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Egon Scent
(lemmy.sdf.org)
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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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I don't get this argument. The US government has invested into a tech development. Which means that spacex seemed to have a good base to pull that off. I didn't see a line of other companies doing anywhere near that capability.
Also, everyone calls for government to take lead in doing stuff for the betterment of humanity, but the second that happened, everyone loses their minds. Make up your mind, are we ok with government doing stuff or not?
Well, you seem to think the public is a monolith and not a bunch of squabbling tribes.
The people who understand shit want progress and understand the government (when not held back) can make wonderful things happen.
Then you have the people who can't see benefit for anything past the end of their nose arguing to turn the clocks back to 1922 because grandpappy said it was better.
Yeah, government subsidies literally exist to try and get people to do the thing they're subsidizing - it makes no sense to hate on a company that completes them.
It makes sense when the company basically exploded on the scene with impossible claims which then turned out to be (obviously) lies. SpaceX always claimed to make rockets 10 times cheaper due to reuse. This wasn't possible, isn't possible, and won't be possible due to how rockets work. Yet here we are, the US is paying SpaceX normal and expected prices while they keep claiming impossible bullshit
Subsidies work by the government setting a series of conditions which must be met, those conditions were met. NASA recently did a report about work with spaceX and said it had proven great value for money, the US military have said the same.
Elon is a trash tier person but he's basically just the company clown, all the stuff they're doing is highly skilled people and they're doing it incredibly well.
I don't have an issue with governments outsourcing "space Works" to other companies. It's a necessary thing I think.
However, SpaceX (from Elon "I'm a scammer, baby" Musk) which arguably is the most successful amongst the companies from Musk, has... issues.
The basic premise behind the reusable rockets was that they would be 10 times cheaper! Yeah and then reality hits and space x rockets are just about the same cost because of how rockets work.
See, rocketry is basically transportation, just like a trailer truck transporting goods. You always have the vehicle, the fuel, and the material you transport.
With a trailer truck, you don't need a lot of gas to go very far. This means you have a lot of weight for both the vehicle and thebcargo. So the truck itself can be made very sturdy and you still transport a lot of cargo. Trucks can go for thousands of miles with no or light maintenance and can last very long.
Now take an airplane. Airplanes need more fuel and need to be lighter for flight so you need to use lighter materials. Lighter materials equate more maintenance, more risks of breakage, more work to keep them going. Transportation with airplanes consequently is much more expensive.
Rocketry is at the very edge of what can be done with all known Materials. A rocket typically is about 5% cargo, 10% rocket, and 85% fuel. This is what is needed to get any rocket into orbit. I'd you want to get beyond Low Earth Orbit you might need multiple stages. All this needs to be as light as possible while at the same time as controlled violent as possible to get you there. Rocket engines basically need to pump insame amounts of fuel uit to get a exhaust flow rate that is high enough.
Because of this engines have an enormous wear and tear whist at the same time being as light as possible. Remember the truck engine where it really matters little if you add a few kilos more or less? For rockets, each kilo matters. So rocket engines are extremely fragile in comparison whilst at the same time plowing though factors more power in just minutes.
So Elon comes with the idea of reusing rockets. Cool. Contrary to what he always claims, this his was not a new idea, this was not his idea. (None of his ideas are his, nor new, nor great). This was done in the 80s-90s by NASA and the conclusion was that the cost and waste of returning and reusable rockets typically is the same or more than simply dumping them.
Funny detail: look at DARPA tests where everything is done right and people applaud the safe conclusion of tests vs. SpaceX where people always applaud when rockets explode. It's weird!
So now look at what SpaceX charges for their reusable advertised as 10 times cheaper rockets and.... they cost about the same as other rockets.
Then look at fucking musk. That last rocket they sent up didn't have flame diverters at the launch Facility because Elon decided it wasn't needed. Before launch, people who know rocket launches all wondered "eeeehhh WTF are we doing here?" and the launch destroyed ,(obliterated is a better word) the launch facility and heavily polluted the entire area and adjacent ocean. A car parking lot 5 miles away had all cars pelted with debris, it was a fucking disaster.
In conclusion: I guess the main problem I have with SpaceX is Elon Musk. The guy is like trump in that he lies through his teeth with every word he utters. He always comes up with just plain stupid and impossible ideas (let's daily transport people with ballistic rockets!) and people lap it up thinking he's a genius. He's an idiot. And he's in charge of SpaceX. SpaceX regularly lies about the costs which is a problem. SpaceX does stupid shit because of Musk, which is a problem.
I'm sure there are some very good and intelligent engineers working at SpaceX but I feel their voices and decisions are overrun by the CEO, Musk, making the company a bad thing.