this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Microblog Memes

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Not sure why SpaceX is in this group, except "cause musk", since they're objectively the best rocket company out there.

The rest are obvious, but the Falcon 9 is the cheapest, and most reliable rocket.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

While Falcon 9 is a dependable rocket...

  1. One has never been turned around as re-usable in anywhere near 24 or 72 hours as Musk claimed they would be, fastest turn around to date is I think 3 weeks, roughly in line with faster Space Shuttle turn around times. No where near 'rapid'.

EDIT: My turnaround times for the Space Shuttle were off, fastest was 55 days and its more like 3 months in average. The point I was attempting to illustrate, which is Rapid Reusability Is A Huge Element To Making The Cost Effectiveness Gains Promised, And SpaceX Is Still Off By An Order Of Magnitude, Over A Decade Into The Falcon Program.

  1. The cost to launch a Falcon 9 has never dropped to around 5 million dollars, as Musk claimed they would be. Even accounting for inflation, launches average around ten times the cost Musk said they would be. Musk is charging the government around 90 million per launch: Soyuz was the only option, so the Russians could overcharge a bit for ISS launches, now the Russians are not an option, and Musk is similarly overcharging.

  2. Starship/BFR is woefully behind the schedule for accomplishments that Musk claimed it would reach in his hype shows, woefully behind schedule for the NASA contract.

  3. Starship/BFR has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and so far has a proven payload capacity of 0, would require 12 to 16 launches to accomplish what a single Saturn V could do, has not demonstrated the capacity to refuel in orbit, is not human rated, and is now just being moved back to Starship 2 and 3, with Musk now claiming Starship 1 actually has half the orbital cargo capacity he has up to recently claimed it has.

  4. For comparison, the Saturn project had a development time similar to how long BFR/Starship has... never once failed, proved it could do what it needed to in 67, 7 years after development began.

(They also had computers maybe a little bit more or less powerful than a ti-83 and had to basically invent a huge chunk of computer science)

Starship/BFR development has been a shit show.

Dear Moon is cancelled.

Remember when the repulsive landing Dragon Capsule was going to land humans on Mars?

Remember when we were going to have multiple Starships starting a Martian colony by now?

SpaceX in general has gotten high on their own supply over the last 10 years and has made all sorts of lofty claims about lowering launch costs, rapid reusability, rockets for military asset deployment to anywhere on Earth, rockets as basically super fast commercial airliner travel, all of which have driven massive public hype and investor confidence, and then these claims are just forgotten about when it becomes apparent just how difficult these are to achieve, or in some cases, laughably, obviously unworkable with even a modicum of thought.

The truth of the matter, as proven by Musk's handling of his other companies, is that Musk just says things, "We can do this now!", when in reality he's basically had a napkin drawing plan a month ago, calls this prototyping, and now its a month later, and he emailed somebody and said 'Make this happen' with no further explanation, thus the project is now in development.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (30 children)

Seems like you're comparing SpaceX to Elons promises, not against the rest of the space industry. They're still much better than all the rest, even if they don't quite meet Elons promises.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Musk is gross and SpaceX has some questionable marketing claims that you've identified, but I don't see how anyone could claim that anything about the company's products are a shitshow.

Falcon 9 has radically changed the economics of the space industry, and has no competition to force lower prices.

Starship has had a very successful testing campaign, and operates within a different development paradigm than Saturn. They've shown more progress on more technology in the last year than almost any rocket ever. It won't be long before Starship has demonstrated all the capabilities you mentioned. While the price tag is large in absolute terms, it will be very cheap relative to the competition.

Dear Moon was not canceled by SpaceX, and no one who follows the industry has ever believed Musk's timelines.

I guess I'm confused, because everything I know about Starship points towards it being one of the most incredible engineering accomplishments ever. There are lots of other problems with SpaceX's leadership, environmental impact, and work culture, but aren't the products inspiring?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

They don’t have rapid reusability because it doesn’t matter to them, they have enough rockets that they can work on multiple at the same time to get the same effect

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

3 weeks, roughly in line with faster Space Shuttle turn around times

The shortest shuttle turnaround time was 55 days. Almost three times as much as Falcon 9. The fastest post-Challenger turnaround time was 88 days, I believe. After Columbia, the fastest turnaround was around 5 months.

NASA claimed that the shuttle could achieve a turnaround time of two weeks (page IX). It looks like SpaceX is not the only one setting unrealistic timelines?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

the expandables

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

gotta wait for Bezos to catch up with the shenanigans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Doesn't he have a wierd pissing at work thing and have cameras in delivery trucks that penalize you when you yawn? I'd say rhe fuckin billionaire is qualified to fuck right off.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Imma be honest, I deem Tesla successful. At start, their mission was to get EVs started up and going. And they fucking did. After showing how much can EVs achieve, they forced whole world to shift focus - they succeeded. As of what happens with the company now...I don't care. They did hella lot of good for everyone, now they can fall off. Would prefer if Musk fucked off instead and let them cook, but eh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I disagree. EVs needed more battery development which occurred largely independently of Tesla, and instead they just reaped the reward of other people's labour.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Technology wise, true. But it's not about technology. Tesla pushed for EVs to become mainstream. They made them wanted by people. Up to that, automakers ignored that tech fully, cause money was with ICE.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

You can't deny the impact that they had on propping up EVs as desireable, though. There wouldn't be so many Teslas on the road if the opposite was true.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Still gotta find a fourth member

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Had a 5th member lined up but then there was a tragic and completely unexpected incident and now there's an opening.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

God damnit Boeing what did we say about silencing teammates

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

SpaceX has Gwynne Shotwell who actually is the reason to find SpaceX interesting. She is so powerful that she can overcome Musk's perpetually increasingly unstable drag coefficient.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ooh, so SpaceX is basically thanks to her

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

They also socially engineered ways to keep that dipshit Musk away from the projects and sabotaging them all. “Here is a shiny sprocket that we are too dumb to figure out, need you to help us!”, and that idiot gets to play smart and leaves the real work alone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Speaking of good names…

perpetually increasingly unstable drag coefficient

Band name?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Why is SpaceX on that I mean I know "musk bad", but seriously they're doing well. Just put Boeing on there again this time for Starliner.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Muskians are having fits in the comments

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Top left: An aerospace conglomerate with an all-consuming focus on short-term profits, leading to endemic problems. The featured product being the 787, a functional and popular airliner which had numerous problems related to excessive outsourcing. Some safety concerns about newly delivered planes of this type, due to the company's endemic problems. As an airline, I would prefer to buy Airbus. And as a passenger, I would avoid the 737 Max totally and all Boeings for the first years of service.

Top right: A major electric car company with major leadership problems. The featured product is an automobile which compares disfavourably to other electric pickup trucks in most conventional metrics. As a consumer, I would look at alternatives.

Bottom left: Someone thought they could build a submarine.

Bottom right: The world's leading space launch company. Also the world's leading satellite internet company. The featured product is the Falcon 9, a large rocket capable of sending a large payload into orbit or beyond. The first stage can then land and be reused. Some concerns about the leadership of the company, and the side effects of their failure tolerant testing. As a for-profit company, I would have no other choice in launch providers. As a consumer, I could be in a situation where they are the the only real provider of internet access.

A very diverse "team". Assembled by someone with a different perspective than my own.

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