flights. Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk.
- dylan604 11mo agoSure, we went through Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo 1-7 before humans orbited the moon. However, we started from blank sheet of paper back then. BO has the knowledge learned from Gemini, Mercury, and all of Apollo to start. I don't need a YT influencer to know my NASA history. I'm old enough it was taught in school while young enough to not have lived through any of it.
- stevenjgarner 11mo agoI am so old I lived through it! - 13 years old staying up all night to watch Neil take his little stroll. Genuine question, how DO they teach it in school? Do they get into the physics of any of it (orbital mechanics, rocketry etc)? Do they get into the cold war geopolitics of it? Do they teach the amazing accomplishments of the Soviet Union as well as NASA?
- dylan604 11mo agoIt's not like it was a class on rocket science, but more of just history of each program being a stepping stone towards the ultimate goal of landing on the moon
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk FYI, that talk was poorly received in the aerospace community. Destin missed that the entire point of Artemis is not to one and done the Moon again but build towards getting to Mars. And the repeated "we're going, right?" shtick was condescending in the same way Hegseth wanting generals to cheer and holler for him was. He acted like a petulant influencer. Not a science communicator.
- bryanlarsen 11mo agoAFAICT it's "getting to Mars" for SpaceX and their ecosystem, and "sustainable cislunar economy" for Nasa, ULA and Blue Origin and their respective ecosystem. For example, see ULA's "cislunar 1000" concept from ~10 years ago. Either way, your criticism of Destin's presentation hits. One and done'ing the Moon is not particularly helpful in setting up a sustainable cislunar economy.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> it's "getting to Mars" for SpaceX and their ecosystem, and "sustainable cislunar economy" for Nasa, ULA and Blue Origin and their respective ecosystem In 2017 Space Policy Directive 1 amended the national space policy to pursue "the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations" [1]. This formally established the Artemis program [2]. Destin's criticisms were apt for Constellation [3], which was closer to an Apollo reboot. They were uninformed for Artemis. [1] https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-reinvigorating-americas-human-space-exploration-program/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/pr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program
- brain_staple 11mo agoThat was my interpretation of that talk. It seemed like a regurgitation of opinions of an old aerospace engineer. But that's probably unfair to Dustin, I believe that he actually came to that conclusion himself. But it was a really incorrect take that SLS was somehow the "safe bet" in comparison to betting on Starship. The whole talk just seemed insane based on what I knew about both programs.
- Seanambers 11mo agoSad part is that even though SpaceX / Elon has been very clear about expected outcomes it's still used against them.
- dotnet00 11mo agoNew Glenn is manufactured with a different philosophy, so Blue can't be Starship levels of cavalier with testing. It would cost way too much to do with their current approach. The factory tours for the two show this difference. New Glenn production is a lot more classical aerospace in terms of a high tech cleanroom factory being built from the start, versus a rocket that started out being built in tents that is slowly guiding the factory design as the tolerances are sorted out. I think Blue's philosophy is pretty similar to the old space giants, except for being willing to invest a ton of money into improvements and new technologies without waiting around for the government to give them a blank check first. Maybe we'll find that the thing limiting aerospace progress wasn't even that old space was afraid to test, but rather that they were simply unwilling to progress on their own initiative.
- pinewurst 11mo agoEven old space got further in 20 years than Blue Origin.
- dotnet00 11mo agoDid I miss a privately funded, reusable heavy lift rocket coming out of old space in the past 20 years?
- notahacker 11mo agoI guess it depends on which decade you look at. The Saturn and Shuttle programmes achieved more novelty for the time on faster timelines. Of course, they also cost a lot more....
- crawshaw 11mo agoThat is clearly not true. SLS is much more expensive by any measure and is not reusable in any way. Other interesting work, e.g. rocket lab, is not old space.
- SilverElfin 11mo agoI was thinking the same thing - big leap. But maybe there’s no real difference between ending up in Earth orbit versus lunar orbit, in that the basic aspects (thrust, staging, navigation, etc) are all there already? But everything relating to the lander (releasing it, landing it) would be new.
- WJW 11mo agoI recognize a fellow Kerbal space program enthusiast by what they consider to be challenges and what is just "more of the same". :)
- proee 11mo agoI think SpaceX is taking the re-usability part of Starship as foundation. Meaning they won't move forward until it's solved. With Falcon they added it as a bit of a secondary priority. They've spent so much resources trying to get the second stage back to earth. I think they should have just focused on getting the whole system flying to orbit, throwing away second stage for now, and using that platform to replace falcon. Eventually, they could refactor second stage to get it back to earth. But perhaps it's all too coupled that it has to be solved at one time (not later).
- iknowstuff 11mo agoStarship can fly to orbit, it's just not cheaper than a reusable falcon 9 that way
- margalabargala 11mo agoStarship has only flown 11 times. I suspect it's more cost effective than the Falcon 9 was when it had 11 launches, long before any reuse.
- exomonk 11mo agoCounting all those explosions as "flown" is pretty charitable.
- margalabargala 11mo agoIt's a technical rocketry term that encompasses all attempted flights, successful or otherwise. Your confusion stems from trying to use a different definition of the word when reading. Context clues are your friend here :)
- cratermoon 11mo agoThe first flight of the Saturn V was 'all up'. Every stage was the real live thing. No dummy stages, real payload. The third flight of the Saturn V took 3 astronauts in their spacecraft to lunar orbit and back. https://appel.nasa.gov/2010/02/25/ao_1-7_f_snapshot-html/ https://appel.nasa.gov/2010/02/25/ao_1-7_f_snapshot-html/
- timschmidt 11mo agoThat's true, but there were several prior rockets in the Saturn family which were used to test various parts of the design and mission: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(rocket_family)
- hvb2 11mo agoAnd no one would be ok today with the risks taken in those launches. Human spaceflight is more about mitigating risk than anything. Apollo was getting there first, so there was a willingness to take more risks. Also, NASA at the time had a humongous budget compared to today, adjusted for inflation [1] and it was a lot more focused on just getting to the moon. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA