If you look at it as a federal jobs program that just happens to result in a rocket, then I'd say it was pretty successful...
Of course if you're doing citation for your paper the later one would be better but this is "just" posting on HN. I would even go so far as to say I prefer the tweet link so I can easily retweet, and no information is lost.
It's not usually useful to debate what's "proper". Debating utility is a better use of everyone's time, as you point out.
Now if you try to post a Nitter link on HN, it changes to the Twitter link. Why not sure.
Can you please explain what you see that are "hostile"? I opened this tweet RN in a guest profile and it looks exactly the same as the one I saw when I logged in.
"See what’s happening
Join Twitter to get the full story with all the live commentary."
And you have two options SignUp, Login, or F#^&^#@&^ :-) Now if you don't see it, because you have script blockers, that is a recognition of the interface hostility.
"Twitter disables browsing without an account" - https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/p62que/twitt...
However, even if Twitter didn't have a history of such problems, having to click an extra link is annoying to the majority of users, which is part of why the HN Guidelines say to always link to the original source:
> Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.
> Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.
It's not as if a Twitter link is "the" source - it's just stochastic what gets submitted, what gets noticed, what version of a story happens to make the front page. Sometimes we change the URL to a better one if we notice it.
Shuttle was like this too. Not really a surprise as SLS is just a shuttle remix.
Hint, SpaceX has an assembly line and is cranking out new starships and boosters every couple months while SLS will launch only every few years and then be chunked into the ocean with a hardware cost in the billions PER launch.
For SLS, the hardware cost alone is 1.5 billion. Starship has development cost, but I can guarantee you that the pure cost of ordering the hardware didn't cost 1.5 billion $.
And this is not even a possibility with the non-reusable SLS, which makes continuing it seem kind of crazy.
To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit.
The very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion.
Developing a working Starship is worth a lot to SpaceX. They could go deeply into debt on the first six launches, and make it up later.
And how SpaceX does pro-bono work for NASA in hopes of ripping them up later.
How NASA, Jeff Bezos, Government Accountability Office as well as courts are blind to it.
(Bezos already dragged NASA trough GAO and courts with regard to HLS)
And Musk is doing that instead of doing it in the honest and straightforward way like Bezos by just lobbing the Congress and asking for a lot of money.
Or you could just accept SpaceX track record on space programs and that SpaceX delivers cheap services.
We don't have insight into SpaceX finances, but this should give you an upper bound on how much money SpaceX is spending on something.
This $10 billion in total investment and annual revenue has financed the development of Falcon 9, Dragon, Dragon 2 and Crew Dragon, Starship, launch pads at Vandenburg, Boca Chica, and two at the Cape, Merlin, Raptor, Starlink development, thousands of Starlink satellites, and all the associated ground infrastructure, recovery and recovery ships, and everything else.
While we don't have any hard numbers on what the Starship development program has cost thus far, it's not likely to be in the billions.
To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit.
Therefore, the very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion (2.8/6).
And that's without development cost of Starship HLS.
Single SLS launch cost without Orion, including development, will be around 4 billion dollars.
20 billion overall for SLS development + 20 billion for Orion development.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/elon-musk-spacexs-starship-i...
Do you have a source behind your estimate that a fully reusable Starship launch is over 20x the cost of a partially reusable Falcon 9 launch?
To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit.
The very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion (2.8/6).
The more launches, the cheaper Starship gets.