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NASA would have spent 2 trillion and 50 years to get to this stage. SpaceX's rapid iterations and fail fast methodology might save the human species

jonplackett 6y ago
Reminds me of this story: The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. EDIT: This is taken from an article about fear while making art. I think that's what's happening here - The SLS team are probably not allowed to blow up their space ship (because it is too expensive). SpaceX are allowed to blow theirs up, and in doing so they can learn a lot more a lot more quickly, and try more daring things to begin with.
- Someone 6y ago
  “It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes” Why would they care about quality? If they learned from their mistakes, they would make two or three pots, each one heavier than the rest (smart students would just make one item, making sure it weighed at least 50 kgs). This probably would work if the teacher promised them 1 point for each mediocre item produced, 2 for each slightly less mediocre one, etc. with scores such that producing mediocre items at full speed at best gives them a low grade. That gives the students both an incentive to start producing items soon (so that that can produce, as a safeguard, lots of mediocre items and get a decent grade) and to improve their technique (so that they can reach a higher grade, or finish earlier their work earlier)
  - CrazyStat 6y ago
    Perhaps they're taking a pottery class because they are actually interested in producing good pottery and are intrinsically motivated to improve the quality of their work rather than just gradehacking. A novel and naive idea in the twenty-first century, but a man can dream.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    I don't think many people take a pottery class purely for the grade! They obviously all desire to make good pottery along the way!
    - Someone 6y ago
      Quite a few people pick some of their classes based on how easy it is to get a good grade. So, I wouldn’t expect that to stay the case if that rule would start to be used.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  When I was an undergrad we had a trebuchet building competition between a team of mechanical engineers, and a team of physicists. Believe if or not, the mechanical engineers were the ones who spent the entire building time making CAD models and calculating torques while the physicists just said "it is approximately a wheel" and start building immediately. The physicists finished, and it worked beautifully on the first try with no tuning. That part was just luck for sure, but it was still beautiful to watch.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups Possible improvement: the students are simultaneously graded on quality and quantity, where one can tilt heavily in one direction or the other to get a good grade. Students choose their strategy: all in on quantity or quality, or quality leaning towards quantity, et cetera. At the end of the term, the surprise being that the students who leaned towards quantity (maybe number of firings versus mass) produced the most stunning work.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  Of course, this wouldn't work for anything that actually requires a large portion of a semester to achieve good quality.
jksmith 6y ago
Yep. Simply mimics the human instinctive way to reach minimum survivable solution in the least amount of time.
bmitc 6y ago
> SpaceX's rapid iterations and fail fast methodology might save the human species Would you mind elaborating here? How will reaching a dead planet while we actively kill the literally perfect place for us to survive and foster save the human species, exactly? And how does a fail fast methodology fit in there?
- bane 6y ago
  I'm sorry, a giant asteroid just hit the Earth and wiped out all life on the planet rendering your questions meaningless.
  - vkou 6y ago
    If you want to prepare for that eventuality, instead of wasting your time and money colonizing Mars, you should be spending your time and money on doing asteroid surveys, and working on deflection strategies. It's far cheaper, and will save billions of lives. Your ROI from doing so is going to be a hell of a lot better. In comparison to that, colonization is a science fiction fantasy, in search of a problem to solve.
    - bane 6y ago
      Why not do both?
      - vkou 6y ago
        Because we currently don't do either, and if we're going to pick one mitigating strategy, I'd prefer picking one that actually has a point to it. Money and human effort is fungible, you can spend it on many things. I'd rather it not being spent on pointless pursuits. If someone is going to spend it on pointless pursuits, I suppose they could do that, but they should at least not delude themselves.
        elihu 6y ago
        Deflecting an asteroid with current technology would involve launching a rocket at it and either imparting enough kinetic energy to nudge it into an orbit that doesn't intersect Earth or blowing it up with a nuclear warhead. Either of those would require a large rocket capable of throwing a substantial payload well outside of Earth's orbit. Tracking asteroids can be done with terrestrial radar (that was one of the things Arecibo was used for before it collapsed), or it could be done with space-based radar systems. Radar requires a lot of power, so any space-based radar will need a substantial solar array. Both of these problems are easier when you have a heavy-lift rocket such as Starship or Falcon 9 (regular and heavy versions) available. If we're regularly ferrying stuff back and forth between Earth and Mars, we're going to need a lot of those rockets. Having a space transportation economy would mean rockets are available for other uses, such as the aforementioned asteroid interceptor or space radar delivery platform. These problems are all connected.
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guerrilla 6y ago
They did it 1993 and it cost $101 million adjusted for inflation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X#Flight_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X#Flight_...

jonplackett 6y ago

Reminds me of this story: The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. EDIT: This is taken from an article about fear while making art. I think that's what's happening here - The SLS team are probably not allowed to blow up their space ship (because it is too expensive). SpaceX are allowed to blow theirs up, and in doing so they can learn a lot more a lot more quickly, and try more daring things to begin with.

Someone 6y ago
“It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes” Why would they care about quality? If they learned from their mistakes, they would make two or three pots, each one heavier than the rest (smart students would just make one item, making sure it weighed at least 50 kgs). This probably would work if the teacher promised them 1 point for each mediocre item produced, 2 for each slightly less mediocre one, etc. with scores such that producing mediocre items at full speed at best gives them a low grade. That gives the students both an incentive to start producing items soon (so that that can produce, as a safeguard, lots of mediocre items and get a decent grade) and to improve their technique (so that they can reach a higher grade, or finish earlier their work earlier)
- CrazyStat 6y ago
  Perhaps they're taking a pottery class because they are actually interested in producing good pottery and are intrinsically motivated to improve the quality of their work rather than just gradehacking. A novel and naive idea in the twenty-first century, but a man can dream.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  I don't think many people take a pottery class purely for the grade! They obviously all desire to make good pottery along the way!
  - Someone 6y ago
    Quite a few people pick some of their classes based on how easy it is to get a good grade. So, I wouldn’t expect that to stay the case if that rule would start to be used.
neltnerb 6y ago
When I was an undergrad we had a trebuchet building competition between a team of mechanical engineers, and a team of physicists. Believe if or not, the mechanical engineers were the ones who spent the entire building time making CAD models and calculating torques while the physicists just said "it is approximately a wheel" and start building immediately. The physicists finished, and it worked beautifully on the first try with no tuning. That part was just luck for sure, but it was still beautiful to watch.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups Possible improvement: the students are simultaneously graded on quality and quantity, where one can tilt heavily in one direction or the other to get a good grade. Students choose their strategy: all in on quantity or quality, or quality leaning towards quantity, et cetera. At the end of the term, the surprise being that the students who leaned towards quantity (maybe number of firings versus mass) produced the most stunning work.
tshaddox 6y ago
Of course, this wouldn't work for anything that actually requires a large portion of a semester to achieve good quality.

jksmith 6y ago

Yep. Simply mimics the human instinctive way to reach minimum survivable solution in the least amount of time.

bmitc 6y ago

> SpaceX's rapid iterations and fail fast methodology might save the human species Would you mind elaborating here? How will reaching a dead planet while we actively kill the literally perfect place for us to survive and foster save the human species, exactly? And how does a fail fast methodology fit in there?

bane 6y ago
I'm sorry, a giant asteroid just hit the Earth and wiped out all life on the planet rendering your questions meaningless.
- vkou 6y ago
  If you want to prepare for that eventuality, instead of wasting your time and money colonizing Mars, you should be spending your time and money on doing asteroid surveys, and working on deflection strategies. It's far cheaper, and will save billions of lives. Your ROI from doing so is going to be a hell of a lot better. In comparison to that, colonization is a science fiction fantasy, in search of a problem to solve.
  - bane 6y ago
    Why not do both?
    - vkou 6y ago
      Because we currently don't do either, and if we're going to pick one mitigating strategy, I'd prefer picking one that actually has a point to it. Money and human effort is fungible, you can spend it on many things. I'd rather it not being spent on pointless pursuits. If someone is going to spend it on pointless pursuits, I suppose they could do that, but they should at least not delude themselves.
      - elihu 6y ago
        Deflecting an asteroid with current technology would involve launching a rocket at it and either imparting enough kinetic energy to nudge it into an orbit that doesn't intersect Earth or blowing it up with a nuclear warhead. Either of those would require a large rocket capable of throwing a substantial payload well outside of Earth's orbit. Tracking asteroids can be done with terrestrial radar (that was one of the things Arecibo was used for before it collapsed), or it could be done with space-based radar systems. Radar requires a lot of power, so any space-based radar will need a substantial solar array. Both of these problems are easier when you have a heavy-lift rocket such as Starship or Falcon 9 (regular and heavy versions) available. If we're regularly ferrying stuff back and forth between Earth and Mars, we're going to need a lot of those rockets. Having a space transportation economy would mean rockets are available for other uses, such as the aforementioned asteroid interceptor or space radar delivery platform. These problems are all connected.

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guerrilla 6y ago

They did it 1993 and it cost $101 million adjusted for inflation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X#Flight_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X#Flight_...