alt Hacker News“If this trend continues” about Falcon 1. About Falcon 9 landings, about Falcon 9 reuse, about starlink capacity, about starship launching at all, about the heat shield, about the catch, about the towers, about drone ship landings…….
That has been the narrative about every single step spacex has ever taken.
And you know what the trend is?
They are kicking fucking ass. Annihilating old space and the writing the game one incremental win at a time.
Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
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Well, I have some bad news. Starship isn't following the Falcon 9 development philosophy.
Starship is literally a boondoggle project by a space company that was the new kid on the block and now has the same hubris as the old kids on the block.
Nothing about the Starship development process is remotely close or has any similarity to Falcon 9.
Starship SpaceX is "old space".
The Falcon 9 philosophy was as follows: Make it work, then push the envelope and learn from the failures.
The Starship philosophy: Let's set ourselves ambitious goals that push the envelope from the start. Partial success is a failure. The cathedral must be finished before we can launch the first customer payload.
Hint: SpaceX doesn't want to cannibalize their cash cow Falcon 9. Typical old company thinking.
Past wins are great, and I expect Starship to succeed. I’m sure block 4 will carry well over 100t.
Now the actual question: why is block 3 flying half loaded? You got a technical reason, or just vibes?