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Comment by Osyris | Hacker News Reader

I'm a big SpaceX fan, but as far as I can tell, this doesn't contain any real updates. It's just aspirational thinking.

This is not an update for SpaceX fans. It's aimed squarely at people who have opposed SpaceX's expansion in Florida at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. These people have made arguments about safety and the environment as well as disruption to the operations of SpaceX competitors. Some of these arguments may be made in good faith but some are simply aimed at obstructing a competitor or political opponent. SpaceX is countering those arguments here.

To be fair, when a company's infrastructure construction, and planned operational activities have a significant impact on the local environment, it makes sense to explain and signal these up front. You can bet environmental groups and SpaceX's competitors are already lining up their objections.

Especially when that local environment includes Disney, the 800 pound gorilla of the area.

Wonder which way they'd come down on this, seems like it might be a big (and free) attraction, if visitors could see the aftermath of those sunset launches. Seems like at ~60 miles away, the noise shouldn't be an issue.

The big issue is that the keep-out zone for rocket launches includes the cruise ships out of Port Canaveral, which is where Disney Cruises are based.

And a significant fraction of all other Cruise traffic in Florida.

Our non-disney cruise sailed out from there. There was lots of signage about how the waterways would be closed for the SpaceX launch the next day.

Mostly, it's SpaceX detailing how increases in launch count and scale are necessitating infrastructural, operational and organizational changes at launch sites.

Oh how the times have changed. We went from waiting months from one Falcon 9 landing test to another and to the point where people are having to rethink how to run spaceports to be able to sustain SpaceX's insane "2.5 launches a week" cadence.

  >as far as I can tell, this doesn't contain any real updates

I don't think that's true? Pretty rare to see incorrect info boosted so high without any factual challenge. Just lucky timing, I guess.

Can anyone point out where they previously read about these methane blast experiments and SpaceX sharing the raw data with regulators? This was news to me, and I follow SpaceX news pretty closely.

Remember when reusable rockets were aspirational thinking?

Hmm, you're aware that the space shuttle was "reusable" though, right?

Because in this context, your question would squarly land around the time before STS-1 was launched in '81

For this to be about space x, you'd have to add some qualifiers - like "privately owned"

> you're aware that the space shuttle was "reusable" though, right?

Shuttle was reüsable on paper. It couldn’t unlock high-cadence launch because it was not built on an assembly line and had long, manual and error-prone refurbishment requirements.

Put practically, one couldn’t build a LEO constellation like Starlink or aim for in-orbit refuelling with the Shuttle. One can do the former with Falcon 9. One can attempt the latter with Starship.

I don't disagree, after all, the shuttles booster was(at least to my knowledge) more expensive them the reusable shuttle, but that's once again a qualifier to the statement that - without that qualifier, does continue to point to the shuttle.

> without that qualifier, does continue to point to the shuttle

The qualifier is only semantically meaningful. The engineering benefits one gets from reusability--low costs and high cadence--weren't there for the Space Shuttle.

The shuttle's rockets were not reusable.

The shuttle’s solid rocket boosters splashed down in the ocean via parachute, and were recovered and reused. The main engines and thrusters/rcs were also reused. Only the external tank was disposed. The issue with the shuttle (among many) was that the reuse was not actually economical due to the maintenance required between each launch.

> the reuse was not actually economical

Well - yes :) That is what reusable actually means. Anything's "reusable" if you spend enough money. The idea is it's worth doing.

No, I was born after DCX

They were very much still aspirational after DC-X. Getting to an altitude of just over 3km with essentially no path to orbit doesn't count.

Also a summary of their efforts so far, lots of info I’ve not seen discussed much (though I am a fairly casual follower of SpaceX)

I think its not really aspirational so much as it is long term planning. If you 20 years ago had told people the launch rates SpaceX is achieving now people would have laughed you out of the room. And this is not from SpaceX private launch site, but a government owned launch site. SpaceX has really been the driving force behind advancing the nations launch infrastructure and launch practices.

I don't see any reason why SpaceX should not continue to plan in such an agressive fashion, as there isn't really a clear reason that anybody can point out to about how its fundamentally impossible.

Its mostly competitors and activists trying to slow down SpaceX and post like this are trying to tell people 'look these are what we are planning and it will benefit everybody'.

The USSR averaged >1.5 launches/week from 1967 to 1989. SpaceX has exceeded that, but not by a huge margin. Once they start doing daily launches, it will be something people would not have believed 20 years ago. But we are not there yet.

It is a huge margin when you take into account the size of the rocket. Also, the area where SpaceX launches has so much more distractions and other users that it is more impressive.

The other way around. SpaceX benefits from modern technology and modern manufacturing capacity, which make scaling things much easier than during the Cold War. Overall production has grown greatly in most fields, and top companies often rival superpowers of the past in their field.

Labor cost have gone up not down. Rocket manufactre is still incredible labor intensive. The Soviet Union had very low labor cost. The only way SpaceX could do it is by innovating into renewables.

The Soviets did it mostly be mass manufacture of 1960 technology and most launches still today use the same tech.

I don't think the comment is just about cadence but also that it's not being achieved by a nation state, at least that's my interpretation.

Until SpaceX wasn’t aspirational, anymore.

The danger of continually making aspirations a reality.

Yeah it's a bunch of aspirational nonesense, their rocket is nowhere safe enough yet (or even in the near future), SpaceX is a proud member of the aspirational club alongside (the much loved by Hackernews members) intel foundry!

Why so? Falcons have reliably so many launches, they are undeniably the most battle tested rocket ever made. I genuinely have no idea, why are they not safe?

I'm obviously talking about Starship, which is mentioned 208 times in their article.

You obviously want that they fail. Your "the rocket is not safe and will never be" is what is aspirational.

That's not what OP said, though.

Huh? The Falcon9 has the best reliability and safety record of any rocket in history, and it's not even close.

Yes, Boeing rockets have a much better track record on uptime, availability, and cost, like when that Boeing rocket famously saved the stranded astronauts after SpaceX demonstrated extended incompetence in getting a rocket up to space /s

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