>be SpaceX
>use technology and propulsion systems essentially developed in the 1960s and repackage and market it as the next big thing
Surely I'm not the only one who wants SpaceX to fail and Elon's smug face in tears?
>>7990722
You just jelly they are doing well
>>7990728
They really aren't, though.
Why would anyone use their unreliable service?
>>7990722
>Antagonizing big companies because of personal insecurities you don't want to admit to
In other news, another bear seen shitting in the woods.
>>7990734
NASA seems to think its worth it. Falcon 9 has only fucked up twice
>>7990739
In a short amount of time since SpaceX's inception, thats still a high failure rate.
Nasa had what, like only a couple failures over the span of 40 years
>>7990722
I don't hate him for that because literally everything in existence is repackaged 60's technology, in fact I don't hate him at all, he's a great guy with lots of vision. I hate his fanboys for shitting on NASA because as you point out that is where he got the technology from.
>>7990739
>only fucked up twice
>>7990722
SpaceX is a great idea.
Before it and similar companies, space travel was limited by government handouts. What the government could spare for the poor scientists at NASA.
SpaceX will start slow but because it is a private company, the moment it starts making a return you will see literally billions a day being poured in, making space progress faster than ever.
You shouldn't care about the personality behind it. What is amazing is the economics theory it will push.
The moment SpaceX surpasses NASA, and this will happen, everyone who thinks that there should be 'public anything' will be shut the fuck down, and economists that hold the idea that everything should be a private company, with the government barely regulating them, will be shown as the superior breed.
>>7990786
Yeah, thats great for 23 launches of experimental rockets
>>7990774
Nasa has had numerous failures
>>7990787
But as I said SpaceX only got off the ground because of tech pioneered by NASA. When it comes to large ventures like space only the government has the funds and power to get the ball rolling. So even if eventually private is the better way to go the first steps should always be public. This is better funded and safer. Railways in Britain started the opposite way, they started out private but then became terribly unsafe and inefficient (you can still see stations yards from each other with the same name) due to competition so the government took over, made the system more efficient and safer and now that since the late 90s it's been private again most of the public misses the old public railways. In short saying one is clearly better than the other is a dumb 15 year old 4channer view. In real life everything has positives and negatives.
>>7990794
>~9% failure rate
>B...but it's experimental
Negro pls. Mcdonald Douglas had the DC-X in the early 90's. It's Hardly experimental if it's just scaling up of 20 year old technology. Shit it would be more impressive if they couldn't get it to work better.
>>7990815
Its rocket science, shit blows up
>>7990799
Heh, the early days of NASA was just one big explosion after the other until they got shit testet and worked out.
>>7990832
Yeah remember when the Saturn V first stage landed on a barge?
>>7990836
Shit man that was my favourite part of the apollo program
>>7990807
>pioneered by NASA
I think you mean the Russians, The US had no interest at all in space technology before Russia launched her first satellite already.
>>7990846
And the Russians at the time were the epitome of public ownership hence proving my point.
>>7990787
Government has an R&D role to play. Just because something is beneficial for humanity as a whole doesn't mean it's immediately attractive to private businesses. In the case of space travel, now that the basics are understood we may well be at the start of a transition to a private space industry that is cheaper, better and more efficient than anything the government would be able to create. However, this is only possible because NASA and other government organizations have already done a lot of the R&D heavy lifting.
If the cost to entry is sufficiently low (which it currently is for space because a lot of the really expensive R&D has been done already) then private companies can step in and improve efficiency (what SpaceX initially did) and then once they're making money they can also start to fund innovative R&D of their own (like ocean-based reusability). But if the initial cost barrier to entry is absolutely massive, then no company is going to get into the field in the first place. That's where the government comes in.
>>7990722
>Surely I'm not the only one who wants SpaceX to fail and Elon's smug face in tears
Sure you are not the only one. Plenty of jealous losers everywhere.
>>7990722
>use technology and propulsion systems essentially developed in the 1960s and repackage and market it as the next big thing
So, every company doing anything ever in the history of the consumerism? Pretty much all companies are stepping on the backs of established technology. I'm not sure of the point of this thread, kid.
>>7990739
>fucked up twice
>>7990815
>>~9 percent failure rate
Guys, an engine-out on a vehicle with engine-out capability is not a "failure". And before you say, "But they lost the secondary payload!", no, they didn't lose it, they dumped it intentionally according to the instructions of the primary customer, under contractual terms accepted by the secondary customer. The launch to orbit had proceeded adequately, albeit with a high-profile irregularity, and SpaceX was ready and willing to put all payloads into their intended orbits, but the irregularity had activated a contract option which was exercised.
It's not uncommon for launches to have irregularities which significantly decrease performance but don't affect the ability to complete the mission due to performance margin. When they don't make dramatic viewing, they just get listed as "successes" without comment.
So we're not talking about an any-percent "failure rate", we're talking about one failure, and it was a bizarre one. A strut from a respected aerospace supplier catastrophically failed far under rated load.
Before you say, "SpaceX should have tested it!", that's not something aerospace companies do. It's a strut. It's like a rivet or a bolt. You do quality control testing (which they had done), you use a good supplier (which they had done), you don't test each individual one. This could have happened to anyone in the business, if their supplier let them down this badly. ULA doesn't individually test struts, or design so no strut is a single point of failure.
SpaceX is a very vertically integrated company. They do a lot of stuff for themselves rather than using suppliers and contractors. You'd expect when they have a rocket blow up, the error would be made in a SpaceX factory. Frankly, it looks a little like sabotage, which is why SpaceX is now testing everything that comes in as if their suppliers are out to get them.
>>7990722
ULA please go.
You charge twice as much and use surplus soviet rockets.
>>7990722
Elon is basically God at this point
No amount of butthurt faggotry will change the fact that he and SpaceX are singlehandedly reigniting the space race.
In decades to come Elon will be held as the pioneer of commercial space travel. He will be forever remembered in the same breath as people like Newton, Einstein and Obama
>>7991030
>mfw I heard a character on DC Legends of Tomorrow mention his name (don't watch.)
>>7991030
> SpaceX will become that outrageously big megacorporation owning, supplying, building and controlling everything happening in space
> mfw megacorporations you see in every sci-fi setup will be a thing
ITT: usual 4chan contrarians
>>7991056
This
When I see Elon Musk I see a young Weyland-Yutani CEO. I see Skynet. I see Emperor Palpatine.
If anything blame NASA and ULA for not developing reusable landing rockets before.
SpaceX is the one that made it happen.
>>7991030
You almost had me.
>>7991344
musk is GOD
>>7991344
you're being trolled.
>>7991024
there is no shills on /sci/
>>7990832
And? There's still a relatively large risk that shit will blow up when NASA launches a rocket. It's literally just the nature of the technology when you're strapping shit to controlled explosions.
>>7990722
>tfw waiting to get your rejection letter for that Tesla internship
>>7990776
Personally I don't shit on NASA, but I do think that congress and incredibly severe space industry cronyism has the organization hamstrung, and thus I'm finding it more and more unlikely that they'll deliver on the mission of pushing humanity forward.
Here's to hoping that the space industry will continue to be turned on its head by the newcomers so NASA might actually be able to do something with the moldy bread crumbs the US government throws it.
>>7990722
You want to see that faggot Musk in tears? Skip to 2:10 here
https://youtu.be/SHrFGe9OlwE?t=129
>>7991947
The guy might be a rockstar of sorts today but life has been pretty shit to him at several points. 2008 was particularly hard on him.
>>7991024
I think they were charging well over 500 million per launch to the government
>>7991665
except a lot of NASA's problems are NASA's own fucking fault
Even if they are forced to use shuttle suppliers, which increases costs of the SLS, it wouldn't have been magically much cheaper without that.
And their billions they spend every year just paying salaries/maintaining facilities would still continue
>>7992124
Well in that case, the private space industry really is our only hope. Let's hope it becomes strong, healthy, and competitive.
You know OP, it's almost kind of suspicious that all the technology coming out right now was proven in the 1960's and 1970's. It's almost as if something prevented it from fully expressing back then.
My hypothesis involves the Baby Boomers; they saw fusion power, space colonization, immortality and godlike polymers, and NOPE't right back to the stone age.
Consider that the Boomers went from being Hippies to being fundamentalist Christians. Yet still, one of their main cultural products is envionmentalism and the natural food movement. It's like they saw that they could produce a futurist fantasy world, and opted instead for a mass global suicide - another product of the Boomers is the idea that we shouldn't have kids.
Notice how this happens when they start dying.
>>7991030
Seriously, call me immediately when he gets a man into space.
Like the Soviets and our government did in the 60s. And China did in the 00s.
Getting really sick of this, "Think of the implications!" Googlefaggotry.
>>7992199
I don't think it's any kind of conspiracy or anything. I think the boomers just got complacent. Getting a job was as easy as falling out of a tree, so they all got well-paying jobs and got caught up in consumerism thanks to the flurry of amazing products appearing as a result of scientific flourishes.
In short, life became easy and they became satisfied enough with life that they lost their collective drive.
>>7992209
It's coming soon now that their technology is getting a little more seasoned and the kinks have mostly been smoothed. Contrary to the opinion of 1900s Russia and USA, there's no point in risking lives on unproven tech.
>>7992209
Dragon V2 is slated for a manned mission sometime next year.
>>7992220
Who the fuck is dumb enough to ride on one of Elon's exploding rockets? No way is Falcon 9 man rated.
>>7992219
>>7992220
>Or call me when he lands a car on Mars
>Or call me when he puts a probe in orbit of Saturn
Privatization of space is based on a motivational aspect that doesn't exist, because there's no essential commodity in space not available on Earth that presently overcomes the required expense to obtain it.
Case in point: there's a NEA composed primarily of platinum, but other than depreciating platinum markets worldwide, what would obtaining it do?
>>7992235
Rare earths mate, or cheap copper, iron, tin shit like that
>>7992235
Anyone smart enough mine a majority of the Earth's platinum through an asteroid should be smart enough not to crash the market. You're not going to become quadrillionares through space exploration but you can certainly become the next DaBeers.
>>7992240
Also, space tourism could really be huge. Yes, the moon and Mars are deserts but so was Vegas, which is now one of the biggest tourism magnets in the US. I bet there'd be richfags lining up to take a trip to a lunar or martian resort given that it could be done safely.
>>7992245
And if the inflatable module crs-8 is carrying deploys nicely space tourism is one step closer
>>7992233
Launch Escape Systems exist for exactly that reason.
Unless you make a shuttle.
>>7992243
I didn't even get into how impossibly difficult it would be to land that much platinum on Earth...
We Earth-monkeys are good at launching big, Saturn V things out of escape velocity, but not so much at returning at returning them...the heaviest thing ever returned to earth from orbit was the Space Shuttle. What about megatons of platinum?
>>7992272
Thats the easy part, just crash it into the ocean or the desert, the only difficulty is the fuel you'd need
>>7992124
>Even if they are forced to use shuttle suppliers, which increases costs of the SLS, it wouldn't have been magically much cheaper without that.
Are you sure about that? SpaceX offered to develop a Saturn-V-class rocket for NASA. ULA also has proposals both for super-heavy lift vehicles and propellant depot designs.
Even turning shuttle parts into an expendable rocket isn't all that hard or a particularly terrible idea. The trouble is, they insisted on a big power boost, requiring a radical redesign.
The shuttle orbiter was about 70 tons empty with a 25 ton payload. The engines massed around 10 tons. So getting a 70-80 ton cargo payload to orbit shouldn't have been too much trouble, just by stripping most of the orbiter away, and otherwise keeping the same configuration: 2 4-segment SRBs, 3 SSMEs, payload on the side, some small thrusters to finish the orbital burn and de-orbit the tank and engines. Straightforward. Very little is changed.
They went to 5-segment SRBs, 4 SSMEs, payload on top, upper stage added, and the crowning stupidity is that they made it a crew vehicle, when the shuttle had been cancelled for being unsafe. So the vehicle is taller, more massive, it has new solid rocket boosters, it has the engines in a new configuration where there are more of them together and they're closer to the solid booster exhaust, the external fuel tank has had to be redesigned to carry a large load on top, and there's a new upper stage with a new stage separation maneuver. On top of that, they're using two entirely different upper stages for the first two flights.
This is madness. This is congressionally-mandated madness. Without the meddling, it would be faster, better, and cheaper.
>their billions they spend every year just paying salaries/maintaining facilities would still continue
If they didn't have jobs for people, they'd lay them off. If they didn't have use for facilities, they'd stop maintaining them.
>>7992296
>This is what Muskfags actually believe.
>>7992272
We suck at returning big things because we haven't been returning big things. It's entirely possible and within the realm of our capabilities, but it'll only happen if someone tries to do it.
Something being difficult to do is not a valid reason for not doing it, particularly when doing said thing will become easier as we learn how to do it. It's just another hurdle to overcome, and it's no less surpassable than all the other things humanity used to think was impossible.
>>7992272
You don't land the platinum on Earth, you keep it up there and make shit out of it so you don't need to launch things from down here in the first place. You bring down finished products (or intermediates) made in the microgravity and vacuum environment, not raw materials you can find down here already.
>>7992322
What are the difficulties then? Your question assumes we already we have a metallic asteroid in orbit and can mine ore from it in space, why is getting it to the ground so hard?
>>7990722
I think Musk is really great and I hope he stays rich and happy. But I want all space efforts to fail so that we can stop this stupid false hope that civilisation can live among the stars. I want to be part of the generation that uses up the fossil fuels as the world population exponentially increases. I don't think solar energy is a lifesaver but hopefully it doesn't advance too much.
we can all wallow in the GDP growth obsessed failing society as the 2050 generation is born and becomes jailbait desperate to get on stable parts of the hugely more competitive and precarious ecnonomic ladder as my viagra injected dick enjoys the jailbait and humanity ends.
>>7992342
Also even someone as edgy as me can ask: Who the fuck are these edgy Rand reading American preteens who scream "government handouts!!" in every Musk thread? Who the hell cares? Every big corporation does it eventually, so he may as well get his corporate welfare at the start of the businesses' life, when they'll have more impact.
>>7992233
Falcon 9 has been designed for manned missions from the beginning.
The one F9 catastrophic failure wouldn't have resulted in a crew loss. The part carrying the Dragon separated without damage. They could have just popped the chute.
Funny thing: they didn't have it set to separate and splashdown softly because they'd need to get FAA approval for the possibility of this landing. They went through the necessary steps of getting this approval, so if yesterday's launch had failed in a similar way, Dragon would have separated and activated its parachute.
Interesting parallel: the Challenger crew is believed to have survived until impact with the water. They just had no way to bail out. No ejector seats, no separable cabin.
>>7992272
Well, if you've got refined platinum, I think it would do fine as its own heat shield. Platinum has a high melting point. While most capsules have had ablative heat shields, the Mercury capsule just had a metal one, and of course, the space shuttle used silica.
The idea of things "burning up" in the atmosphere on entry is somewhat exaggerated in the popular imagination. There's pressure, intense heat, and high-speed airflow, and this makes flammable things burn, it tears up crumbly things, it boils things like water (which can make things explode if they have water in them), and it melts some metals, like aluminum.
The main trick in designing heat shields is keeping them light. You want it to be as light as possible, because you have to launch it into space, which is why metal heat shields aren't used much, even though they work fine.
>>7992310
>This is congressionally-mandated madness
How is it congressionally mandated at all?
Where does congress force NASA to do any of these things?
>>7990722
>mfw humans become boggled down in the endless bureaucracy and physical limitations of manned spaceflight while my machine kin continue to make all the major breakthroughs in space exploration...
>>7992455
It's in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010.
It mandates that shuttle stuff be used in SLS, and that SLS be more powerful than Saturn V, and for the SLS to launch in 2016.
As I pointed out, the shuttle was considerably less powerful than Saturn V, so this required a radical redesign, without allowing NASA the freedom to use what made sense.
To launch as close to 2016 as possible (they won't make the deadline, but they have to look like they tried), they're building a version of SLS that they'll only use once, for an unmanned test, with a completely different upper stage from the one they'll use on the next flight, a manned lunar flyby on an essentially untested rocket, with an essentially untested capsule.
I can't hope for the failure of anything that gets more people interested in space exploration.
>>7992495
Oh I guess it does mandate shuttle stuff, and they have to maintain the capability of remaking shuttles.
>>7992517
>they have to maintain the capability of remaking shuttles.
I think that was just until the last scheduled shuttle flight, so they'd have to option of changing their minds right up until the last minute.
>>7992483
rise of 01
>Be IMI
>Use technology and munitions systems essentially developed in the 1850s and repackage and market it as the next big thing
>Be Audi
>Use technology and navigation systems essentially developed in the 1080s and repackage and market it as the next big thing
>Be IBM
>use technology and propulsion systems essentially developed in the 1940s and repackage and market it as the next big thing
>Be InBev
>use technology and fermentation systems essentially developed in around 10000 BCE and repackage and market it as the next big thing
>Be GNC
>use technology and nutrition systems essentially developed in around 4000000000 BCE and repackage and market it as the next big thing
>>7991620
This. You're quite literally strapping tonnes of payload to a bomb and blasting it off the planet on a column of fire. The fact that they (all of them) manage to get it right so often is somewhat mind-boggling.
>>7990846
>pioneered by the Russians
I think you mean the third reich
>>7991030
>and Obama
>>7992693
>using IMI as your example
Goy detected
>>7992698
>>7991620
I don't buy it.
This is why when rockets fail, they tend to fail spectacularly, but it's not why rockets fail.
The big problem is low launch rates of expendable vehicles. How reliable do you think jet aircraft would be if only three or four thousand had ever been built, and each had only been flown once, and then never examined after having been flown?
If you look at the space shuttle, in 135 launches, it only had one catastrophic launch failure, and that was from willfully ignoring the lessons learned from examining recovered solid rocket boosters. They knew the o-rings were cracking in low temperatures. Engineers were very concerned about launching on a cold day. Managers overrode them.
Without recovering the vehicles to examine, it's hard for engineers to observe how they are degraded by use. Without a lot of flights, it's hard for engineers to observe and learn from the failure modes.
On top of that, the vehicles are single-use. They're hampered both by having to work right the first time (no shakedown flights), and by the cost-cutting pressure of the cost of flight being dominated by the vehicle production cost.
>>7990722
Wew OP you're so much smarter than all these brainwashed peons and have put Elon Musk on suicide watch by saying you hope he fails on an anonymous Kazakhstani literature image board.
>>7992889
>no shakedown flights
Consider SpaceX's blow-up last summer.
That was caused by a structurally-unsound upper stage undergoing high acceleration for the first time.
This is one of the hardest things to test, but it's not impossible to test for this before putting it on a full-scale booster, for instance they could have a small, rugged vehicle with something like the SuperDraco engines on it, not a lot of impulse but very high thrust, so they can blast off at something somewhat over the peak acceleration experienced in launch, like 120% of the peak launch acceleration, just for a few seconds. Then they can soft-land propulsively.
Of course, they don't do this. This is too much trouble for a single-use stage on a single-use booster, and the technology for the reusable test rocket is not mature. But this is the kind of thing you could do for progressive testing of a reusable upper stage to ensure that it's all working properly before you put it on top of a proven reusable lower stage which it could destroy in a catastrophic failure. Then you could do landing tests and a shakedown orbital flight with no payload, or a low-value payload (like a tank of water, oxidizer, or fuel).
This is the kind of thing you do with aircraft: you test them under the stresses they'll experience in flight, then you try them out before putting passengers or valuable cargo onboard.
>>7991010
interesting, thanks for the perspective
>>7990722
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgJMXAcrLNY&nohtml5=False
Just remember: Elon Musk is a cisgendered, white male shitlord who has yet to check his privilege.
>>7992340
>What are the difficulties then?
Are you completely retarded, can you not see any problems with slamming a meteor into to the earth? Have you never wondered why we only find large creators and traces of rare elements instead of large chuncks of meteorite? I'll let you work why that is.
>Pro tip: Its not erosion or anything like that.
I swear Muskfags are the worst cancer.
>>7991030
Made it too obvious with obama.
>>7993395
There is a huuuuuge difference between the earth being hit by an object on a solar orbit vs aerobraking an object out of low earth orbit. Do you understand orbital mechanics at all?
>>7992199
This. Boomers are fucking retards, if you want proof, look at why they inherited and then what we did.
>>7991665
>>7992124 is totally right. NASA during Apollo is nothing like the NASA of today. NASA won't do Mars Direct because they are too afraid of losing funding for their holiday resort in LEO. The only thing they have going for them right now is robotic exploration. The ISS is a fucking waste of money. The only reason for a human to go into LEO should be to leave Earths gravity well. The ISS doesn't discover enough to be worth the money it takes from other projects. Thats why people are more interested in SpaceX and even Blue Origin right now. Rocket re-usability is a bigger deal for human exploration than anything NASA has done for decades. The NASA our parents grew up seeing land people on them Moon is dead.
>>7993662
Muppet, the ISS is crucial, we need the data to assess how well humans cope in space before throwing them out to the Moon or whatever. And the microgravity experiments they do are useful too. I feel that /sci/ is full of neckbeards bitter at NASA for not letting their own fat asses fly into space. There is no compelling need to put humans into deep space. Funny when NASA did go to the Moon you all said it was a waste of money yet now they are staying in LEO that's a waste of money too?? Face it wherever NASA sends humans /sci/ will call it a "waste of money" because it's not themselves on the spaceship. What SpaceX is doing is great but admit that you are all supporting him mainly because he's feeding your pop-sci fantasies of living in space.
>>7992199
It's called money you tool. SpaceX is only successful now because there's a big satellite market
>>7993689
They have done their micro-gravity experiments, turns out people are just fine. The only people who believe the ISS is crucial are NASA bureaucrats, and the useful idiots who believe them.
>Muppet, the ISS is crucial, we need the data to assess how well humans cope in space before throwing them out to the Moon
For this point to be valid, there would actually have to be a plan for human exploration.
>>7993701
They have plan to go to Mars it's outlined on their website.
>>7993721
Unless they are going to do it in 10 years, its not safe to assume its not going to happen. Funding will be cut. SLS, the rocket to nowhere.
SpaceX- We won't to go to Mars,we should develop heavy lift capability to go to Mars.
Blue Origin- We wont to send people into space for commercialization, lets build rockets.
NASA- Lets build a rocket, and hope congress lets us do something in thirty years when its all obsolete! The ISS is crucial for this!
>>7993792
want*
>>7993466
>There are objects large enough to make asteroid mining economically viable in low earth orbit.
Fucking kek. Why do SpaceX threads attract the same quality posts as singularity or qualia threads? As of right now and for the foreseeable future the only thing SpaceX will be useful for is making Elon richer, there will be no Mars mission and there certainly won't be any asteroid mining. Fuck this isn't hard, even if it was in low earth orbit it would have some fuck huge momentum, it would either dissipate that momentum in the atmosphere or on the ground, either way there won't be much left. If you want I can recommend some classical mechanics texts, and even some celestial mechanics of you're interested. But I doubt you care, you [math] know [/math] that SpaceX is going to get you off this planet, just like singularity fags [math] know [/math] the singularity is just a decade away.
>>7993826
I would say Mars colonization would make Musk rich on and Andrew Ryan level
>>7993838
It's a nice dream, but no it wouldn't, he might profit slightly off the government contract, but other than that there's nothing to gain.
>>7993850
No gain to literally owning a Mars colony and being remembered for all time?
Besides right now hes making rockets cheaper. It doesn't have to be him to colonize Mars.
>>7992342
Heh, I have these exact same fears.
Basically the only hope I have left is new physics on the macro-scale, and considering that we've gone nearly 100 years without anything new, it isn't looking good.
I voiced my concerns to one of my retarded ass friends and he said "go watch Interstellar man, it'll change you"
So what I got was 90% space magic and plot holes, and even worse depression.
>>7993855
>No gain to literally owning a Mars colony
Yes, literally no gain. Any resource that could be mined on Mars could be mined much cheaper on earth, he'd literally be operating at a massive loss. Worse still it would only take the finding of one large deposit of a particular mineral that's being mined on Mars, on earth for the company to go bankrupt, since the earth mining company could always undercut the extraplanetary company.
>Take asteroids
>Dump them on the moon
>Use asteroids to supply moon base
>water, fuel, rare earths and elements from asteroids
>Downmass to earth from lunar-built capsules.
ITT: contrarians
>Hey guys, i heard Elon likes science
>DAT Son o' a bitch! Science is teh devil's witchcratft!
>>7993865
is money the only motivating factor for everything you do? As you get older you will eventually realize that sometimes it's worth missing out on some cash for something more important.
>>7993902
The worst thing about it is its not even the man himself for me, it's his retarded acolytes that flock to the Internet and proclaim him to be something other than a decent businessman. He runs a couple of interesting companies that may or may not become big deals in the coming years. If this thread was anything to go by he's the saviour of humanity.
>>7993905
>is money the only motivating factor for everything you do?
For me, no its not. For the CEO of a company, yes, "how much profit can I make from this" is literally the only question they need to ask. In some cases it's "can I off set the losses until I can make a profit?" Either way profit is the guiding principle of any business.
>>7993909
So what is the magical force that suddenly rewires the brains of CEOs? Does it happen to them at CEO school? What about CTOs or COOs or presidents?
>>7993919
>So what is the magical force that suddenly rewires the brains of CEOs?
Are you for real? If someone is the CEO of a company the they're responsible for said company, as such they (as in the company) need to make a profit, because of that the CEO will, when confronted with an executive decision, choose the one that nets the highest profit. If they don't they'll go bankrupt, which is a bad thing.
>>7993865
What would you assume people plan to make money from transporting stuff back?
>>7993909
If Musk wanted money he wouldn't have started a rocket or auto company, but he wanted to do both. Also, it doesn't have to be SpaceX to colonize Mars.
>>7993926
This is all pretty tautological. You're saying that companies need to make profit because companies are supposed to make profit.
Sometimes companies donate money to arts organizations or charities anonymously. Sometimes they publicly release IP for no reason other than that it maeks the world a better place. If you owned a company, and you had the option of establishing a mars colony without going bankrupt (but without necessarily turning a profit), are you saying you wouldn't?
>>7993929
You dumb fuck. He founded the companies on the expectation that they would eventually turn a profit or he would liquidate the companies before he went bankrupt. I can't believe I'm arguing basic economics with someone, even if you break even one year, due to inflation the you'll either have to turn a profit on the previous year or run at a loss. How the fuck do you think running a company works? If you have the cash to off set any losses then you can run at a loss for a while, after that you either turn a profit, liquidate the companies or declare bankruptcy.
Jesus christ, when I say that Muskfags are retards you're the exact person I'm talking about.
>>7993932
>This is all pretty tautological.
Welcome to economics, companies need to make a profit because if they didn't they'd no longer exist as companies.
>Something about donating to the arts.
It's called a tax write off. These companies, likely, already turn a profit.
>>7993937
Because I think there's more to Musk then making profit makes me a Muskfag acolyte? You realize the Blue Origin guy is doing the same shit right? Sometimes when people have enough money they just like to fuck around with it and do what they want for a while.
Besides all I'm really saying is, Mars colonization can be, and is motivated by more than making profits back on Earth, and it doesn't have to me SpaceX that does it
>>7993942
>Because I think there's more to Musk then making profit makes me a Muskfag acolyte?
No what makes you a Muskfag is that you refuse to accept there is no economic gain, and so no reason for a company to invest, in a trip to Mars. Instead you think Elon can keep his company running on good faith and dreams, it's retarded and flies in the face of economic reality.
>Mars colonization can be, and is motivated by more than making profits back on Earth
On the personal level, yeah sure. On the CEO level no, it has to, by necessity, be motivated by being able to pay back your investors or being able to make a return on whatever capital you initially invest in the endeavour.
>>7993942
>>7993942
>there's more to Musk then making profit
Wow you guys are truly deluded
>>7993946
Economic reality is that STEM grads are so naive that you can trick them into working for peanuts if you tell them they're part of "the future".
>>7993876
Pretty much this.
>Invest in Falcon 9
>Launch two of them
>Attach to asteroid
>Fly asteroid into stable orbit
>Begin mining op using ISS as a base of operations.
There is no reason this couldn't work, just a lack of vision on the part of STEM graduates.
Musk is an inteligent guy who actually has an interest in the science unlike many businessman
Deep down I know he wants SpaceX to succeed, not because it will make him marginally richer, but because he looks at the universe with the curiosity and wonderment of a scientist
>[no homo]
>>7994064
It's not so much a lack of vision but an inability to do math on your part.
>>7994046
Lmao this. I heard working conditions at SpaceX are atrocious.
>>7993689
>I feel that /sci/ is full of neckbeards bitter at NASA for not letting their own fat asses fly into space.
Not at all. I've never been under the illusion that I'll ever have the opportunity to leave earth by any means, much less by NASA.
I'm bitter at the various POTUSes, congress, and NASA for turning the space program to gelatin and doing jack shit after launching the Voyager missions. ISS is great, but it shouldn't happened in the 80s at the latest. By now we should've had *at minimum* a small permanent lunar lab and a healthy mars mission nearly developed and ready for launch in 2018. We're lagging far behind where we should be... one can only hope that we'll be able to quickly catch up and get back on track now that things are finally moving again.
it seems like /sci/ is upset with him because they realised that he could do everything they can do but better
just think, if he applied himself to your field, he would outstrip everything you have ever accomplished and will ever accomplish within days.
>>7994093
What is Curiosity? What is Cassini?
>>7994105
They're great but they shouldn't been surrounded with numerous other campaigns, both automated and manned. I'm not saying we should've kept the pace we had during the moon race, but I don't think a half or third is that is unreasonable. Instead, we slowed to maybe a 30th or 50th of that pace. Practically crawling. It's shameful.
>>7994093
>By now we should've had *at minimum* a small permanent lunar lab and a healthy mars mission nearly developed and ready for launch in 2018
This is all well and good, but beyond "because we can", what benefit would either science or the economy had from either of those endeavours? There's is nothing that could be done by humans that couldn't be done by robots but cheaper. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see them happen in my lifetime, but I'm not naive enough to believe they would just happen apropos of nothing.
>B...but muh Teflon
The supposed economic benefits of the Apollo programme are tenuous at best.
>>7994117
You can vote for pro-exploration candidates whenever you want. You can even campaign to make space exploration a more important topic politically.
While you're at it, stop spreading flat earth memes and other anti-science garbage.
>>7994117
>should've
>>7994095
You have no idea. I always watch SpaceX launch streams at the job where I develop consumer-facing iPhone apps and while it's fun to watch the launch it's always followed by a feeling of, "fuck, my job is basically useless to society in the long run". It makes me wish I could work in the space industry somehow, but I doubt that'll ever be possible given my lack of aptitude with advanced math. All I can really do is look from afar with admiration.
>>7994130
>You can vote for pro-exploration candidates whenever you want.
I do, but that doesn't make any difference because nobody else votes that way.
>While you're at it, stop spreading flat earth memes and other anti-science garbage.
What the hell gave you the idea that I do this? I wouldn't be caught dead spreading bullshit like that and it pisses me to no end to see others do it.
>>7993946
>no economic gain, and so no reason for a company to invest, in a trip to Mars
The moon landing was the biggest media event of the decade.
A New World colony grew into the world's greatest economic power, despite the initial total lack of infrastructure and difficult travel to and from it.
Some people are just simpleminded. When they think about making money, they think about getting something physical in their hand, and selling it right away, and if they can't do that, there must not be any way to make money.
Anyway, SpaceX is a private company. It's not publicly traded. It has no duty to maximize shareholder value. Musk started with the intention simply of spending money on a symbolic gesture: landing a plant on Mars, and sending back pictures of it by a window with the Martian landscape in the background. The main owner of SpaceX personally wants to go to Mars, and he can do what he likes with his property.
>>7994128
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Benefits-Stemming-from-Space-Exploration-2013-TAGGED.pdf
Since you're a degenerate who thinks that the moon landing was faked there's no reason to think you could understand any of this, but it's not like your betters haven't thought about these issues.
>>7994128
>There's is nothing that could be done by humans that couldn't be done by robots but cheaper.
The moon buggy had a longer range on its non-rechargeable betteries than any Mars rover has ever travelled, and could cover that full distance in under a day, as opposed to years.
Robotic surface probes are these sluggish, arthritic things that have to be babysat by huge teams on Earth. They're far inferior to human workers, and are only cheaper because launch is so ridiculously expensive.
Make launch cheaper, and manned exploration will be cheaper than robotic.
It seems to me that what you might be able to do when it comes to Bringing Down large amounts of metals from an asteroid escape the chunk of ore or processed metal into such a shape that it falls in a regular fashion instead of tumbling and have some kind of large parachute that you put on the back of it to help it slow down after it comes into the atmosphere
>>7994190
There is no reason to bring any material from space to Earth, except for samples for scientific purposes. Mining asteroids for platinum or helium is a scam designed to trick stupid people like you.
>>7990787
isn't spacex massively subsidized
>>7994174
Those nigs went roving on non-rechargeable batteries? Brave fucks. I salute them.
>>7994164
>A New World colony grew into the world's greatest economic power, despite the initial total lack of infrastructure and difficult travel to and from it.
A new world colony also bankrupted the kingdom of Scotland and was one of the contributing factors to signing the acts of union. A failed endeavour bankrupted a nation, a company would fair just as well.
>>7994174
>Make launch cheaper, and manned exploration will be cheaper than robotic.
Oh just like that, thanks anon, we didn't realise until now.
>>7994194
Not that guy but if the "scam" works for getting money poured into development of space tech, is it really so bad? If it's a lie, it's a lie I can live with.
>>7994190
A sphere is fine. The capsule shape is mostly good for providing lift and the ability to steer. Parachutes are not necessary when you're dropping a chunk of solid metal.
If you want good control of the landing site, you'll want to make a capsule shape and put some thrusters on it to steer. They don't need to be terribly powerful or have a lot of propellant. You can also make a lifting body with steering paddles.
>>7994204
>[math] money \propto breakthroughs [/math]
Lol.
>>7994204
If only stupid people are tricked, the money won't come. A plan has to get through committees, run by lawyers who have expert scientists advising them. They aren't as easy to trick as 4channers are. There are legitimate reasons for space exploration, so stick with those.
>>7992008
He's also being divorced right now.
>>7994218
I see some mechanical rudder as a simplest and most obvious way to land the crap.
He is basically the new Steve Jobs
>>7991947
Tbf those apollo astronauts were cunts. Their entire rockets were built by the private sector. They're just upset that SpaceX might mean ordinary folk going to space instead of privileged wasps with the right connections.
>>7991056
You do realize that SpaceX isn't patented right?
>>7994203
>A failed endeavour bankrupted a nation, a company would fair just as well.
Oh noes! Risk! Everyone knows that for-profit companies are totally risk intolerant. SpaceX in particular is the kind of business that only proceeds with things that are 100% certain to make money.
>>Make launch cheaper, and manned exploration will be cheaper than robotic.
>Oh just like that, thanks anon, we didn't realise until now.
>just like that
Making launch cheaper is the entire focus of SpaceX, you cretin. They made a dramatic demonstration of their progress toward that goal just a few days ago.
Absolutely nobody here is saying that SpaceX will fail at dramatically reducing launch costs, but put people on Mars anyway. They're lowering launch costs to enable things like putting people on Mars. That's what they're developing their next-generation fully-reusable rocket for.
In this generation, they're making a flyback booster and a precision-propulsive-landing capsule with a reusable ablative heat shield. Next generation will be a larger flyback booster and a precision-propulsive-landing upper stage with a reusable ablative heat shield, with higher specific impulse, fewer consumables (no helium), cheaper fuel, and longer-live parts.
They're working on the equivalent of an airliner to orbit, which can be operated for little more than the cost of the propellant.
>>7994079
>>7994194
>These butthurt stem fags.
Fucking lol guys, you cunts are so narrow mined. You don't have the vision to work for a world leading company like SpaceX, I hope you enjoy you shitty wagecuck job that you paid, you literally paid, tens of thousands of dollars for, if ever people needed to be convinced that college just made people narrow mined wage slaves this thread is it. You'll never be a great mind of the twentieth century like Elon, I pitty you.
>>7993906
>something other than a decent businessman. He runs a couple of interesting companies that may or may not become big deals in the coming years
Lol I'd give my right bollock for even 10% of the people with his wealth to put it into stuff like space travel and electric cars instead of yachts and bling
Boasting in a shill bread.
>>7993937
Do you not think there are easier ways of a rich person getting richer than space travel and electric cars? If he was interested in money he'd put it into hedge funds or property.
>>7994276
Yeah, man, people just need to, like, broaden their horizons, and forget about how the shipping costs alone make space mining meaningless.
>>7994272
>Oh noes! Risk!
You're an idiot. There's no way they could make any money from it, thats the point, any investment would be pissed away trying to keep the colony going, you'll have to ship everything they need to them on a monthly basis. Companies like risk, provided there's big reward at the end. Here there's no reward, just guaranteed loss.
Maybe, and I mean maybe, when we've completely depleted a certain resource then we might see some serious investment to extra planetary mining, until then it's just a fantasy of the oxygen starved Muskfag mind.
>Making launch cheaper is the entire focus of SpaceX, you cretin
It was more the flippant way it was stated I was mocking.
>>7994288
>There's no room for growth in the luxury car market.
I've no idea how to reply to such an incredibly retarded sentence. Besides that's clearly not what was being said, just that he founded a company expecting it to turn a profit, and you have to be a literal retard to think that he founded a company expecting it to run at a permanent loss.
>>7994301
>you'll have to ship everything they need to them on a monthly basis
Well, this shows you don't have even the most basic understanding of the issues involved. Launch windows to Mars only come along once every 26 months.
How about you leave this discussion to people who are at least informed on some of the basic considerations?
>>7994313
This shows you're completely lacking in reading comprehension, I was pointing out that you'd have to continously ship needed resources to any colony on a regular, the fact launch windows only come around every 26 months makes the whole scenario even more fanciful.
>>7994306
>There's no room for growth in the luxury car market.
Electric cars are not luxury, they have less range and speed than luxury cars. They're all about efficiency, the rich want things that are inefficient like bugattis and private jets.
>>7994322
>no, you see, my demonstration of gross ignorance was in fact VERY CLEVER
gtfo
If you had understood about launch windows, and you believed it would really be necessary to have monthly resupplies, you wouldn't be saying it's a financially infeasible business venture, you'd be saying it's physically impossible to have a Mars colony.
You're ignorant, you're stupid, and you're dishonest. Go be trash somewhere else.
>>7994338
>Electric cars are not luxury
>Model S ~ $75,000
>Not luxury
Fucking kek, you could put a down payment on a house for that much.
>>7994338
That's nice and all, except Tesla has been doing very well selling high-priced electric luxury and sports cars. Now they're moving into the mid-range with Model 3, but certainly still not an economy car.
Their primary challenge has been to fill all the orders they get.
Furthermore, the battery technology they developed in pursuit of a better and more affordable electric car has become a major side business for them, where again, the main difficulty they're having is meeting demand.
>>7994357
>buying an aston or bugatti for $75k
>>7994357
>buying new
>>7994344
>you wouldn't be saying it's a financially infeasible business venture
Okay how about this, tell me what Musk has to gain from establishing a permanent Mars colony. It's obviously not mining, since any mining operation will be cheaper on earth than on Mars (the fact I just had to type that is a damming indictment on your intelligence btw). And since there's no other financial reason to do it the only remaining reason is as a personal project, but has already been said multiple times, if you can't repay your investors or make a return on your own investment then toy aren't going to commit your companies resources to do it, else you'll go bankrupt, or at least hemorrhage money until you decide to cut your losses.
Just as an aside, how is it you think that a 26 month resupply window makes the grand project more visible than a constantly open window? I'm genuinely curious here.
>>7994372
>If it's not at the top of the luxury scale, it's not luxury.
While there's a lot of people who might agree with you, the general consensus is that if $74k is officially in the luxury market.
>>7994381
It's mid market, that's why it's important. Any ordinary manager or doctor can get one on credit.
>>7990734
The picture perfect CRS-8 launch bodes well for their mainifest ahead. It looks like they have ironed out their procedures and are a well oiled machine now.
>>7994388
Is this satire? Doctors are in the top 13% of earners and they'd have to get one on credit. You think that's midrange?
>>7994379
>Okay how about this, tell me what Musk has to gain from establishing a permanent Mars colony.
>Okay how about this, I demonstrate that I'm ignorant, stupid, dishonest, and highly motivated by psychological deficiencies to reject any facts or logical reasoning that goes against my arbitrary initial position, then I drag things around in circles by just pretending that the whole conversation to this point hasn't happened and responding to being dismissed as trash by asking people who are already completely disgusted with me to restate the arguments they've already made as if they hadn't said anything.
Good luck with that.
>>7994379
>how is it you think that a 26 month resupply window makes the grand project more visible than a constantly open window? I'm genuinely curious here.
It's entirely irrelevant because they don't need resupplies. You're an idiot, get out.
>>7994395
Depends on the type of doctor. There are tons of docs in the 150-250k range, and then there are a handful at 800-1m+
You're using doctor as a red herring right now anyway.
>>7992351
The hilarious thing is that the 'handouts' comprise of government contracts that undercut the existing monopoly supplier (cough ULA). The 'handouts' are actually saving the government money.
>>7994397
>Doesn't answer the question, just throws out ad hominem like a boss.
This entire conversation stated with some dumb faggot saying that a asteroid mining and/or a permanent Mars colony would be a good venture, fuck it's something you reiterate here >>7994344
>you wouldn't be saying it's a financially infeasible business venture.
The immediate implication being that you do think it's a financially feasible venture, so I asked a simple question, to tell me why/how it could be viable. You then came back with a diatribe, but that's cool, it was clear from that start you couldn't defend you position, it's literally indefensible.
>>7994398
>because they don't need resupplies.
Lol, seriously, there's isn't even fuck air bro. There's nothing there but barron wasteland, of course you'd need resupply runs. This isn't "The Martian", this isn't Hollywood, there would have to be supplied with shit just like the ISS has to be re-supplied.
>>7994402
>150-250k range
Yeah, I was looking from the 127k + range, that's the 83Rd percentile. So yeah I got it a bit wrong, doctors are in the top 17% of earners.
>>7990722
>>use technology and propulsion systems essentially developed in the 1960s and repackage and market it as the next big thing
While SpaceX isn't really the biggest offender here, this does really piss me off. For example, when they decided to use grid fins on the Falcon 9, they couldn't just shut up and do the engineering. They had to hype it up, re-brand the aerodynamic waffle blades as "X-WINGS" and downplay the fact that the Russians have been using these fins for 60 goddamn years. I like grid fins and I probably would have been delighted by the fact that SpaceX was using them if it weren't for the way they handled the PR.
>>7990722
>purchase and refurbish decades-old Soviet engines for your rockets
>they're better than what you can make now
>this is why capitalism is better
>USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
>>7994453
>They had to hype it up, re-brand the aerodynamic waffle blades as "X-WINGS"
Oh, for fuck's sake, they didn't "hype it up" or claim to have invented grid fins, and "x-wings" was a joke. Because it's the Falcon 9, named after the Millennium Falcon.
>>7994089
>I heard working conditions at SpaceX are atrocious
You heard incorrectly then. Working conditions are perfectly fine. Some people move on due to a variety of reasons, doesn't make SpaceX atrocious or the employees who leave bad.
Somewhere, on his glass-throne in a hollowed-out volcano, Elon Musk is reading this thread. All the while stroking a mini-Falcon 9 and uttering the words "Let them fight"
>>7991042
Even had a cameo in Iron Man 2
>>7990815
You do realize the Proton rockets currently have a failure rate of over 10% right? And these have been around for literally 50 years
>>7995971
>>7996864
protons never fail
>>7997818
Half of protons fail to destroy the death star.
>>7996864
The whole family has about a 13% failure rate, so what you're saying is that SpaceX has a failure rate similar to a family of rockets that are over 50 years old.
>2016
>still cant land on the moon
>cant even orbit the moon
But we went in the 60s first try r-right guise?
>>7995016
Are you a spacex employee? If so, how many hours do you work a week, on average? How are you compensated?
>>7999104
i got 18$/hr plus living stipend and company car when i was an intern there.
>>7999077
We put an atomic robot the size of car on Mars, using a rocket powered hovering winch.
We haven't put man on the Moon again, because there is no need.
>>7995016
>60 hours a week
>>7999110
>for 18 dollars an hour
>>7999153
>as an intern
>>7997818
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqW0LEcTAYg
>of to space I go
>oh wait, did I leave the stove on?
>>7999153
thats pretty standard intern pay for engineers m8. only places in butt fuck nowhere with shitty QOL pay more. my first internship paid 40 an hour, but it was a fucking coal mine in the middle of the desert.
>>7999136
>We put an atomic robot the size of car on Mars, using a rocket powered hovering winch.
That was a good deal less impressive than the manned moon landings.
>We haven't put man on the Moon again, because there is no need.
There's no need for the Mars rover stuff, either. But Mars rovers are a bureaucrat's wet dream: they can operate for years and move at speeds of meters per hour with constant ground control analysing every inch of travel. The perfect thing for when you want to stay busy and keep drawing those paycheques.
>>7999429
>There's no need for the Mars rover stuff, either. But Mars rovers are a bureaucrat's wet dream: they can operate for years and move at speeds of meters per hour with constant ground control analysing every inch of travel. The perfect thing for when you want to stay busy and keep drawing those paycheques.
Indeed. I can understand sending rovers first when getting a feel for a planet, but a continuous stream or rover missions gets progressively more useless after each mission.
We shouldn't waste any more time on Mars rovers. Combine the funding for the next three rover missions and get people out there. The only other type of mission that might be acceptable is a tiny near-ground air drone for prospecting potential landing sites for a following manned mission.
>>7990836
seriously!
How can anyone say SpaceX is just reusing concepts when this insan-o-pants is putting LEGS on ROCKETS and LANDING them on BOATS!!!
SpaceX is the only fucking space company that is actually trying to reduce costs instead of sucking up government pork. Elon Musk is single handedly changing the face of the space launch industry.
>>8000022
>How can anyone say SpaceX is just reusing concepts when this insan-o-pants is putting LEGS on ROCKETS and LANDING them on BOATS!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSx4DGBstYA
>>7990722
cause living like animals is so much fun
>>7990850
what point? they put all their public eggs into too few baskets and collapsed
>>7999429
There is lots of science to be done on mars, and not enough left to do on the moon to justify going there
Boxxy recently posted that EM was her celebrity crush, but in all honesty I think she's just posting that to seem intelligent.
He's going to be the next Howard Hughes for sure.
He's at the point he believe he can't fail.
Always the worst point to be at.
So sayeth reason and science.
>>7990722
Bringing something to market is what matters, not the underlying tech. If it's so easy why hasn't everyone else done it? Clearly there is a market for it.
>>8004453
Yep. You can sit in a lab and invent stuff for years but it's not going to change a damned thing if it can't be productized or nobody can be bothered to stick their neck out a little to bring it to market.
>>7993909
This is not true for private companies. If they wanted more money, they wouldn't be private
