Creating isn’t inventing, and there’s wasn’t the first to be flown. Man, the SpaceX fans don’t really know the history of the industry they make these claims about.
Comment on Second SpaceX Starship launch ends with explosion. What happens next?
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 11 months agoThey created reusable rockets. Lots and lots of concepts on the drawing board, but theirs was unique and the first one to get made.
drdabbles@lemmy.world 11 months ago
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
You referring to the DC-X subscale tech demonstrator?
I think inventing is a less well defined term, since anyone with a napkin can claim to invent something to a very low fidelity. The details are the hard part, not the idea itself. So that’s why I specified created, since that is inventing to a very high level of fidelity.
drdabbles@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There’s several other examples. I also don’t think inventing is an ill-defined term. That’s an absurd thing to even say.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
You mind telling what those other examples are, and defining in inventing?
interceder270@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Welcome to the Cult of Musk.
drdabbles@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve had experience with Musk Fans in the past. They all read from the same script, including the “I don’t even like Musk” lie.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The rocket boosters on the space shuttle were absolutely reused. Here’s video of one being retrieved.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
We can argue about semantics, but they were moreso rebuilt from the same parts than reused as is. NASA found that it would have been much cheaper to build new SRBs after each launch than rebuild them.
I_Has_A_Hat@startrek.website 11 months ago
Retrieved, not reused.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The SRBs used on the final shuttle mission were the same boosters used on the first mission. That set was used a total of 60 times. Only 2 sets of boosters were never recovered for re-use. The set from STS-4 had a parachute malfunction, and the set from the Challenger exploded.
drdabbles@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Literally reused. What are you talking about.
Strykker@programming.dev 11 months ago
SRB boosters are quite close to literally just a big steel tube, and they reused them by dropping them into the ocean under a parachute.
They still had to clean out and refurb every booster launched. And that was without the complex rocket engines that would get destroyed by being submerged in the ocean.