seanflyon t1_j0nrlac wrote
Reply to comment by ondono in SpaceX, Blue Origin Executives Tapped as US Space Council Advisers by Soupjoe5
Can you give an example of something she doesn't seem to understand, other than how to make a $400 million dollar rocket?
ondono t1_j0ore6g wrote
Sure, passenger earth to earth travel with rockets makes no sense.
No matter how good your tech, a rocket is still a small capsule on top of an explosion. There are hard limits to your reliability, and a full explosion is always in the cards.
seanflyon t1_j0os7bs wrote
Your own failure to understand is not a mark against Shotwell. It is incredibly obvious that there is not a "hard limit" on rocket reliability, unless by "hard limit" you are talking about asymptotically approaching 100%. Difficult problems are difficult, but that does not make them impossible. People said the same thing about air travel. People said the same thing about speedy ground travel.
When you have an idea that makes sense intuitively, try to think about it rationally and see if it makes sense logically as well.
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glorylyfe t1_j0ss3s8 wrote
An unstable system balanced at local energy maxima could be used to describe any unstable system, like a fighter jet, which is aerodynamically unstable because it gains a lot of maneuverability by being in that regime.
Rockets are stabilized by throttling and vectoring their engines. Not very different from fighter planes that use flaps to steer and stay on course.
If you are imagining that rockets are somehow uniquely close to being blown up as opposed to all other human endeavours you are both right in wrong. They are close to blowing up, maybe closer than anything else we have done yet. But wouldn't say they are so dangerous that the idea they could be done safely should be written off
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