But because the human species is intensely social, we derives benefit from the knowledge and insight of those who have seen a lot.
Meh, if there was such a big benefit, we wouldn't have entire fields working on trying to avoid aging.
Your premise is flawed. Avoiding aging != wanting to be dumb and inexperienced. It means we don't want to get frail and die. By your logic, anti-aging research is about finding ways to get rid of old people.
Isn't that the goal after all? Seriously, a person would have to be insane if they wanted to live forever while undergoing the natural aging process. You look in a nursing home, almost entirely ancient people who are there because they are suffering from various elements of the aging process. What's the point of a decade or more of not having any idea of who you are?
I would much sooner be dead than that, and would happily trade a few decades of my own life as an alternative to that. If I could spend my life as a 35 year old, now that would be okay. Otherwise, do not want.
Sure, while "being really careful" might be a key component to living over 110 years in modern society, I suspect the real selecting factor will be revealed, decades or centuries from now when/if our society becomes mentally healthy enough to be capable of admitting it, to be just happiness.
Stress kills.
So we aren't mentally healthy enough to know what you know for a fact? Mkay.
So what is your solution? Hard to imagine removing all stress from everyone. I'm not even certain that a stress free life is all that good of an idea. That idea comes from people who believe that happiness is a state of mind that needs to be constant euphoria. Sad to say, we have some generations raised to believe that.
So we end up with people addicted to opioids because they love that euphoric rush, we end up with so many women on anti-depressants because if they aren't just feeling giddyhappy, they think their life is a disaster.
They get to the point that their fear of stress takes over, and they stress over avoiding stress. Stressstress as it were.
Nah, I'll take life as it comes to me, not spend all of it trying to avoid any stress. Not one of us gets out of here alive.
What, exactly, is the genetic benefit of longevity? There ain't none beyond about 60 years
If your criterion is raw reproductive potential, no. But because the human species is intensely social, we derives benefit from the knowledge and insight of those who have seen a lot. Just to start with, grandparenting improves parenting.
Meh, if there was such a big benefit, we wouldn't have entire fields working on trying to avoid aging.
Depends heavily on whether you're just talking about extending life, or about slowing aging.
Sure - have you seen these folk? In no way shape or form have they slowed aging.
If I could live everything after puberty in my 30's, I'd say go for it. The problem with any age extension is that it's all on the wrong end.
When these 110 year-olds were 55, did they look/feel like most people do at 40?
It's a good question, but I still revert back to the evidence at hand. Most of these people look every bit of 110 years old. When I see one, I'm immediately struck by how they look like King Tut's mummy. Do not want that to be my fate.
There's also evidence that there's a genetic benefit to living beyond fertility - humans and orcas are among a very few species where females go through menopause and become infertile.
We must keep in mind that humans have altered the playing field immensely. In an uncivilized and natural state, a human is ready and has the drive for reproduction just around puberty. And until the past century, that was when we started reproducing. The age moved up over time, to when we now have pretty much hit the biological limits of people trying to start a family in their mid 40's, at a time when most humans in earlier times were dying off.
There is a related thing in that many birds will remain with their parents an extra year to help feed new broods of babies. This way the parents get some rest, and the babies are better cared for and fed. And the helper birds learn a lot about taking care of young. It is on the young end rather than the old end, but very similar.
So yes, in a kind of strange evolutionary step, a species where elders can help raise their grandchildren, there is an evolutionary advantage. I'm not seeing the advantage a 110 year old in a nursing home would bring. But keeping in mind that in the natural state, assuming an age of 50 for menopause, earlier human women would mostly be dead.
Why? What genetic benefit is there is specifically removing fertility? There might be a clue in that in both species grandmothers play an important role in caring for and training their son's children.
As noted, in the Natural state, with women having children starting right after puberty, a grandmother would still be fertile. Case in point, a friend of my wife had her first child at 15 years old. That daughter in turn had a baby at 14. My wife's friend was a grandmother at 29 years old. That seems weird in this day and age, but is more akin to the natural state than today's outlook of freezing your eggs so you can have a baby at 50. Then imagine your offspring also waited until 50 to start bearing children. You figure these 110 year olds in the nursing homes are going to help raise those children?
That healthy elders are a boon to raising children is in no doubt. The idea that menopause serves a evolutionary advantage is still open, because we haven't been in this artificial state long enough to make that determination.
My own conjecture on the matter is that the extension of childhood to 18 years old is by and large a good thing. We are no longer under such reproductive pressure that we have to start as soon as possible in order to survive, so that's likely to be a big plus, with trading early fecundity for wisdom and better choices.
I do however think that the extraordinary steps that some are taking today of freezing eggs in order to start a family as they near menopause, is just a bad idea on so many levels, not the least is the reason for them freezing the eggs in the first place.
Sea Dragon was intended to be 500,000 pounds to LEO and that was designed in the mid 1950s.
You are actually bringing up Sea Dragon?
It's like on a football team, the best player is the second string quarterback that has never played.
The Sea Dragon has compiled a perfect launch record, you have to give it that.
Hard to imagine that this wonderful Rocket has never been built, the humongous engine never even been tested. A company that has no experience with liquid fueled turbopump rockets should be able to build the huge Rocket Nozzle, the fuel costs are fairly cheap, and Compressed Lquid NItrogen tanks to pressurize should make the project easy and simple. Wonder why some other wanna be spacefaring nation hasn't already done this?
Probably a conspiracy like the Apollo Moon landings or Chemtrails.
Actually, it is. The OS, particularly in the unix universe, matters far less than the applications running on it. You think Android uses the Linux kernel because it's "the best?" That's cute.
Because that means that the Soyuz Rocket is much much more powerful than any other rocket, that's why.
Production-line-wise, it is.
What a concept. I need to lift X weight to X orbit. What Launch system do I use? Tell me exactly where your pointless metric has anything to do with that.
Anyhow, Your metric means nothing and is silly. I have you seemingly claiming that the thrust isn't important, because of total number of engines produced, and another claiming it isn't but Spacex has super dooper rockets coming on line that will dwarf anything that NASA is able to create, then it changes to being important.
I't like arguing with people on one of those Fox news debate shows whener everyone yells at each other while spouting irrelevancies.
Anyhow, looks like we can launch an infinite amount of weight to mars with an Estes rocket as long as the total number of Estes rockets ever made adds up to the required thrust, and that thrust isn't important until Spacex comes out with the BDR rockets and then it is really important. Reeedikalouss.
I love Spacex, but some of their Fanbois make Microsoft shills look like they hate Microsoft. Good day sir!
You spend lots of money on a supercomputer, therefore you wants the best os for it. In this case, the cheapest os is also the best. No need to pay (a small amount) extra for mediocrity.
It has nothing to do with not being able to handle the load. It has everything to do with costs. Linux is free. Windows isn't.
If I get you right, You spend all this money on a Supercomputer, so you logically use the cheapest OS out there instead of paid ones that should work better?
But the fact is, it's a bad search engine. Google eats it for breakfast.
Let me tell ya! Life was going well, Google was providing me search results that enhanced my social, spiritual and financial well being. After I switched to DuckDuckGo from Google, I lost my entire fortune, My wife left me and my dog ran away, and my Pickup Truck fell completely apart.
But now I'm a Country Western singer, and that's a good thing.
I mean, they could just ask people when they install the thing which search engine they wanted to use. Default to no search engine unless they explicitly select something.
Because the people that care are in the minority, so why inconvenience everyone with an additional step?
I see a "First World Problem" meme being made out of that.
Now tell me, Is Spacex doing this out of whole cloth?
Of course not, you can't make rocket engines out of cloth.
Thrust equivalence is severely amusing.
Why?
Because that means that the Soyuz Rocket is much much more powerful than any other rocket, that's why.The number of Russian engine actual launches dwarfs an anyone else. I'm certain that the number of fireworks ever set off become a substantial rocket by your metric. Anyhow, you're kind of reaching trolling territory, although I did like the cloth rocket joke. You're trying to box me into an anti-Spacex position, and it is annoying.
tl;dr version. All of Spacex's engines are not going to make one huge launch. They will make many smaller launches. Of which the thrust needed does not have any relation to of the total number of engines produced.
Elon Musk and SpaceX are outliers when comparing them to other private corporations
Most corporations would face rebellious stock holders and adversarial boards of directors when doing what Musk is attempting to do, as they would demand that the company focus on delivering maximum profits over the development of new products and industries.
That is completely true. This is why Spacex is an imprtant bridge between Government and reduced to practice. We are no longer in the age of simplicity where a rich dude says, "Hey - let's make something called "Bushnell's Turtle, and sink a few enemy ships!" Rocketry is a great example of brinksmanship applied. When the Russians compile an incredible safety record and launch Rockets like the rest of us drive to work, we end up thinking it is easy - it is not. I salute the Russians and Musk, and do not forget that these are more or less channeled explosions.
Meanwhile the most risk that most corporations want to assume is if the new pizza recipe tastes good to the customers. Even those that supply parts to the guvmint like say Rocketdyne are largely shielded from liability.
Which of course bring up the important point that it was no NASA building the candles all these years - it was private industry.
Sorry, but one size does not fit all. As well, payloads that might take three launches on a smaller rocket that can be handled by 1 SLS launch will be less expensive.
Since the SLS will most likely never launch a heavy payload into LEO (not even Saturn V did it in its three-stage version), you could easily handle that with just one launch on a Falcon Heavy plus some refueling flights. The same goes for the BFR of course, since that's a dedicated LEO launcher, too (without refueling). But after refueling, the BFR goes *way* above the SLS performance.
The amount of lift ability of the Falcon 9 is not the maximum that will ever be needed. 63,800 lbs to LEO 26,700 lbs to Geostationary orbit, or 16,800 lbs to Trans-Mars injection is nice, but it is a limiting factor.
SLS block 2 will be 130,000 lbs to LEO, and 50,000 pounds to Trans-Mars Injection, and that is a significant difference.
Are you a NASA employee who knows for a fact that there is absolutely no need for the SLS? It is very unusual for a Rocket to be built that there are no projects ever needed to be launced with it. If a single launch will put 130,000 pounds into LEO, you can bet that there will be payloads approaching that.
And if you want to make 2 60,000 launches of payload with the Falcon Heavy (it will probably be 3 because someone is going to have to assemble the objects in orbit, as well as the payloads being designed to be assembled in orbit, your costs are going to go up, and probablity of success is going to go down.
And just as a comparison, the combined weight of the Apollo Lunar Command Module and the Lunar Module was 48,450 pounds. That's nearly 3 times the Falcon Heavy's TMI ability. For a system that was only good for sustaining humans for about a week.
As I've noted, I'm a fan of Spacex - they are doing a good thing. But I also do the math, and there is a big technical, procedural, build and handling difference between reduced to practice and balls to the wall. The same difference between a sports car and a top fuel dragster.
Spacex will start making engines on production lines that will dwarf anything NASA ever made
They're already doing it. SpaceX is now manufacturing something like 200 engines per year on their production line - the thrust equivalent of five Saturn V first stages per year. Perhaps they're manufacturing even more by now.
Now tell me, Is Spacex doing this out of whole cloth?
Thrust equivalence is severely amusing. You coulf probably take several billion Estes Rocket engines and try top make them the Equivalent of an F1B. Gonna power a roicket to Mars or launch a intel Satellite with Estes engines.
Which is all to say, my comparison is as ridiculous as your attempt to combine thrust from each engine that Spacex has made.
Argue with statements that make sense, not weird cherry picking of irrelevant data.
Of course, we know they're not going to be doing that either. Even ignoring the continual delays, SLS is simply an impractical launch vehicle. Way too expensive per launch, and they'll never have enough launches to refine it.
.
Sorry, but one size does not fit all. As well, payloads that might take three launches on a smaller rocket that can be handled by 1 SLS launch will be less expensive. Its why we have a stable of different Rockets. Smaller ones naturally being cheaper.
As well, it turns out that we come up with things to put in orbit that weigh as much as a rocket can handle. If it's available, someone will find something that needs it.
I think it's kind of like no matter you big your garage is, it'll always be full of stuff.
Anyhow, we won't be using SLS to launch Miss Honey's 5th grade science project Cubesats, but a new Space Station or strategic satellite as well as assembling a Mars trip, sure. And just imagine the science devices that can take advantage of the payload, Perhaps even Human habitat buildings for Mars.
Zapata estimates that [ the cost of a SpaceX crew deployment ] its only 37 to 39 percent of what it would have cost the government.
Sounds like it's time to sell-off NASA's space operations (or maybe just the non-exploration parts) to SpaceX.
They seem to be doing a much better job of it. More innovative, cheaper, faster turnarounds. Is there really any reason for NASA to do anything in LEO any more?
Hey I have an idea. Spacex is so good, we need to Eliminate NASA, destroy the launch facilities, and restore Cape Canaveral to the wildlife only refuge is is, and Spacex will take over and we'll save so much money we'll finally be winning.
Only makes sense, Spacex will start making engines on production lines that will dwarf anything NASA ever made, I'm expecting with their expertise that 10 million pounds of thrust should be just a CAD design away.
Sorry to ridicule you, but it's a partnership. Spacex is doing the work that can be profitable.
More's the pity that people are seeing the system working like it should, and decide that the outfit that makes all this stuff possible through development of the technology then transferring it to private enterprise is somehow the bad guy.
IOW, Spacex is getting the stuff that is reduced to practice, and tweaking the hell out of it to improve it, and now NASA still provides the facilities, and doesn't have to do the mundane work, and can continue to work on the balls to the wall stuff that sure as hell isn't ready to transfer yet. You need to research the F1 engines used on the Saturn, and now the F1-b's. Many superlatives like the loudest non- nuclear detonation noise made by humans, the emplacement of Mission control based on a minimum survivable distance from the launchpad to realize that private industry isn't going to develop much less take on that responsibility.
Baseline budgeting is BS. I don't know if that has anything to do with why private enterprise can build a rocket for a third of what it would cost the government, but it probably doesn't hurt.
Having worked on a few interesting things, the profit is only ever expected when the project moves to private Industry. Even then, the amount of work to transfer the technology is sucked up on the public end.
The research is ridiculously expensive. Smart people and dedicated people who are paid a lot. Expensive tests. Things "go away" as we say, which require facilities being rebuilt. Private enterprise starting from scratch to build an F1 engine with no input other than "is it profitable?" It ain't gonna happen.
Then after years of reduction to practice, ya gotta teach industry how to do it.
Spacex is doing a great job. They are tweaking the process and succeeding - I had doubts that they would be able to land the pencils reliably, but am very happy to be wrong.
But none of this would ever have happened without the expensive R&D and reduction to practice and technology transfer on the dreaded "bureaucracy " side was eliminated because private industry is more profitable. And to imply that NASA doesn't need to exist is expecting that things just show up like majick, ready to make profit.
In other words, NASA shot itself in the foot and could have had a much bigger budget. That's the problem with saving money in a bureaucracy: it will be used against you as an argument to cut your budget next year. Better not to do it in the first place.
Well, NASA as an entity has the problem of politicized goals. The on again-off again cycle they went through every 8 years surely wasn't conducive to anything but wasting money on research that got cancelled when the next president and party came on board ( and since I went there, O'Blama did not cancel the Space Shuttle program)
All I see is that the system is working. We have private groups taking over what is more mundane work, and tweaking the candles for better return. NASA can do the science, and some of the less profitable research.
Rocketry isn't the safest thing in the world to do, and one does not simply hand over an F1 or F1-b engine (or develop the thing) to Papa John's Pizza, and expect them to free market the hell out of it. Almost 2 million pounds of thrust (F1-b) does not suffer mistakes lightly, and there goes the profit margin.
So instead of the typical Slashdotter "Dis ting all fugged up!" outlook, I see a logical and good step toward shipping off the technology that is shippable, keeping what isn't, and continuing the research that hasn't been shown to be profitable - yet.
Really? What I took away was, "Look how much more efficient and effective private enterprise is!"
There is absolutely no way the Apollo program could have happened with private enterprise footing the bill. Private enterprise was useful to contract for specific tasks but it never would have happened if we'd let the Invisible Hand of the market do its thing. The Hubble Telescope would never have happened as a privately owned and operated device.
Transitioning the launches to companies like Spacex is a logical move.
But you are correct. The free market crowd moves on profit. That's fine, but brings us things like more efficient ways to make pizza, not rockets and orbital mechanics.
There is very much a place for government sponsored science and services. No private entity would have funded the space program at all. We'd only have military rockets, and likely those would be ballistic missiles only.
The USA and Soviet Union performed a major jumpstart of rocket science back in the 50's and 60's. All government sponsored.
Really? What I took away was, "Look how much more efficient and effective private enterprise is!"
You are right, but don't forget that NASA is a broadbased entity, and Spacex is more tightly focused. Each of the different type of rockets in the stable have a different purpose, and NASA has retained the balls to the wall candles to themselves, and farmed out the less expensive stuff with corresponding lower payload to entities like Spacex.
NASA has done the groundwork, The rest of the entities are picking up just like the system should work.
Slashdot Mirror
Some christian cultures, celibate Christmas on January 6th,
So that's why I never get any sex that day!
But because the human species is intensely social, we derives benefit from the knowledge and insight of those who have seen a lot.
Meh, if there was such a big benefit, we wouldn't have entire fields working on trying to avoid aging.
Your premise is flawed. Avoiding aging != wanting to be dumb and inexperienced. It means we don't want to get frail and die. By your logic, anti-aging research is about finding ways to get rid of old people.
Isn't that the goal after all? Seriously, a person would have to be insane if they wanted to live forever while undergoing the natural aging process. You look in a nursing home, almost entirely ancient people who are there because they are suffering from various elements of the aging process. What's the point of a decade or more of not having any idea of who you are?
I would much sooner be dead than that, and would happily trade a few decades of my own life as an alternative to that. If I could spend my life as a 35 year old, now that would be okay. Otherwise, do not want.
Sure, while "being really careful" might be a key component to living over 110 years in modern society, I suspect the real selecting factor will be revealed, decades or centuries from now when/if our society becomes mentally healthy enough to be capable of admitting it, to be just happiness.
Stress kills.
So we aren't mentally healthy enough to know what you know for a fact? Mkay.
So what is your solution? Hard to imagine removing all stress from everyone. I'm not even certain that a stress free life is all that good of an idea. That idea comes from people who believe that happiness is a state of mind that needs to be constant euphoria. Sad to say, we have some generations raised to believe that.
So we end up with people addicted to opioids because they love that euphoric rush, we end up with so many women on anti-depressants because if they aren't just feeling giddyhappy, they think their life is a disaster.
They get to the point that their fear of stress takes over, and they stress over avoiding stress. Stressstress as it were. Nah, I'll take life as it comes to me, not spend all of it trying to avoid any stress. Not one of us gets out of here alive.
What, exactly, is the genetic benefit of longevity? There ain't none beyond about 60 years
If your criterion is raw reproductive potential, no. But because the human species is intensely social, we derives benefit from the knowledge and insight of those who have seen a lot. Just to start with, grandparenting improves parenting.
Meh, if there was such a big benefit, we wouldn't have entire fields working on trying to avoid aging.
Depends heavily on whether you're just talking about extending life, or about slowing aging.
Sure - have you seen these folk? In no way shape or form have they slowed aging.
If I could live everything after puberty in my 30's, I'd say go for it. The problem with any age extension is that it's all on the wrong end.
When these 110 year-olds were 55, did they look/feel like most people do at 40?
It's a good question, but I still revert back to the evidence at hand. Most of these people look every bit of 110 years old. When I see one, I'm immediately struck by how they look like King Tut's mummy. Do not want that to be my fate.
There's also evidence that there's a genetic benefit to living beyond fertility - humans and orcas are among a very few species where females go through menopause and become infertile.
We must keep in mind that humans have altered the playing field immensely. In an uncivilized and natural state, a human is ready and has the drive for reproduction just around puberty. And until the past century, that was when we started reproducing. The age moved up over time, to when we now have pretty much hit the biological limits of people trying to start a family in their mid 40's, at a time when most humans in earlier times were dying off.
There is a related thing in that many birds will remain with their parents an extra year to help feed new broods of babies. This way the parents get some rest, and the babies are better cared for and fed. And the helper birds learn a lot about taking care of young. It is on the young end rather than the old end, but very similar.
So yes, in a kind of strange evolutionary step, a species where elders can help raise their grandchildren, there is an evolutionary advantage. I'm not seeing the advantage a 110 year old in a nursing home would bring. But keeping in mind that in the natural state, assuming an age of 50 for menopause, earlier human women would mostly be dead.
Why? What genetic benefit is there is specifically removing fertility? There might be a clue in that in both species grandmothers play an important role in caring for and training their son's children.
As noted, in the Natural state, with women having children starting right after puberty, a grandmother would still be fertile. Case in point, a friend of my wife had her first child at 15 years old. That daughter in turn had a baby at 14. My wife's friend was a grandmother at 29 years old. That seems weird in this day and age, but is more akin to the natural state than today's outlook of freezing your eggs so you can have a baby at 50. Then imagine your offspring also waited until 50 to start bearing children. You figure these 110 year olds in the nursing homes are going to help raise those children?
That healthy elders are a boon to raising children is in no doubt. The idea that menopause serves a evolutionary advantage is still open, because we haven't been in this artificial state long enough to make that determination.
My own conjecture on the matter is that the extension of childhood to 18 years old is by and large a good thing. We are no longer under such reproductive pressure that we have to start as soon as possible in order to survive, so that's likely to be a big plus, with trading early fecundity for wisdom and better choices.
I do however think that the extraordinary steps that some are taking today of freezing eggs in order to start a family as they near menopause, is just a bad idea on so many levels, not the least is the reason for them freezing the eggs in the first place.
Sea Dragon was intended to be 500,000 pounds to LEO and that was designed in the mid 1950s.
You are actually bringing up Sea Dragon?
It's like on a football team, the best player is the second string quarterback that has never played.
The Sea Dragon has compiled a perfect launch record, you have to give it that.
Hard to imagine that this wonderful Rocket has never been built, the humongous engine never even been tested. A company that has no experience with liquid fueled turbopump rockets should be able to build the huge Rocket Nozzle, the fuel costs are fairly cheap, and Compressed Lquid NItrogen tanks to pressurize should make the project easy and simple. Wonder why some other wanna be spacefaring nation hasn't already done this? Probably a conspiracy like the Apollo Moon landings or Chemtrails.
Actually, it is. The OS, particularly in the unix universe, matters far less than the applications running on it. You think Android uses the Linux kernel because it's "the best?" That's cute.
I think it works, and is consistent.
Because that means that the Soyuz Rocket is much much more powerful than any other rocket, that's why.
Production-line-wise, it is.
What a concept. I need to lift X weight to X orbit. What Launch system do I use? Tell me exactly where your pointless metric has anything to do with that.
Anyhow, Your metric means nothing and is silly. I have you seemingly claiming that the thrust isn't important, because of total number of engines produced, and another claiming it isn't but Spacex has super dooper rockets coming on line that will dwarf anything that NASA is able to create, then it changes to being important.
I't like arguing with people on one of those Fox news debate shows whener everyone yells at each other while spouting irrelevancies.
Anyhow, looks like we can launch an infinite amount of weight to mars with an Estes rocket as long as the total number of Estes rockets ever made adds up to the required thrust, and that thrust isn't important until Spacex comes out with the BDR rockets and then it is really important. Reeedikalouss.
I love Spacex, but some of their Fanbois make Microsoft shills look like they hate Microsoft. Good day sir!
Most of the tools for supercomputing were written for the linux platform.
I see reading comprehension isn't your strong point.
And responding to the person who actually wrote that isn't yours.
You spend lots of money on a supercomputer, therefore you wants the best os for it. In this case, the cheapest os is also the best. No need to pay (a small amount) extra for mediocrity.
Exactly
It has nothing to do with not being able to handle the load. It has everything to do with costs. Linux is free. Windows isn't.
If I get you right, You spend all this money on a Supercomputer, so you logically use the cheapest OS out there instead of paid ones that should work better?
Sounds legit.
But the fact is, it's a bad search engine. Google eats it for breakfast.
Let me tell ya! Life was going well, Google was providing me search results that enhanced my social, spiritual and financial well being. After I switched to DuckDuckGo from Google, I lost my entire fortune, My wife left me and my dog ran away, and my Pickup Truck fell completely apart.
But now I'm a Country Western singer, and that's a good thing.
I mean, they could just ask people when they install the thing which search engine they wanted to use. Default to no search engine unless they explicitly select something.
Because the people that care are in the minority, so why inconvenience everyone with an additional step?
I see a "First World Problem" meme being made out of that.
"Installed FireFox...
"Needed one more click than I could accept."
Now tell me, Is Spacex doing this out of whole cloth?
Of course not, you can't make rocket engines out of cloth.
Thrust equivalence is severely amusing.
Why?
Because that means that the Soyuz Rocket is much much more powerful than any other rocket, that's why.The number of Russian engine actual launches dwarfs an anyone else. I'm certain that the number of fireworks ever set off become a substantial rocket by your metric. Anyhow, you're kind of reaching trolling territory, although I did like the cloth rocket joke. You're trying to box me into an anti-Spacex position, and it is annoying.
tl;dr version. All of Spacex's engines are not going to make one huge launch. They will make many smaller launches. Of which the thrust needed does not have any relation to of the total number of engines produced.
After all, the EUS will be expensive so using it for LEO lifting is stupid.
Kind of depends on who the customer is, and what they need lifted. I cannot make myself any clearer on that, so take it or leave it.
Elon Musk and SpaceX are outliers when comparing them to other private corporations
Most corporations would face rebellious stock holders and adversarial boards of directors when doing what Musk is attempting to do, as they would demand that the company focus on delivering maximum profits over the development of new products and industries.
That is completely true. This is why Spacex is an imprtant bridge between Government and reduced to practice. We are no longer in the age of simplicity where a rich dude says, "Hey - let's make something called "Bushnell's Turtle, and sink a few enemy ships!" Rocketry is a great example of brinksmanship applied. When the Russians compile an incredible safety record and launch Rockets like the rest of us drive to work, we end up thinking it is easy - it is not. I salute the Russians and Musk, and do not forget that these are more or less channeled explosions.
Meanwhile the most risk that most corporations want to assume is if the new pizza recipe tastes good to the customers. Even those that supply parts to the guvmint like say Rocketdyne are largely shielded from liability.
Which of course bring up the important point that it was no NASA building the candles all these years - it was private industry.
Sorry, but one size does not fit all. As well, payloads that might take three launches on a smaller rocket that can be handled by 1 SLS launch will be less expensive.
Since the SLS will most likely never launch a heavy payload into LEO (not even Saturn V did it in its three-stage version), you could easily handle that with just one launch on a Falcon Heavy plus some refueling flights. The same goes for the BFR of course, since that's a dedicated LEO launcher, too (without refueling). But after refueling, the BFR goes *way* above the SLS performance.
The amount of lift ability of the Falcon 9 is not the maximum that will ever be needed. 63,800 lbs to LEO 26,700 lbs to Geostationary orbit, or 16,800 lbs to Trans-Mars injection is nice, but it is a limiting factor.
SLS block 2 will be 130,000 lbs to LEO, and 50,000 pounds to Trans-Mars Injection, and that is a significant difference.
Are you a NASA employee who knows for a fact that there is absolutely no need for the SLS? It is very unusual for a Rocket to be built that there are no projects ever needed to be launced with it. If a single launch will put 130,000 pounds into LEO, you can bet that there will be payloads approaching that.
And if you want to make 2 60,000 launches of payload with the Falcon Heavy (it will probably be 3 because someone is going to have to assemble the objects in orbit, as well as the payloads being designed to be assembled in orbit, your costs are going to go up, and probablity of success is going to go down.
And just as a comparison, the combined weight of the Apollo Lunar Command Module and the Lunar Module was 48,450 pounds. That's nearly 3 times the Falcon Heavy's TMI ability. For a system that was only good for sustaining humans for about a week.
As I've noted, I'm a fan of Spacex - they are doing a good thing. But I also do the math, and there is a big technical, procedural, build and handling difference between reduced to practice and balls to the wall. The same difference between a sports car and a top fuel dragster.
Seriously, choice is good.
Spacex will start making engines on production lines that will dwarf anything NASA ever made
They're already doing it. SpaceX is now manufacturing something like 200 engines per year on their production line - the thrust equivalent of five Saturn V first stages per year. Perhaps they're manufacturing even more by now.
Now tell me, Is Spacex doing this out of whole cloth? Thrust equivalence is severely amusing. You coulf probably take several billion Estes Rocket engines and try top make them the Equivalent of an F1B. Gonna power a roicket to Mars or launch a intel Satellite with Estes engines. Which is all to say, my comparison is as ridiculous as your attempt to combine thrust from each engine that Spacex has made.
Argue with statements that make sense, not weird cherry picking of irrelevant data.
Of course, we know they're not going to be doing that either. Even ignoring the continual delays, SLS is simply an impractical launch vehicle. Way too expensive per launch, and they'll never have enough launches to refine it.
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Sorry, but one size does not fit all. As well, payloads that might take three launches on a smaller rocket that can be handled by 1 SLS launch will be less expensive. Its why we have a stable of different Rockets. Smaller ones naturally being cheaper.
As well, it turns out that we come up with things to put in orbit that weigh as much as a rocket can handle. If it's available, someone will find something that needs it.
I think it's kind of like no matter you big your garage is, it'll always be full of stuff.
Anyhow, we won't be using SLS to launch Miss Honey's 5th grade science project Cubesats, but a new Space Station or strategic satellite as well as assembling a Mars trip, sure. And just imagine the science devices that can take advantage of the payload, Perhaps even Human habitat buildings for Mars.
Anyhow, you match the payload to the rocket.
Zapata estimates that [ the cost of a SpaceX crew deployment ] its only 37 to 39 percent of what it would have cost the government.
Sounds like it's time to sell-off NASA's space operations (or maybe just the non-exploration parts) to SpaceX.
They seem to be doing a much better job of it. More innovative, cheaper, faster turnarounds. Is there really any reason for NASA to do anything in LEO any more?
Hey I have an idea. Spacex is so good, we need to Eliminate NASA, destroy the launch facilities, and restore Cape Canaveral to the wildlife only refuge is is, and Spacex will take over and we'll save so much money we'll finally be winning.
Only makes sense, Spacex will start making engines on production lines that will dwarf anything NASA ever made, I'm expecting with their expertise that 10 million pounds of thrust should be just a CAD design away.
Sorry to ridicule you, but it's a partnership. Spacex is doing the work that can be profitable.
More's the pity that people are seeing the system working like it should, and decide that the outfit that makes all this stuff possible through development of the technology then transferring it to private enterprise is somehow the bad guy.
IOW, Spacex is getting the stuff that is reduced to practice, and tweaking the hell out of it to improve it, and now NASA still provides the facilities, and doesn't have to do the mundane work, and can continue to work on the balls to the wall stuff that sure as hell isn't ready to transfer yet. You need to research the F1 engines used on the Saturn, and now the F1-b's. Many superlatives like the loudest non- nuclear detonation noise made by humans, the emplacement of Mission control based on a minimum survivable distance from the launchpad to realize that private industry isn't going to develop much less take on that responsibility.
Baseline budgeting is BS. I don't know if that has anything to do with why private enterprise can build a rocket for a third of what it would cost the government, but it probably doesn't hurt.
Having worked on a few interesting things, the profit is only ever expected when the project moves to private Industry. Even then, the amount of work to transfer the technology is sucked up on the public end.
The research is ridiculously expensive. Smart people and dedicated people who are paid a lot. Expensive tests. Things "go away" as we say, which require facilities being rebuilt. Private enterprise starting from scratch to build an F1 engine with no input other than "is it profitable?" It ain't gonna happen.
Then after years of reduction to practice, ya gotta teach industry how to do it.
Spacex is doing a great job. They are tweaking the process and succeeding - I had doubts that they would be able to land the pencils reliably, but am very happy to be wrong.
But none of this would ever have happened without the expensive R&D and reduction to practice and technology transfer on the dreaded "bureaucracy " side was eliminated because private industry is more profitable. And to imply that NASA doesn't need to exist is expecting that things just show up like majick, ready to make profit.
In other words, NASA shot itself in the foot and could have had a much bigger budget. That's the problem with saving money in a bureaucracy: it will be used against you as an argument to cut your budget next year. Better not to do it in the first place.
Well, NASA as an entity has the problem of politicized goals. The on again-off again cycle they went through every 8 years surely wasn't conducive to anything but wasting money on research that got cancelled when the next president and party came on board ( and since I went there, O'Blama did not cancel the Space Shuttle program)
All I see is that the system is working. We have private groups taking over what is more mundane work, and tweaking the candles for better return. NASA can do the science, and some of the less profitable research.
Rocketry isn't the safest thing in the world to do, and one does not simply hand over an F1 or F1-b engine (or develop the thing) to Papa John's Pizza, and expect them to free market the hell out of it. Almost 2 million pounds of thrust (F1-b) does not suffer mistakes lightly, and there goes the profit margin.
So instead of the typical Slashdotter "Dis ting all fugged up!" outlook, I see a logical and good step toward shipping off the technology that is shippable, keeping what isn't, and continuing the research that hasn't been shown to be profitable - yet.
Really? What I took away was, "Look how much more efficient and effective private enterprise is!"
There is absolutely no way the Apollo program could have happened with private enterprise footing the bill. Private enterprise was useful to contract for specific tasks but it never would have happened if we'd let the Invisible Hand of the market do its thing. The Hubble Telescope would never have happened as a privately owned and operated device.
Transitioning the launches to companies like Spacex is a logical move.
But you are correct. The free market crowd moves on profit. That's fine, but brings us things like more efficient ways to make pizza, not rockets and orbital mechanics.
There is very much a place for government sponsored science and services. No private entity would have funded the space program at all. We'd only have military rockets, and likely those would be ballistic missiles only.
The USA and Soviet Union performed a major jumpstart of rocket science back in the 50's and 60's. All government sponsored.
Really? What I took away was, "Look how much more efficient and effective private enterprise is!"
You are right, but don't forget that NASA is a broadbased entity, and Spacex is more tightly focused. Each of the different type of rockets in the stable have a different purpose, and NASA has retained the balls to the wall candles to themselves, and farmed out the less expensive stuff with corresponding lower payload to entities like Spacex.
NASA has done the groundwork, The rest of the entities are picking up just like the system should work.
Two hours north of Phoenix is all forest until you hit the Grand Canyon. Hour and a half if you go north east.
Flagstaff is very much like Pennsylvania.