Re:Science upside for Starship
by abecedarius on Monday November 22, 2021 @02:02PM
(#29310308)
I don't follow at all closely, but my impression of SpaceX's track record vs. Musk promises is that they're usually late but usually get there in the end, in functional terms if not in exact approach. Is that wrong?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Science upside for Starship
by rich_sasha on Monday November 22, 2021 @03:04PM
(#29310988)
My take is, they tackle problems whose difficulty is increasing exponentially. Making a rocket that flies, from scratch, is X% harder than building one that already exist. Making it land again, X%. Reusing it, X%. I'm also skipping intermediate points here - like about the engines have a particular closed-loop design that is more fuel efficient.
Starship seems to, again, require a few of these X% improvements. And the thing about exponential growth, as Covid kindly reminded us, is that eventually it is overwhelming.
So I don't think you can simply extrapolate from "they have a good track record of solving hard problems", because the problems they tackle are getting harder and harder.
Re:Science upside for Starship
by abecedarius on Monday November 22, 2021 @07:27PM
(#29313262)
Yeah, that's a reasonable doubt, I'd say. Just not a strong one on its own.
Re:Science upside for Starship
by rich_sasha on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @04:16AM
(#29328247)
Well, extrapolation is always poorly justified in the first place. Extrapolation where problems get exponentially harder is just speculation IMO.
I wish them well, but I'm tired of all these blogs writing about Starship as if it's a done thing, to the point of writing about delivery costs. It might happen, it might not.