SpaceX cleared for US military launches | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX cleared for US military launches

bbc.co.uk

197 pointsjamesmoss116 comments

I like the old school dogma underlying the whole thing. Russia is bad, private enterprise is good, the US wants to put weapons in space, and Michael Jackson is rocking the world with Thriller.

> Russia is bad

Putin's Russia is bad.

Yeah, Putin, Andropov, Chernenko, same stuff.

Not really. I was born and lived during the dying days of the USSR in 80s (left in mid 90s)

Under communism everyone knew the system was a failure and everything was a sham, hell the jokes being made were hilarious.

Now on the other hand in last few years everything in Russia under Tsar Putin went full retard mode with people actually believing the unashamed propaganda that the state controlled media puts out. Many Russians do not speak anything but Russian and can not afford to leave the country to get a look from outside the box in, this means they buy into the nationalistic bullshit being doled out on tv. People there now actually believe the evil Western boogeyman is out to get them. Which in itself is incredibly scary. Talking to some of my relatives I know understand how some Germans must have felt in the 30s in run up to WW2.

In the 80s the KGB was kept out of politics for most part and the Russian military was there to keep in check any ambitions they had. Now the State was taken over by a mix of KGB / criminal mafia elements and the military had its balls cut off.

Nationalism and borderline fascism is the order of the day 70 years after the war. My grandfather must be spinning in his grave.

Indeed, in late USSR, the power rested on subtle balance between Party, KGB and Army elites. Now the Party has been eliminated, and KGB subjugated the Army.

If you follow the developments of Russian WW2 themed motion pictures you'll notice the corresponding shift. Nearly every movie now features an NKVD or covert ops protagonist. Action TV series are also largely about cloak and dagger types.

This is a little much. Putin has great PR, but the reality is that he's in an ugly position considering the level of corruption he's encouraged and the dismal economy he now leads (2% shrink this quarter alone with many large firms unable for find financing due to sanctions). His foreign policy has only emboldened a previously declining NATO and set strict sanctions on Russia that no one wants to lift. Russians aren't stupid, they know this guy can't deliver the gravy train any longer and just like 1991 caught us by surprise we'll probably see a surprise change of leadership when enough parties are fed up. Putin's move towards a North Korean style government isn't from a position of strength, but a position of weakness. Its a desperate move from a desperate regime.

doesn't sound different from the US.

People believe the unashamed media propaganda, few speak anything besides English, many can't afford to leave, people believe the evil east is out to get them. In the 80s the NSA kept out of politics for most part... But now the state is taken over by a miz of NSA and criminal corporate-military-financial entities.

Nationalism and borderline Fascism is the order of the day. We've been at continuous war for over 14 years.

Not to mention the whole "Greatest country on earth".

Comments like this depress me. It's like saying a matchstick is the same as a tree because they are both made of wood. Theres no real way to engage with a comment like that.

"The US is no different or infact worse" is a typical argument used to justify various Putinite wrongdoings and deflect discussion. Just go to /r/worldnews for a taste on reddit.

* Russia aggressively annexing its neighbors? Hey look over there at the US and Middle East

* Russia curbing various freedoms and opposition? Sure the US is a 2 party system where there is no hope for change.

* Putin gaining complete control of the media? Sure in the US the media is all run by same companies.

And so on, the best lies are those sprinkled with a small grain of truth as the saying goes...

>* Russia curbing various freedoms and opposition? Sure the US is a 2 party system where there is no hope for change.

Now this comment depresses me. Why not compare the us patriot act or civil forfeiture, or the wide spread illegal 4th amendment breaking mass surveillance program a whistle blower had to reveal (who incidentally lives in Russia now).

Then you use the phrase hope and change, is that satire, a man became president lying with that platform slogan.

How about including torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial, or kill lists to show how the US also has erroded civil liberties?

How much more comic book evil does the American empire need to become before people stop defending it with 'Russia and China are worse', maybe they are, but its a sad pissing match to ask if Mao or Hilter was the worst 20th dictator, both men caused tremendous amounts of Human misery.

Why do people want to defend a military that has killed hundreds if thousands of civilians? How morally bankrupt are the techies of hacker news.

Look, the problem here is you are comparing bad with really really bad. People aren't defending the US via Russia here, people are saying don't defend Russia via the US.

Can you really imagine USA invading Mexico to extend its area of influence?

Facebook is filled with anti-US and anti-western arguments. VKontakte is filled with love for Putin. Apples to apples here...

Try to at least study history. The US has a long history of staging coups and invading with special forces Latin American countries.

My point is they are both so bad that saying one is really really bad is like Dante discussing why the third circle of Hell isn't as bad as the fourth. Pointless academic nonsense, except the jingoistic RaRa America nonsense is killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Except this whole thread exists because an American company, SpaceX, led by a foreign national who chose to become a US citizen, Elon Musk, could create a company that competes directly with government run competitors here and nowhere else.

There are superficial similarities. But any investigation shows real difference.

By contracting with the US military Musk has explicitly joined the military industrial complex, an arrangement akin to Mussolini's corporate-fascism, little different from a nationalized company in practice except there isn't even the facade that profits are shared. Profits are privatized once Musk has sucked off enough public wealth through government by building various machines designed in aid in the killing of people.

Maybe that is just the world we live in, at least except it and stop trying to glorify the killing of women and children for profit.

> military industrial complex

This phrase shows a simplified few events and organizations as they actually are. The rest of your post shows a fanatical viewpoint lacking in critical thought.

I will agree with you insofar as not everything is ideal with our military spending, the amount of spending and there is some corruption in military spending.

But the government and military must buy goods, this cannot always be fascism. There exists procedures and regulations that attempt limit corruption and to level the playing field for smaller companies. These rules are exactly what SpaceX used to get its foot the door. These rules require certain levels of "quality" and meeting certain requirements, this in effect rules out many of the smallest startups which contributes to why it is so easy for us to feel like outsiders. The smallest company I have seen provide military goods was 12 people, but most require at least 100.

The military also has other functions than "killing of women and children for profit", and claiming that this is one of their goals without evidence strikes me as fanatical. A military that wastes resources on things other than valid enemy targets is wasteful, we have defeated too many foreign powers to be that kind of wasteful.

I think our current military is built more along the lines of "kill the enemy and break his things". It is sad but sometimes innocent people are near the enemy or his things. It is also sad that we try to use our very effective "breaking" organization to occupy or police despite it not being well equipped for such.

Without evidence? It is true the US military refuses to count civilian murders and quaintly calls it collateral damage, as if brown kids are but roads and bridges.

What do you call 14 years of war in multiple theaters resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths? It that not fanatical? You should reassess your heart, you're in need of a new one.

You are objectively wrong. The military keeps count of civilian casualties and the numbers are close to civilian numbers but not identical. The deviance seems explainable by counting methods (for example if the building collapses 3 days after the attack should people injured here be counted or not).

My source if wikipedia, here is one of several examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak

They do however keep these documents classified. I think this impairs oversight and all casualty reporting should be public.

As for the military being fanatical, I do not understand you point. The military did exactly what the publicly elected executive, the President, told them to do.

If you were able to speak objectively you should be destroying anyone taking my stance. You just keep shouting out things that are simple to demonstrate as wrong.

Our current violent streak is 15 and not 14 years long. If you can't get such basic facts straight how can you expect to convince others you are worth listening too?

As for the years of war, you should review history. As a country we have had 21 years of peace in the past 240 or so and our current run is in its 15th year. We have been a warring nation for a long time. This country is obsessed with violence, so we elect violent politicians.

It should be trivially easy to make a moral argument that obliterates anyone siding with the military particularly in discussion place like this. You can't make that simple argument because you speak without fact and with fanatical emotion. Let your emotion guide you, but be rooted in fact.

I cannot continue this discussion because arguing with someone so baseless lowers my credibility. This will be my last post in this debate thread.

This will be mine as well.

If the current war began 2001-9-11 that would be 14 years not 15. You are wrong.

Classified documents are meaningless, I have a classified document that is proof I am God. See, how stupid you sound?

If you believe American is beholden to democratic concerns you are either a troll or hopelessly naïve.

Anyone who isn't upset that they live in a country which repeatedly kills civilians without cause is a monster.

>I think our current military is built more along the lines of "kill the enemy and break his things".

That's what militaries are for. Once you deviate from that core idea you end up with an expensive boondoggle that can't win battles.

> People there now actually believe the evil Western boogeyman is out to get them.

Even Henry Kissinger believes their fears to be well-founded.

To be fair, Kissenger is a notorious warmonger and his whole goal is fomenting tensions.

Now on the other hand in last few years everything in Russia under Tsar Putin went full retard mode with people actually believing the unashamed propaganda that the state controlled media puts out.

Nationalism > Communism

Solidarity with the working man is nothing compared to the integrity of the Russian nation and her borders.

Nationalism and borderline fascism is the order of the day 70 years after the war. My grandfather must be spinning in his grave.

The core of the "Great Patriotic War" was nationalism. No one really fights for an idea. Everyone starts fighting to protect their home, and keeps fighting for the sake of their brothers in arms.

Same stuff in 21st century is not ok.

The article doesn't go into much detail. In this case, Russia is "bad" because of the uncertainty of the relationship relying on something so important to be considered national interests. The decision to develop rockets at home was made around the time when someone in Russia made a comment to the effect of "maybe they should use trampolines to get into space."

This. If this article was about China or Russia doing something to get off a US product or service, HN would be cheering. When the US protects its own interests, especially its world class space programs, suddenly the tone turns towards, "EVIL US NOT PLAYING NICE!" Sadly, that narrative is upvote heaven here on HN.

As far as I can tell, what's upvote heaven is complaining about how nonexistent bad comments get lots of upvotes. I don't see any comments in this thread that meet your description, while the top is mostly comments explaining why this move makes sense. There are quite a few kneejerk "the US is evil" comments, but it's not about playing nice, it's about thinking the US government is the devil and SpaceX is sullied by the association. I don't see any comments saying the US should just keep buying Russian engines.

It's not like they couldn't buy lifts onboard other NATO countries rockets, but I guess the US people don't know there are more than Russia and the US who can send rockets.

Also, this paranoid stance is mildly worrying, because the US is the most weaponized country in the world, and one of the least shy country to use its arsenal, so if it also get a paranoid stance "all the world hate us", then we're all doomed.

>It's not like they couldn't buy lifts onboard other NATO countries rockets

There is no NATO country, other than the US, with a manned space program. We don't live in a universe where the ESA's Hermes spacecraft worked out.

I believe the Ariane 5 was supposed to be man-rated when Hermes was on the table, but going from that to a usable launch vehicle is a lot of time, money, and engineering work we could spend on our own system(s). I have no idea if its possible to retro-fit man-rated safety onto the existing Ariane design.

So 5 years out to Orion/SLS and Dragon/SpaceX or 5 years out to some beat up and already badly aging ESA manned system the American tax payer would be on the hook for, and a system that could never leave LEO. The SLS is designed for non-LEO manned missions like the moon, nearby asteroids, and in its highest configuration - Mars.

Lastly, the ESA was welcome to bid in NASA's COTS program, but decided not to. Maybe take up your beef with them. I imagine they aren't remotely cost competitive.

This certification is about launching unmanned US military payloads, not about manned spaceflight. As far as I know there's no technical reason Ariane 5 couldn't be used for them right now. I don't know why they're not being used, but if the decision to look for a new launch provider happened in the past couple of years then I don't see why you'd go for Arianespace over SpaceX.

Did Arianespace submit a bid to launch these payloads or attempt to gain certification to carry them?

>Russia is bad, private enterprise is good

Considering Putin is playing politics with space, namely limiting critical RD-180 sales after the west criticized his illegal annexation of parts of Ukraine, as well as funding and arming rebels who are purposely targeting civilians, well, what exactly do you want us to say here? Engage in more mindless political correctness? Sing kumbaya around the campfire as to not offend Russiophile HN'ers?

Putin's Russia is bad. They're dishonest partners and the US should keep its space policy under its national borders for sanity reasons. Look at the early retirement of the ISS. Russia is taking its modules and leaving the project in a few years, again as punishing the west for criticizing their illegal annexations. Previous to this the ISS was thought to be a project with a decade or two of service left.

Also, Putin's mismanagement of his economy means he just cut the Russian space program by a third and what's left is good at flying Soviet-era Soyuz and building Soviet era RD-180's but can't keep post-Soviet Proton-M's from exploding. From a practical stand-point, ignoring everything else, we simply don't need or want their tech now that the RD-180 based rockets are being made redundant/replaced and Orion/Dragon flying astronauts in the next 3 or so years.

the US invaded Iraq, and kill people everywhere in the world on a regular basis too, overthrow governments, helps dictators and lie to people all the time. Nobody gets ahead when you only look for scapegoats and with Manichaeism as a policy.

We are bringing back the world into the 20st century, this will be a big problem.

That's fine, you are very welcome not to buy our rockets, iphones, software, and processors if you want to protest our foreign policy. We're not buying Putin's stuff, so don't buy ours.

I don't see a problem with this.

>overthrow governments

The middle east is migrating to democracy and has the least amount of dictators in charge in my lifetime, thanks to US foreign policy. While I think foriegn policy is hard to judge, annexing land Russia-style for "fuck you" reasons is very different than overthrowing dictators murdering their people and those people begging for US/NATO/UN intervention, which we sometimes provide. The world tried non-interventionism and it got us WWII. Better the US/NATO making these calls than autocratic powers with annexation agendas like China or Russia.

Life is not a competition towards who has the stupidest, most antagonistic or most isolationist behavior, that's the whole point of discussing in a forum, trying to put ideas in people's head instead of trying to starve them economically or bombing them.

My idea in the initial post was to have people think about one point of view about this deal. In particular because it seem people are mostly from the left here, but there is a real Reaganian aspect to the move.

>The middle east is migrating to democracy and has the least amount of dictators in charge in my lifetime

How's that democracy working out in Libya and Syria?

Many (probably pretty much everyone actually familiar with the situation) would argue that things were better under those dictators.

>How's that democracy working out in Libya and Syria?

How was India immediately after its colonial rule? Or South Korea after the war?

Its incredible how people conveniently forget how long transition periods are for societies that were previous non-democratic to a democratic one. Ten to fifteen years from now it will be a very different picture. Migrating to a democratic capatalistic economy is an incredible thing. GDP comparision between North and South Korea below:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/default/files/image...

It was rough for the South Koreans until the 1970s then its been all gravy. They went from war ravage rural wasteland to the most envious economy in about 20 years.

There is no population on earth that has been grateful for "democracy bombs" to have been dropped on them.

Will it be different in 20 years? Or even 50? Right now these countries are warzones, and the stronger parties seem to be those more willing to pick up weapons and slaughter people.

Egypt is the best example.

Go read Obama's Cairo speech, do impassioned, if only he believed in his own words.

No, instead we watched a people overthrow a corrupt regime, establish a democracy, and then continued to fund the mitary junta and ignore the country as it becamenobce more a dictatorship which just recently sentenced its former president to death.

Egypt, neighbor to Israel, and the largest secular middle Eastern country by population is too important to the supposed US political interest to allow democracy, especially if that democracy doesn't agree with our policies. It is entirely morally bankrupt, anyone who defends such policy is a warmonger.

>The middle east is migrating to democracy and has the least amount of dictators in charge in my lifetime, thanks to US foreign policy.

US/Western policy in the region can hardly be described as pro-democracy. We've been propping up dictators and overthrowing democratically elected regimes from Iran in 1953 to Egypt in 2013.

Are you aware of the extensive US driven sanctions against Russia? We pressured the French to reneg on a hardware contracts with Russia, why would they not return the favor?

If Putin didn't like that, he was more than welcome to end the Crimean occupation and stop shooting children in eastern Ukraine. Again, Putin made space political.

Perhaps he should foster a Mexican coup, you know if the US doesn't like it they shouldn't of some the same in Ukraine.

Get off your myopic high horse, both the US and Russia are imperial empires bathed in blood.

Comparing the US's relationship to Mexico with Putin's relationship to Ukraine is idiotic. Sadly, false equivalence is the typical Russiophile's last defense.

It's all a part of the playbook, and has been for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

No its not. Regional power and influence is an important concept for sovereign countries. The US is more interested in insuring its neighbors are well behaved than if a country across the Atlantic likes it.

The same is true for Russia, if Russian-Canadian relations are tense that's not as nearly important as whether its neighbor Ukraine is bombing civilians on its border.

America is not exceptional, your argument requires we treat America and Russia with different moral thresholds, that's insane.

>America is not exceptional,

You're on an American site, on the American made internet, using American root DNS, using American made TCP/IP, using an American OS, writing in American English, and on a site about American entrepreneurship in the American silicon valley/tech industry discussing America's space program, which is the envy of the world.

There's a reason we're not all talking on some Chinese or Russian site.

I'm also willing to bet we're both Americans.

How nationalistic do you have to be to believe there aren't Russian or Chinese tech forums?

America had an amazing run 1950-2000, comparable or even superior to the miraculous breakthroughs which happened in Germany from 1900-1945, that didn't make Germany above reproach, in fact it confused the moral with the technical, which you are doing right now.

Fascist.

My OS isn't American, and my English certainly isn't American.

I think he's comparing US's relationship with Ukraine to a hypothetical Russia-Mexico one. I'm not going to be as bold and say "US fostered the Ukranian coup", but I am certain they were very happy about it.

The deposed former president of Ukraine, who happened to be close to Russia, had been democratically elected - his removal most certainly wasn't democratic by any stretch of the imagination. You can tell infer the US's political attitudes if you parse the language of US media / politicians at the time. If they are "protesters" rather than "rioters" or "insurrectionists" - they are friends. I perfectly understand that it furthers US interest to pull out Ukraine from Russia's sphere of influence.

Just my $0.02, as an outsider.

So really this is a more of necessity not to encourage competition.

They need a replacement for the Russian rocket engines and SpaceX is the only good alternative.

Competition is about alternatives - the Air Force could have just trusted the Lockheed-Boeing venture to do it. F-35 comes to mind and not in a good way.

I'm not seeing the connection to the F-35. I guess you know there was a competition for the right to build the JSF. Both aircraft met all the requirements for the competition. So can you please clarify?

The F-35 continuously overruns budgets and gets more and more money poured into it. I think this is the what is being referred to.

It has a history of overrunning budgets, yes, but the per-aircraft cost is declining and should continue to decline. I thought parent might have been referring to budget issues but I'm not really grasping how that's relevant.

The per-aircraft cost is still 3x or more that of the F/A-18, and the costs of operating it are also dramatically higher. http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/gao-draft-slams-f-35-on-u...

http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-18-Super-Hornet.html F-18E/F: $65.3 million (flyaway cost) or $80.7 million incl. support costs. You'll see a number of places quoting slightly different per unit costs for an F-18E/F, but they cluster around that figure. The cost of an F-35 in the latest LRIP lot (8) was as follows:

http://www.janes.com/article/46129/pentagon-finalises-f-35-l... "The US buy is for 19 F-35A conventional take-off and landing aircraft at USD94.8 million apiece; 6 F-35B short take-off and landing aircraft for USD102 million each."

That does not include an F-135 engine for each jet, which is anywhere from $10 to $15 million depending on the variant.

So while the F-35 is more expensive than the F-18, I do not believe the figures bear your "3x or more" assertion.

Also it's difficult to compare the operating costs of a fully mature aircraft like the F-18 with the F-35, which is still being tested and developed. I don't think that is an apples/apples comparison.

Disclaimer: all opinions my own, not those of my employer, etc.

Sorry, I was going off F/A-18D unit costs from Wikipedia rather than the Super Hornet. Still, ~2x the unit cost plus a 79% increase in support costs is nothing to sneeze at.

Well keep in mind that we are still in a low production rate situation. Production will ramp up greatly in the next few years, driving costs down further.

I'm pretty sure those costs are estimates based on a high production rate.

The costs I gave are the costs as contracted for LRIP lot 8, which consists of 43 aircraft. There are two more LRIP batches after LRIP 8, and then full rate production begins.

While I think the JSF is quite the boondoggle, this is not necessariy a fair comparison. We should expect the F-35 to cost quite a bit more in both upfront and operating costs; it is, after all, much more capable.

There seem to be a wide variety of concerns on the capability front.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...

I think somewhere else on HN today there was mention of the famous discussion between Kissinger and Ellsberg about how the world seems different when you have access to information that most people don't.

I think most people that work on the F-35 feel that way.

I don't get your meaning here. Do those people feel like the typical high-clearance honcho that Ellsberg described, or like Ellsberg himself with the wisdom of years?

I can only speak for myself. I haven't had the super high clearances that Ellsberg talks about, but I do understand the feeling because of the work I do. I am paranoid about winding up like the "wisdom of years" version of Ellsberg though.

If one can assume that you have classified knowledge of the F-35 program, and one has seen the analyst's "can't turn, can't climb, can't run" statement, the "trust us we know stuff you don't" stuff rings really false, in today's reduced-trust context. If in fact that's what you're trying to say, because I find this statement to be if anything more impenetrable than the first.

The "can't turn, can't climb, can't run" stuff -- well, sure, compared to a clean F-16, or an F-22, or any number of other platforms, the F-35 has less maneuverability. This pilot says it better than I can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCZmPUQZGvw

To paraphrase him: is the F-35 the world's best pure dogfighter? No. Is it the best pure CAS aircraft? No. For everything else, how does it compare? It's better.

This video is also worth checking out.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtZNBkKdO5U

Sorry for sounding impenetrable.

I believe at first, SpaceX was squeezed out. SpaceX sued the government as choosing a monopoly. The government then went back on that to allow SpaceX to play.

There has been a lot of commentary in the news as to why SpaceX may not have been chosen. They don't have the track record that the current "monopoly" has. Even though SpaceX can deliver cheaper, these loads aren't nearly as price sensitive as commercial loads. SpaceX hasn't yet shown they can deal with increased load of launches.

I assume this is for the Falcon 9 especially; will they need to certify the Falcon Heavy as well, and will it take as long as the F9 certification?

Could be wrong, but I thought it was approving SpaceX as a company- evaluating their methods and processes.

Is anyone else becoming a touch bothered by the large number of BBC news articles that are being submitted to Hacker News? I love the BBC and BBC News is - for the most part - very good. However, the articles on their website are often lacking in detail and when talking about technology, they are often wrong or show a misunderstanding on the behalf of the reporter. The BBC News definitely has a place - I'm just not sure that it's on Hacker News.

I don't mind one or two articles - and I don't mind articles from mainstream news publications - but there are a lot of articles being published from the BBC. Here's the past 24 hours:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc&sort=byPopularity&prefix=f...

All of that said, they keep getting upvotes - so enough people clearly want them on Hacker News.

Well go and submit something better.

Well, in this case, I think the news are relevant, and you're unlikely to get anything much better (unlike, say, in the announcement of a new scientific discovery).

That said, here's the original report from the Air Force: http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/5897...

Right, submitting them isn't so much an issue because they can get flagged or just not up-voted. I don't often view the "new" articles list anymore. Most often, I feel like I'm wasting my time unless I want to help by up-voting the relatively good articles.

Not necessarily statistically significant, but of the past 1000 articles submitted:

      8 (bbc.co.uk)
      9 (techcrunch.com)
     10 (arstechnica.com)
     14 (nytimes.com)
     14 (theguardian.com)
     16 (washingtonpost.com)
     16 (youtube.com)
     18 (wsj.com)
     32 (medium.com)
     46 (github.com)

Of the past 10,000:

     40 (kickstarter.com)
     40 (reddit.com)
     40 (theatlantic.com)
     44 (forbes.com)
     46 (bloomberg.com)
     46 (securityaffairs.co)
     47 (theverge.com)
     56 (bbc.co.uk)
     62 (washingtonpost.com)
     68 (arstechnica.com)
     69 (bbc.com)
     70 (businessinsider.com)
     74 (wired.com)
     82 (wikipedia.org)
    102 (wsj.com)
    105 (theguardian.com)
    157 (nytimes.com)
    159 (techcrunch.com)
    163 (youtube.com)
    339 (medium.com)
    485 (github.com)

In case you're wondering, I have a file of all submissions listing ID, userid, URL, and title. Then I did this:

    $ tail -n 10000 records   \
        | gawk '{print $NF}'  \
        | sort                \
        | uniq -c             \
        | sort -n             \
        | grep -n .           \
        | tac                 \
        | head -21

Could we get some kind of simple mean/variance analysis on "upvotes" by site.

Clearly the BBC isn't being spammed to generate upvotes

Wow, thanks Colin - really cool information. Where do you get the contents of 'records' from? Do you have a script that crawls occasionally?

If we merge bbc.com and bbc.co.uk, we end up with 125 / 10,000. I suppose that isn't that many compared to others, but it's still higher than I think it should be. ArsTechnica (which often runs the same articles, such as this SpaceX one) only has 68 / 10,000 and the articles are written with a lot more technical detail.

Nevertheless, I'm not really sure what can be done about it. We can't ban the BBC from HN, as with BuzzFeed, because that's over the top - there's some good content. A nice solution might be to remind people, on the submission page, that it's better to go to the source - or at least a good, technical write-up - rather than a news post that is written for the general public.

  > Where do you get the contents of 'records' from?

I download the "newest" and "news" pages every 15 minutes or so, then collate the data.

  > If we merge bbc.com and bbc.co.uk, we
  > end up with 125 / 10,000.  I suppose
  > that isn't that many compared to others,

It's less than some, but not as many as, say, nytimes.com or techcrunch.com. But it's a major news site, so I'm not surprised people read it and go "Oh, that's interesting, I'll click the HN bookmarklet and submit it."

  > ... still higher than I think it should be.

What do you think it "should be?"

  > A nice solution might be to remind people,
  > ... that it's better to go to the source ...

I personally find it useful to read a non-technical overview, and then if interested, go and find the technical version. Often the article with technical details borders on unreadable.

What exactly are the national security implications of using Russian engines? That it will combine and burn fuel and oxidizer like a stinking, dirty commie?

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-embassy-c...

It's not wise to trust Russian-built anything, especially with diplomatic relations in their current state. Just like how foreign intelligence services shouldn't trust American-built computers.

What could go wrong? I'm not sure. But why make your attack surface larger than it has to be?

Or Russia could abruptly decide not to sell us any more. Relying on a foreign government to keep our military functioning is not ideal and our relations with Russia, while generally friendly, are somewhat strained the last few years.

The ban is for a specific engine, the RD-180. It's a response to the action Russia took in Crimea, so it's political and they're not hiding that fact. It's related to the national security the same way that waving the flag is. Not at all. Or completely. Depending on your viewpoint.

It's a question of supply reliability. You don't want to depend on a system which may or may not be available depending on things beyond your control. That's true of any supplier, foreign or domestic.

Welcome to the military/industrial complex. Something you can be really proud of!

I would've preferred if SpaceX didn't become a Defense contract. Now I'm worried about military/NSA influence (in order to get these contracts) spilling over into Elon Musk's satellite Internet business.

Or battery powered tanks and troop carriers.

I see it more as using some of that outrageous budget on space tech advances, relevant (old) image: http://f.cl.ly/items/1x2y2m1Q421H0B0g0Y1P/Screen%20Shot%2020...

This seriously compromises the integrity of SpaceX.

Even if they were to only support "national security" there is absolutely zero chance they can know whether they are actually supporting national security or global surveillance and oppression of human rights.

What people don't realize is that we, SpaceX and Musk, are really no different whatsoever than any of the companies that have been chided for "working with the Nazis" or "supplying the Nazis". The US Government and military are nothing remotely even close to "a force for good". A force for good does not support totalitarian dictators, overthrow governments, spy and surveil their "friends", assassinate scientists, support racist regimes, invade and collapse societies leading to the formation of ISIS, use government powers to support corporate private interests, shield, hide, and protect tax evaders, etc. The dirty laundry list is looooong.

There's no comparison. The US is not trying to conquer the world and the US is not committing genocide.

Yes, the US government does lots of bad things. It also does lots of good things. It's a vast collection of sometimes loosely affiliated organizations with lots of competing interests and there's no reason to expect consistency. But there's no sensible comparison to the Nazis.

How many deaths constitute a genocide because hundreds of thousands of middle eastern civilians have been killed during our 14 year war on Islam.

EDIT: down votes? Can't argue the truth so better to bury it.

"Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group." From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

There's no systematic destruction of any such group that I'm aware of. I won't deny that lots of middle-eastern civilians have been killed, but it's not any systematic attempt to eliminate them all, which means it's not genocide. (Especially since a large proportion of those deaths are caused by internal fighting which, while arguably the US's fault for going in without a plan for how to deal with existing tensions, is not what genocide looks like, at all.)

Much of the middle East is chaos and death. Millions have fled their homes, museums and other priceless artifacts are destroyed or gone missing.

An entire generation is coming to age knowing only war. Sounds like systematic destruction of a significant racial, religious, and national group to me.

Iraq as a country is dust, so too Libya, Syria is also soon to follow. Sounds like genocide by your definition.

Genocide is not "an entire generation is coming to age knowing only war." It's more like "an entire generation is murdered."

These disruptions do not threaten the continued existence of the Arab people or the Muslim faith. They do not threaten the continued existence of the shared culture. And they are not systematic i.e. done deliberately as part of a methodical plan to wipe out these groups.

And just to be clear, because I know people love to misinterpret this stuff whenever it's at all possible: the above is not in any way a defense of US actions in the middle east, but merely an argument that these actions fall into the broad category of "not genocide."

Your definition includes nationality. Libya, Iraq, and Syria are essentially gone.

I was never claiming the US has committed genocide, I simply asked how many deaths do you need to define one. WWII killed 6 million Jews, were only about an order of magnitude away and our current war has now gone on longer with no end in sight.

EDIT: I'm using _your_ definition dude, I don't think it is genocide, yet, but by your definition it certainly is.

Your question is based on false premises because genocide isn't about raw numbers. It's based on a number of other things which don't fit the situation in the middle east.

How can you say "I was never claiming the US has committed genocide" while simultaneously, just one sentence before, saying that these countries should qualify?

Just because you cannot comprehend the nature of America's conquest of the world does not mean it is not so. The specific characteristics of something does not determine the nature. What, does world conquest only happen when it comes with characteristics you have been trained to understand like sailing in wooden boats that fly the union jack or the spanish crown and killing many millions upon millions of people around the globe, or does it only come in tanks with red flags that have a black swastika in the center?

You should try peering beyond what you have been told to know. Because as NSA whistle-blowers have stated the expressed goal of the NSA is total global surveillance and population control dominance. It seems like the only and singular example of real global domination that humanity has ever even come close to. Do we really have to wait for a robot army to exterminate the masses of humans that serve no purpose once AI and robotics takes hold before you will start understanding the dire circumstances you are facing at far too late of a point in time?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

assassinate scientists?

Iranian scientists at the very least, quite possibly others for which there is less evidence. Whether you agree with what those scientists may of may not be doing, they were assassinated, at the very least with our government's approval.

Somewhat ironic that Elon Musk's SpaceX whose ultimate goal is to make life multi-planetary, is now collaborating with agents that may as well be responsible for triggering a Kessler syndrome. Not to mention the fact their business very much implies the termination of human life -- if for the greater good that is left for discussion on a case by case basis.

"their business very much implies the termination of human life" .. you are assuming a perfect world where no other entity wants to harm human life. Also, GPS satellites were created for the military. They are fundamental for our daily lives around the world now.

Don't forget how much better the GPS could have been without the military putting the breaks on civilian uses and competitors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28satellite_navigation...

A free service to the world, paid for by American tax payers out of the military budget. Kind of hard to complain.

I can complain because it prevented (or significantly delayed) much better services through some arm twisting and corruption paid for by American tax payers out of the military budget.

Where is the corruption? Galileo (Euro planned system) was going to use the same frequency as GPS. So, during conflict areas the US could not jam Galileo without also affecting GPS. So the US military probably made plans on destroying satellites if it was determined that the enemy was using Galileo.

The Euro group decided instead to use another frequency than the GPS frequency. Now....

"Galileo will start offering first services from 2015.[11] Full completion of the 30-satellite Galileo system (24 operational and 6 active spares) is expected by 2020."

I fail to see any corruption.

A different frequency means that all the existing GPS hardware won't work with the new network.

> I fail to see any corruption.

http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/221020...

http://www.itworld.com/article/2792924/data-center/secret-u-...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/08/world.internationa...

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1145904

Yes, if you want to use a new network operator you would need to purchase new hardware for it. That happens all the time everywhere. I don't see the big problem.

All of those links do not point to any corruption. Budget overruns that are usual with large govt. contracts. And other links with hard negotiations with US officials over the already resolved issue with Galileo wanting to use the same frequency. They have already moved on to use another frequency.

> All of those links do not point to any corruption.

What, you think the CEO of a company benefiting from a project would go badmouth it to the project's enemies without any incentive? The guy was sacked the minute that embassy cable came out: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-12212525

Why do you think that the disapproval of the US Deputy Secretary of Defense is enough to almost kill a EU project? Those sons of bitches had our sons of bitches by their short and curlies. And it's not for any military alliance reason, because the US doesn't have allies - only enemies it kind of tolerates.

Read those links, they paint a pretty clear picture.

badmouth? Seems like he was saying what he truly felt without being biased because his company benefits. Actually being truthful against his own company's interests. I read all the links.

> quoted the OHB-System chief as saying, "I think Galileo is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests", and, in particular, French military interests. Berry Smutny denied making the comments attributed to him in the US cable. Mr Smutny was further reported to say that Galileo was "doomed for failure" or would "have to undergo drastic scalebacks for survival".

Saying the government project won't be on budget and not efficient. Over budget and needing scale backs to be affordable is par for course for most government contracts. These links are benign nothing unusual, nothing special.

Selective Availability stopped in 2000. What alternative system would have been ready to go by then that was prevented from being ready by the actions of the US military? What entity would have paid for creating GPS if not the US military?

They only stopped introducing errors in the signal after the threat of a competing system became real. The interests of US military are simply not aligned with those of civilians around the world. The sooner we get rid of our dependency on their technology, the better.

See what happened to the Internet. Because we kept relying on it, we're now all living in East Germany under the watchful eye of a new and improved STASI.

Right, but the claim was that without the involvement of the US military, we'd have been better off. Which then means that either somebody else would have paid for a better GPS system, or that some other system would have been put up and operational by 2000. So, like I asked: which alternative system would have been ready by 2000 if not for the US military, or what other entity would have paid for GPS if not the US military?

Pecunia non olet.

>Kessler syndrome

The largest and most optional cloud of space junk was a propagandist military display by the Chinese Communist Party in 2007 to show the world where their missile tech is going.

http://www.space.com/3415-china-anti-satellite-test-worrisom...

>The satellite's destruction is now being viewed as the most prolific and severe fragmentation in the course of five decades of space operations.

SpaceX works for the CCP now? Oh, right, mindless anti-US hyperbole that is upvote bait for anti-US HN'ers.

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