Thatingles t1_jamn4ds wrote
I remember the first time they pulled off a landing and how amazing it was to watch science fiction become engineering fact. Even then people were saying it would impossible to do it reliably and the costs of refurbishment would make it pointless, so it has been an incredible advance and permanently changed the space industry.
Glittering_Leading93 t1_jao1ioo wrote
Absolutely. In addition is insane they’re just getting started. Finally starting to master production. Going to be a very interesting next decade. People can say what they want of Musk. What spacex accomplished as an organization is nothing short of a miracle. As you said “science fiction”
aProudCatDad614 t1_japcrzt wrote
What SpaceX has accomplished says nothing about Musk, except that he'll profit off of it. That's what he's there for.
Kogru-au t1_jaq0lay wrote
Musk is still the boss, he sets the agenda for everyone under him. To disregard that is silly regardless of what you think of him.
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Jeanlucpfrog t1_jaqiydi wrote
>What SpaceX has accomplished says nothing about Musk, except that he'll profit off of it. That's what he's there for.
And yet, if SpaceX had faceplanted posts like yours would be saying that SpaceX says everything about Musk. Same with Tesla.
cSwish t1_japdz29 wrote
Yea shame on him for wanting to make money and use it to better the world!
Suppose I need an /s here.
aProudCatDad614 t1_japg1f4 wrote
I genuinely do not understand this weirdly innocent love of Elon Musk. I'm gonna give props to the engineers and scientists who made it happen tho
sanand143 t1_japgtjw wrote
SoaceX engineers say he is good, why you say otherwise? Is SpaceX forcing employees to speak positively?
Vecii t1_japla2t wrote
Yes, lots of engineers and scientists had their hands in it, but it takes a leader to make it happen. That leader is Musk.
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tanrgith t1_jasp1qs wrote
It's about as weird as the people who try to push the narratives that Musk must in no way be given any credit for anything good or impressive that the companies he's been in charge of for 2 decades do
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Ball-of-Yarn t1_japhccs wrote
How is he using his money to better the world? He lost a good chunk of it trying to pump and dump twitter.
SpaceX is paying him, not the other way around. He's an investor, nothing more.
IAMSNORTFACED t1_japl318 wrote
Investors don't sleep in the factory trying to fix/improve production issues, Investors can't deep dive into how their rocket engines work and make engineering changes mid interview because they just realised a more beneficial way of doing something.
Stop getting your information from 4th hand sources
cSwish t1_japiae7 wrote
"Lost a good chunk of it"
He is the richest person in the world. I don't think that hurt him. But even buying twitter to allow it to be more of a free speech platform is better than it was.
Spacex has done more for the space industry than the last 40 years prior.
Tesla started the electric car revolution. Now every company is doing it.
Oh yeah lets not forget about global internet access with Starlink, only available because of SpaceX's ability to launch multiple times a month.
We can keep going but it's clear there is no use.
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elcholismo t1_japn9vl wrote
exactly, the scientists are the ones doing all the work, people need to learn how to view spaceX and musk as 2 separate entities, it’s like supporting the soviet leaders because they had a space program that contributed greatly to developments in space flight.
Topsyye t1_jamohoc wrote
I’m surprised nobody else (country or company) has tried landing boosters yet.
404_Gordon_Not_Found t1_japh6nn wrote
Rocketlab tried air recovery but no success so far
Khourieat t1_jan0jm5 wrote
Doesn't blue origin land every booster for its tourist hops?
Jones1135 t1_jan2gte wrote
What's being referred to here are rockets that put a payload into orbit or further, that return the first stage to land for reuse.
Topsyye t1_janbbcy wrote
True I actually forgot about that completely.
bullett2434 t1_jaovl1c wrote
The difference in difficulty between BOs hops vs SpaceXs orbital flights is not even worth comparing. Reaching Orbit is exponentially more difficult than going up 80 miles and then falling right back down.
Alan_Smithee_ t1_jaoqmx2 wrote
You would hope so, since it’s an all-in-one craft.
FutureMartian97 t1_jaot95g wrote
The booster and capsule separate. Booster landing doesn't affect the crew capsule.
Alan_Smithee_ t1_jaoukud wrote
You’re talking about New Shepherd, correct?
I thought the suborbital joy flight was a single stage.
FutureMartian97 t1_jaovqma wrote
> You’re talking about New Shepherd, correct?
Yes. The capsule separates right after MECO. If you watch the streams you can see that the booster lands first followed by the capsule a few minutes later under parachute.
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rocketsocks t1_jaqhmev wrote
It's a matter of time, mostly. The big issue is that you have to design for it up front. Which doesn't necessarily mean you have to commit to it with the first launch, although that might be changing as SpaceX redefines what is market competitive. But you have to design the vehicle so that landings are feasible and sensible.
Most of the traditional optimizations for expendable launches de-optimize for reuse. The first stage is where there's the least sensitivity to mass, so first stages end up being the cheapest parts of the rocket with the upper stages being the most costly. They also tend to be optimized to have a small number of engines. The Atlas V has one engine on the first stage, for example. These things make reuse harder (can't throttle deep enough to make landing easy) and less worthwhile (you're reusing the cheapest part).
RocketLab and Blue Origin are designing their next gen rockets with reuse in mind, hopefully they can achieve success and get some market diversification in the reusable rockets field.
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Drtikol42 t1_jaqh96n wrote
Delta Clipper was working but NASA killed it because of their fetish for space-planes.
Shrike99 t1_jauo7eo wrote
DC-X was a long way short of Falcon 9, or even New Shepard, and the full Delta Clipper would never have been a useful orbital launcher so long as they insisted on it being an SSTO.
Kemro59 t1_jao8358 wrote
Well that shit cost a lot of money to develop, which most countries don't have especially nowadays with the current crisis.
Reddit-runner t1_jaqijnd wrote
>that shit cost a lot of money to develop, which most countries don't have especially nowadays with the current crisis.
The entire development of Falcon9 including getting the boosters to land has cost far less than $2B.
The development cost of Ariane6 (completely disposable) has cost almost $4B so far with more costs to come.
So the idea that the money is not available is completely wrong.
Kemro59 t1_jaqj3z6 wrote
The money is not available yes.
Ariane 6 started its development in 2014, a totally different world from what we know nowadays.
Most countries don't want to waste money in space stuff while there's far more important sectors to fund like public services, energy production,...
Plus we got the war in ukraine now which also mobilizes money and equipments...
In these current times, I prefer that a country inject 1 billion in healthcare, education, police,... Than in space stuff.
Reddit-runner t1_jaqjq8f wrote
>Ariane 6 started its development in 2014, a totally different world from what we know nowadays.
The design phase wasn't finished until after 2017. And ArianeSpace actually changed the design quite a lot during this time.
So even the sunken cost fallacy doesn't apply here.
In the end is was a bet that SpaceX wouldn't get reusability as well working as they were aiming for.
Kemro59 t1_jaqk0ez wrote
Still doesn't change the fact that countries have other biggest problematics nowadays to put money on than the space sector.
Sadly, space will not really be a solution against most problems we got on earth and since we are blocked on this planet I prefer that we put money on the problems on earth rather than in space.
Reddit-runner t1_jaqkt5j wrote
Tell me a single major problem here on earth (besides buying weapons for Ukraine) that needs more money thrown at it rather than a resolute, comprehensive political decision.
You can't.
The idea that we have to divert money from (space) technology research in order to fix other problems is one of the reasons why we haven't fixed thise problems years ago!
So when you claim you want to see money taken from space to fix other problems you are part of the problem and speak after the playbook of the people who benefit from our current situation, but would lose their profits when strong political solutions would be applied.
Kemro59 t1_jaqleqc wrote
"that needs more money thrown at it rather than a resolute, comprehensive political decision."
You need money to establish a resolute, comprehensive political decision.
If you don't put money on the table then it's globally just an empty political decision.
A lot of subjects need more money :
>Reducing pollution.
>Creating and renovating energy infrastructures.
>Creating and renovating transport infrastructures to reduce car dependency.
>Reducing poverty.
>...
"why we haven't fixed thise problems years ago!"
How so? How the money given to space research would have solved these problems? That's like saying "the money that we give to the nuclear sector will solve the problems in the education system!"
Reddit-runner t1_jaqlu99 wrote
>Reducing pollution.
>Creating and renovating energy infrastructures.
>Creating and renovating transport infrastructures to reduce car dependency.
>Reducing poverty.
NON of those topics require more money, let alone more tax payer money!
Sensible laws are enough, combined with current budgets.
But as long as people say it needs more money, which we have to take away from science and research, we will never see the political majority to vote for such laws.
And guess who benefits from this inability to make such laws?
Kemro59 t1_jaqngt4 wrote
Of course they need more money!
My country will help the local steel mill in my town to switch from coal ovens to hydrogen ones to reduce the pollution they create.
Energy infrastructures too with the investments in new nuclear reactors.
France declared that it will put 100 billions on the table for the train sector to reduce the car dependency.
Investing in social housing, public services,... Is also a really great way to reduce poverty and the problems it create.
All this is funded by the state with tax payer money which is perfectly fine and normal.
And no, sometimes you need to put money on the table rather than to write some laws that will just have bad impacts because of a lack of money.
If you write a law like "now each 5000 inhabitants town need to have a train station and trains everyday" but give zero money for it, nothing will be done because you can't do this with the current budget you need to increase it.
You can't just fix stuff with some laws. You often need to invest money to make it work.
Reddit-runner t1_jaqow7c wrote
>My country will help the local steel mill in my town to switch from coal ovens to hydrogen ones to reduce the pollution they create.
Research and development money. Let the industry handle the rest, supported by sensible laws.
>Energy infrastructures too with the investments in new nuclear reactors.
Let the industry handle it by creating necessary laws.
>France declared that it will put 100 billions on the table for the train sector to reduce the car dependency.
Cut tax brakes for the industry you don't want and use that money one to on in sectors you want to support. Sensible laws are required.
>Investing in social housing, public services,... Is also a really great way to reduce poverty and the problems it create.
Germany is the best example here. Would they have implemented sensible tax rates incorporating the total m² of houses/apartments they wouldn't have this problem now. They could still implemented such laws, But no, that would hurt big companies.
.
>And no, sometimes you need to put money on the table rather than to write some laws that will just have bad impacts because of a lack of money.
Sensible laws don't have "bad impact". There already is so much tax money thrown at problems and this has a bad impact on the overall situation.
Good laws fixing all those problems you just listed would definitely hurt the profit margins of some big companies. But they wouldn't hurt 90+% of the population.
Kemro59 t1_jaqrxw1 wrote
"Research and development money. Let the industry handle the rest, supported by sensible laws."
The local steel mill especially needs help to complete its energy transition (and thus greatly improve the quality of life of the surrounding population) and this help in the form of money comes from the state, because yes supporting local industries that employ hundreds of people is generally a good idea rather than letting it wither away until it is no longer competitive enough against Asian industries. Like agriculture.
"Let the industry handle it by creating necessary laws."
The energy sector is a nationalized and public sector managed by the state, so the creation of new nuclear reactors is based on public money.
"Cut tax brakes for the industry you don't want and use that money one to on in sectors you want to support. Sensible laws are required."
Like what? What country in 2023 can say "I'm literally going to kill this industry in my country even though it employs thousands of people and generate tax money !". That's just super dumb.
"Sensible laws don't have "bad impact"."
They can have "zero impact" if there's no money behind it to apply these laws. If you create a law like "every house need to have a heat pump" to reduce the pollution and the energy waste but that you don't create governmental aids for the population then you can be sure that a LOT of house will not have heat pump, even 10 years later.
"Good laws fixing all those problems you just listed would definitely hurt the profit margins of some big companies. But they wouldn't hurt 90+% of the population."
Meh, if the steel mill die in a few year because of a lack of investment it will hurt people, if no new nuclear reactors are created then in 20/30 years the whole country will be in a really complicated situation (energy prices that will hurt the population), if you don't invest in trains then a lot of people will still be car dependant and so will still lose a lot of money on a car while the environment continue to suffer from all the road traffic, if you don't invest in housing there will be a lack of it and the population will have to suffer from even higher housing prices.
The state is a central part of how a country work, even in fully capitalistic countries like the USA, the gouvernment still inject money quite everywhere because it's useful and needed in most of the cases.
In fact, I guess countries should stop to invest in space companies and just let the industry generate it's own money thanks to sensible laws (well multiple companies would have probably died like SpaceX that used the NASA money but that's not a problem in a country with sensible laws).
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Kemro59 t1_jasb4sd wrote
And so? We are in 2023, the situation is quite different now.
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Kemro59 t1_jasliec wrote
Because we don't have fucking money anymore, France got one of the biggest debt in the world, so yes we are already struggling to fund our public services and army so wasting even more money on space stuff is dumb.
We should just kill the Ariane projects, we will never be on the same level than the USA and Asia in term of space capacities anymore so it's just better to close everything down and put the money somewhere else.
We know how to make planes, so we should just stay at this level rather than wasting billions in space.
DBDude t1_jaolqyi wrote
One reason Arianne isn’t doing it is because the rocket maker needs to keep making new rockets, and you don’t need new ones if you land them.
Shrike99 t1_jaumadc wrote
SpaceX are still building Falcon boosters at a higher rate than Ariane are building Ariane stacks, despite reuse. Not to mention a lot more upper stages. Consider the following production figures:
| Rocket | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ariane | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Falcon Booster | 10 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 3 |
| Falcon Upper Stage | 21 | 13 | 26 | 31 | 61 | 14 |
Granted, Ariane 5 is heading towards retirement so they're winding production down, but historically it averaged about 6 per year during the 2010s, which is comparable to the rate SpaceX have built Falcon boosters at since reuse started becoming common practice circa 2018, and they show no signs of slowing given they built 7 last year and 3 in just the first two months of this year.
(Note: I'm using maiden launches as a proxy for production figures. Actual completion dates are likely some months earlier, but over a time period of 5+ years it averages out)
Reuse doesn't necessarily have to reduce the number of rockets you have to build, that's stinkin thinkin.
It can instead allow you to build the same number of rockets but get a lot more launches done with those rockets - as evidenced by the Upper Stage figures for Falcon, which are 1:1 with the number of launches in a given year.
Consider also that SpaceX want to build Starship at a rate of one per month despite it being fully reusable.
Alan_Smithee_ t1_jaoqkvz wrote
Everyone else is playing catch-up.
Reddit-runner t1_jaqi6fs wrote
"Playing" is the word here.
When in 2015-2017 SpaceX succeeded in landing their Falcon9 ArianeSpace and ESA acknowledged that this rocket would endanger the market position of their Ariane5. So they started to develop Ariane6.
But with the expressed goal of not designing it in a way reusability could be implemented later on, if need arose.
And they designed it as a rival to the Falcon9 of 2017, a rocket vastly less capable compared to the Falcon9 of today.
ArianeSpace and ESA now struggle to fill the books.
Soooo do they do the responsible thing and design a new rocket (ArianeNext) that will match SpaceX's capabilities in the future when ArianeNext will come online?
Ha, no. They have set up ArianeNext as a competitor to the Falcon9 of today, while betting that SpaceX can't get Starship to fly.
They are "playing" and they are playing badly.
MassProductionRagnar t1_jarddwk wrote
More or less, but primarily, Arianespace is there to provide independent European capability to space. That it dominated the launch market for a bit was a happy additional benefit, but not the primary mission.
Reddit-runner t1_jarieyw wrote
>primarily, Arianespace is there to provide independent European capability to space.
If that is the case then why even develop Ariane6 as an expressed rival to the Falcon9 of 2017 instead of just subsidising Ariane5 indefinitely?
Also why create a singe provider with basically no incentive for low prices instead of investing in the launch market as a whole to ensure "independent European capabilities to space"? With those €4B for Ariane6 Europ could have created TWO SpaceX!
Europe could have a much bigger space economy if it didn't hurdle itself with high, self inflicted, launch costs.
MassProductionRagnar t1_jasdd33 wrote
>If that is the case then why even develop Ariane6 as an expressed rival to the Falcon9 of 2017 instead of just subsidising Ariane5 indefinitely?
Because it makes more money, or rather means Ariane needs less subsidies.
Reddit-runner t1_jat9dne wrote
>Because it makes more money, or rather means Ariane needs less subsidies.
Your entire first argument was that Ariane6 is not an economic choice but a strategic one.
Now you argume that Ariane6 was designed to keep up with the market.
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bvsveera t1_jaq5ito wrote
The Orbcomm-2 webcast still gives me goosebumps. And I strongly believe the image from the Falcon Heavy test flight, of those twin boosters landing together, will come to be immortalised and remembered as the moment in which reusability became a fixture of the general public's perception of spaceflight and rocketry.
CosmicRuin t1_jaoo6v8 wrote
Yup! And ULA is up for sale partially/mostly as a result. Lmfao at old-space!
craneman9867 t1_japb7uh wrote
Same. I was working at cape Canaveral then. Got a picture with the rocket and a tour of the drone ship they land the rocket on.
Crafty_Bison2262 t1_jaqkmvf wrote
It’s pretty awesome to see in our life time. Next two decades should be exciting times
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