Hacker News Reader

> Additionally, SpaceX is continuing Falcon Heavy processing without skipping a beat, rolling out the vehicle just hours after mission completion. If there was a failure, there would be a stand-down to determine the cause before continuing.

I keep coming back to this part of your comment and I think its the most useful piece of non-classified data we have. Lots of possibilities of what happened here, for sure. The one sure conclusion we can draw from this is that SpaceX does not think the Falcon 9 failed. If they thought that there was an issue with the Falcon 9, you're correct that that would have caused a stop of the Heavy launch. Now, its possible SpaceX is wrong and there was an issue with the Falcon 9, its possible there was an issue with the payload or the payload separation or even possible that there was no issue at all. With all of the classified information on this one, we probably won't know for sure in our lifetimes but we can say one thing for sure. The people who do have access to the classified information do not think there was an issue of enough magnitude to delay the Falcon Heavy launch and I think that speaks volumes. If the mission had failed I think we would see at least a brief pause, even if SpaceX quickly decided that the failure was not theirs and continued. The fact that they are pushing on leads me to lean strongly in the direction of the mission actually being a success.

I would agree, except there's no customer for FH. Even if there's some small chance the 2nd stage will fail, a test of the three core first stage makes sense.

Having said that, I would be very surprised to find there was a failure of SpaceX hardware in the Zuma launch.

FAA won't let them launch if theres any possibility of a known issue. Even if there isn't a customer for this FH mission, FAA still has to certify the flight.

They wouldn't risk Elon's roadster.

More seriously, even just the PR cost and the actual cost would prevent them from launching.

The headline on the website of a major Australian newspaper right now [1] is: "Elon Musk's satellite 'disaster'".

"Expensive mistake: An expensive and highly secret satellite is missing after being launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX"

How the heck are we allowing reporters to "report" like this? Utter nonsense, and millions of people read this newspaper every day and assume they are being told facts.

[1] http://heraldsun.com.au/

> How the heck are we allowing reporters to "report" like this?

It's the price we pay for freedom of press and expression. The alternative is screaming "fake news" everytime a journalist makes a mistake. Normal distribution applies in every profession, not all journalists are great

> It's the price we pay for [x]

Is this actually inevitable? Why and why should you pay this much?

grecy asks "How the heck are we allowing" and you reply "just pay because the only other choice is [unacceptable alternative]".

This does drive the price up, doesn't it? How does that help?

Plus :

>>> not all journalists are great

The paper was written by a journalist, proof read by another one, reviewed by the editor. There's no price to pay for intended click bait.

> The paper was written by a journalist, proof read by another one, reviewed by the editor.

This used to be the norm, I agree. Modern technology did wonders to streamline the publishing process. :)

> Is this actually inevitable?

Yes, it's actually inevitable. You either have free press or you don't. It's a binary value, one or zero, there is nothing in between. If you are willing to handle for the price of the free expression then we have fundamentaly different ideas about what freedom represents.

> You either have free press or you don't. It's a binary value, one or zero, there is nothing in between.

It's really not. Or, if it is, since the US clearly does not have a perfectly free press (and thus, if it's a binary value, has a zero not a one), nothing can be the price we pay for a free press, because we aren't getting a free press.

Now, if you say “its the price we pay for the degree of press freedom we have, and the loss of freedom necessary to avoid that cost is to high a price to pay for the cost avoided, that's an argument that can, at least, be reasonably discussed.

ok, back to the square one. English is not my native language, so sorry if my point doesn't get accross that well.

> How the heck are we allowing reporters to "report" like this?

keyword being "allowing". You either have a system where anyone needs to be "allowed" to write something or not.

> Or, if it is, since the US clearly does not have a perfectly free press (and thus, if it's a binary value, has a zero not a one), nothing can be the price we pay for a free press, because we aren't getting a free press.

In US you are generally not required to be "allowed" to write something. That for me is the definition of freedom of expression. As soon as you are required to be "allowed" to publish you don't have that freedom. The system is not perfect, but that imperfection is created by players (content producers and consumers) inside the system, not by artifical regulation from above.

Now we can discuss whether this "allowing" was meant as a call for action meaning: "don't support low-quality journalism" - in that case I agree, I am trying to avoid supporting low-quality press by not giving its publishers my money or my time. But if by "allowing" was meant that some wise know it all independent authority should be set up to allow certain things to be published and not allow some other things to be published, now that's the point where the discussion ends for me. There is nothing to discuss there, you simply lost your freedom. game over.

Its a Rupert Murdoch owned paper, designed to get clicks from clickbait.

A bit like calling the National Enquirer a “major American newspaper”.

The value system in that market rewards inaccurate reporting. It's the same with politics. A million little resignations every day.

What you are saying seems preposterous and fails Occam's Razor badly. It seems you and many others in this thread can't accept that maybe SpaceX is fallible and can make mistakes and you are formulating fantastic conspiracy theories to support your view.

Aye, but their second stage and payload delivery have been fiercely reliable. That the client had a custom adapter seems perfect occam-bait in this case.

Ok so they have been fiercely reliable, so what? Fiercely reliable is not infallible. Then it is more likely that SpaceX is going along with a cover-up and the black eye and tarnished image coming from the loss of a billion dollar payload just to help out their customer's secrecy? That seems even more unbelievable and complicated than equipment failure.

How does SpaceX get tarnished reputation out of this? Anyone who follows spaceflight at all recognizes their behavior as confirming "rocket operated nominally" scenario.

Their FH introduction and previous failures (or even found pre-launch issues) show they are not afraid of standdowns/delays for the sake of future missions assurance.

SpaceX has never hidden their failures. SpaceX says the rocket performed "nominally" (aerospace speak for "it worked just fine"). You believe SpaceX is lying about that?

SpaceX has no reason to lie about this. If they were caught lying then it would do irreparable damage to their reputation as a launch provider.

SpaceX's President released a statement that the rocket 'did everything right' and that they are proceeding with the rest of their launch manifest as planned.

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/950731941149626368

> They may even be paid to intentionally spread misinformation (anonymously, so it can't be traced back) about the mission in order to protect the secrecy of the payload.

Tinfoil hat squeezing too tight? A billion dollar for a way to find out internal mole? Think not.

Honestly, I don't fear AI coming and enslaving humans, like Musk claims... I fear Musk sending these secret satellites that are paid by with my tax dollars.

There seems to be an active astroturf campaign against SpaceX and Tesla.