This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
SpaceX just caught the booster of the Starship rocket, launching a new age of man made space exploration.
Despite this getting relatively little news in the mainstream media, I am convinced this development marks the beginning of an entire paradigm of space. The cost of kg to orbit should now go down about an order of magnitude within the next decade or two.
This win has massive implications for the culture war, especially given that Elon Musk has recently flipped sides to support the right. Degrowth and environmental arguments will not be able to hold against the sheer awesomeness and vibrancy of space travel, I believe.
We'll have to see if the FAA or other government agencies move to block Elon from continuing this work. If Kamala gets elected, I worry her administration will attack him and his companies even more aggressively. This successful launch, more than anything else in this election cycle, is making me consider vote for Trump.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my assessment?
NOTE: I'm going to repost this tomorrow. If I forget, somebody pls steal it and repost for me.
It's hard to say. I was skeptical that falcon rockets would work, but they did, and now Space-X is totally dominating the market for unmanned satellites. Starship could potentially increase that, but how far can it go? At a certain point, just don't see the use case in being able to lift vast chunks of mass into orbit with current technology. Maybe increase the growth of Starlink, but they're already doing that.
I'm deeply skeptical that they'll ever go to mars, at least not for more than just sending a few rovers. I'm... concerned that the real use case for this is military, particularly something like the rods from god which are dangerously close to being a tactical nuke.
You don't need to be able to catch boosters, or anything reusable at all, to do rods from god. As for the yield, it appears the concept is an 11,000 kg rod hitting at 10x the speed of sound, which releases about 31 tons TNT, considerably smaller than a typical tac nuke at a few kilotons. No radiation either. It's about 5 times more powerful than the MOAB daisy-cutter, but it's ground-penetrating rather than an airburst, so different uses.
(Reusability doesn't bring down cost much for "rods from god" because the reason they're expensive is that the payload is heavy, not because you're wasting a rocket every time you launch them)
You need to think about this more deeply, not just reduce it to a single number like a highschool physics problem.
Why are small tactical nukes banned by treaty, while large strategic nukes are allowed? Why is a 1kT nuke more dangerous than a megaton? Because the smaller ones would get used. At least with the larger ones, we have a chance at achieving a balance of terror and never using them. But it's a dangerous, slippery slope to start messing around with the bottom edge of that scale. And like you mentioned "ground-penetrating rather than an airburst" so it's a lot more dangerous than a nuke of the same yield would be.
Think about this from the Russian perspective.
"Marshall, we have a big problem."
"What is it, comrade?"
"Radar shows a huge incoming wave of American missiles coming from outer space! They'll arrive in 10 minutes!"
"What!? Are they nuking us?"
"There's no way to tell! It looks like ICBMs! But they Americans say it's just a conventional weapon."
"Where are they headed?"
"It appears to be targeting all of our underground missile silos."
"Fuck. That's a first strike. ... How long do we have remaining?"
"Five minutes."
"fuck fuck fuck. um. launch."
Tactical nukes are not banned by treaty.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There is plenty of use for space with current technology. A moon base is already in the works for NASA.
The more infrastructure we get in space, the cheaper it gets. The economics are fully viable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Reminder that the only reason they are going after Elon is “mean tweets”
That’s it. That’s the whole crime they’re upset about
They're upset at Elon because they think he doesn't know his place. Aerospace and Car Manufacturing are two big powerful industries in the US. Don't forget about the recent Boeing whistleblower "suicides" where the FBI just shrugged.
He's embarrassed a lot of powerful people and they are trying to teach him to be properly deferential to his betters.
More options
Context Copy link
I mean, that's technically true, but somewhat misleading; it's less that he's making "mean tweets" himself and more that he abolished Twitter's censorship bureau to allow other people to make "mean tweets".
That’s the same thing in my eyes
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Equivocating autocratic control over one of the most potent mass-media apparatuses ever creating with "mean tweets" is disingenuous and you know it. I won't pretend leftists care for any high-minded free-speech related reasons, but frankly it's perfectly reasonable to fear and despite anyone with the kind of power elon musk has regardless of their ideology.
Sure, then you treat people you fear and despise with respect, impartiality, and professionalism when you are representing the government. I'm not judging the officials for thoughtcrime here.
What actual evidence do you have of a government official doing otherwise to elon musk? What actual evidence do you have that they did so because of "mean tweets." What actual evidence do you have that their behavior is either common to the point of ubiquity or present at the highest levels of government? (I don't care what some random state senator or city councilmember said unless there are a lot of likeminded people saying the same thing.)
And-- why do you think elon musk is somehow especially and irrationally persecuted?
Commissioner Brendan Carr of the FCC provided a good writeup here (p14 of the "Order on Review", or the "Carr Statement") of why he believes that his committee's decision was driven by anti-Musk sentiment. (I also recommend reading the Simington statement: "...the majority today lays bare just how thoroughly and lawlessly arbitrary [this decision] was.").
Key quotes:
...
...
Here is a story of the White House denouncing him after he "endorsed a post on X".
I don't think either of those things. It's bog-standard waging the culture war, which is instrumentally rational for the perpetrators.
I think it's bad.
Thank you for these informative and interesting links. I'd wager that the starlink decision specifically has more to do with elon musk's behavior re: threatening to cut service to ukraine (and other related ukranian-russian war shenanigans) but will otherwise concede the point.
I found a much clearer example this morning: California officials cite Elon Musk’s politics in rejecting SpaceX launches (via here):
I'm not saying personal antipathy didn't play a role, but that same news article provides a list of other arguments. "Mean tweets" is just the attention-grabbing headline-- the meat of the dispute is a bog-standard environmental/bureaucratic power struggle.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No one hated Jack Dorsey or Zuckerberg the same way they hate Elon. No one’s sued him or called for his arrest. Sorry, no, it’s the fact the tweets are too “mean” now. Our elites simply cannot abide it.
This is an uncharitable strawman. Actually, it's two uncharitable strawmen. First, of the people who hate Elon musk, you're defining the Elites as only tthe people who hate him because of stuff he's done on twitter. Secondly, you're asserting that they are most motivated by-- what-- a purely emotional reaction to the content he propagates? I'm honestly having trouble not strawmanning your argument because you refuse to clearly state what you think these people are complaining about and why it's bad. You're using the negative connotations of "scare quotes" to avoid actually having to state your claim.
And anyways-- people absolutely hated and continue to hate Zuckerberg. And he's definitely been the subject of a lot of lawsuits. The difference in the quantity of hate is merely proportional to,
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
So it's not mean tweets, it's just owning Twitter/X at all?
Basically. Hating powerful people that promote an ideology you don't like is common (and rational) cross-culturally. See also: republicans hating the soros brothers, reddit right-wingers hating Ellen Pao, everyone hating on Zuckerburg at various points for various reasons, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Despite not really being a fan, Elon's relationship with the government (and perhaps more of his life generally) seems to me oddly similar to what I know of late-in-life Howard Hughes. He came across to the public as the eccentric-turned-crazy with riches from early business ventures, but my understanding is that the craziness became part of the public image, which made the manganese nodule mining cover story for Project Azorian all the more effective. I could imagine some of Elon's projects being cover stories (probably not recovering sunken Soviet submarines, though) or generally in the direction of creating things the government wants (high-bandwidth, difficult to deny satellite networking?) without tying themselves to it up front.
But it isn't a perfect comparison: Elon isn't much of a recluse. I'd be curious if anyone old enough to recall Hughes being in the news has thoughts on the comparison.
The US has been building up it's space warfare capabilities significantly for decades, though most of it is heavily classified. There's an entire branch of the US military devoted to space warfare. SpaceX takes military contracts for satellite launches and who knows what else; they effectively are the non-missile orbital launch capacity of the US government.
SpaceX is effectively the non-missile orbital launch capacity of most governments in the world, with something like 85% of all upmass movement in 2023. It's not that the Americans bought all that mass lift, as much as it is that other countries spend buy the space for their needs rather than very expensive rocket programs themselves.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If they manage to grapple the booster consistently, then we can talk about “inaugurating a new era of space”. But one lucky catch does not an industry renaissance create. And tbh I’m not even convinced that catching the booster is actually that reusable. Sure, it LOOKS more reusable than a smouldering crater on the landing pad or a rusting wreck on the seabed, but is it really? Given how anal the FAA is about testing each sprocket and screw a trillion times, I’m dubious as to whether the inevitable damage caused by just the Working As Designed rocketry stuff of having 15 tonnes of liquid methane lit on fire inside it will allow (physically or legally) a booster to consistently fly for a second time.
I really want my consumer moon vacations, but I’ve been burned so many times before by spess hype that I’m kind of a doomer at this point.
SpaceX already routinely lands and relaunches rockets. The difference is that this one is much larger. SpaceX has a ton of experience with this.
I think it's wrong to call that a "lucky" catch, but at the same time - so where is the new era of space exploration? Wasn't Falcon 9 already supposed be rapidly reusable? You're not worried that they haven't bothered putting even dummy cargo on the upper stage? Or the fact that they were supposed to be half way to the moon by now?
How much did it cost to put 1 ton of cargo in orbit in 2005 and how much does it cost now?
I don't know how to compare these, when the books for one are public, and for the other are not.
And if it's so much cheaper, where is the new era of space exploration? Weren't we supposed to be well on our way back to the Moon by now? Do you think we'll get there any time soon?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-launched-into-outer-space
It seems you are perhaps some combination of uninformed and unreasonably impatient.
Artemis 3 is due to put people back on the moon
next yearscratch that, it's a shit show, next couple years.I appreciated the laugh, thank you.
Maybe, but I'm not the one that set the deadlines. You said yourself, we were scheduled for next year to go to the moon, and I won't even mention Elon's private Mars ambitions.
Admittedly that's a tough number for me to debate. I will notice that this is the number of launches, and not their cost, but I am aware of the implication that such a number would not be sustainable if the costs weren't appropriately low. That said, I would one day like to see an independently audited cost breakdown of these launches, because I do actually think what we're seeing is unsustainable, at least as far as the public-facing part of the company goes. For all I know SpaceX is a front for launching Black-Ops satellites without raising too much suspicion, and is appropriately awash with money.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You are seeing what the early part of an era of exploration or expansion looks like.
Commercially-driven exploration starts by trying to focus on the most profitable quickest returns, which are often closer, to further expand the new technology. When the Europeans began to build ships capable of traversing the world, they did not, in fact, immediately use most of those ships to traverse the world- they used them primarily for more profitable ventures closer to home. However, it was the capacity to go further which enabled the outlier minority to do the things that got famous.
Technological era innovations have similar examples. Yes, the telegraph enabled long-distance communications... but most investments were within or between cities already relatively close together. Yes, electrification has massive implications for making rural regions more efficient and profitable, but most electrical wiring started and focused in the cities. Yes, the American automobile revolutionized how people viewed distance and the ability to move across state and even continental scale, but things like the Interstate System trailed far behind. It didn't make the technologies less revolutionary.
What is currently going on with SpaceX and the reusable rocket technologies is that it is still scaling to meet the latent demand for low-earth investments that were previously priced out of application. There is still considerable profit, and market share, to be made, and currently SpaceX is about the only one making it. SpaceX is in turn using those profits to both expand capacity and develop new capabilities. The Falcon series is what prototyped the technologies for the Falcon Heavy, and the Falcon Heavy for the Starship.
Starship, in turn, is the new emerging and still experimental technology combination that- if it can be made to work, which yesterday was a significant step towards- will unlock a significant amount of lift capacity potential for beyond LEO activities.
The lift capacity gate is what limits what you probably think of as exploration, because the ability to lift fuel and resources is what increases range into deeper space. If you want deep-space transit, you want to lift material into space, where it is cheaper / easier / more technologically feasible to package it up and start pushing from a space gathering point than to lift all pieces at once from earth. That means cost-efficiency of lifting stuff, not just the capacity of stuff you can lift.
For example, the Saturn 5 rocket of the Apollo program to the moon had a LEO lift capacity of 118 tons, and about $5.5k per kg. The Starship is expected to have a LEO lift capacity of 100-150 tons, with a forecasted cost of around $1.6k per kg... possibly falling to $0.15kg ($150/kg) over time due to to reusability reduce the cost per flight as you don't have to keep re-making the whole thing.
Not only is Starship offering capacity on par or better than some of the heaviest lift rockets in history, but with a cost profile that is -70%of the Saturn 5 on the near-term side to -98% less expensive per launch over time, while offering more launches because the components can be reused rather than having to be built per launch. If you built 5 saturn-5 rockets a year, you could only have 5 saturn-5 missions a year to move stuff into space. If you build 5 Spaceships a year, you can have 5 + [Sum of all still-mission capable rockets from all previous years] missions a year, which is to say a heck of a lot more missions over time.
More missions means more opportunities to get stuff into space, including eventually deeper range mission preparation material.
To bring this all back to the age of exploration comparison- imagine if Caravels had the characteristic of having to be sunk the first time they landed on any foreign shore. Now imagine what exploration looks like if Caravels can land, restock, and go out again. This is the technological implication difference of SpaceX's reusable rocket technology.
In turn, the first caravels were in the 13th century. Magellan wouldn't circumnavigate the world until the 1500s. The carracks that Columbus used to reach the Americas were developed more than a century prior.
So when you ask-
Then given that we are literally on the 5th test flight ever of a new degree of capability, historically speaking 50 years from now would be very soon, let alone 15 or 5.
That's all fine, but shouldn't we then leave declaring new eras of exploration to historians? With everything you've written, it sounds like something that won't become apparent for quite a while.
There's a few issues here. One is - wasn't Saturn 5 optimized for the flight to the moon? It could deliver 50 tons to the moon in a single shot. Starship might have good (forecasted) performance to LEO, but it simply cannot make it to the moon, and even according to best case scenario projections will need a dozen or so refueling launches to reach the moon.
The second problem I have is the "falling over time do tue reusability", why hasn't this happened with Falcon 9? I consider it's announced costs to be a bit sus in themselves, but even taking them at face value, you don't see them dropping over time.
Finally, the third problem is that it's a forecasted cost. Musk's entire MO is announcing some product promising insane performance, falling way short, but acting like he delivered because you can buy something that looks vaguely like the announced product. Wasn't self-driving supposed to be safer than a human driver 7 years ago? Wasn't the Cybertruck supposed to be nearly indestructible and cost as low as $40K? Wasn't the Roadster supposed to be in production in 2019, and offer some insane range like 600 miles? Wasn't the Semi supposed to beat Diesel trucks in terms of costs, be competitive with rail, and be guaranteed to not break for a million miles? Wasn't the Boring Company supposed to cut tunnel costs to a fraction of what they were? What makes you so sure he'll deliver on Starship any better than he did on any of those?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It is quite obviously way cheaper. The only thing is that there's not too much left to explore in Earth orbit and there's little economic reason to go beyond.
You also shouldn't blame SpaceX for Artemis being completely regarded, it's just good old fashioned pork. Industry has no reason to go to the moon and government has no reason to go there cheaply or effectively.
More options
Context Copy link
We're going to be back to the moon in the next 3 years. I'll bet you on that.
Yay, I love bets! $50?
And just to be clear we're talking "back to the moon on Starship", or at the very least one of SpaceX' rockets, right?
Also: this will either need to be a" donate to charoty " type bet, or we'll need to find a convenient way to send money anonymously.
Sure let's do $50 for SpaceX to the moon in 3 years.
We also have another SpaceX bet running but I forgot lol. Are you keeping track of these?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link