SpaceX Falcon rocket failure...

Giltygear said:

This was the one sending supplies to the space station, right? The clock is ticking, they only have enough supplies to last until October.

Government (non)funding at work.

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TheBigBB said:

Science fiction has made the average person view interstellar space travel as an inevitability. We still haven't mastered just getting the fuck off the ground, though. Even if we had the propulsion, getting out of the solar system is still a mystery with all the cosmic radiation and shit.

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eek said:

SpaceX is a meat grinder company. 80+ hour weeks all the time, so people burn out after 2-3 years. I've worked with a few over the years, and lately with a few ex SpaceX harness techs, who all got laid off as they went with cheaper labor with no experience. Quality matters.

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GutsDozer said:

Long brutal weeks is what it takes to make space flight work. However skilled workers should be compensated fairly. WTF happened to us? we went to the damn moon and now humans haven't left The orbit of earth in almost 40 years. On top of that NASA has no damn funding while military space programs are over inflated. I just really hope in my life time that I get to witness Manned interplanetary space flight instead of just reading history books.

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eek said:

More like long brutal years. I was in that industry for almost 10 years til my recent layoff.

NASA funding actually increased this past year, but I do agree with you that Military space programs are over inflated. Mil space was what I last worked on and honestly it's a waste of time. UAVs make more sense.

As to why we haven't done more in space with NASA. Well... no reason. We only went to the Moon due to the Cold War. Gotta show the Russians who's top dog, but there's no big bad enemy now. That and over the years space folks just got more and more pussy.

The following is what I usually hear from folks in space: "Does it have flight heritage? Has it flown before?" You will not have new ideas come to fruition if that's the response you get. And I get that phrase from the one government sponsored enterprise / agency that oversees Air Force's space programs, when they check on us contractors and double checks our engineering.

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Giltygear said:

Is it safe to say that NASA has been gun shy since the Challenger and Columbia disasters?

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eek said:

More lack of direction. They dont know what to focus on. That and overtime too many people just want to protect their archaic ways of life. The space shuttle should have been shuttered decades ago to usher in the newer stuff. But we are at a point where barely anyone knows how to build anything anymore. A lot of the rockets out there use motors from decommissioned ICBM's.

What spaceX is doing is important, but their management needs some work. Their worker bees are told to march down one direction hard, 80-100 hour weeks. And when done or near completion they are told they were going in the wrong direction and to change gear and start all over again.. When you do that day in day out you burn out folks fast.

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