this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
622 points (92.0% liked)

Technology

59636 readers
4425 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Elon founded SpaceX in 2002. He said he wanted to build reusable, cost effective space platform where rocket boosters could land themselves and be refurbished with low turn-around times to fly multiple missions.

People laughed at the idea of a rocket that could land itself upright. And after countless tests that resulted in magnificent fiery failures and flops, a private American company is now responsible for launching crew and cargo to the ISS so we don't have to rely on Russia or ELA alone, and has more recently gone on to develop the largest rocket ever made.

In the 22 years since it's inception, SpaceX has designed it's own:

  • Rockets
  • Engines
  • Rocket Propellant
  • Satellites and base stations
  • Bespoke robust communications network
  • Ground support structure (including a moving robotic tower named "Mechanical")
  • Crewed mission vehicle platform
  • The world's biggest fucking rocket

Say whatever you want about his beliefs, his opinions, his shit takes-- point me to another company that has done even half of that in that amount of time, or had nearly as monumental of an impact on the global space industry and America's access to space in the last two decades.

And if y'all haven't yet already, do yourselves a favor and look up NASASpaceflight on YouTube, watch their most viewed videos, which should be some of the SpaceX tests. You'll come to understand why shit blowing up is normal and a good thing with SpaceX: because they prototype and develop iteratively and rapidly, intentionally testing to failure so they know exactly how far from failure their nominal conditions would be. If they did not do this, the platform would not be safe and they would be getting fucked by a camel wearing another camel's skin for kicks.

[โ€“] AdrianTheFrog 10 points 6 months ago

Important to point out that a lot of NASA's problems are probably caused by Congress: their attempts to "save money" by re-using designs, the risk of NASA losing funding if any rocket they make fails, their insistence on having NASA support government military contractors, etc

This is a lot of what is preventing them from taking the rapid prototyping and iterative approach of SpaceX.