I haven't watched launches since the space shuttle days. I have watched both of the Starship launches, and will watch all of them that I can.
Excitement about space is back with a vengeance!
Excitement about space is back with a vengeance!
What does that mean? The videos aren't slick enough? Personally, my excitement isn't based on hucksterism. The worst sophists (and megalomaniacs) will have the best self-promotion and slickest videos.
You might even be able to get a periscope link
Let me say that again: space launches got boring. I hoped, but never believed, I'll live long enough to see this happen.
Exactly what you want for a reliable space vehicle.
Funny thing though: I occasionally see some old (like, 1970s old) book or comic cover with a rocket ship landed vertically, or most recently, such drawings in my daughters' books; I used to laugh at them being nonsense, but after first few successful booster landings, I'm no longer laughing. I'm ashamed to admit that our forefathers got that thing right, and Star Trek et al. got it wrong.
Also, one of the books my little daughter has a picture of Falcon 9 next to the usual lineup of Vostok-K / Saturn V / Space Shuttle lineup. I shed a few tears when I saw this - for the first time it really hit me that there was meaningful progress in space exploration that happened within my adult lifetime, a fundamental shift I got to see and follow closely as it developed, and which my kids will see as "just how the world is". Sure, same is true about the Internet and smartphones, but neither made me feel the generational perspective gap, the way SpaceX rocket landings (and subsequent uptick in space missions) did.
What does this even mean if we can't scrape together funding for NASA
NASA is great in some tasks (interplanetary probes etc.), but not so great in others (getting people into orbit). That is quite normal in every quickly developing field: specialization.
As an analogy, Microsoft is quite good at Windows on desktop, but failed miserably with Windows Mobile, and other players are dominating that field.
It’s also a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don’t with nasa - play safe and people complain they’re not doing much, why are they funded. Play more risky and inevitably end up with a failure, get questioned why they’re wasting money. I don’t think I’ve seen much criticisms of when SpaceX or blue origin win govt grants for funding.
Again, this isn’t to say that enterprises don’t deserve govt support if they’re truly helping (lobby concerns aside). But it’s a multifaceted issue.
NASA projects carry a lot more gravitas than "move fast and break things" Musk projects. If something explodes at SpaceX, as long as people aren't hurt, no one really cares. People who dislike Musk will simply point at the debris and say: "We told you he's an idiot" and people who like him will rush to his defense, but the standing of the US as a whole isn't on the line.
Also SpaceX’s launch stream production quality and PR has been surprisingly good from the start as well.
Genuinely, or just because the marketing for it is that good?
The size+weight+frequency of payloads this enables will drastically alter the industry and how we interact with space.
Edit: Image for scale of other rockets: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/comparing-the-size-of-the-w...
I think they become genuinely interested. People pretend when there are some benefits from pretending, social or monetary or whatever.
I can say for myself that my excitement about space is genuine, but I cannot say is it a result of the marketing. When two Falcon 9 boosters land side by side with a sub-second interval is it marketing or engineering excellence? I do not care, I like that moment, it seemed unreal at the time, it changed my perception of what is real and what is not. In other words it changed my perception of reality. It is a big deal, and I cannot care less if it is a marketing.