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Over at Ars Technica is a story, SpaceX proves it's not afraid to fail by releasing a landing blooper reel:
SpaceX is famously not afraid to fail. "There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA," company founder Elon Musk has said in the past. "Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."
In recent years, others in the aerospace industry have come to see the sense of this ethos, as SpaceX has tinkered with its Falcon 9 rocket to make it a mostly reusable booster, finally achieving reuse of the rocket's first stage earlier this year. To go further in space, at a lower cost, new things must be tried.
Even Gene Kranz, who famously said that failure was not an option as a NASA flight director during the Apollo lunar missions, has recently enthused about SpaceX, saying, "Space involves risk, and I think that's the one thing about Elon Musk and all the various space entrepreneurs: they're willing to risk their future in order to accomplish the objective that they have decided on. I think we as a nation have to learn that, as an important part of this, to step forward and accept risk."
To that end, SpaceX has put its failure on display in a new video showing the company's (often explosive) attempts to first return the Falcon 9 first stage to the ocean, then to an ocean-based drone ship, and more. Along they way the engineers have clearly learned a lot about rockets, propellants, and the pitfalls of trying to return a very large rocket from space.
Note: the apocryphal saying was not from the actual Apollo 13 mission. It was a line from the movie based on the mission. See this section on the Wikipedia entry for Gene Kranz.
With that out of the way, I find it absolutely amazing that just a few short years ago, the concept of a rocket that could land upright was science fiction. Now, it happens so routinely for SpaceX that they feel comfortable releasing a "blooper reel"!
(I'm curious, though, how many millions of dollars does that video show going up in flames?)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:21PM (2 children)
I would prefer MY money to stay in MY pocket.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)
Sorry but then you'll have to recreate pretty much all modern technology. Rugged individualism requires extreme personal ability. You will also need to stockpile valuable goods since you are no longer allowed to use government issued currency.
Good luck!
Oh wait, you're a total hypocrite I forgot. You will enjoy all the benefits of society without contributing, the ol' "fuck you I got mine" attitude. Please compete in next year's Darwin Awards.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:40AM
Or we could collaborate and trade and not have to do all that work. Rugged individualism is not about doing everything yourself. It's about doing everything voluntarily. Want a space program? Get a few thousand or few million of your favorite rugged individuals and hammer one out. Just don't have an expectation that someone who doesn't buy in is going to contribute in any way.
A typical national program just collects the funding from the state with the occasional rubber stamp by the electorate and does whatever benefits the bureaucrats, politicians, or inevitable rent seekers.
I think the real problem is that a lot of humans just aren't psychologically capable of the necessary levels of initiative and competence required for this sort of individualistic society. Add in a high level of gullibility and you have the makings of a typical democracy failure mode.