• @[email protected]
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    1010 months ago

    No one cared when Astra’s first three attempts (with a much less ambitious design) recently failed to reach orbit. Of course, launching rockets is hard and SpaceX’s first, less ambitious rocket also failed on its first three attempts. I’m sure other manufacturers have had their own share of problems. IMO people mostly think worse of spacex because it gets more publicity, but some degree of failure is always to be expected with new ventures in commercial rocketry.

    • @[email protected]
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      910 months ago

      There’s 2 main reasons spacex gets shit. First one is Musk. Second one is the weird competitive thing SpaceX fanbois do where they criticise the shit out of all other rocket manufacturers and endlessly praise everything spaceX do.

      • @[email protected]
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        310 months ago

        3rd SpaceX is a private company getting public (national) funding and taking away from NASA (a national institution)

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          Same for Boeing, Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman and the like. Why are they getting a pass?

          • @[email protected]
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            210 months ago

            I don’t think Boeing is getting a pass. If anything, its become an even bigger laughing stock than SpaceX.

            As to the rest, most people forget they even exist. What has Rocketdyne even received credit for of late, ffs? What has Lockhead, for that matter?

          • Flying Squid
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            110 months ago

            Maybe don’t take away NASA funding and give it to any of them?

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      A great deal of the problem with the modern rocket industry is that it has been commercialized.

      Indian and Chinese public sector agencies don’t need to run around sucking off donors for money or inventing new ways to generate profit on taxpayer expense. They can operate at-cost with a consistent budget and aim at targets set by experts in the field rather than investors with the biggest wallets. Consequently, they’re putting up better and more efficient spacecraft - India put its Mangalyaan probe into orbit around Mars for a measly $75M, China’s the only country left with a nationally independent space station - than anyone in the private sector has managed to date.

      Back when NASA wasn’t an entirely owned and operates subsidiary of Boeing, it was able to go toe-to-toe with the USSR. But now the pursuit of quarterly profits is dissolving the western space industry to the point where we can’t even get people off the ISS without Russia’s help.