Back

@tio
nasa is "by far" the industry leader in space? i don't love the Isaacman nomination, but that's taking it way too far.

@tio yes, in the 60s. but they are, no exaggeration, decades behind launch technology, which is arguably the cornerstone of space technology.

@tio
the LVs they are involved with developing - ie, SLS - are pretty terrible. sX is, _objectively_ (and i'm by no means a die-hard elon-fallating fanboy) revolutionary and the de-facto industry leader.

yes, their rovers and satellites and unparalled, but launch is _the_ most important part of the space economy, and the part most people mean when talking about a company's role in spaceflight.

@0x5DA "economics" is a very detached from reality concept. NASA just needs a taxi to do the important work. SpaceX failed to deliver on their promises and contracts with NASA from what I know, but regardless their "achievements" are hyped to the extreme. NASA space shuttle was also reusable and other rockets before that.

So the "costs" of the launches are a human made up invention of course, based on imaginary money and wrong priorities. We could easily divert a lot of human potential and resources into making these space exploration missions cost nothing, if we were a smart society.

SpaceX, Musk, and the like (billionaires) are simply making space into yet another market and brag about how much "progress" they are doing. Disgusting indeed.

@tio
"economics isn't real" is a bold leading claim, which i want you to contemplate a little more.

yes, sX is behind schedule on HLS. so is every other artemis contractor. HLS is *not* (expected to be) the limiting factor for artemis III (rather orion's underperforming heatshield).

this is plainly untrue. shuttle was a disastrous program. the peak turnaround was 54 days, average 190. F9's is 21 days, average 60. even the, which boosters were recovered had to be essentially re-manufactured.

@0x5DA Your communism-word-salad may be a sign of you being too trapped into the fantasy world humans have invented, one that is very harmful. From climate change to slavery, useless products and waste. "money" is a human invention, of course. And if we are not to see this we have no chance to detach from its bad influence on us.

When humans put prices on a banana or a rocket launch, these prices rarely reflect the reality of resources, human costs, or even more so importance. We made a whole documentary about it tromsite.com/documentaries/tro…

If you follow the "spaceflight" flavor of the human activity on Earth, and you think we are making "progress", what does progress mean to you in that context?

@tio
if i'm being honest, i don't really care about your economic views. i just want you to understand the current spaceflight dynamic.

i understand money is a human invention, but it is a human invention nigh-every human obeys buy. like it or not, it _is_ a measure for efficiency, and if you can't see that the 3,000$/kg of a falcon 9 implies greater efficiency than the 35,714$/kg for SLS, i don't know what to tell you.

@tio
re: Q
"progress" means more mass can be put into more orbits more often.

congrats on the documentary & books btw

@0x5DA I understand, but do you think we can still call it progress if that means we put more commercial satellites into space, more trips for rich people, or exploit other planets for materials?

Like cars are more efficient today in terms of fuel consumption but the entire "car industry" creates a terrible mess here on earth. We better make clean public transport.

@tio
there's a tendency to hand-wave commercialisation as "a big bad", but that's still just hand-waving.

regardless, i don't want to argue this back/forth so moralistically. i just want you to understand: sX, objectively, *is an industry leader*. that's all i disputed. they launch the most mass, at the lowest cost (not just price).

@0x5DA SpaceX being the "industry leader" means almost nothing if you disregard the fact that they may just be a taxi for the commercialization of space. And NASA is far more than just launching rockets into space. As @heluecht also said.

And this is not a "moralistic" argument between you and me, it is a fact that commercialization (most of the times) equals to destruction, abuse, and exploitation. On Earth or above ;)

@tio

as long as you understand, even if you don't want to say it, that sX _has_ revolutionised space access, that NASA is heavily dependent on them, and that the statements you made earlier on re-use were factually incorrect, there's nothing i want to add.

@tio
science is built on the shoulder's of giants. no advancements would be made without several thousand years of prior discovery and expirmentation. whether they a helped or funded by NASA is irrelevant - the point still stands: NASA has stagnated in LVs, and sX revolutionised that.

see that as positive or not, i don't mind. but it's an undeniable truth anyone with an interest in rocketry will confirm.