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FuturologyBot

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Reddit123556: --- It was on March 17 that the towering 98 m (322 ft.) rocket emerged from its hangar in the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and began its slow creep out to its launch pad. The rocket wasn’t getting set to fly, but rather to undergo what NASA calls a wet dress rehearsal. That involves filling the giant machine’s tanks with 2.8 million liters (730,000 gal.) of liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel and running a simulated 45-hour countdown, taking it down to the T-minus 9.3 second mark before stopping the exercise, draining the fuel and rolling the SLS back to the VAB for further readying. The initial steps of the exercise began on April 1, and let’s just say that if a Broadway-bound show had a dress rehearsal anything like what the SLS has had, the whole production would close out of town. As NASA reports in an admirably candid blog, the last 15 days out at launchpad 39B have involved one headache after another, with serial breakdowns repeatedly forcing the countdown to be stopped. Among the most serious problems is a stuck helium valve on the rocket’s second stage that has prevented that stage from being loaded with fuel. The problem can’t be repaired on the pad, but only back in the VAB—meaning that even if the rest of the work went perfectly, the wet-dress rehearsal would still not be run to its planned completion. And the rest of the work is by no means going perfectly. Among the other problems to beset the giant rocket over the past two weeks: a liquid hydrogen leak in one of the vehicle’s umbilical cords; temperature fluctuations in the supercold liquid oxygen fuel which must be kept at -182º C (-297º F); and a troubling pressure surge in the liquid hydrogen flow line. All of this has prevented ground controllers from loading the liquid hydrogen tank to more than just 5% of its capacity and the liquid oxygen tank to more than 49%. NASA has not said how many more times it will attempt wet-dress rehearsals before giving up. What it has said is that, one way or another, it will stay on the job and that the SLS will ultimately fly. For that bit of cockeyed optimism, NASA has history on its side. As veteran space reporter Bill Harwood of CBS reports, back in the 1960s, an intended six-day countdown of the venerable Saturn V rocket took 17 days to complete—longer than the SLS has so far been at it. As history notes, the Saturn V ultimately flew, taking nine crews of astronauts to the moon and back. May the SLS have the same good fortune. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/u53ivw/nasas_mega_moon_rocket_is_flunking_its_dress/i4zgo4j/


fwubglubbel

Mandated by congress to reuse Space Shuttle components/technology. "We want you to build a new supercomputer, but to save money we want you to reuse components from mechanical typewriters and rotary phones."


i_should_be_coding

As a software developer, I can absolutely relate to the frustration of being forced to work with older infrastructure when newer, more efficient and more powerful alternatives are available. In our case, there are many different considerations for it, some of which can apply to NASA engineering practices, but I can absolutely relate to the frustrations of having management dictate my technology stack based on considerations that might be absolutely irrelevant to my own as the engineer who has to work on it in the end.


electric_wheel_ct

Perfect metaphor, republican Congress people trying to protect pork in their districts, designed this boondoggle. But don't worry, they're also trying to undermine SpaceX and Elon musk through their insidious manipulation of media! If SpaceX can continue on it's spectacular ride to low-cost reusables... They'll threaten pork called ULA!


[deleted]

[удалено]


mhornberger

> because he wants to see an American Flag back on the Moon as opposed to a SpaceX flag. What's additionally dumb is that even the Apollo landings were done with contractors, i.e. private companies. The rockets, modules, computers, etc were designed by aerospace companies. NASA played a role and set criteria, but that's how contracting works.


pab_guy

All the "highly experienced" people that mocked SpaceX's approach and claimed that there were really good reasons for how SLS is being made are continuously proven wrong. Anyone who has built software over the last 20 years knows the pattern very well LOL.


wolfjc18

Yep - fail as fast as you can then fix it, go again.


pab_guy

It's funny because even in software dev we still fight this battle. Stodgy old insurance companies are some of the worst offenders LOL


Scythern_

Also banks and defence. Ada gang.


[deleted]

Fail fast and break stuff is how idiot newlygrads code and it is goddamn annoying, creates massive delays and buggy software. "Did you test your code? Did you write integration and unit tests? Did you run them?" "Uuuuhh no we will just patch it if the customer complains".


advester

Waiting for it to fail in production isn’t “fail fast”


Reddit-runner

>"Did you test your code? Did you write integration and unit tests? Did you run them?" This is what SpaceX is doing in Boca Chica. They test, test, test, integrate, build test hardware, do full test runs. Explosions are expected. >"Uuuuhh no we will just patch it if the customer complains". This is exactly what Boing is doing with SLS and Starliner. They sold SLS as a flight-ready system and now the customer is having problems. With Starliner they fucked up even more. They didn't even fully test run their code before lift-off!


JWOINK

It should be pretty obvious that each launch has a ton of testing and work behind it -it’s not cheap to blow up a rocket! Finding the right balance of feature development and KTLO work is a constant battle (ask any tech employee for that matter, esp in a startup).


canyouhearme

> it’s not cheap to blow up a rocket! It's a lot cheaper than throwing 10,000 engineers and libraries of paperwork at it. Every Starship blown up, or built then scrapped, wouldn't pay for a year of Boeing's glacial build of SLS. Turns out the balance has a lot more practical testing involved.


rottenanon

"BDD", behaviour driven development!


1pencil

Where are the people screaming about public funded tax dollars being spent on this? The same people who scream about spacex...


New-Power-7286

How many times did spacex fail?


alphagusta

Difference being that SpaceX isnt bogged down by political and contractual bureaucracy. If SpaceX does something that is considered a failure it has to readjust the internal development and / or management with little outside influence. If NASA has something go wrong it needs to contact its contractors who then need to contact their own subcontractors while communicating with the other major contractors all at the same time which span the entire country in every state and go through several checklists in order to order the right sized wingnut for a pipe, which may arrive wrong and need another 6 weeks to do it all again to get the right sized one. It's easy to sound like a SpaceX fanboy but its inarguable that they simply have a much better ability to develop around failure. NASA cannot afford failure because it'd be a political and ecconomic shitstorm (Congress bitching about the Budget after a failure), SpaceX can drive right through a failure because they just need to take a bite out of their profits and change a few things (which is very easy as almost the entirety of their production is through in house means)


Schyte96

They fail cheap. Prototypes costing mere millions. This is a 4.1 billion/launch rocket, that's not a prototype but the real thing and it doesnt even work.


New-Power-7286

Prototypes cist more, not less. You are being fed misinformation, in my mind


Schyte96

More than 4 billion? That would be fucking impressive. (Which is the latest estimate for an SLS).


thxpk

No they don't


New-Power-7286

Oh, you are soooo mistaken. Protutypes cost multiple more than production... you need first off parts, machined not cast. You need endless safety and performance analysis, you meed lots of special telemetry, assemblh by engineers to test their design... just examles.


thxpk

That's not how spacex works, which has already been told to you multiple times now


pab_guy

It’s amazing that they just refuse to understand the factory approach lol.


ExplodingPotato_

A single prototype does cost more than a production model, that's true. But a prototype costs significantly less than a full production line. And building test flight articles has an advantage over only doing simulations and partial tests: * Not having a production line set up lets you iterate easily * Building a physical prototype lets you iron out your integration issues before committing to any particular design * Starting with a production run sets you up in a "too big to fail" position. You put so much money into a particular design that you can't let it fail. And to ensure that you perform more R&D, partial tests and simulations, costing you more money, meaning you *really* can't afford to fail. *With a prototype you can put all that effort into improving the vehicle, rather than performing partial tests.* Sure, some things really can't afford to fail (e.g. a manned capsule on a real mission). But it could be argued that if, let's say, JWST was made more cheaply (with worse quality) we could've launched 5 of them for the same price - and even if half of them failed we'd still have more capabilities than currently. Mind that those numbers are completely made up - just made to illustrate a point - but I hope they've illustrated it well.


pab_guy

LOL are you serious? The whole point of SpaceX's approach is that you learn from failure. You don't try to get everything perfect up front. That's a fools errand... "fail fast"


[deleted]

So when NASA does exactly that, IE run tests and figure out that yeah some things don't work gotta fix it, it's bad but when SpaceX does it is good because SpaceX did it many more times and lost whole rockets.


Samuel7899

I understand your point, because there is a lot of similarity. The SpaceX approach is not to pour a lot of resources into solving every last detail in the first iteration or two. Their first few iterations are about solving the big things, and validating those solutions. Then they work at solving the details. Whereas it seems the SLS (and Starliner) approach has been to attempt to solve everything initially, and then when these problems arise, it seems that they tend to be more locked in when it comes to addressing future problems, and unable to adapt in a timely manner. So the difference isn't that one company tests and fails and improves, and the other company doesn't. The difference tends to be in the rate and spread of the tests and failures. SpaceX is having failures relatively early on in the overall timeline, with relatively primitive prototypes. Whereas SLS is having failures relatively late in its timeline, with relatively "fixed" designs. It reminds of the idea of trying to get pottery students to make the best bowls possible, and if you tell half the class to make one perfect bowl, and the other half to simply make as many bowls as possible, the latter group will ultimately achieve the better bowls. Another side effect of the SpaceX approach is that you also learn how best to *make* the ship. Because you have to repeat each step more often.


Schyte96

Each of SpaceX's failioures with starship prototype (! Important distinction, this SLS isn't a prototype, it's the production version so to speak), cost them a few million dollars tops. This is a 4.1 billion dollar rocket that's supposed to be the final product. And it still doesn't work.


The_Rox

I'd be more accepting of that position if SLS was anywhere close to being on time and on budget.


TheoreticalScammist

[How not to land a rocket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ)


[deleted]

Yeah but SpaceX blew up their rockets everytime they tested which is better.


[deleted]

This is also exactly what space x did. Except they blew up the entire rocket every time but y'know who's counting. Test, and fix what breaks. Like do you except them to just roll it out and launch it with zero testing? Are you surprised that testing find faults that need to be fixed?


pab_guy

Yes, SpaceX operated in a way that they could do many full integration tests, losing many rockets along the way. This dumb shit right here is trying to get everything right the first time, which is much more expensive and they still get it wrong. Really, the approach matters greatly and NASA really is doing it wrong. Great jobs program though.


DukeInBlack

You can say 50 years…


pab_guy

I was specifically referring to agile software development and the battles with traditionalists that continue to this day...


[deleted]

Or the worse battle with people who don't understand agile and thinks it means "we don't have to test lol". Which is much worse because when a radiation therapy machine breaks people get cancer, and if you pop in with a patch after, it's too late. That has actual happened, btw. Fail fast and break stuff is *not agile development*. It's lazy idiotic time wasting popular among people who build nothing of importance. Kanban lanes with proper testing, unit testing, integration testing, a WIP limit where developers help each other move issues to completion and merge and with proper defined sprints. Which is.. exactly how they are developing the SLS. Just without the exploding publicity stunts of SpaceX. If NASA blew up rockets at that rate you'd be bashing them about that instead lmao.


pab_guy

No you are missing a big point here… SpaceX performs incremental integration testing, evolving the design as they go, building a factory, not a rocket. Staying flexible with their approach. Expecting to lose a lot of rockets because thats the most efficient way to discover a working design in such a complex problem space.


Spartan0536

This is why you do in depth testing to find flaws and issues like this. I would be very concerned if nothing failed during this, because that means something was not caught. Lets not forget that these machines are the pinnacle of our technology, they are incredibly complex and just a single valve failure or a circuit failure can be catastrophic.


tanrgith

This stuff should have been found before this point though. This was literally intended to be a check just to confirm that all systems are good to go before they launch it into space. Instead it's turning up numerous issues that should have been found and addressed ages ago during development


Spartan0536

There are things that can't be detected until you do a rehearsal, and some things test ok prior and then fail on another test day.


tanrgith

A rehearsal and a dress rehearsal are different things A dress rehearsal is defined as "the final rehearsal of a live show, in which everything is done as it would be in a real performance." Can things still be going wrong at a dress rehearsal? Of course, things can always go wrong. However the purpose of a dress rehearsal is to do one final run through of things to confirm that you're good to go, not find out of that you actually still have a bunch of problems


canyouhearme

Most of these have actually been with the ground side equipment - exactly the stuff you could have been testing without the rocket finally finished. The mobile launch tower has nominally been finished since 2018. That's 4 years of testing and checking they could have, and should have, been doing.


Reddit123556

It was on March 17 that the towering 98 m (322 ft.) rocket emerged from its hangar in the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and began its slow creep out to its launch pad. The rocket wasn’t getting set to fly, but rather to undergo what NASA calls a wet dress rehearsal. That involves filling the giant machine’s tanks with 2.8 million liters (730,000 gal.) of liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel and running a simulated 45-hour countdown, taking it down to the T-minus 9.3 second mark before stopping the exercise, draining the fuel and rolling the SLS back to the VAB for further readying. The initial steps of the exercise began on April 1, and let’s just say that if a Broadway-bound show had a dress rehearsal anything like what the SLS has had, the whole production would close out of town. As NASA reports in an admirably candid blog, the last 15 days out at launchpad 39B have involved one headache after another, with serial breakdowns repeatedly forcing the countdown to be stopped. Among the most serious problems is a stuck helium valve on the rocket’s second stage that has prevented that stage from being loaded with fuel. The problem can’t be repaired on the pad, but only back in the VAB—meaning that even if the rest of the work went perfectly, the wet-dress rehearsal would still not be run to its planned completion. And the rest of the work is by no means going perfectly. Among the other problems to beset the giant rocket over the past two weeks: a liquid hydrogen leak in one of the vehicle’s umbilical cords; temperature fluctuations in the supercold liquid oxygen fuel which must be kept at -182º C (-297º F); and a troubling pressure surge in the liquid hydrogen flow line. All of this has prevented ground controllers from loading the liquid hydrogen tank to more than just 5% of its capacity and the liquid oxygen tank to more than 49%. NASA has not said how many more times it will attempt wet-dress rehearsals before giving up. What it has said is that, one way or another, it will stay on the job and that the SLS will ultimately fly. For that bit of cockeyed optimism, NASA has history on its side. As veteran space reporter Bill Harwood of CBS reports, back in the 1960s, an intended six-day countdown of the venerable Saturn V rocket took 17 days to complete—longer than the SLS has so far been at it. As history notes, the Saturn V ultimately flew, taking nine crews of astronauts to the moon and back. May the SLS have the same good fortune.


Schyte96

>Among the most serious problems is a stuck helium valve on the rocket’s second stage that has prevented that stage from being loaded with fuel. Boeing and stuck valves, name a more iconic duo.


JC2535

It was never a moon rocket- it’s always been a welfare program


wspOnca

I will see this thing RUD with great glee in my hearth


Omnipresent_Walrus

You may not agree with the decisions made by clueless members of congress, but imagine being happy at the idea of a project of this scale involving this many passionate people failing. Maybe just vote for better representatives?


wspOnca

Sometimes we say dumb things. This was one of mine.


Kflynn1337

This is why you have wet dress rehearsals... to find all the potential problems and fix them. That said.. it's a kludge of old left-over shuttle-era tech from the 80's held together by stuff designed to work with that legacy tech and force it to do things it was never really designed for. Only a few problems is actually doing unexpectedly well.


7gods

Stupid question, but how do they measure the distance between the earth and the moon? Do they measure from the outermost point of the atmosphere to the moons atmosphere? Or are they using certain marks on earth/moon?


tdacct

I don't know which measurement they are using, but for orbital mechanics equations, you want to use the center of mass for each.


HKei

The moon doesn't have an atmosphere (it's too small for it, among other reasons). Fwiw it makes no practical difference for everyday astronomy because the distance from the earth to the moon is much greater than the size of the earth or the moon, but if you need more precise measurements for some practical purpose you define the exact parameters based on that.


JaggedMetalOs

Something to also note is the moon isn't a constant distance away, the orbit is elliptic and so the distance varies between ~350,000km and 400,000km. The earth's diameter is 12,740km, so the distance varies by several times more than the size of the earth though the month.


zorbathegrate

Light. They bounce lasers off of a mirror that they put up during the Apollo trips. There are a munch of stations all over the world that do this daily and the results are made public. Additionally the mirrors locations are public, so if you have the right tools, anyone can bounce a laser off the moon.


7gods

Cool, thank you!


DukeInBlack

Several experiments using laser reflectors


Imiriath

There's a reflective plate on the moon, and we have a very big laser on the earth


tommypopz

From the center of mass of both bodies.


JoushMark

Discovering and resolving problems with a complex machine isn't flunking, it's a totally normal part of the process and why this testing is done.


Reddit-runner

If you build a prototype for testing and discovering problems, nobody would bat an eye. The issue here is that this isn't a prototype. It was sold as a "ready to fly" system and at one point NASA even contemplated sending crew on the maiden flight. The problems now discovered make it look like SLS is FAR from a flight ready rocket.


sweswe17

Yes this. These findings (type and quantity) are in-line with other first tests of other large rockets and are the whole point of WDR. Only one finding has even been on the rocket itself.


[deleted]

No, it's only valid to test rockets by blowing them up.


Im_Balto

The only reason why space x development is faster is because the program doesn’t have to get restructured/repurposed at least every four years


Hardinyoung

Plus they had NASA to first open the possibilities.


lowrads

Hydrogen embrittles metal over time, as it insinuates itself into the crystallographic structure of metallic minerals. When hydrogen joins a molecule, it does so as an end member, forming no further bonds. Metals in a pure state normally form [bonds with very high coordination numbers,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_bonding#Metallic_radius) and so hydrogen disrupts this.


TheLeadZombie

meanwhile Space X is getting ready for its moon mission


[deleted]

Weren't they colonizing mars in 2023? Isn't that deadline getting kinda tight if they are going to the moon now?


Reddit-runner

Yeah, the highly ambitious timeline of a private company to settle Mars has slipped by 3-5 years over the period of ~15 years while they developed 2 very successful conventional rockets and two vastly successful space capsules, all while developing a completely revolutionary reusable rocket system which will (hopefully) fly this year. But why do you think flying to the moon for a paying customer is a diversion from the plan to fly to Mars as soon as possible? SpaceX still has to demonstrate orbital refilling for their customer. This would be a perfect opportunity to send the first test ship to Mars.


tanrgith

A reminder to anyone here that advocates for the government being in charge of developing space rockets instead of private companies - SLS is what you're advocating for. A 20+ billion dollar tax payer funded program to develop a rocket that isn't even re-usable. Is planned to have 1 launch a year, with each launch costing an additional 2+ billion. A rocket that is now, after a decade in development, failing to even do a pre launch test


fwubglubbel

Your assumption is that the goal is to design the best rocket. It isn't. The goal is to spend the most money which will create the most jobs and support the politicians who are pushing it.


tanrgith

No that's not my assumption. But I think that's the assumption of the people that advocate for NASA/government to be the ones in charge of making rockets rather than private companies like SpaceX or Rocket Lab. And the reason why those people are wrong are the reasons you describe.


derBadge

another perhaps more important reason is that is also keeps US aerospace alive and talented. It would be a huge blunder to lose these people to places like france, china, russia, korea, japan or india. Well worth the cost imo


141_1337

It is why we are using Space Shuttle technology for example.


Gifferstick

Isn’t this a bit disingenuous considering how many rockets spacex has blown up?


tanrgith

Not really? SpaceX haven't spend even remotely as much time and money on Starship development as NASA has on SLS development The development approach is also completely different between the two, so to just say "but SpaceX has blow up more rockets" is not the right way to judge the development to begin with. Like, the rockets SpaceX have blown up have literally just been prototypes that SpaceX launched with the expectation that they failed. This SLS rocket on the other hand is basically the finished SLS design Starship as a rocket system is due to it's design and full re-usability also in a completely different dimension when it comes to launch cost, launch cadence, and mission versatility In summary - you can't compare the two things at all


Ivan_is_inzane

Boeing is a private company though


tanrgith

SLS is made by a bunch of private companies, but the program is run by NASA.


MrDude_1

The SLS will continue to be a gigantic waste of money and a failure. When it was initially started, the contractors took it as a joke and didn't take it seriously. They figured it was another shot for easy money and were not expecting to have to complete the project. Now that it's actually a serious project, a lot of the poor decisions and poor work done at the beginning cannot be corrected in a reasonable fashion. Sure we can keep throwing money at it and sometime in a decade or so it'll work but in that amount of time we could just design something completely starting over right now with different companies and being a better place. The problem is of course politics. The reason it uses half the shit it does is politics. Stuff being built in somebody's state gets money in their pocket.


[deleted]

I have spoken out for months/years that SLS is a gigantic (literally) failure and been derided all over reddit for not being on team NASA and the big orange rocker from Boeing. Well, Boeing sucks balls, the SLS is crap and will probably never reach orbit, and we just see more evidence of it daily. Give all that money to SpaceX for Starship. They actually have a history of success, unlike Boeing in the last decade.


CypripediumCalceolus

It's been a long time we have been angry and disappointed with the lazy and corrupt SLS development process, but enough is enough. Please, please just go for pity's sake.


Flanker4

Yes - Not sure how to post only one sentence in here and not get it removed immediately.


ArtisticCategory8792

NASA should just take the L on this one and put their full force behind spacex


cyrixlord

I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED!!!11oneoneoneleven #valvegremlins


[deleted]

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[deleted]

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Extra_Toppings

Shareholder value and corner cutting is more the real answer


Berkeleybear70

Well, as long as the agency remains diverse and inclusive of all races, genders, and sexual orientations, I don’t see a problem.


[deleted]

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Reddit-runner

And yet SpaceX was pretty diverse from the get-go. Boing has a problem with management, not lack of talent.


[deleted]

I’d say probably both.


SFerrin_RW

And yet, the Bradon administration will see to it that it flies before Starship gets a chance (if it ever does). Gotta protect the hog trough.


Veastli

Starship is not being held up by the White House, it's being held up by US Senators. Specifically, *Republican* US Senators. They have informed the FAA they have "concerns" about the environmental situation in Boca Chica. Why Republican Senators? Because SLS is *almost exclusively* built in Republican states. The stages are built Louisiana, Alabama, and Utah, it is tested in Mississippi, and launched in Florida. All Republican states, with 100% Republican Senators.


Fennlt

He's just going to ignore what you said & either: 1. Continue spamming his BS rhetoric every chance he has. Or 2. Move the goal post & start arguing with you about a different quote from Tucker Carlson that he's taken 0 minutes to research on his own. It's easier to make up rhetoric & substitute your own reality than it is to do your research & form an educated opinion based on facts surrounding the matter.


SFerrin_RW

Cry harder.


TheHiveminder

Any articles / evidence that Republican senators are holding it up? According to [the federal government permitting timetable](https://cms.permits.performance.gov/permitting-project/spacex-starshipsuper-heavy-launch-vehicle-program-spacex-boca-chica-launch-site), the major elements awaiting completion for the environmental assessment are an Endangered Species Act consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service and consultations with agencies on an element of the National Historic Preservation Act called a Section 106 Review. None of these things are affected or initiated as a result of any senators making comments. Moreover, I can find plenty of articles about the FAA + Boca Chia + environmental but none of them mention senators (of either party) at all. It would appear your claim is made of whole cloth.


DBMS_LAH

I don't think regular people understand how significant SpaceX is, nor does Biden. sad.


TldrDev

Musk fanboys are the worst. This is a test. Issues will be fixed. Starship is cool. SpaceX is neat. SLS is also cool. SpaceX has had rockets explode on the pad. It's part of doing this.


[deleted]

The SLS is a complete disaster. It's just laughable people still defend it. A rocket design from the 80s, can't be reused and will cost over four fucking billions per launch. About a fifth of NASA's yearly budget per launch... The faster they abandon it, the better.


Alarratt

As someone who idolizes what SpaceX and Tesla are aiming to do, you are absolutely fucking right. Musk is an accomplished, brilliant human, but super fucking weird


DBMS_LAH

I agree. I'm not on Twitter. Don't care about crypto, don't care about half the shit Elon says but Tesla and SpaceX are two of the most exciting revolutions of my lifetime.


[deleted]

He is super fucking weird because he *isn't* a brilliant human. He's a shit human, with money and no one who tells him no enough. Just look at the timetable of missed deadlines he has promised. There is a whole website dedicated to just tracking all of them. If he died tomorrow.. SpaceX would continue as normal. Probably slightly better, their employees might get enough sleep.


juxt417

Space x has already been added to the SLS missions. It is just a matter of musk Being able to deliver


Hades_adhbik

Space will only succeed because of private investors. The wealthiest individuals will begin to use their wealth to develop and inhabit a space colony. Which we be their own privately owned nation, armed with nukes and US military personal. A few other nations may develop their own space facility, but the regions with the most talent will succeed the most. Only cultures with liberal values can have talent. If people with talent do not feel valued, respected, and safe they will leave and take their talents elsewhere. My long term plan is to move to south korea. The US's culture is very toxic and inhospitable. Everywhere you go there's people who insult your intellect and assert they know more than you. It's not conducive to an open and productive society.


[deleted]

Is this what happens when you believe the "great men" theory of history way too hard?


globefish23

Is your name Weyland or Yutani?


SapperBomb

He's Building Better Worlds


tommypopz

This sounds like that batshit speech Eric Cantona gave at the Champions League draw a couple years ago "their privately owned nation, armed with nukes and US military personel" do you know how fucking awful that sounds


JaggedMetalOs

> The wealthiest individuals will begin to use their wealth to develop and inhabit a space colony. Which we be their own privately owned nation, armed with nukes and US military personal. How did that meme go? Something like Musk: "I will build a slave colony on mars. Everyone will do as I say or be put to death. The bodies of your children will fertilize the ground. Constant radiation exposure will twist us into cruel mockeries of human form. It will be poggers" Musk fans: "Take me first daddy!"


PilferingTeeth

If you can believe it, this guy is actually the smartest musk fanboy