I used to think he was great. Now i think hes a tool. But i think we need him.
A necessary tool if you will.
I want to like him though.
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Same here. He may be a horrible person in many ways, but he is quite inspiring to me for some reason. I mean: Of all the things he could do with all that money he chose this.
We really need crazy jerks like him to do this. Nobody else could.
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Please. Thatās not the kind of language we use here, man.
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Pretty good breakdown, He touches on the differences in the programs and the challenges each face.
Artemis almost feels like a spring cleaning, Hey whatās all this stuff laying around? I donāt know but we cant get rid of it. Hmmm, lets slap it together and send it to the moon.
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And charge Uncle Sam a billion (or four) per flight for it.
It is still quite a cool rocket.
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Donāt be surprised when a rocket fails. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised.
Be AMAZED when they work. Thereās a reason the phrase āit aināt rocket scienceā came into vogue. It is mega tough. The biggest disservice you can do to any space program, national or private, is take it for granted. The sheer effort and sacrifices made by so many to make them work is noble and praiseworthy.
That said, it shouldnāt cost this much. Artemis was supposed to be ready faster and cheaper because it was reusing previous stuff and proven the polar opposite because it was built around what they had instead of letting the requirements drive the design.
Elon Musk is just a guy, and heās done plenty wrong that should not be emulated or praised, but he had the intelligence to figure out how to do space cheaper and more reliably and deserves kudos for it.
Why donāt NASA and ULA and Boeing do it the same way? Politics and money. Itās not in their political or financial interests to do it the SpaceX way. Doing it āthe way itās always been doneā is. They will only change when they are forced to change. Itās not malicious, itās self-interest.
If 20 years from now another revolution in propulsion comes along that threatens SpaceXās finances, I would not at all be surprised to see them clinging to the way they are doing things now while some other new company upstages them.
NASA was radical and ground-breaking until it wasnāt. SpaceX is now radical and ground-breakingā¦until it isnāt.
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I guess the difference is that Elon expects to blow a few rockets upā¦ to him, that is what it takes to move forwardā¦and he does move forward. With NASA, every explosion is perceived as tax payers money literally going up in smoke due to failure and with nothing to show for it.
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NASAās big orange boondoggle just went up, everything nominal.
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That is a much cooler name!
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When I read big and orange I was starting to cringe, but then I realized that you were talking about the rocket. 
Yeah, seems that it worked fine so far.
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As off 0344 EST Orion completed it TLI burn and is on its way to the Moon.
Still they had to send a crew out to tighten a leaky fittingā¦
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I have been looking forward to this very much, but I have to admit it was pretty underwhelming. I am aware of the significance of the launch, but it being at night there was not a whole lot to see. I couldnāt help it to feel slighty disappointed.
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Yeah, could have been better. At least the thing flew. And flew right.
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ā¦
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Oooooh i get youāre talking aboutā¦
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Being dark as it was I couldnāt see if there was more smoke like the shuttles had, but it was definitely many times brighter than the SpaceX Heavy.
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