Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

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I think most people realize it thanks to the very good communication by SpaceX.

Personally, from a technology standpoint, I am not that impressed compared to what we have done in the past when it comes to space exploration. Moon landings, space shuttle, Mars rovers... The current state of rocketry all but highlights how awesome it was before.

The awesome part about SpaceX is not that their rockets are the best humanity can do. What's awesome is that it may very well make the first reusable rockets that make economical sense. Unlike NASA in the past, they don't have unlimited money, they are a private company, and even if they have help from the US government, they have to work with a budget.

If anything the achievement is not the rocket itself but how it creates a regain of interest in rocketry, both popular and economic. I mean, our workhorse rocket (Soyuz) dates back from the 50s, and all of the awesome (and too expensive) stuff like the Saturn V and shuttle are now lost.

> Personally, from a technology standpoint, I am not that impressed compared to what we have done in the past when it comes to space exploration.

This is possibly the most Hacker News comment I have ever seen.

All it needs is a McKayla Maroney "not impressed" meme and it'd be complete.

Random person with no creds here. I’m not impressed.

It's been 62 years since the first spaceflight. There are currently six people in space.

62 years after the first flight, world-wide air travel numbered a billion passenger-miles per day.

So, pardon me, but the pessimism about space progress is fairly justified.

Considering the havoc air travel is causing the environment, we should aim away from mass space travel for the foreseeable future.

Many people overestimate the environmental impact of air travel.

It's "only" about 2% of global energy consumption. Not nothing, but also not that significant. There are much bigger energy wasters that can be targeted.

It's the other way around unfortunately, people underestimate it: The effect of air travel on global warming is much higher, due to emissions effects in the upper atmosphere. Eg WP says 'Emissions weighting factor (EWFs) i.e., the factor by which aviation CO2 emissions should be multiplied to get the CO2-equivalent emissions for annual fleet average conditions is in the range 1.3–2.9'

And air travel is growing at a steep rate because air travel has gotten so cheap and big populations in developing countries take up air travel.

We wouldn't have many passenger-miles in air travel either, if we threw away the airplane after a single flight. Or even part of the airplane.

Hence the focus on reusability by SpaceX and Blue Origin.

62 years after the first flight would have been 1845. The Montgolfier brothers flew in a balloon in 1783.

It's entirely possible that chemical rockets will turn out to be the "hot air balloon" of space travel. Whether this perspective increases or decreases your pessimism is up to you.

This mentality predates HN.

“No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.” Rob Malda, on the iPod at its release in 2001.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257

> Unlike NASA in the past, they don't have unlimited money

That money ran out, thus also proving limited.

I wonder what sparked interest in rocketry in the USSR enough that they launched Sputnik, etc with no immediate military benefit. As berated as communism is, they had vision enough to see past the capitalists in that moment...into space.

I think you're underestimating the military benefit of being able to launch something into space...

Indeed, it was always a military application, v-1, v-2, launching sputnik was demonstrating the ability to put a warhead anywhere on earth. It was called the 'red scare' for a reason.

Controlling the higher ground is always a military advantage.

lol. you're right.

All the early Russian and US space launch systems were modified ICBMs. The US started their ICBM program immediately after WW2 the same as the Russians. It’s just that with the US developing the atomic bomb firsts, Russia had a stronger incentive to get a really big technological ‘First’ of their own.

I’m not in any way denigrating the Russian achievement, but it’s not as though the US had no rockets of it’s own at the time and the military benefits were clear to both sides.

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