6 ms·

SpaceX is inventing quite a lot, there's more areas where they started greenfield than where they got help.

tsimionescu 2y ago
They are inventing a little, but the basics of rocket flight are now well understood. You can get a university (probably post grad) course on it. And nothing that they are doing is all that revolutionary, definitely not compared to what Apollo did (going from airplanes and ballistic missiles to orbital space flight and then Moon missions). Consider that even reusable self-landings boosters were being worked on in the 90s, before funding was cut off. And for expandable rockets, virtually all rockets designed and launched in the last few decades have successfully accomplished their first ever flight, launching some kind of payload to orbit.
- perihelions 2y ago
  - "And for expandable rockets, virtually all rockets designed and launched in the last few decades have successfully accomplished their first ever flight," That doesn't resonate as true to me. The first Ariane 5 flight blew up [0]. That Europe's current heavy-lift workhorse with 112 successful launches (including JWST), but the first one blew up. The first PSLV blew up [1]. That's India's current workhorse with 58 successes, but flight #1 was not successful. Their GSLV did not reach its correct orbit on its first flight either [2], though it didn't blow up. The first Delta IV Heavy did not blow up, but it failed to reach its correct orbit [3]. That was US' largest launch vehicle for most of the 21st century. The first Long March 5 failed to reach its correct orbit, and the second one blew up [4]. That's China's current heavy-lift launch vehicle, since 2016. South Korea's first orbital rocket RUD'd both its first flights, in 2009 and 2010 [5]. Japan's newest orbital rocket was launched in 2023, and that blew up [6]. Rocket Labs' Electron has a current >90% success rate, but the first one blew up [7]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_history [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PSLV_launches#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PSLV_launches#Statisti... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GSLV_launches#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GSLV_launches#Statisti... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy#Launch_history [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_5 [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naro-1#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naro-1#Launch_history [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H3_(rocket)#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H3_(rocket)#Launch_history [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Electron#Launch_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Electron#Launch_sta...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    You're right that I exaggerated, sorry about that. Still, many of these are more successful than Starship: The first GSLV was still able to deploy a satellite, just in a lower orbit than intended. The first Delta IV had the same problem, satellite deployed, but in a lower orbit than planned. The first Long March 5 is classed as a full success on Wikipedia, I couldn't find info there about a failure (the second one did blow up). The Rocket Labs' Electron did get destroyed. However it was later found that nothing at all was wrong with the vehicle, it was a failure in the ground software, and an identical vehicle successfully carried out its mission 7 months later. In contrast, the first two Starships blew up completely due to engine issues, and no Starship has deployed even a test payload of some kind to orbit. In fact, until today, none even carried a payload of any kind, they have all been flying empty.
    - perihelions 2y ago
      - "The first Long March 5 is classed as a full success on Wikipedia, I couldn't find info there about a failure (the second one did blow up)." The Wikipedia entry describes it as "suboptimal but workable initial orbit", which I interpret as a partial failure (coming from a military entity that's universally opaque about its failings). They're not inclined for language like "partial failure" that we get out of transparent countries—contrast that first Delta IV-H, which also reached a "workable" orbit—just not the intended one. - "However it was later found that nothing at all was wrong with the vehicle, it was a failure in the ground software, and an identical vehicle successfully carried out its mission 7 months later." Also true of the Ariane 5 explosion: that was a software bug (unhandled integer overflow) in the flight control unit. The important part isn't whether it's hardware or software, but whether they got it right or not, before launch.
    - throw5959 2y ago
      Compare how much money each company spent before the first/second/etc flight. The ENTIRE program has so far cost less than one set of SLS engines - that they took from older rockets without changes. They have explicitly and publicly chosen to rapidly iterate without spending billions to make sure the first try goes well - it's simply different culture. The first Starship wasn't even something you could actually call a rocket, it was a water tower with a bunch of rocket engines. They wanted data about the engines and got them - mission 100% accomplished, that's not a failure in any way except for media shock value because "wow such boom". Come on, you call yourself an engineer? Do you not try your software or hardware before 100% completion? You don't have CI with integration and e2e tests? There's no other way to do this cheaply and quickly, you have to try. Call me when any other company achieves what Falcon9 did, then we can discuss issues of SpaceX engineering culture and how others are better. But they are not, few test flights are not interesting, what's interesting is that they are 10 years ahead of everybody else and offer by far the cheapest and by orders of magnitude most reliable orbital lift service. Others should stop waiting 10 years before the first flight and accept some risk, the world would be much better by now.

They are inventing a little, but the basics of rocket flight are now well understood. You can get a university (probably post grad) course on it. And nothing that they are doing is all that revolutionary, definitely not compared to what Apollo did (going from airplanes and ballistic missiles to orbital space flight and then Moon missions). Consider that even reusable self-landings boosters were being worked on in the 90s, before funding was cut off. And for expandable rockets, virtually all rockets designed and launched in the last few decades have successfully accomplished their first ever flight, launching some kind of payload to orbit.

perihelions 2y ago
- "And for expandable rockets, virtually all rockets designed and launched in the last few decades have successfully accomplished their first ever flight," That doesn't resonate as true to me. The first Ariane 5 flight blew up [0]. That Europe's current heavy-lift workhorse with 112 successful launches (including JWST), but the first one blew up. The first PSLV blew up [1]. That's India's current workhorse with 58 successes, but flight #1 was not successful. Their GSLV did not reach its correct orbit on its first flight either [2], though it didn't blow up. The first Delta IV Heavy did not blow up, but it failed to reach its correct orbit [3]. That was US' largest launch vehicle for most of the 21st century. The first Long March 5 failed to reach its correct orbit, and the second one blew up [4]. That's China's current heavy-lift launch vehicle, since 2016. South Korea's first orbital rocket RUD'd both its first flights, in 2009 and 2010 [5]. Japan's newest orbital rocket was launched in 2023, and that blew up [6]. Rocket Labs' Electron has a current >90% success rate, but the first one blew up [7]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_history [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PSLV_launches#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PSLV_launches#Statisti... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GSLV_launches#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GSLV_launches#Statisti... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy#Launch_history [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_5 [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naro-1#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naro-1#Launch_history [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H3_(rocket)#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H3_(rocket)#Launch_history [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Electron#Launch_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab_Electron#Launch_sta...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  You're right that I exaggerated, sorry about that. Still, many of these are more successful than Starship: The first GSLV was still able to deploy a satellite, just in a lower orbit than intended. The first Delta IV had the same problem, satellite deployed, but in a lower orbit than planned. The first Long March 5 is classed as a full success on Wikipedia, I couldn't find info there about a failure (the second one did blow up). The Rocket Labs' Electron did get destroyed. However it was later found that nothing at all was wrong with the vehicle, it was a failure in the ground software, and an identical vehicle successfully carried out its mission 7 months later. In contrast, the first two Starships blew up completely due to engine issues, and no Starship has deployed even a test payload of some kind to orbit. In fact, until today, none even carried a payload of any kind, they have all been flying empty.
  - perihelions 2y ago
    - "The first Long March 5 is classed as a full success on Wikipedia, I couldn't find info there about a failure (the second one did blow up)." The Wikipedia entry describes it as "suboptimal but workable initial orbit", which I interpret as a partial failure (coming from a military entity that's universally opaque about its failings). They're not inclined for language like "partial failure" that we get out of transparent countries—contrast that first Delta IV-H, which also reached a "workable" orbit—just not the intended one. - "However it was later found that nothing at all was wrong with the vehicle, it was a failure in the ground software, and an identical vehicle successfully carried out its mission 7 months later." Also true of the Ariane 5 explosion: that was a software bug (unhandled integer overflow) in the flight control unit. The important part isn't whether it's hardware or software, but whether they got it right or not, before launch.
  - throw5959 2y ago
    Compare how much money each company spent before the first/second/etc flight. The ENTIRE program has so far cost less than one set of SLS engines - that they took from older rockets without changes. They have explicitly and publicly chosen to rapidly iterate without spending billions to make sure the first try goes well - it's simply different culture. The first Starship wasn't even something you could actually call a rocket, it was a water tower with a bunch of rocket engines. They wanted data about the engines and got them - mission 100% accomplished, that's not a failure in any way except for media shock value because "wow such boom". Come on, you call yourself an engineer? Do you not try your software or hardware before 100% completion? You don't have CI with integration and e2e tests? There's no other way to do this cheaply and quickly, you have to try. Call me when any other company achieves what Falcon9 did, then we can discuss issues of SpaceX engineering culture and how others are better. But they are not, few test flights are not interesting, what's interesting is that they are 10 years ahead of everybody else and offer by far the cheapest and by orders of magnitude most reliable orbital lift service. Others should stop waiting 10 years before the first flight and accept some risk, the world would be much better by now.