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Comment by sidcool | Hacker News Reader

What is the general opinion of HN? SpaceX tests/launches are met with much aplomb compared to Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.

My opinion: There is definitely a billionaire brag race on the space frontier, but I do think it's going to benefit space exploration overall.

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Compared to what SpaceX is doing I find this type of space tourism boring. I think it makes a difference to me that they're not in orbit, no matter what the actual definitions are to me it doesn't feel like they're actually in space.

And the interesting part about SpaceX are all the technical details, especially as they are more public with this stuff.

I agree, also find tourism boring. Although it's probably a valid business model, it's a boring and unimaginative business model

> Although it's probably a valid business model

Is it really? Maybe at a small scale, but I can't imagine there are that many people ready to pay more than a few thousands for 2 minutes of free fall at high altitude.

SpaceX is a bad replacement for a well funded NASA, but they're at least interested in doing similar sorts of things whereas Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are purely for tourists in barely-space.

I mean, the entire Blue Origin stream was an extremely annoying fake-hype sales pitch for the less than 1% of viewers who could actually afford it.

> SpaceX is a bad replacement for a well funded NASA

Please, explain exactly how you came to this conclusion. And use numbers, costs of R&D, costs of launches, etc.

I'm absolutely baffled you could think this.

SpaceX is a bad replacement for a well-funded NASA with a clear mission that advances human exploration of space, without being beholden to political corruption, and with a driven and dedicated administrator.

Of course, so is NASA itself.

SpaceX doesn't seem super interested in science, like you know probes 'n stuff. I would say that NASA was never super interested in reducing the cost to access space though. They complement each other very well.

SpaceX is for profit, so it’s goals need to be profitable monetarily. NASA is government funded so it can focus on important things that may not be profitable monetarily.

How is that working out in terms of actual dollars spent? Who’s more efficient at spending $1 including profit in that?

Your theory doesn’t hold up to actual numbers

I read recently a pretty good take on this. It goes something like, in order of most risky to least risky:

- Government funding is for super high risk, high reward long shots that may never work or prove useful.

- Then, VC funding when it's high risk, but within a few years horizon of working or proving useful.

- Last, public funding for stuff that's obviously going to work.

NASA is in the business of de-risking the edge. Then VC-backed stuff like SpaceX/Rocket Lab/Relativity Space can come and do the still-risky-but-still-less-risky bets. Public companies like Boeing/Lockheed Martin can be in the business of launching rockets as is well known and done for decades now.

Surely VCs aren't putting continuous money into space, and it's government contracts paying most of the way. Scale of cost is a bit high for VC

I am not talking about cost at all. More about commercial interests vs public interests.

Elon Musks stance on fighting climate change seems to be that we can just solve the problem with technology without doing much about endless consumption and waste, failing that mitigating the issues for whoever can afford to, starting with biohazard mode on your Tesla and ending with escaping to Mars. I don't want all our space tech in the hands of such a person. Happy to see China is still investing more heavily.

Out of curiosity, how well do you think fighting climate change through reducing consumption and waste is going? Well enough to discount alternatives?

Inversion of cause and effect. At least where I live our neoliberal and conservative parties love to defer to technology we don't have yet and might never have (we once had a fun case of "flying taxis" being lauded as a solution to congestion too) to justify doing nothing about emissions.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do both, but we have solutions now. Be it nuclear power, penalties for food waste, subsidies for public transport infrastructure, taxing fossil fuels... you get the idea. We just need politicians to stop their wishful thinking - the kind fueled by Elon Musk - and confront the realities of the situation

I don't claim to be representative of the general opinion of HN, but my opinion is that a dick measuring contest between billionaires is slightly less worse than a dick measuring contest between parochial and aggressive nation-states.

Unfortunately, space exploration is so expensive and useless* that these are the only two known ways to fund it.

* it appears useless to the people who are funding it, but of course we on HN know better than that

is there such a thing as 'general opinion of hn'?

It's just a penis measurement contest amongst billionaires. Couldn't care less. If anything, it showcases how the media keeps lifting up these figureheads as entertainment while completely ignoring the mass protests against vaccine passes.

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