the ratio of men to women in that picture is … wild.
it’s like 60s era nasa without any of the fashion sense.
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Yes, doing this sustainably is the point. That’s why the focus is on reusable rockets, changing the fuel that is used etc. We cannot continue to keep throwing away huge rockets after each launch.
as for not doing it, tell that to all the people who can’t use the Internet, or mobile phones or rely on GPS, or weather forecasts etc that they will have to do without. Satellites are a key part of our society now, and are incredibly important for countries that cannot put in fixed infrastructure. Mobile Money is a game changer in Africa and is helping people get out of poverty, are we telling them too that they need to wait in line?
Absolutely 100%, but as humans we are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. And let’s tax billionaires more to help pay for it.
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If the point is not to keep throwing away huge rockets after launch…having them explode seems like a concern?
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some of the wildlife (birds especially, in this age of busy highways) may be migratory-- and so a seasonal restriction may be all that is needed. Are launches scheduled with this in mind?
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Well I don’t work for the agencies that do the reviews but I would certainly hope they do. It would be pretty poor if they didn’t.
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you don’t get from zero to perfect in one step.
It took SpaceX several flights before they could start reusing the Falcon 9 booster and now they reuse almost all of them. They also reuse the Dragon capsule.
Rocketlab is starting to reuse their components and are designing their next rocket to be reuseable.
Meanwhile, all the other launch providers seems content to throw 100% away every time. That’s not very responsible so I hope you don’t support their approach.
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While we’re at the subject of “BIG rockets and where to launch them”:
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can it be deemed a “success” if it explodes just after clearing the launch?
Yes. Obviously, they would’ve probably preferred if the whole thing went as planned, but a big part of why they’re doing test flights like this is that it’s a very experimental design, and there’s only so much you can learn without actually trying to fly it. It might seem weird when you compare it to NASA’s SLS, but bear in mind that that rocket is made of components from the space shuttle so a lot more about it is already known, and they can only build one every two years or so so they need to be very precious about them. The next several starships are already pretty much ready to go, and each one costs a tiny fraction of what an SLS costs. It’s a very different approach to development. Remember how many Falcon 9s failed in some way when SpaceX were developing them? Now, they’re the most reliable rockets in the world and NASA trusts them with astronauts.
There’s several reasons they really wanted it to at least get some way up in the air, I expect at least one of which is the damage it’d do to the surrounding ground facilities if it blew up on the pad.
Note that none of the above is about Musk. I don’t like the guy either, but at this point his involvement in getting starship to orbit is pretty minimal. If I were an engineer at SpaceX I’d probably prefer it that way.
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From what I’ve read of SpaceX I’m not sure if I’d exactly feel at ease as a woman working there, but I don’t think it’s solely because of company “culture”. When I studied engineering in university (around 2010), the gender ratio was almost as bad from day one. We’re clearly doing a terrible job of getting girls into engineering as a society, although I think exact sciences have gotten a little better. It’s self perpetuating to a degree, but I also remember an asshole math teacher in high school claiming girls were just less adept at math, even though half of his advanced math students at that moment were girls (and about 4/5 of the top 5 in that class).
Like, this goes all the way down to how we frame things to kids. Even Lego has gotten into it: sets with rockets and complex mechanisms are marketed to boys, and the stuff marketed to girls is some 90% lavender-colored hair salons and pink clothing shops. They did some sets featuring famous female scientists, but I feel like that’s kind of a token effort and also that emphasizing how exceptional these people were just strengthens the idea that science isn’t really for women. (and consequently that fashion and hair dressing aren’t for boys; and -coming to think about it- that there’s a strict dichotomy in gender and what’s appropriate for each)
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Tbf, most of these engineers didn’t have a fashion sense either. It’s just that the short sleeved white shirt with a tie was basically the equivalent of wearing a sloppy t shirt to the office at the time. Plus, most of them were probably being dressed by their wives.
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The N1-5L explosion didn’t kill anyone; perhaps you are thinking of the 1960 explosion of an R-16 missile at Baikonur?
The two stage missile was set up on the pad and ran into problems during the countdown so the test was delayed. Senior military and engineering staff returned to the pad while the problem was worked on; they were still there when a short circuit in the second stage caused the motor to ignite, burning straight through the first stage and triggering a horrific fire and explosion. There is truly awful footage of the incident.
Officially it did not happen. At least 100 people are now known to have died, the story was that some of them had died in a plane crash. Western intelligence learned the truth some point in the mid 1960s, but the Soviet Union only admitted to the disaster in 1989 under Gorbachev.
None of the remaining N1 launches were manned, although the latter two carried Soyuz 7K-LOK capsules which would have been capable of taking people around the Moon. The first Soviet cosmonaut to be lost in space was Vladimir Komarov, killed in the crash of Soyuz 1 in 1967 - a true hero.
The Soviet Union had had a number of close runs before then, but had somehow managed to avoid disaster. Their luck ran out with Soyuz 1 - another casualty of the chaos, loss of focus and rivalry that erupted after the death of Sergei Korolev.
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Absolutely.
You keep up with the Pro Rocket statements and one day maybe we’ll believe your schtick.
Shoot for the moon, buddy!
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There’s something to be said about uniforms (which is what a dress code more or less is), it means not spending cognitive budget on having to think about what to wear.
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Perhaps then you should start by working on reusable rockets for satellite launches.
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It’s slowly been coming out that in fact many key people died in that explosion. There was a book about it that I read a couple of years ago who’s name now escapes me.
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You NEED to tell that to space x, not me.
Again…
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Eric Roesch, an expert in environmental compliance and risk assessment who has been tracking SpaceX’s rocket launches, said in an interview that he and others had long warned of the environmental risks to the surrounding region. But without a chemical analysis of the dust and debris, he added, it was difficult to say whether or not they were harmful to human health.
But, Mr. Roesch said, “the presence of that dust kind of indicates to me that the impact modeling was inadequate, because this was not really disclosed as a possible impact.” In June, an environmental assessment by the Federal Aviation Administration concluded that SpaceX’s plans for orbital launches would have “no significant impact” on the region along the Gulf Coast.
Mr. Roesch, who runs the environmental policy blog ESG Hound, said he believed the dust and debris came largely from a giant crater formed during the rocket’s liftoff. Normally, major launch sites are engineered with a trench or water system that helps to divert the rocket’s flame away from the ground and to dampen the impact, he said.
“They didn’t do that,” he said. “It appears they just went ahead and just launched this thing.”
Run fast, break people.
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Ah, yes, Texas. I suspect the main reason for launching there is because the Texas regime lets businesses get away with murder. If you think it’s hyperbole, look at how the Texas electrical grid is run, and how their failures each winter result in people actually dying.
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Ah, but it is profitable.
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