I count three statements in there that you really should reconsider. Nobody flies "shuttles" so there isn't anything to compare apples to apples. Nobody has confused SpaceX with NASA. And SpaceX wouldn't be allowed to sell to North Korea.
Marx's predictions about capitalism have mostly turned out correct
Sure they have.
Here's what brings down purchasing power: six billion more people who can do your job. Supply and demand applied to labor completely explains what has happened to the developed world over the past fifty or so years. You don't need a 19th century kook to think this through.
The Russians claim staged combustion engines are more cost effective than gas generator engines.
The Russians claim a lot of stuff. I have no reason to take their word in the absence of evidence. My view is that the Russians let their program go to seed. Maybe you're right and they'll turn that around in the next few years. They are doing somewhat better than I thought they were. We will see.
The Russians have the resources and experience that a world power with interests in maintaining security accumulate over years of rocketry development.
Which I might add, is not that useful for actually doing anything in space at an affordable price. The problem here is that cheap space launch is primarily a matter of economics not of experience, expertise, mostly irrelevant infrastructure, or funding.
The space industry suffers from remarkably low expectations. Just because the Russians have a cheaper space program than the US or Europe (which is a very low threshold to achieve IMHO) doesn't mean that they have experience with the cheap space launch strategy that SpaceX is attempting to pursue.
but filing a petition isn't the same as having lobbyists go to DC to skew policy to benefit themselves
Sure, there are other forms of petitioning such as mass protest. It still remains that lobbying is protected under the First Amendment for the reason I mentioned.
Pump fed engines, Kestrel and Draco, are trivial to design in comparison.
[...]
SpaceX is doing a nice job so far but their engines are still not state of the art.
I guess you don't get the point. State of the art is not economical. An engine that is trivial to design and build, and which gives reasonable ISP and thrust/weight is a superior choice for rockets where you want more value out of them than you put in.
SpaceX has a rocket which is already cheaper to fly than Angara and that includes the higher labor and operational costs of flying out of the US. And if, at some future point, it becomes within the interests of SpaceX to develop a state of the art engine (rather than merely incrementally advance their current engines to the state of the art as they currently are doing), they have the people in place to do so.
And I still don't grant that Russia has more experience. The new crop aren't the ones who developed Soyuz and Proton. They aren't undertaking the same remarkable effort.
You do not know what you are talking about. They recently developed the RD-191 and RD-0124 staged combustion engines. They are developing the Angara rocket to replace Proton. Russia is one of the largest launch services providers in the world.
In other words, they upgraded the labels on rocket designs from the 1960s and 1970s. The RD-0110 was first flown in 1964 and the RD-170 was first developed for the Engergia rocket in the late 70s.
If instead, we're going to compare apples to apples. we'll also have to note that SpaceX has similarly upgraded its rocket engines during the same period. For example, there are three substantial upgrades of the original Merlin 1 rocket engine (the rocket used on the Falcon 9) and a second upgrade to the Draco rocket engine (a in-space rocket engine used for maneuvering). So
And while Russia claims to be developing Angara, as you already noted, they aren't due to the "delays" attributed to funding (which is actually the easiest part of the puzzle for Russia to fix - just add money).
So to summarize the current count: SpaceX has developed four rocket engine designs from scratch and upgraded these four times in the same sense that Russia has upgraded the RD-170 and the RD-0110. Then they developed two launch vehicles while Russia has experienced delays in its alleged development of the Angara. Finally, SpaceX developed a new spacecraft and vertical landing technology while Russia did neither. I think you see where I'm going with this.
I think that's a pretty thin hope to pine for. Everyone knows people will die in space and that has already happened before. And once we pass through the original hubbub, nobody is going to care any more, just like they don't care when a family wraps their car around a tree.
"The Air Force was mildly interested, but demanded **a much larger vehicle**, far larger than the original concepts."
Nonsense. NASA would have been able to fund a small vehicle without Air Force involvement. Note that the current Wikipedia article you quote (which incidentally asserts the above without citation) also claims that NASA had already designed a vehicle too large for existing funding and only went to the Air Force to get additional funding.
Also we have original concepts mentioned in the Wikipedia article like launching a reusable launch vehicle on a Saturn V. Do you really think the final Space Shuttle is larger than a Saturn V launch?
So here's a summary of my arguments - NASA already had the ability to fund a small RLV, the cooperation with the USAF was voluntary, and they already had other huge original concepts in mind before they approached USAF. I think there's a simple explanation for this particular claim - historical revisionism.
The Ares V was expected to fly in 2018 and put something in orbit around the Moon in 2019. Expectations have a way of not happening in the aerospace industry. Congress can expect the SLS to fly any time they want, but that doesn't mean it actually will do so.
Personally, I do think that SpaceX has a good thing going at the moment but they're a failure or two or a political fuckup or two away from never launching again.
Just like the three failures that kicked off SpaceX's program ended SpaceX? And how does this really differ from Russia? I'd say Russia is a political fuckup away from ending its primary meal ticket, the launches to ISS. That would have much the same effect.
The state of Russia has more experience, more expertise, more infrastructure and endless seas of funds in comparison.
How many rockets and engines has Russia developed in the last ten years? How can it have and retain such experience and expertise, if it's not actually doing the sort of things any more that generate experience and expertise? Russia may have more funding, the only thing I'm willing to grant on your list, but they aren't willing to spend that on development either of existing platforms or new ones. Their program is stagnant and not going anywhere.
OTOH, SpaceX has developed two new rockets, at least three new rocket engine lineages (perhaps four by now), a spacecraft, and vertical landing technology in a bit over ten years. Even if they fail, say due to the gambles they are taking, it's still a solid and remarkable demonstration that their approach works far better than anything else out there. That means other such companies can fill in the vacuum and take SpaceX's place, using the same strategies.
From a stock holder perspective. it's a very dumb move.
Why? The advantages are pretty obvious due to network effects and the fact that Tesla's business model is selling cars not selling proprietary recharging stations that almost no one uses.
Because real machines are even less perfect than people.
So you're saying, for example, that hammering a nail with your bare hand is going to be less error-prone than using a hammer as the means? Or that a person running at oh, 100 km per hour is going to be involved in less accidents than a car going 100 km per hour?
It is kind of sad that my concerns back then have yet to be addressed in four years. Well, more time will eventually demonstrate whether there is any merit to these concerns about ocean acidification.
Slashdot Mirror
I count three statements in there that you really should reconsider. Nobody flies "shuttles" so there isn't anything to compare apples to apples. Nobody has confused SpaceX with NASA. And SpaceX wouldn't be allowed to sell to North Korea.
Supply and demand wouldn't explain the emergence and growth of the welfare state in the last fifty or so years (and longer)
I said "Supply and demand applied to labor". Protectionism and rent seeking are classic responses to competition.
Marxism and the idea of government controlling markets rose
...the moment there were both markets and governments. It predates Marx by many thousand years.
Marx's predictions about capitalism have mostly turned out correct
Sure they have.
Here's what brings down purchasing power: six billion more people who can do your job. Supply and demand applied to labor completely explains what has happened to the developed world over the past fifty or so years. You don't need a 19th century kook to think this through.
I think rather it is choice B). They'll shake down Apple for some bribe money. They could have done 1) without singling out anyone.
The Russians claim staged combustion engines are more cost effective than gas generator engines.
The Russians claim a lot of stuff. I have no reason to take their word in the absence of evidence. My view is that the Russians let their program go to seed. Maybe you're right and they'll turn that around in the next few years. They are doing somewhat better than I thought they were. We will see.
The Russians have the resources and experience that a world power with interests in maintaining security accumulate over years of rocketry development.
Which I might add, is not that useful for actually doing anything in space at an affordable price. The problem here is that cheap space launch is primarily a matter of economics not of experience, expertise, mostly irrelevant infrastructure, or funding.
The space industry suffers from remarkably low expectations. Just because the Russians have a cheaper space program than the US or Europe (which is a very low threshold to achieve IMHO) doesn't mean that they have experience with the cheap space launch strategy that SpaceX is attempting to pursue.
The bottomline here is Russians can launch cheaper than SpaceX and have way more experience at it.
No, that is not the bottom line. And the Russians don't have that experience.
Hmm, so they are developing a rocket.
but filing a petition isn't the same as having lobbyists go to DC to skew policy to benefit themselves
Sure, there are other forms of petitioning such as mass protest. It still remains that lobbying is protected under the First Amendment for the reason I mentioned.
Pump fed engines, Kestrel and Draco, are trivial to design in comparison.
[...] SpaceX is doing a nice job so far but their engines are still not state of the art.
I guess you don't get the point. State of the art is not economical. An engine that is trivial to design and build, and which gives reasonable ISP and thrust/weight is a superior choice for rockets where you want more value out of them than you put in.
SpaceX has a rocket which is already cheaper to fly than Angara and that includes the higher labor and operational costs of flying out of the US. And if, at some future point, it becomes within the interests of SpaceX to develop a state of the art engine (rather than merely incrementally advance their current engines to the state of the art as they currently are doing), they have the people in place to do so.
And I still don't grant that Russia has more experience. The new crop aren't the ones who developed Soyuz and Proton. They aren't undertaking the same remarkable effort.
The USAF people already had Titan III and were expecting to keep it.
So what? Again, NASA could have solved this problem, with money to spare, by scaling down the Max Faget vehicle till it fit in the budget.
You do not know what you are talking about. They recently developed the RD-191 and RD-0124 staged combustion engines. They are developing the Angara rocket to replace Proton. Russia is one of the largest launch services providers in the world.
In other words, they upgraded the labels on rocket designs from the 1960s and 1970s. The RD-0110 was first flown in 1964 and the RD-170 was first developed for the Engergia rocket in the late 70s.
If instead, we're going to compare apples to apples. we'll also have to note that SpaceX has similarly upgraded its rocket engines during the same period. For example, there are three substantial upgrades of the original Merlin 1 rocket engine (the rocket used on the Falcon 9) and a second upgrade to the Draco rocket engine (a in-space rocket engine used for maneuvering). So
And while Russia claims to be developing Angara, as you already noted, they aren't due to the "delays" attributed to funding (which is actually the easiest part of the puzzle for Russia to fix - just add money).
So to summarize the current count: SpaceX has developed four rocket engine designs from scratch and upgraded these four times in the same sense that Russia has upgraded the RD-170 and the RD-0110. Then they developed two launch vehicles while Russia has experienced delays in its alleged development of the Angara. Finally, SpaceX developed a new spacecraft and vertical landing technology while Russia did neither. I think you see where I'm going with this.
I think that's a pretty thin hope to pine for. Everyone knows people will die in space and that has already happened before. And once we pass through the original hubbub, nobody is going to care any more, just like they don't care when a family wraps their car around a tree.
"The Air Force was mildly interested, but demanded **a much larger vehicle**, far larger than the original concepts."
Nonsense. NASA would have been able to fund a small vehicle without Air Force involvement. Note that the current Wikipedia article you quote (which incidentally asserts the above without citation) also claims that NASA had already designed a vehicle too large for existing funding and only went to the Air Force to get additional funding.
Also we have original concepts mentioned in the Wikipedia article like launching a reusable launch vehicle on a Saturn V. Do you really think the final Space Shuttle is larger than a Saturn V launch?
So here's a summary of my arguments - NASA already had the ability to fund a small RLV, the cooperation with the USAF was voluntary, and they already had other huge original concepts in mind before they approached USAF. I think there's a simple explanation for this particular claim - historical revisionism.
One thing I expect humans to always be better than AI is property ownership.
Ok, why? And what do you mean by "enjoying"?
The mistakes in the Space Shuttle design was made for the Air Force:
Only because NASA made too much rocket and had to get Air Force funding to cover the funding gap. One bad decision lead to another.
which expected
The Ares V was expected to fly in 2018 and put something in orbit around the Moon in 2019. Expectations have a way of not happening in the aerospace industry. Congress can expect the SLS to fly any time they want, but that doesn't mean it actually will do so.
Personally, I do think that SpaceX has a good thing going at the moment but they're a failure or two or a political fuckup or two away from never launching again.
Just like the three failures that kicked off SpaceX's program ended SpaceX? And how does this really differ from Russia? I'd say Russia is a political fuckup away from ending its primary meal ticket, the launches to ISS. That would have much the same effect.
The state of Russia has more experience, more expertise, more infrastructure and endless seas of funds in comparison.
How many rockets and engines has Russia developed in the last ten years? How can it have and retain such experience and expertise, if it's not actually doing the sort of things any more that generate experience and expertise? Russia may have more funding, the only thing I'm willing to grant on your list, but they aren't willing to spend that on development either of existing platforms or new ones. Their program is stagnant and not going anywhere.
OTOH, SpaceX has developed two new rockets, at least three new rocket engine lineages (perhaps four by now), a spacecraft, and vertical landing technology in a bit over ten years. Even if they fail, say due to the gambles they are taking, it's still a solid and remarkable demonstration that their approach works far better than anything else out there. That means other such companies can fill in the vacuum and take SpaceX's place, using the same strategies.
Some are better at some things than others, in both senses of the phrase.
Well, AIs coopting other AIs is one area I would expect AIs to be better at than humans.
as Virgin is going to be defrauding people with "Not actually into space spaceflights".
If it's above 100 km, it's space by definition.
From a stock holder perspective. it's a very dumb move.
Why? The advantages are pretty obvious due to network effects and the fact that Tesla's business model is selling cars not selling proprietary recharging stations that almost no one uses.
Because real machines are even less perfect than people.
So you're saying, for example, that hammering a nail with your bare hand is going to be less error-prone than using a hammer as the means? Or that a person running at oh, 100 km per hour is going to be involved in less accidents than a car going 100 km per hour?
It is kind of sad that my concerns back then have yet to be addressed in four years. Well, more time will eventually demonstrate whether there is any merit to these concerns about ocean acidification.
How about tomorrow then? I understand birthdays only happen once a year. That leaves plenty of time to answer rhetorical questions.