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Shawnj2 t1_j24i4vg wrote

Reply to comment by roseknuckle1712 in NASA mulls SpaceX backup plan for crew of Russia’s leaky Soyuz ship by jivatman

lol

I get people like to claim Elon is overcharging for space access and here’s currently the punching bag of the week for how he’s handling twitter, but the opposite is pretty true. Space access is a lot cheaper now that SpaceX exists compared to legacy space companies like blue, NG, ULA, etc. The Falcon 9 is a good, well designed rocket that works really well and is way cheaper to launch than any other commercial space rocket before it.

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roseknuckle1712 t1_j25e7mf wrote

all true. except for one thing. It is a 100% inevitability that spacex will kill astronauts at somepoint if they are doing manned spaceflight. Not because of Elon or because of SpaceX but because things break and go wrong always.

Who thinks Elon will react well to all the careful, slow deliberation NASA has traditionally responded to such things? Especially in the face of putting a hold on SpaceX's launch ambitious schedule pending the investigation?

Personally, i think it will go about as well as congress asking trump for his tax returns. Especially if it comes out while Elon is still playing the petulant man-child over at twitter.

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Shawnj2 t1_j25jg88 wrote

There’s not a lot Elon can actually do in that scenario since they are reliant on NASA and the US government letting them launch to do so. Private space flight is another story, but SpaceX has only started doing manned flights somewhat recently so I actually do think they would do the right thing in that scenario because no one is going to fly on a rocket that they think will kill them.

Also remember that SpaceX has been gung ho about testing in ways that don’t risk anything other than the vehicle, like the Starship test flights they did earlier and failing to land the booster stage of the F9 thousands of times before doing it consistently. It took a long time before they started flying people on the Falcon 9 and we’re not going to see Starship fly people for years.

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