OT - Space, Bitches. Space (X) launches Falcon 9 Dragon to ISS
Space X launched their Falcon 9/ Dragon Capsule to the ISS today. Regardless if you feel if low earth orbit should have been privatized or not, it's still pretty cool.
Link to full launch (embed below).
And maybe that PR is what it takes to get the ordinary joe behind space industries.
Sure, that's the whole point of PR. But in an industry where everything costs at least tens, usually hundreds of millions of dollars, what's the point? Boeing and Lockheed are mammoth companies that dwarf many others, but how often do you see an ad for them on tv? It's a waste of money, because you and I can't buy their stuff. Which is why the rest of the aerospace industry is a bit baffled by Elon's propensity for the cameras and attention. Maybe it's just his personality, I guess.
Maybe vision is what we need. After all it was JFK's misguided vision to beat the Russian's to the moon that killed the X-20 Dyna-Soar and sped us into the "spam in a can" future. And that misguidance is why we don't have a real space station or a base on the moon yet when 2001 should have been closer to reality than what we have now. I'm 60 years old and when I was twenty I expected to retire on the moon.
If you think ordinary people can't help in that effort by supporting such a vision, then maybe you should talk to someone besides other aerospace engineers.
When they go public I'll probably invest some in their company. Maybe I'm the one who'd misguided but I want to back someone who's stated goal is more than lobbing cans into low earth orbit.
The fact that even Presidents can't get their visions accomplished (Moon and Mars have both been goals within the last decade) tells you all you need to know about the odds that Elon can somehow do it, without a tax base of 300 million people to support him.
JFK got his vision accomplished. It just put us twenty years behind where we should have been by steering us down the wrong path. The X-20 Dyna-Soar design was the space shuttle and where would we be now if we had been building space planes instead of space capsules.
Invest in it for what? As a hobby? People have been "lobbing cans into space" to accomplish real functionality here on earth. Let's not scoff at satellites because a South African investor wants to throw a lasso around the sun.
You're right, "lobbing cans" is useful. Without it I wouldn't be able to use my smartphone to read MGoBlog. But I'm talking about visions of something else. I want a working space station from which we can stage the manned missions that will bring us to the Moon and Mars. I want orbiting solar facilities that can beam clean power back to Earth. I want to mine the asteroids, not Earth.
In short I want what I saw in the future when I was a boy 50 years ago. I was sure I would see this in my lifetime. And now, maybe my own personal disappointment, that I'll be long gone before any of this happens colors my perspective, but there it is.
Thanks for all of the posters a lot smarter than me for providing some insight.
I'm only of those people who gets discouraged by the news because it's so obviously slanted these days. It would be nice to know what's going on in the world without having to try to figure out the sources agenda first.
Well, that and because so much of today's news is b/s and for viewership rather than actual reporting of facts.
Anyway, I (and I'm assuming there are others) really do appreciate the banter. I know it's not Michigan football, but there are other things going on in the world...and with it being late May, we can only talk so much about recruiting, depth charts and the band going to Dallas.
I logged in to concur. This has definitely been a fun thread for someone who is a very amateur space geek. Obviously the fact that this debate is happened is a positive sign as to progress being made in the private sector, too.
Wow I cant believe I read the same comment from MGoAero 20 times over, face it NASA/Government/and your precious BIG NAME CORPORATION's couldnt get the job done because they have always had another angle to work (siphoning money from contracts)
Musk is not the 1st one to do this, we get it, but he is a pioneer when it comes to doing it as cost effective as possible and not charging an arm and a leg to get there.
He is also helping to raise the profile of your precious industry to levels not seen since the moon landings when Americans cared about these types of things. So quit being so negative nancy about it, Lockheed and Boeing have put out lots of great concepts (which is what you keep repeating about how great they are) but I'm pretty sure it took the Dreamliner an extra 6-8 years before it finally rolled of the ol' production line so the fact Musk is actually heading to space on time and on schedule then good for him.
I agree with you on many points, well said, but what you're saying isn't entirely true.
NASA and all the big name companies may have more nonsense/beauracracy to overcome, but there's a reason some of those checks are put into place.
Around these parts, SpaceX is doing a great thing, but they definitely don't have to abide by many of the rules that the Orion does. Just wait until they have to man-rate their vehicles and provide traceability on simple things like hardware. I'm not sure if they do that now, but in the past, I've heard that they haven't. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, someone said that NASA doesn't do anything anymore and that private companies have been driving this for all of time. Well, I worked on Orion and NASA drives everything. They give all the major approvals and buy off, so to say they don't do anything is absurd. They oversee everything!
At the core, they are still just launching chemical rockets not significantly different from those of the 1960s.
Their main innovation is a cost reduction of a factor of 2-3, but that's precisely the goal they've yet to prove, because they have yet to start launching paying customers at anything close to the rate their cost projections assume. They also have not demonstrated the reusability that is supposedly a key aspect of their low-cos approach.
They have a great chance to be a successful business. They've already had some impressive technical accomplishments. But to say they've "smashed the old business model" is pure propaganda, because they've yet to do anything of the sort. I hope they succeed, but this is still a very very early step in that process.
Lockheed, Boeing, and big NASA rockets will still be with us for the next couple decades at a minimum. That's the most likely reality, even though it's not the preferred one for us space geeks.
This is pretty amazing. Sure, the cynic in me is bothered that cost-cuts led to private organizations having to basically chaufeur US astronauts to space, but the science part of me is estatic to see how efficient and innovative the private sector will hopefully be in terms of exploring space.
So I checked MGoBlog today to see if there was anything new about Michigan and got sucked into a thouroughly entertaining discussion about the ongoing race for space. I only have a limited time each day, and this thread took all of it. Thanks to all who shared their insight.
Sadly, what reminded me I had to get back to work was reading a bunch of engineers argue about the use of PR. If you are an engineer. stick to deisgning the rockets.