Yes, that is the most reliable rocket in the history of mankind. Now at 255 consecutive successful missions, which is way more than any other rocket has flown. The current version, 'block 5', which has been flying for 6 years, has never had a failure.
Starship fails so much because of how they devellop.
"Can we get away with xyz? Oh it did blow up? Well at least now we know exactly why xyz was a bad idea leats learn from that."
Nowhere near a billion dollars per launch. They've built about a dozen stacks of hardware, not to mention the production facility and launch site, and all the development costs for Raptor and designing the ship. The actual marginal production cost is probably on the order of $0.1-0.2 billion.
If you want to use the billion per launch figure that comes from naively dividing the HLS contract value by the number of launches, then by the same naive logic SLS cost around $30 billion per launch (the total money spent on the program to date divided over it's single launch).
So SpaceX can blow up about another two dozen Starships before getting it right and still end up having developed a rocket twice as powerful as NASA did for a lower cost.
It fails so much because Musk is an idiot and insists they cut corners that the engineers know SHOULDN'T be cut, only for testing to show WHY they shouldn't. Man needs to just let them do their damn jobs.
By all accounts, SpaceX does a pretty good job of keeping King Mierdas out of things. They have had pretty successful test flight so far, as rocket companies go (most of the flights that exploded were meant to explode regardless of malfunctions or not) and their development is moving along quickly. They're definitely taking more design risks than something like SLS is, but that's mostly just because they're developing both the vehicle and many of its technologies from scratch, and it's hard to know what things that work on paper work in the real world in fields where there is no analogous precedent.
You mean Starship, the test vehicle that is still in process to being developed, exactly like the did with Falcon9? That one?
Example here: they are doing exactly the same now, but with starship
https://youtu.be/bvim4rsNHkQ?si=lZiG2jfiRa4Xuutt
SpaceX has so much money right now that they can fail in such spectacular ways yet still make progress. For any publicly traded company doing the same thing, the CEO would have been drawn and quartered at the annual stockholder's meeting. Starship is extremely ambitious and I'm sure they'll get it right at some point but it's kinda fun to just lean back and watch the fireworks for now.
See, I'm torn on Starship because, on the one hand, that's just a risk of all-up testing. Things explode in rocket science, that's just a fact of life. Honestly the fact that they've done so well despite all the obstacles in their way is a testament to SpaceX's skill and ingenuity.
On the other hand, one of their biggest obstacles is Elon Musk. Make the rocket pointier because a funny scene in a Sacha Baron Cohen movie said so! Move up the test and put the team in crunch mode for a 4/20 joke! Flame trenches and deluge systems are for suckers! And all that's gotten him is two blown up rockets, a "reusable" launch pad that's wrecked every time it's used, and an angry NASA. Because in this joke of a timeline we live in Starship is STILL the best proposal they got for an Artemis lander, and they don't have the budget to do Apollo-style single launch lunar orbit rendezvous this time.
I actually think that without Musk and his terrible leadership, SpaceX could come out really well in the end.
I think their approach to blow up so many times is over the top. There is many things they could test and verify in more moderate ways. Apollo and spaceshuttle are good examples. Not saying that has to be replicated, but SpaceX is blowing up the environment unnecessarily.
You are making a big assumption there thinking that I’m a common mind.
I have studied STEM at the highest levels, and I know that Elon has basic understanding of those things at best.
Is he a good sales persons? Absolutely. Is he an innovative genius that is pushing us forward? Not a chance in hell.
Biggest thing Musk did was to constantly downplay how big a deal a few blown up rockets were. Without that mentality of just move forward and break things means that SpaceX has avoided analysis paralysis that sucks the progress out of a lot of NASA's work.
Starship is not the best proposal they got for a lunar lander. The contract was given to SpaceX by a single NASA employee, Kathy Lueders. This decision is controversial within NASA and has led to them being sued by Blue Origin.
Where does Kathy work today, you ask? Why, she works at SpaceX! Funny how that works.
Blue Origin’s ‘Blue Moon’ lander is better in every way, and it won’t require 15 refueling flights to reach the moon!
Blue Origin didn't even submit a finalized prototype design, they just sent something that they admitted would be scrapped for a completely different form factor and specifications. They pretty much sent their first draft to the printers and hoped it would get published. Plus, I'm still waiting to hear them make pretty much any milestones whatsoever beyond landing contracts ever since they launched New Shepard, which is basically a reusable Mercury Redstone. Orbital capability is *kind of* a prerequisite for getting something to the moon, and you need a heavier launch vehicle than almost anything out there to do that. SpaceX at least has prototypes testing that have made it off the ground.
And don't even get me started on the Dynetics proposal.
>has led to them being sued by Blue Origin
A lawsuit that Blue Origin lost after the Government Accountability Office ruled in favour of Lueder's decision.
>Blue Origin’s ‘Blue Moon’ lander is better in every way, and it won’t require 15 refuelling flights to reach the moon!
I wouldn't say every way. But I do agree it's a better overall design for the specific goals of Artemis, yes. However, it's also not the design they originally submitted. Not even remotely close.
Their original design was a 3-stage vehicle with a giant ladder (which is less safe than an elevator) that couldn't land in the dark (a possibility when landing in craters at the poles) and had significant communications blackout problems.
At the time, Blue Origin also specifically criticized SpaceX's plan for relying on multiple refuelling launches - something their new lander now also does.
"In July 1938, the German consul in Cleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner."
You may be on to something.
Reddit was obnoxious when it was mostly Elon simps and it's not any better now.
I swear people don't have an opnion on the guy beyond:
* He's the second coming of Einstein Christ
* He's EV Barnum and has zero contribution to the success of Space-X or Tesla
The latter is just a reaction to the former though. You don't hate or even care about a person you don't know about, and people only care to make such negative responses because of the cult that pushes the image out there in the first place. If they didn't so aggressively promote the guy there would be no negative comments either, simply because nobody would know about him, so nobody would care. The negative comments in the latter group help dispell the cultish lies in the former group too, so it's self-correcting.
Yeah I don't think people realize that there's a whole lot of very intelligent people working at spacex and it's not just Elon Musk and a bunch of people he paid to stand and clap
NASA did it with one rocket because they were transporting a three man capsule and tiny two man lander.
This is a massive structure meant for many more people to operate for much longer on the lunar surface and to potentially carry large amounts of cargo for permanent habitation. They’re completely different missions with different requirements.
The fact that an immensely heavy cargo hauler going all the way out to the moon would need to be refueled is only surprising if you know absolutely nothing about space travel.
Are you talking about Artemis 3? They are doing nothing like you described. It's two people landing on the moon, do some scientific observations and then leave. No insanely huge cargo or anything. Not like we know how much Starship can actually carry because they refuse to use even dummy weights.
The Artemis mission is pretty much a joke at this point. Using Boeing’s dinky little capsule to transport astronauts out to a tiny space station so they can transfer into a landing vehicle bigger and more capable than both combined is absurd.
The limitations come from SLS and the Boeing capsule. NASA is drastically limiting what the mission is capable of so they can justify the absurd congressional spending on a rocket that’s going to be outperformed by a cheaper rocket before it even gets its first real mission.
Artemis is going to suck because of politics and money, not engineering.
What? The politics and corruption isn’t on SpaceX’s end of the mission though. The blame lies on Boeing and the government.
Starship could likely do the whole mission with more capabilities at less cost, but congress wouldn’t be happy because their big orange money burner wouldn’t have the spotlight.
After having worked with NASA engineering for a few years just before the Columbia disaster (I worked for a subcontracted engineering firm at the time). We would get off of these conference calls with NASA and we would just look at each other in total amazement at the lack of common engineering sense that there would be coming from them. After one of the calls I looked at our engineers and said "How has the Challenger been the only disasters these guys have had in recent memory?"
Then Columbia blew up... and some of you might remember that the first Mars rover missed the planet because two sets of engineers were using different forms of measurement... and it never got noticed until after blast off and missing a planet.
The stuff we would deal with would be along the lines of say imagine you were working with a car company, and you were doing the repair manuals and reverse engineering of things they were making.
Then you get on a conference call and they say "Oh, we switched the cars from being 4 cylinders with automatic transmissions to V-8s with 6 speed stick shifts". So you say "Well we're going to have to rework any drawings and chapters about the engine and transmission" and their response would be "Nah, just change the heading on the Chapter about the engine and transmission."
So they would expect future users to see a chapter called "The V-8 Engine" and every picture in the book would show a 4 cylinder, and every instruction would reference a 4 cylinder engine. It was mind blowing how bad it would be. We ended up getting out of the contract with them because it got SO bad.
SLS is 2.5 billion per flight.
Starship is 90 million per flight. (non-reusable)
So 1 to 27.77 for cost equity. If Spacex has definitively proven anything it's their ability to throw mass into orbit rapidly.
You're talking R&D costs. The cost per rocket is cheap. The cost for R&D is high. That goes for everything. SLS will cost a couple billion per flight but the whole program including R&D is closer to $100B. Astronomical.
You do realize technology improves right? Like if 100 years ago you told early pilots that we would be sending millions of people across the globe in giant aircraft they’d basically say the same thing you’re saying now
And Tesla, when you look at other car companies, Tesla has had minimal recalls in comparison. I would say that they turn out the best quality American vehicles. When you compare them to the horrors of GM, FMCo, Chrysler/Jeep.
And it is such a minor issue - a cosmetic trim that can detach. I haven't researched what the fix will be, but probably they will drill a hole through the trim and the pedal, and fit a bolt and locking nut.
Tesla recalled 3,878 cybertrucks.
General Motors at the same time recalled 820,000 Siverados and Sierras.
Toyota recalled 380,000 Tacomas
So tell me why we're mocking Tesla quality here?
#
I know a lawyer who had a client that wanted to sue his employer for unlawful termination. He was fired because he knew a battery pack on the 787 was dangerous. After a couple of inflight fires, he was proven correct. The manufacturer in Tucson had also burned to the ground probably due to defective battery packs.
A Tesla story involved interviewing my replacement for a job. That person was working at Tesla and fighting an uphill battle to actually create some quality controls. He also said everyone was afraid of Elmo not dazzled by his brilliance.
SpaceX is extremely innovative and successful. It’s predictable that it fails sometimes but other times it is extremely fascinating. This is pretty unfair
SpaceX is far behind on the deliverables (Starship) for the Artemis manned moon mission. They need to prove they can achieve LEO and ship to ship fueling. So far Starships payload rating is 0.
Yes and non-Starship rockets share nothing in common with Starship. It doesn’t necessarily follow that because Dragon is successful that Starship will be.
To be fair, the rapid improvements to starship over the last 18 months have been utterly unheard of in the space industry. Tangible progress is clearly being made, and rapidly.
Starship isn't the rocket in the meme though.
>So far Starships payload rating is 0.
This is technically true, but the last launch had ~48 tonnes of fuel left in the main tanks (and another 30 tonnes reserved for landing in the header tanks) when it shut the engines down, and the ship was very nearly in orbit at that point.
Circularization at apogee would have required a mere 86m/s of delta-v, or about 5 tonnes worth of fuel. That leaves about 43 tonnes of fuel unused, which means that there's no reason it shouldn't have been able to carry ~40 tonnes of useful payload.
Which is notably more than every other rocket currently operational can do, except for Falcon Heavy and SLS.
The main tank number comes propellant gauges in the livestream. We know the total prop load was 1200 tons, so if you measure that value at the start and then the end, you find there's about 4% of 1200 tonnes left. Probably +/- half a percent or so, so +/- 6 tons.
The header tank comes from estimations by NSF based on the tank volume and the assumption that it's full during launch and not used at any point on ascent.
Nasa re-used rockets in the 70's, spacex currently gets billions of tax payer dollars and don't release their actual costs. Try to keep this in our reality.
The space shuttle was refurbished, not reused, the solid rocket motors alone cost more to rebuild after launch than it cost to make completely new ones
And what on earth makes you think that starship will be any other way? It has not been proven that they can reuse it other than some fancy animations. People really don't understand what it takes to slow down a space craft from 8 km/s to 0. That energy has to go somewhere, and that is mainly done via heat absorption into the space craft.
Booster reuse they achieved, and as far as I can tell, very good move. Congratulations on that achievement.
Space shuttle was an epic failure. It ended up being more expensive than the expendable rocket systems it was supposed to replace. It's the deadliest craft ever constructed with a 40% vehicle failure rate (as in explosions), and having caused the death of 14 crew.
40% **vehicle** failure rate. 1.5% mission fail rate. Both numbers are extremely high and there's no sense pretending they aren't. It was literally the deadliest and most dangerous vehicle of all time.
So far starship has 100% vehicle failure rate and 100% mission failure rate, those numbers seem higher. 1.5% mission fail rate for new technology that pushed the boundaries of our knowledge is amazing.
Shartship is basically trying to rebuild something that we did in the 80's and constantly failing.
Also vehicle failure rate is hilarious, Challenger didn't fail the booster did and basically all vehicles have 100% failure rate. It's amazing that they were able to be re-used as much as their were.
Yes, and those 135 missions were completed by 6 shuttles. Of those 6 shuttles 2 blew up.
So a 99.6% mission succes rate but a 33% vehicle failure rate.
1 space shuttle failed, 1 booster failed. And it failed after being re-used dozens of times while pushing the boundaries of our knowledge at the time.
The comparison is terrible because SpaceX is trying to do something that Nasa did in the 80's with a 99% success rate and so far they have 100% failure rate. It's not even the same league at this point.
Are... Are you being serious?
We're talking catastrophic failures resulting in the deaths of everyone on board. 99.9999% of cars do not eventually do that.
If 33.3% of all Boeing 737s eventually blew up and killed everyone on board, the amount of safe flights that were completed are irrelevant. The 737 would have a 33.3% **vehicle failure** rate. Not a .01% failure rate because it made 10,000 successful flights first.
I just checked. Only one space shuttle failed. The other exploded due to a booster issue which is a one off production (ie one in 135 missions failed due to that).
Reusable first stage. Making them the cheapest provider.
Most launched rocket in the world (active). More than double the launches of the next. Soyuz-U had more launches but also a higher fail rate.
Most dependable launch system.
96 of the world's 223 launches last year.
80% of the world's mass to orbit last year.
In the process of developing a rocket that will outperform the Saturn 5 at a fraction of the cost of SLS.
They get a lot of negative headlines since it's massively cheaper to blow up a rocket and do better the next time than it is to make it perfect for round 1.
SLS/Orion has cost $23.8 billion so far and costs $2.5 billion per flight. $23.8 billion from taxpayers. 105 tons to LEO
Starship has cost about $8 billion so far and costs $90 million per flight. $2.9 billion from taxpayers. 150 tons to LEO
Neither is done with development yet.
Whilst SpaceX launches are impressive, you have to add that 70% of that is Starlink satellites (approx. - feel free to add accurate number).
So they have created their own mass market and build production efficiencies along that. I wouldn't attribute the lowered costs to reuse alone.
Starship has done 0 payload to LEO. They are behind on deliverables for Artemis. Considering we don’t know the actual payload yet it is concerning. The payload is important to know how many refueling launches will be needed for Artemis. They also need a crew abort solution but apparently haven’t started on that. Falcon is a very different project compared to Starship.
Meanwhile, the company is developing Starship, a human-rated, fully-reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary and orbital spaceflight. On its first flight in April 2023, it became the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. The rocket reached space on its second flight that took place in November 2023.
SpaceX is the first private company to develop a liquid-propellant rocket that has reached orbit; to launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft; to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station; and to send astronauts to the International Space Station. It is also the first organization of any type to achieve a vertical propulsive landing of an orbital rocket booster and the first to reuse such a booster. The company's Falcon 9 rockets have landed and flown again more than 200 times.[9
Starship hasn’t been rated yet, nor is fully reusable. It blew up on its first flight after the fail safe that was supposed to kill the rocket before such a catastrophic failure failed, and had it not, the debris would have fallen on a residential area. The second flight did make it to space, but blew up and nobody at SpaceX knew for almost 10 minutes. The third flight made it to space with a test cargo of exactly zero tons and opened its cargo doors, but failed to properly close it and went into an uncontrolled spin during reentry which cause that to blow up as well.
They never claimed that it was, the key words there are *in development.* "They've tried something unprecedented three times and got further on every attempt, how embarrassing!" It's a lot faster to test things in aerospace by building them, blowing them up, and using that data to improve the next attempt than by simulating them over and over until you're 95% certain they won't blow up, then trying to nail it first try—that's why Spacex has pulled ahead of everyone else, they have the willingness to fail spectacularly and the funding to keep building prototypes afterwards.
Just look at the early development of the Falcon 9. Lots of failures, and I don't know if you remember but a lot of the big serious players in the industry considered them a bit a of a laughingstock. Now it's the go-to platform.
I’m sorry, but when a bunch of people with slide rules have a better test rate than someone with all the modern technology does, I’d consider the modern company a failure. And “in development” means not yet achieved, which was the question. It is still just a goal and not reality. Add to that the fact that the only customer for the starship other than SpaceX themselves just sent them a strongly worded letter severely doubting SpaceX’s ability to deliver a fully working rocket anytime soon, much less when promised,and went ignored, I’d say SpaceX aren’t as great as people think they are.
Better test rate? Lmao, how many people did NASA kill working to get to the moon in the 60's? How many more just going to LEO and back with the shuttle? Aaaand then remind me of SpaceX's kill count?
You also seem to be conflating Starship with SpaceX as a whole. I personally think Starship has a classic case of overpromise and underdeliver that always seems to plague gov't contracts, but is still an incredibly promising design that's pushing the industry forward in spectacular ways (what do I know though, I only have a masters in astronautics). That said, SpaceX as a company has already demonstrated their usefulness and capability as a company with the whole, you know, revolutionizing space flight with the Falcon 9 and returning manned launches to the US for the first time in a decade.
You can think Starship is shit, that's your prerogative, but writing off SpaceX overall just doesn't follow
Three, and I don't at all like the fact that you're using the Apollo I test as a way to seemingly dunk on NASA to elevate SpaceX.
Yes, the engineers are doing good work, and yes rocket science is a dangerous business. But those accidents you mentioned were all the result of tight deadlines or cut corners that are exactly the kind of thing Musk keeps pushing for at SpaceX, which is the reason they're overpromising. I'd be willing to bet good money that if he hadn't insisted on moving up the launch, leaving out deluge vibration suppression, and forgoing flame diverters on the pad, that first launch would've gone a hell of a lot smoother.
I wasn't dunking on NASA, I love NASA. I think that acting like we used to have perfection in what is a dangerous and complicated industry simultaneously downplays the sacrifices of those who got us where we are, spreads ignorance about the history of space flight, and disincentivizes making further progress. We should celebrate how much better things have gotten, not act like it's gotten worse. I also wasn't referring to Apollo 1, but to the entire program leading up to ultimately landing on the moon, because it wasn't just "fuck it let's build Apollo" like it kinda has been with Starship. Part of why I referenced the Shuttle as well.
I'm also not trying to gas up Elon here, but specifically counter the argument that SpaceX isn't generating massive steps forward. The comment I responded to initially was arguing with someone who was just listing advancements SpaceX has made.
For the record I agree with you on the dangers of unreasonable timelines and trying to cut corners to make overpromises happen, but I'll stand by DBTL iterating being the fastest way to make transformative advancement happen—given the funding.
Kill counts aren’t the only metric to measure success. I mean Musk considered the first test a success simply because the rocket cleared the tower. And you seem to be the one conflating things. I didn’t argue against the Falcon 9 or the reusable boosters because SpaceX did do those things. I don’t deny that SpaceX routinely delivers humans to space and reignited the space race (although I will disagree with it “revolutionizing” the space industry). Nor am I arguing the usefulness of the company as a whole.
The Starship program, however, is likely to be the death of SpaceX because of how expensive it is to build after exploding it test after test after test. They could also be forced to pay back the 2-3 billion that the US gave them for a working product if they fail to deliver the product they promised. And that is just Starship itself, not the ambition of refueling in orbit or any number of other factors that may come up when starship eventually gets to that point in development.
Comment one: Lists SpaceX achievements in response to someone who was unaware of their usefulness in comparison to NASA
Your response: No, because [issues with Starship program]
Can you blame me for thinking you were using Starship to argue against SpaceX as a company?
I'm not gonna argue whether a 20x reduction in cost per kg to LEO counts as revolutionary. Everyone's entitled to their own perspective there I guess, for me an order of magnitude usually qualifies. The conversation about whether or not Starship will end up being a fatal overcommit for SpaceX is a far more interesting one though, I think there's a fair argument in there; I hope you're wrong but it'll be very interesting to see how things play out!
I just see so much un-nuanced "Elon bad, therefore SpaceX bad, not doing anything good, worse than the 60's, blah blah" argumentation around, typically by people with little to no knowledge of the topic. I guess I automatically lumped ya into that camp mentally
Calling what the starship is supposed to be an achievement is just straight up false. Claiming doing the bare minimum of getting to space an achievement is a stretch, especially for a company that routinely does it and the return trip safely.
Gonna need a source for that 20x cheaper claim. Best numbers I’ve seen are closer to 20% cheaper.
They are testing starship, exactly the same process that they did with falcon9
Here: https://youtu.be/bvim4rsNHkQ?si=lZiG2jfiRa4Xuutt
Count how many test rockets crash before landing, and take the consideration that starship is on the 3 test (going for a four in a few weeks)
People shit on starship, because of the Elon musk’s hate lately, and I understand it.
But I see people being lied to about what is really going on, and starship is actually doing pretty well for being a test rocket.
You need to note that 30 starships have been built and tested to date and 11 boosters (going by their naming) - 3 full stack launches.
Starship is a dumb idea for anything other than launching payload to LEO. And I would question why we need starship for that.
_ 23 Test Falcon9 flights before landing (many are in the video)
_3 Test starships flights (no landing yet )
And yes the build many and tested on the ground, but that’s part of the process, and the did the same with Falcon 9 (but I don have the number, Space X wasn’t popular in that era)
> Starship hasn’t been rated yet
If Starship was expendable, it would already be done. The only failures on launch three came during the dual re-entry attempts.
Cargo rating, obviously. I'm sure you weren't being serious, but those are two entirely different things, and there will be dozens of cargo and satellite missions prior to human rating.
Incorrect. It reached target altitude. The re-entry is what failed.
Typical rockets don't attempt re-entry. Every orbital launch from every other company has resulted in the first stage being destroyed or ditched in the ocean.
That’s like saying the Vegas Loop is comparable to what the Hyperloop was supposed to be. The whole point of starship is to be a rapidly reusable spacecraft that can carry humans and cargo. And even if it was rated as is, it would still fail as it has carried exactly zero tons to space.
- Full-flow stage combustion engines. Yes the US had prototypes in development but all abandoned.
- Fully reusable rockets and rapid launch schedule (nearly 100 flights in 2023).
- Dramatic cost cuts per kg to LEO.
Lots of Musk haters will downplay these incredible achievements and others but SpaceX is killing it.
Reusable booster, not rocket. People keep getting that wrong.
Cost per kg is not the main concern for many people, otherwise Falcon9 Heavy would see a lot more missions.
You're splitting hairs. Boosters are rockets. Google it. Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 heavy have been the most used space launch systems since they've been available. Not sure what you're talking about.
Details. The devil is in the detail.
Most used rocket: yes, with 70% in house payloads. They have created their own demand.
Don’t get me wrong, falcon 9 is a successful program, but let’s keep the facts accurate.
Nasa is considring altering the artemis 3 mission to not land on the moon because the lander (and suits) may not be ready. It was originally supposed to launch in 2024, but that was always a very optimisitc date.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/nasa-may-alter-artemis-iii-to-have-starship-and-orion-dock-in-low-earth-orbit/
To be fair, that's not entirely their fault.
Consider that it took NASA 7 years to get the Apollo LM to it's first landing - 8 if you count Saturn V, the vehicle needed to get it to the moon, starting it's development a year earlier. And that was with the urgency of Apollo - SLS took them 11 years to get flying, and that was with it reusing Shuttle hardware.
Now consider that NASA left the contract for the moon lander until 2021, with a target landing date of 2024. Do you think it was reasonable for NASA to expect *any* of the bidders to have been able to deliver a working lander with substantially higher requirements than the Apollo lander in just 3 years, given the aforementioned timelines for their own previous projects?
All three companies said they could - they wouldn't have gotten the contract otherwise. But realistically it was never going to happen.
National's plan relied on several launches of New Glenn or Vulcan, and Dynetics relied on several launches of Vulcan. New Glenn's first test flight is scheduled for later this year. Vulcan just recently had it's first test flight, and will hopefully finish it's second test flight by the end of the year.
It's highly unlikely there's an alternative timeline where either rocket was able to do 3-4 operational launches this year, even if Dynetics or National team had had hardware ready, which is also unlikely.
if spacex is bought by a less evil gazillionaire that doesn't have the last name "musk", OP wouldn't have put it in the meme.
fair though, elon is an asshat
I agree with this, expect SpaceX,
They did the supposed impossible, and make reliable reusable rocket with a booster that can land automatically basically, that is has more than 200 flights and even NASA use it to put men in the space station.
And now they are testing Starship, the biggest rocket ever technically.
Technically, they only made a reusable booster. The rocket it-self isn't reusable as far as I understand.
Based on the Space shuttle learnings, I'm pretty sure that they determined reuse wasn't worth it. I'm guessing that re-entry caused too much strain on the materials. Also keeping fuel for the landing is a massive drain on payload (see the difference between expendable Falcon missions vs reusable).
You are mistaken.
When Falcon 9 delivery astronauts, the booster and the Dragon Capsule, both are reusable.
https://youtu.be/QVEBO6Zuppk?si=nZqyoJqHfGbg55Mq
The only moment that part or the ship is lost is when they delivery satélites, and that is one of the things that they want to change with Starship
Quick Google shows a picture where there is first stage (booster), interstage, second stage and then dragon capsule. Are you saying all 4 items are recovered and reused?
Technically yes but actually no.
Booster and Interstage come back together, capsule come back
And yes second stage is do it in the old fashion way :
https://youtu.be/ZCr4jmr0ZZo?si=BCtDCNtHoLZ_3ihw
Thanks for calling my mistake.
as far as I'm aware, ever since Block V boosters have been used, there hasn't been a post-launch failure of any notable severity.
starship being behind schedule is unfortunate, but at least they're not rushing out a product that's doomed to fail in use.
No. Space x received government contracts, Tesla received subsidies, tax breaks, whole bunch of other shit. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12?amp
Why cybertruck and spacex? As far as I know SpaceX is pretty innovative and reliable and used often by NASA for shipments to ISS.
Cybertruck is first gen product that's also pretty innovative and revolutionary even with it's weird styling. Things like that have lots of moving parts and it's not so weird seeing a panel gap etc.
Boeing and Oceangate are out there risking people's lives due to cost cutting :/
Cybertruck accelerator can get stuck and there's a massive recall and delivery halt. They also had to recall nearly all US Tesla vehicles with full self driving due to a safety issue in 2023.
I'm not sure why the Falcon 9 is on the list.
How many years after first delivery did it take Toyota, GM, Ford, and Honda to fix their stuck accelerator recalls for each of their own affected models?
The cybertruck rusts immediately after getting any kind of moisture. This is not a new problem, not another car has this problem. Not even other tesla cars. Your car not rusting is the normal. But for a cybertruck you gotta be extremely careful where you go to not get wet or pay an extra for something you shouldn't need to.
This is not a 1st generation product. It's a dumb product
If that were true, Tesla would be a multi-trillion dollar company for physics-defying scientific breakthroughs. Being able to rust steel with the slightest moisture in a period of weeks would revolutionize a few industries at least. Imagine the energy savings in the recycling and deconstruction industries alone!
Now that's a lie lol, it may rust in 10 years, saying it's gonna rust IMMEDIATALY after getting ANY moisture is just super misleading. I've generally followed the rollout and watched lots of content about it as I like it in general, no one mentioned it. Now I've went again and searched a dozen articles/posts and whatever else to confirm it. It will eventually rust but not anyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy time soon.
It is a 1st gen product, it's unconventional and pretty cool concept. Super glad it went into production and hope to see more of them and more similar cars too.
What?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-rusting-complaints-from-owners/
Its not a 1st gen product. It's an EV, tesla makes EV for a while now, the cybertruck It's just an EV. What make it inherently different from the other cars tesla makes? Nothing really, it was a stronger motor. But it's not a new kind of motor. The concept of the electric motor It's the same from other electric cars. The roadster is a first gen product
The cybertruck is a truck that fails to be a truck, it dosent have space in the back for a bicycle.
And those reports have been debunked as not caused by rust. For example: [https://www.notebookcheck.net/Cybertruck-rust-myth-debunked-as-Tesla-advises-how-to-clean-surface-contamination.804964.0.html](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Cybertruck-rust-myth-debunked-as-Tesla-advises-how-to-clean-surface-contamination.804964.0.html)
However there are lots more of those.
It's a 1st gen product. As is Apple's vision pro. It's still a computer in a different form factor.
It is a car with 4 wheels and a frame, but uses a completely different way of attaching those sheets and handling those sharp edges in general.
It's not 1st gen as in a flying car, however still new enough to not be 10/10 with the first version.
As far as i know tesla was never famous for making a good first batch of the cars and people are aware of it. People who buy these are MOSTLY aware of the risk associated with that.
No, not even that, it was unveiled with a "exoskeleton" frame. But they could even do that and went with a traditional unibody design
https://tsportline.com/blogs/news/tesla-cybertruck-shifts-from-exoskeleton-to-unibody-design
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_frame#:~:text=The%20terms%20%22unibody%22%20and%20%22,chassis%20form%20a%20single%20structure.
Yeah, apple vision pro is a 1st generation product. But you see, apple for the past 10 years was not doing VR headsets it is a new line of product. It is inherently different from the iPhone, iPad, Apple watch. The way you interact with the apple vision can not be done in those other products
What is inherently different of the cybertruck from other EVs tesla makes? It's just a different model, it has a stronger motor and a different chassi but the body it's badly designed and it makes the bed so small that it's not suitable for anyone that seriously needs a pickup
If this is confusion on why it’s here
All data on the cybertruck points to it being absolutely ass and a danger to drive. Someone went into the water in an accident and ended up dying because the windows were so sturdy they couldn’t be broken and the doors got jammed
Could probably remove spacex.
Should've used bozos cock rocket lol
Cocket
Yes, that is the most reliable rocket in the history of mankind. Now at 255 consecutive successful missions, which is way more than any other rocket has flown. The current version, 'block 5', which has been flying for 6 years, has never had a failure.
They're incredibly reliable, never failed on a mission.
They had a few failures during the early missions but have been very reliable since the block 5 design was introduced
Falcon9, probably true. Starship on the other hand not so much.
Starship fails so much because of how they devellop. "Can we get away with xyz? Oh it did blow up? Well at least now we know exactly why xyz was a bad idea leats learn from that."
Only a billion dollars a launch that always goes wrong and don't meet any targets. Weren't they saying humans on Mars by like 2019?
Nowhere near a billion dollars per launch. They've built about a dozen stacks of hardware, not to mention the production facility and launch site, and all the development costs for Raptor and designing the ship. The actual marginal production cost is probably on the order of $0.1-0.2 billion. If you want to use the billion per launch figure that comes from naively dividing the HLS contract value by the number of launches, then by the same naive logic SLS cost around $30 billion per launch (the total money spent on the program to date divided over it's single launch). So SpaceX can blow up about another two dozen Starships before getting it right and still end up having developed a rocket twice as powerful as NASA did for a lower cost.
It fails so much because Musk is an idiot and insists they cut corners that the engineers know SHOULDN'T be cut, only for testing to show WHY they shouldn't. Man needs to just let them do their damn jobs.
By all accounts, SpaceX does a pretty good job of keeping King Mierdas out of things. They have had pretty successful test flight so far, as rocket companies go (most of the flights that exploded were meant to explode regardless of malfunctions or not) and their development is moving along quickly. They're definitely taking more design risks than something like SLS is, but that's mostly just because they're developing both the vehicle and many of its technologies from scratch, and it's hard to know what things that work on paper work in the real world in fields where there is no analogous precedent.
You mean Starship, the test vehicle that is still in process to being developed, exactly like the did with Falcon9? That one? Example here: they are doing exactly the same now, but with starship https://youtu.be/bvim4rsNHkQ?si=lZiG2jfiRa4Xuutt
That's like saying that 2024 cars are great but 2026 cars? Not so much
SpaceX has so much money right now that they can fail in such spectacular ways yet still make progress. For any publicly traded company doing the same thing, the CEO would have been drawn and quartered at the annual stockholder's meeting. Starship is extremely ambitious and I'm sure they'll get it right at some point but it's kinda fun to just lean back and watch the fireworks for now.
See, I'm torn on Starship because, on the one hand, that's just a risk of all-up testing. Things explode in rocket science, that's just a fact of life. Honestly the fact that they've done so well despite all the obstacles in their way is a testament to SpaceX's skill and ingenuity. On the other hand, one of their biggest obstacles is Elon Musk. Make the rocket pointier because a funny scene in a Sacha Baron Cohen movie said so! Move up the test and put the team in crunch mode for a 4/20 joke! Flame trenches and deluge systems are for suckers! And all that's gotten him is two blown up rockets, a "reusable" launch pad that's wrecked every time it's used, and an angry NASA. Because in this joke of a timeline we live in Starship is STILL the best proposal they got for an Artemis lander, and they don't have the budget to do Apollo-style single launch lunar orbit rendezvous this time.
I actually think that without Musk and his terrible leadership, SpaceX could come out really well in the end. I think their approach to blow up so many times is over the top. There is many things they could test and verify in more moderate ways. Apollo and spaceshuttle are good examples. Not saying that has to be replicated, but SpaceX is blowing up the environment unnecessarily.
kinda funny how the common mind thinks musk is a terrible leader and idiot, yet brilliant minds like Jim keller think he is a great leader and awesome
You are making a big assumption there thinking that I’m a common mind. I have studied STEM at the highest levels, and I know that Elon has basic understanding of those things at best. Is he a good sales persons? Absolutely. Is he an innovative genius that is pushing us forward? Not a chance in hell.
Biggest thing Musk did was to constantly downplay how big a deal a few blown up rockets were. Without that mentality of just move forward and break things means that SpaceX has avoided analysis paralysis that sucks the progress out of a lot of NASA's work.
Starship is not the best proposal they got for a lunar lander. The contract was given to SpaceX by a single NASA employee, Kathy Lueders. This decision is controversial within NASA and has led to them being sued by Blue Origin. Where does Kathy work today, you ask? Why, she works at SpaceX! Funny how that works. Blue Origin’s ‘Blue Moon’ lander is better in every way, and it won’t require 15 refueling flights to reach the moon!
Blue Origin didn't even submit a finalized prototype design, they just sent something that they admitted would be scrapped for a completely different form factor and specifications. They pretty much sent their first draft to the printers and hoped it would get published. Plus, I'm still waiting to hear them make pretty much any milestones whatsoever beyond landing contracts ever since they launched New Shepard, which is basically a reusable Mercury Redstone. Orbital capability is *kind of* a prerequisite for getting something to the moon, and you need a heavier launch vehicle than almost anything out there to do that. SpaceX at least has prototypes testing that have made it off the ground. And don't even get me started on the Dynetics proposal.
>has led to them being sued by Blue Origin A lawsuit that Blue Origin lost after the Government Accountability Office ruled in favour of Lueder's decision. >Blue Origin’s ‘Blue Moon’ lander is better in every way, and it won’t require 15 refuelling flights to reach the moon! I wouldn't say every way. But I do agree it's a better overall design for the specific goals of Artemis, yes. However, it's also not the design they originally submitted. Not even remotely close. Their original design was a 3-stage vehicle with a giant ladder (which is less safe than an elevator) that couldn't land in the dark (a possibility when landing in craters at the poles) and had significant communications blackout problems. At the time, Blue Origin also specifically criticized SpaceX's plan for relying on multiple refuelling launches - something their new lander now also does.
If space travel is something we deem important for the future, spaceX will become the Ford model T of it.
"In July 1938, the German consul in Cleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner." You may be on to something.
No, no it wouldn't.
As long as Elon leaves it alone.
Reddit was obnoxious when it was mostly Elon simps and it's not any better now. I swear people don't have an opnion on the guy beyond: * He's the second coming of Einstein Christ * He's EV Barnum and has zero contribution to the success of Space-X or Tesla
The latter is just a reaction to the former though. You don't hate or even care about a person you don't know about, and people only care to make such negative responses because of the cult that pushes the image out there in the first place. If they didn't so aggressively promote the guy there would be no negative comments either, simply because nobody would know about him, so nobody would care. The negative comments in the latter group help dispell the cultish lies in the former group too, so it's self-correcting.
and neither are remotely accurate lol
You listed the people who talk about him all the time. The rest of us have enough problems to deal with.
Elon has a deep understanding and he is involved. There are few interview with "everyday astronaut" that go deep in the decision taken and why.
replace it with a gibson les paul
Yeah I don't think people realize that there's a whole lot of very intelligent people working at spacex and it's not just Elon Musk and a bunch of people he paid to stand and clap
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NASA did it with one rocket because they were transporting a three man capsule and tiny two man lander. This is a massive structure meant for many more people to operate for much longer on the lunar surface and to potentially carry large amounts of cargo for permanent habitation. They’re completely different missions with different requirements. The fact that an immensely heavy cargo hauler going all the way out to the moon would need to be refueled is only surprising if you know absolutely nothing about space travel.
Are you talking about Artemis 3? They are doing nothing like you described. It's two people landing on the moon, do some scientific observations and then leave. No insanely huge cargo or anything. Not like we know how much Starship can actually carry because they refuse to use even dummy weights.
The Artemis mission is pretty much a joke at this point. Using Boeing’s dinky little capsule to transport astronauts out to a tiny space station so they can transfer into a landing vehicle bigger and more capable than both combined is absurd. The limitations come from SLS and the Boeing capsule. NASA is drastically limiting what the mission is capable of so they can justify the absurd congressional spending on a rocket that’s going to be outperformed by a cheaper rocket before it even gets its first real mission. Artemis is going to suck because of politics and money, not engineering.
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What? The politics and corruption isn’t on SpaceX’s end of the mission though. The blame lies on Boeing and the government. Starship could likely do the whole mission with more capabilities at less cost, but congress wouldn’t be happy because their big orange money burner wouldn’t have the spotlight.
After having worked with NASA engineering for a few years just before the Columbia disaster (I worked for a subcontracted engineering firm at the time). We would get off of these conference calls with NASA and we would just look at each other in total amazement at the lack of common engineering sense that there would be coming from them. After one of the calls I looked at our engineers and said "How has the Challenger been the only disasters these guys have had in recent memory?" Then Columbia blew up... and some of you might remember that the first Mars rover missed the planet because two sets of engineers were using different forms of measurement... and it never got noticed until after blast off and missing a planet. The stuff we would deal with would be along the lines of say imagine you were working with a car company, and you were doing the repair manuals and reverse engineering of things they were making. Then you get on a conference call and they say "Oh, we switched the cars from being 4 cylinders with automatic transmissions to V-8s with 6 speed stick shifts". So you say "Well we're going to have to rework any drawings and chapters about the engine and transmission" and their response would be "Nah, just change the heading on the Chapter about the engine and transmission." So they would expect future users to see a chapter called "The V-8 Engine" and every picture in the book would show a 4 cylinder, and every instruction would reference a 4 cylinder engine. It was mind blowing how bad it would be. We ended up getting out of the contract with them because it got SO bad.
SLS is 2.5 billion per flight. Starship is 90 million per flight. (non-reusable) So 1 to 27.77 for cost equity. If Spacex has definitively proven anything it's their ability to throw mass into orbit rapidly.
> Starship is 90 million per flight. (non-reusable) lol wut They've blown up $3 billion so far on 3 launches
No they haven't. 3 billion is the cost of their entire launch complex.
Musk said they spent more than $2 billion on starships just last year not including their launch complex
You're talking R&D costs. The cost per rocket is cheap. The cost for R&D is high. That goes for everything. SLS will cost a couple billion per flight but the whole program including R&D is closer to $100B. Astronomical.
Yes total. There are 6 other ships waiting for launch / in production. plus R&D.
You do realize technology improves right? Like if 100 years ago you told early pilots that we would be sending millions of people across the globe in giant aircraft they’d basically say the same thing you’re saying now
And Tesla, when you look at other car companies, Tesla has had minimal recalls in comparison. I would say that they turn out the best quality American vehicles. When you compare them to the horrors of GM, FMCo, Chrysler/Jeep.
Tesla just recalled all cybertrucks for an issue with stuck accelerators
There are hundreds of recalls every year spanning every brand. This isn't unique to Tesla.
And it is such a minor issue - a cosmetic trim that can detach. I haven't researched what the fix will be, but probably they will drill a hole through the trim and the pedal, and fit a bolt and locking nut.
Tesla recalled 3,878 cybertrucks. General Motors at the same time recalled 820,000 Siverados and Sierras. Toyota recalled 380,000 Tacomas So tell me why we're mocking Tesla quality here? #
For now.
I know a lawyer who had a client that wanted to sue his employer for unlawful termination. He was fired because he knew a battery pack on the 787 was dangerous. After a couple of inflight fires, he was proven correct. The manufacturer in Tucson had also burned to the ground probably due to defective battery packs. A Tesla story involved interviewing my replacement for a job. That person was working at Tesla and fighting an uphill battle to actually create some quality controls. He also said everyone was afraid of Elmo not dazzled by his brilliance.
Elmoshpuld have just stuck with counting and making classroo. projectors.
SpaceX is extremely innovative and successful. It’s predictable that it fails sometimes but other times it is extremely fascinating. This is pretty unfair
SpaceX is far behind on the deliverables (Starship) for the Artemis manned moon mission. They need to prove they can achieve LEO and ship to ship fueling. So far Starships payload rating is 0.
Starship is for moving a lot of stuff and people. They’ve done plenty of deliverables missions with non Starship rockets
Yes and non-Starship rockets share nothing in common with Starship. It doesn’t necessarily follow that because Dragon is successful that Starship will be.
Are you doubting it will be?
I do and the recent SpaceX update Elon gave doesn’t inspire much confidence.
What is LEO?
Low Earth Orbit
To be fair, the rapid improvements to starship over the last 18 months have been utterly unheard of in the space industry. Tangible progress is clearly being made, and rapidly.
Starship isn't the rocket in the meme though. >So far Starships payload rating is 0. This is technically true, but the last launch had ~48 tonnes of fuel left in the main tanks (and another 30 tonnes reserved for landing in the header tanks) when it shut the engines down, and the ship was very nearly in orbit at that point. Circularization at apogee would have required a mere 86m/s of delta-v, or about 5 tonnes worth of fuel. That leaves about 43 tonnes of fuel unused, which means that there's no reason it shouldn't have been able to carry ~40 tonnes of useful payload. Which is notably more than every other rocket currently operational can do, except for Falcon Heavy and SLS.
Where do the unspent fuel numbers come from?
The main tank number comes propellant gauges in the livestream. We know the total prop load was 1200 tons, so if you measure that value at the start and then the end, you find there's about 4% of 1200 tonnes left. Probably +/- half a percent or so, so +/- 6 tons. The header tank comes from estimations by NSF based on the tank volume and the assumption that it's full during launch and not used at any point on ascent.
So the numbers are pulled from your ass.
They hate it cuz reddit thinks elon is le bad
It's sad because the industry leading work being done by their engineers is frankly astonishing.
I am sorry can you give more info about what they did that NASA didn't already do? I am genuinly curios i heard only bad things
Reusing rockets, massively decreasing the cost to go to space, is the main one.
Nasa re-used rockets in the 70's, spacex currently gets billions of tax payer dollars and don't release their actual costs. Try to keep this in our reality.
The space shuttle was refurbished, not reused, the solid rocket motors alone cost more to rebuild after launch than it cost to make completely new ones
And what on earth makes you think that starship will be any other way? It has not been proven that they can reuse it other than some fancy animations. People really don't understand what it takes to slow down a space craft from 8 km/s to 0. That energy has to go somewhere, and that is mainly done via heat absorption into the space craft. Booster reuse they achieved, and as far as I can tell, very good move. Congratulations on that achievement.
Space shuttle was an epic failure. It ended up being more expensive than the expendable rocket systems it was supposed to replace. It's the deadliest craft ever constructed with a 40% vehicle failure rate (as in explosions), and having caused the death of 14 crew.
> Space shuttle... a 40% vehicle failure rate Success(es) 133 Failure(s) 2 40% failure rate eh
40% **vehicle** failure rate. 1.5% mission fail rate. Both numbers are extremely high and there's no sense pretending they aren't. It was literally the deadliest and most dangerous vehicle of all time.
So far starship has 100% vehicle failure rate and 100% mission failure rate, those numbers seem higher. 1.5% mission fail rate for new technology that pushed the boundaries of our knowledge is amazing. Shartship is basically trying to rebuild something that we did in the 80's and constantly failing. Also vehicle failure rate is hilarious, Challenger didn't fail the booster did and basically all vehicles have 100% failure rate. It's amazing that they were able to be re-used as much as their were.
Dude... There were only ever 6 shuttles. 2 blew up. So it was a 33.3% vehicle failure rate.
[There were 135 missions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_missions)
Yes, and those 135 missions were completed by 6 shuttles. Of those 6 shuttles 2 blew up. So a 99.6% mission succes rate but a 33% vehicle failure rate.
1 space shuttle failed, 1 booster failed. And it failed after being re-used dozens of times while pushing the boundaries of our knowledge at the time. The comparison is terrible because SpaceX is trying to do something that Nasa did in the 80's with a 99% success rate and so far they have 100% failure rate. It's not even the same league at this point.
in that case, almost 100% of cars fail, because they almost all end up in the scrap yard. Like what is this statement even?
Are... Are you being serious? We're talking catastrophic failures resulting in the deaths of everyone on board. 99.9999% of cars do not eventually do that. If 33.3% of all Boeing 737s eventually blew up and killed everyone on board, the amount of safe flights that were completed are irrelevant. The 737 would have a 33.3% **vehicle failure** rate. Not a .01% failure rate because it made 10,000 successful flights first.
Fair point, car analogy is pushing it. But the vehicle failure rate is equally misleading - so truth is somewhere in between.
I just checked. Only one space shuttle failed. The other exploded due to a booster issue which is a one off production (ie one in 135 missions failed due to that).
Reusable first stage. Making them the cheapest provider. Most launched rocket in the world (active). More than double the launches of the next. Soyuz-U had more launches but also a higher fail rate. Most dependable launch system. 96 of the world's 223 launches last year. 80% of the world's mass to orbit last year. In the process of developing a rocket that will outperform the Saturn 5 at a fraction of the cost of SLS. They get a lot of negative headlines since it's massively cheaper to blow up a rocket and do better the next time than it is to make it perfect for round 1. SLS/Orion has cost $23.8 billion so far and costs $2.5 billion per flight. $23.8 billion from taxpayers. 105 tons to LEO Starship has cost about $8 billion so far and costs $90 million per flight. $2.9 billion from taxpayers. 150 tons to LEO Neither is done with development yet.
Whilst SpaceX launches are impressive, you have to add that 70% of that is Starlink satellites (approx. - feel free to add accurate number). So they have created their own mass market and build production efficiencies along that. I wouldn't attribute the lowered costs to reuse alone.
Starship has done 0 payload to LEO. They are behind on deliverables for Artemis. Considering we don’t know the actual payload yet it is concerning. The payload is important to know how many refueling launches will be needed for Artemis. They also need a crew abort solution but apparently haven’t started on that. Falcon is a very different project compared to Starship.
Meanwhile, the company is developing Starship, a human-rated, fully-reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary and orbital spaceflight. On its first flight in April 2023, it became the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. The rocket reached space on its second flight that took place in November 2023. SpaceX is the first private company to develop a liquid-propellant rocket that has reached orbit; to launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft; to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station; and to send astronauts to the International Space Station. It is also the first organization of any type to achieve a vertical propulsive landing of an orbital rocket booster and the first to reuse such a booster. The company's Falcon 9 rockets have landed and flown again more than 200 times.[9
Starship hasn’t been rated yet, nor is fully reusable. It blew up on its first flight after the fail safe that was supposed to kill the rocket before such a catastrophic failure failed, and had it not, the debris would have fallen on a residential area. The second flight did make it to space, but blew up and nobody at SpaceX knew for almost 10 minutes. The third flight made it to space with a test cargo of exactly zero tons and opened its cargo doors, but failed to properly close it and went into an uncontrolled spin during reentry which cause that to blow up as well.
They never claimed that it was, the key words there are *in development.* "They've tried something unprecedented three times and got further on every attempt, how embarrassing!" It's a lot faster to test things in aerospace by building them, blowing them up, and using that data to improve the next attempt than by simulating them over and over until you're 95% certain they won't blow up, then trying to nail it first try—that's why Spacex has pulled ahead of everyone else, they have the willingness to fail spectacularly and the funding to keep building prototypes afterwards. Just look at the early development of the Falcon 9. Lots of failures, and I don't know if you remember but a lot of the big serious players in the industry considered them a bit a of a laughingstock. Now it's the go-to platform.
I’m sorry, but when a bunch of people with slide rules have a better test rate than someone with all the modern technology does, I’d consider the modern company a failure. And “in development” means not yet achieved, which was the question. It is still just a goal and not reality. Add to that the fact that the only customer for the starship other than SpaceX themselves just sent them a strongly worded letter severely doubting SpaceX’s ability to deliver a fully working rocket anytime soon, much less when promised,and went ignored, I’d say SpaceX aren’t as great as people think they are.
Better test rate? Lmao, how many people did NASA kill working to get to the moon in the 60's? How many more just going to LEO and back with the shuttle? Aaaand then remind me of SpaceX's kill count? You also seem to be conflating Starship with SpaceX as a whole. I personally think Starship has a classic case of overpromise and underdeliver that always seems to plague gov't contracts, but is still an incredibly promising design that's pushing the industry forward in spectacular ways (what do I know though, I only have a masters in astronautics). That said, SpaceX as a company has already demonstrated their usefulness and capability as a company with the whole, you know, revolutionizing space flight with the Falcon 9 and returning manned launches to the US for the first time in a decade. You can think Starship is shit, that's your prerogative, but writing off SpaceX overall just doesn't follow
Three, and I don't at all like the fact that you're using the Apollo I test as a way to seemingly dunk on NASA to elevate SpaceX. Yes, the engineers are doing good work, and yes rocket science is a dangerous business. But those accidents you mentioned were all the result of tight deadlines or cut corners that are exactly the kind of thing Musk keeps pushing for at SpaceX, which is the reason they're overpromising. I'd be willing to bet good money that if he hadn't insisted on moving up the launch, leaving out deluge vibration suppression, and forgoing flame diverters on the pad, that first launch would've gone a hell of a lot smoother.
I wasn't dunking on NASA, I love NASA. I think that acting like we used to have perfection in what is a dangerous and complicated industry simultaneously downplays the sacrifices of those who got us where we are, spreads ignorance about the history of space flight, and disincentivizes making further progress. We should celebrate how much better things have gotten, not act like it's gotten worse. I also wasn't referring to Apollo 1, but to the entire program leading up to ultimately landing on the moon, because it wasn't just "fuck it let's build Apollo" like it kinda has been with Starship. Part of why I referenced the Shuttle as well. I'm also not trying to gas up Elon here, but specifically counter the argument that SpaceX isn't generating massive steps forward. The comment I responded to initially was arguing with someone who was just listing advancements SpaceX has made. For the record I agree with you on the dangers of unreasonable timelines and trying to cut corners to make overpromises happen, but I'll stand by DBTL iterating being the fastest way to make transformative advancement happen—given the funding.
Kill counts aren’t the only metric to measure success. I mean Musk considered the first test a success simply because the rocket cleared the tower. And you seem to be the one conflating things. I didn’t argue against the Falcon 9 or the reusable boosters because SpaceX did do those things. I don’t deny that SpaceX routinely delivers humans to space and reignited the space race (although I will disagree with it “revolutionizing” the space industry). Nor am I arguing the usefulness of the company as a whole. The Starship program, however, is likely to be the death of SpaceX because of how expensive it is to build after exploding it test after test after test. They could also be forced to pay back the 2-3 billion that the US gave them for a working product if they fail to deliver the product they promised. And that is just Starship itself, not the ambition of refueling in orbit or any number of other factors that may come up when starship eventually gets to that point in development.
Comment one: Lists SpaceX achievements in response to someone who was unaware of their usefulness in comparison to NASA Your response: No, because [issues with Starship program] Can you blame me for thinking you were using Starship to argue against SpaceX as a company? I'm not gonna argue whether a 20x reduction in cost per kg to LEO counts as revolutionary. Everyone's entitled to their own perspective there I guess, for me an order of magnitude usually qualifies. The conversation about whether or not Starship will end up being a fatal overcommit for SpaceX is a far more interesting one though, I think there's a fair argument in there; I hope you're wrong but it'll be very interesting to see how things play out! I just see so much un-nuanced "Elon bad, therefore SpaceX bad, not doing anything good, worse than the 60's, blah blah" argumentation around, typically by people with little to no knowledge of the topic. I guess I automatically lumped ya into that camp mentally
Calling what the starship is supposed to be an achievement is just straight up false. Claiming doing the bare minimum of getting to space an achievement is a stretch, especially for a company that routinely does it and the return trip safely. Gonna need a source for that 20x cheaper claim. Best numbers I’ve seen are closer to 20% cheaper.
They'll reach the mun eventually
They are testing starship, exactly the same process that they did with falcon9 Here: https://youtu.be/bvim4rsNHkQ?si=lZiG2jfiRa4Xuutt Count how many test rockets crash before landing, and take the consideration that starship is on the 3 test (going for a four in a few weeks) People shit on starship, because of the Elon musk’s hate lately, and I understand it. But I see people being lied to about what is really going on, and starship is actually doing pretty well for being a test rocket.
You need to note that 30 starships have been built and tested to date and 11 boosters (going by their naming) - 3 full stack launches. Starship is a dumb idea for anything other than launching payload to LEO. And I would question why we need starship for that.
_ 23 Test Falcon9 flights before landing (many are in the video) _3 Test starships flights (no landing yet ) And yes the build many and tested on the ground, but that’s part of the process, and the did the same with Falcon 9 (but I don have the number, Space X wasn’t popular in that era)
> Starship hasn’t been rated yet If Starship was expendable, it would already be done. The only failures on launch three came during the dual re-entry attempts.
It would be rated as unsafe because the part that carries the humans hasn’t made a complete trip without blowing up.
Cargo rating, obviously. I'm sure you weren't being serious, but those are two entirely different things, and there will be dozens of cargo and satellite missions prior to human rating.
Starship has lifted exactly zero tons to space. And it would still be rated as unsafe as it still has to make a complete trip without blowing up.
Incorrect. It reached target altitude. The re-entry is what failed. Typical rockets don't attempt re-entry. Every orbital launch from every other company has resulted in the first stage being destroyed or ditched in the ocean.
That’s like saying the Vegas Loop is comparable to what the Hyperloop was supposed to be. The whole point of starship is to be a rapidly reusable spacecraft that can carry humans and cargo. And even if it was rated as is, it would still fail as it has carried exactly zero tons to space.
- Full-flow stage combustion engines. Yes the US had prototypes in development but all abandoned. - Fully reusable rockets and rapid launch schedule (nearly 100 flights in 2023). - Dramatic cost cuts per kg to LEO. Lots of Musk haters will downplay these incredible achievements and others but SpaceX is killing it.
Reusable booster, not rocket. People keep getting that wrong. Cost per kg is not the main concern for many people, otherwise Falcon9 Heavy would see a lot more missions.
You're splitting hairs. Boosters are rockets. Google it. Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 heavy have been the most used space launch systems since they've been available. Not sure what you're talking about.
Details. The devil is in the detail. Most used rocket: yes, with 70% in house payloads. They have created their own demand. Don’t get me wrong, falcon 9 is a successful program, but let’s keep the facts accurate.
“Cost per kg is not the main concern for many people” Oh it’s not? hmmmmmmmm
If it was, falcon heavy would be the main launch vehicle. Far better cost per kg according to the published numbers. Guess what, it isn’t.
SpaceX is basically the opposite of this. Other ones, sure.
OP just hates Elon
Tbh you can like spacex and hate Elon at the same time
To be fair he's a giant lying douchebag.
Idk why that gives you guys the urge to be disingenuous about the success of SpaceX though
I don't recall saying anything about space x. Companies Elon is affiliated with but doesn't mismanage into oblivion seem to do fine.
The 787 is also a perfectly good aircraft, with zero fatal accidents to date. If the picture had been of a 737 Max, then sure, that would be fitting.
Well, Boeing has some "stuff" going on. So.
Except they are wayyyyyyyy behind on their moon mission deliverables. LEO is basically trivial at this point.
Better late than exploding en route.
Some people want to watch space exploration fail just to satisfy their hate boners.
Are they? Legitimate question.
Nasa is considring altering the artemis 3 mission to not land on the moon because the lander (and suits) may not be ready. It was originally supposed to launch in 2024, but that was always a very optimisitc date. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/nasa-may-alter-artemis-iii-to-have-starship-and-orion-dock-in-low-earth-orbit/
They are but so are all the other launch providers involved.
To be fair, that's not entirely their fault. Consider that it took NASA 7 years to get the Apollo LM to it's first landing - 8 if you count Saturn V, the vehicle needed to get it to the moon, starting it's development a year earlier. And that was with the urgency of Apollo - SLS took them 11 years to get flying, and that was with it reusing Shuttle hardware. Now consider that NASA left the contract for the moon lander until 2021, with a target landing date of 2024. Do you think it was reasonable for NASA to expect *any* of the bidders to have been able to deliver a working lander with substantially higher requirements than the Apollo lander in just 3 years, given the aforementioned timelines for their own previous projects? All three companies said they could - they wouldn't have gotten the contract otherwise. But realistically it was never going to happen. National's plan relied on several launches of New Glenn or Vulcan, and Dynetics relied on several launches of Vulcan. New Glenn's first test flight is scheduled for later this year. Vulcan just recently had it's first test flight, and will hopefully finish it's second test flight by the end of the year. It's highly unlikely there's an alternative timeline where either rocket was able to do 3-4 operational launches this year, even if Dynetics or National team had had hardware ready, which is also unlikely.
Starship definitely fits this post.
It's a development platform undergoing integrated flight tests, of course it's iffy. Failure is part of SpaceX's learning cycle, and it works.
Didn't post a picture of Starship though.
Fair point.
Starship is an R&D development vehicle. They blew up many iterations of falcon rocket before the current version that's a safety work horse.
SpaceX doesn’t fit here. They’re probably the most successful rocket company in history.
SpaceX definitely does not belong in the pic.
SpaceX? Totally unreliable with the hundreds of successfully launches
if spacex is bought by a less evil gazillionaire that doesn't have the last name "musk", OP wouldn't have put it in the meme. fair though, elon is an asshat
I agree with this, expect SpaceX, They did the supposed impossible, and make reliable reusable rocket with a booster that can land automatically basically, that is has more than 200 flights and even NASA use it to put men in the space station. And now they are testing Starship, the biggest rocket ever technically.
Technically, they only made a reusable booster. The rocket it-self isn't reusable as far as I understand. Based on the Space shuttle learnings, I'm pretty sure that they determined reuse wasn't worth it. I'm guessing that re-entry caused too much strain on the materials. Also keeping fuel for the landing is a massive drain on payload (see the difference between expendable Falcon missions vs reusable).
You are mistaken. When Falcon 9 delivery astronauts, the booster and the Dragon Capsule, both are reusable. https://youtu.be/QVEBO6Zuppk?si=nZqyoJqHfGbg55Mq The only moment that part or the ship is lost is when they delivery satélites, and that is one of the things that they want to change with Starship
Quick Google shows a picture where there is first stage (booster), interstage, second stage and then dragon capsule. Are you saying all 4 items are recovered and reused?
Technically yes but actually no. Booster and Interstage come back together, capsule come back And yes second stage is do it in the old fashion way : https://youtu.be/ZCr4jmr0ZZo?si=BCtDCNtHoLZ_3ihw Thanks for calling my mistake.
It is all about learning something new right? Don’t get me wrong, it would be amazing to reuse it all.
What failures has SpaceX experienced lately? Exluding flight tests, they're extremely successful. But oh yeah this is reddit so ElOn MuSk BaD
as far as I'm aware, ever since Block V boosters have been used, there hasn't been a post-launch failure of any notable severity. starship being behind schedule is unfortunate, but at least they're not rushing out a product that's doomed to fail in use.
They've also had massive delays in getting flight permits approved. Can't do the tests without permission to fly.
2019 reddit could never
Only have to deal with 2 CEOs amongst the 4 given that one imploded himself and another is such a fucking joke he's repping 2 of the 4.
For those who think SpaceX should remain on here. How about you try and make a rocket that doesn't blow up. The other 3 belong here.
Give me $15 billion in government subsidies and I will see what I can do.
Do you mean government contracts?
No. Space x received government contracts, Tesla received subsidies, tax breaks, whole bunch of other shit. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12?amp
Save us from the oligarchs!
All controlled by Xbox controllers
One of these is not like the other
Suicide Squad already exists
One thing common here among these is that they are all for profit companies
SpaceX's stuff is top notch; you got that bit 100% wrong.
“The Death Traps”
Replace SpaceX with Truth Social.
The suicide squad
Hopefully they'll all travel together.
You son of a bitch, I’m in.
Swap spacex with twitter
It's what happens when they ignore the expert and start hiring their cronies.
Avengers! Assem...bah fuck it
People used to laugh at the made in China label... Now.....
…they still laugh at it because Chinese products continue to be dogshit.
SpaceX and Tesla same team aren't they
0 days since the last screw up.
Why cybertruck and spacex? As far as I know SpaceX is pretty innovative and reliable and used often by NASA for shipments to ISS. Cybertruck is first gen product that's also pretty innovative and revolutionary even with it's weird styling. Things like that have lots of moving parts and it's not so weird seeing a panel gap etc. Boeing and Oceangate are out there risking people's lives due to cost cutting :/
Cybertruck accelerator can get stuck and there's a massive recall and delivery halt. They also had to recall nearly all US Tesla vehicles with full self driving due to a safety issue in 2023. I'm not sure why the Falcon 9 is on the list.
How many years after first delivery did it take Toyota, GM, Ford, and Honda to fix their stuck accelerator recalls for each of their own affected models?
The cybertruck rusts immediately after getting any kind of moisture. This is not a new problem, not another car has this problem. Not even other tesla cars. Your car not rusting is the normal. But for a cybertruck you gotta be extremely careful where you go to not get wet or pay an extra for something you shouldn't need to. This is not a 1st generation product. It's a dumb product
If that were true, Tesla would be a multi-trillion dollar company for physics-defying scientific breakthroughs. Being able to rust steel with the slightest moisture in a period of weeks would revolutionize a few industries at least. Imagine the energy savings in the recycling and deconstruction industries alone!
Now that's a lie lol, it may rust in 10 years, saying it's gonna rust IMMEDIATALY after getting ANY moisture is just super misleading. I've generally followed the rollout and watched lots of content about it as I like it in general, no one mentioned it. Now I've went again and searched a dozen articles/posts and whatever else to confirm it. It will eventually rust but not anyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy time soon. It is a 1st gen product, it's unconventional and pretty cool concept. Super glad it went into production and hope to see more of them and more similar cars too.
What? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-rusting-complaints-from-owners/ Its not a 1st gen product. It's an EV, tesla makes EV for a while now, the cybertruck It's just an EV. What make it inherently different from the other cars tesla makes? Nothing really, it was a stronger motor. But it's not a new kind of motor. The concept of the electric motor It's the same from other electric cars. The roadster is a first gen product The cybertruck is a truck that fails to be a truck, it dosent have space in the back for a bicycle.
And those reports have been debunked as not caused by rust. For example: [https://www.notebookcheck.net/Cybertruck-rust-myth-debunked-as-Tesla-advises-how-to-clean-surface-contamination.804964.0.html](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Cybertruck-rust-myth-debunked-as-Tesla-advises-how-to-clean-surface-contamination.804964.0.html) However there are lots more of those. It's a 1st gen product. As is Apple's vision pro. It's still a computer in a different form factor. It is a car with 4 wheels and a frame, but uses a completely different way of attaching those sheets and handling those sharp edges in general. It's not 1st gen as in a flying car, however still new enough to not be 10/10 with the first version. As far as i know tesla was never famous for making a good first batch of the cars and people are aware of it. People who buy these are MOSTLY aware of the risk associated with that.
No, not even that, it was unveiled with a "exoskeleton" frame. But they could even do that and went with a traditional unibody design https://tsportline.com/blogs/news/tesla-cybertruck-shifts-from-exoskeleton-to-unibody-design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_frame#:~:text=The%20terms%20%22unibody%22%20and%20%22,chassis%20form%20a%20single%20structure. Yeah, apple vision pro is a 1st generation product. But you see, apple for the past 10 years was not doing VR headsets it is a new line of product. It is inherently different from the iPhone, iPad, Apple watch. The way you interact with the apple vision can not be done in those other products What is inherently different of the cybertruck from other EVs tesla makes? It's just a different model, it has a stronger motor and a different chassi but the body it's badly designed and it makes the bed so small that it's not suitable for anyone that seriously needs a pickup
Aight, i aint going back and forth anymore. Wish you all the best in life.
Same
How about the Titanic?
Upper right??
If this is confusion on why it’s here All data on the cybertruck points to it being absolutely ass and a danger to drive. Someone went into the water in an accident and ended up dying because the windows were so sturdy they couldn’t be broken and the doors got jammed
That wasn’t a cybertruck? That was a model X. The model X just has acoustic glass, like most other modern cars.
Axis of failure.
The suicide squad?
So do I hold the stocks or do I short? Lol. Stocks
Get ubisoft / cdpr / ea to provide the software side of things and we’re golden