Re: How did they develop the capsule and heat shield?
When something is "Human Rated" far more testing is required.
907 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jun 2007
"Earlier space efforts were built on rigor, lengthy and specific and detailed checklists that were themselves built on checklists, and everyone involved was focused on getting as close to perfection as humanly possible. It didn't hurt that governments and the populace were both literally and figuratively invested in the work and the outcomes."
This is the type of arguement Boeing used to try to cut SpaceX out of the commercial crew program. We all know how well that worked out.
"I does seem that SpaceX manages a little better than most, somehow."
SpaceX has over 200 consecutive successful booster *landings* with the Falcon 9. One can argue that the the Falcon 9 is the safest rocket ever - the current version of the Falcon 9, Block 5, has 245 consecutive launch successes.
I'd imagine that the cost to insure a satellite is going to be quite a bit cheaper if it is being launched on a Falcon 9.
Even if all three of the other rockets (Ariane 6, Vulcan and Glenn) make their initial launches "on time", there is a big difference between that and having the sort of launch cadence needed for Kuiper. Heck, can BO put out enough BE-4 engines for both New Glenn and Vulcan to meet their schedules (which also include non-Kuiper launches)? While NG's booster is to be reusable it's going to take a number of launches before they will be reflying boosters - more BE-4 engines.
I would be pleasantly surprised if all three launch providers could meet their schedules. But I expect SpaceX will get at least a dozen extra Kuiper launches to cover it.
The way to drive costs down is through reusability and a high launch cadence.
The high launch cadence means that the costs of the rocket development and the costs of the launch, landing, and test facilities can be spread over more launches. The problem for an "Ariane 7" is that they will be competing not only with the Falcon 9 but also New Glenn, Neutron, Terran R, reusable rockets from China and India, and ..... Starship. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a market for an Ariane 7, but unless someone wants to use it to deploy a massive satellite array like Starlink it will have trouble getting a high launch cadence.
"ISRO hopes the vehicle one day makes it possible to launch payloads to orbit for just $4,000/kg – well below the cost of competing launch services."
I'd assume that their launch cost estimates are for a rocket with a reusable first stage. By the time they have the full stack flying SpaceX will have Starship/Superheavy, RocketLab will have Neutron, etc - all fully reusable. But currently the Falcon 9 costs $67M and can take as much as 17,400kg to LEO in reusable mode which works out to $3850/kg.
I'm running Linux kernel 6.1.13 on Linux Mint 20. I grab the sources from the Linux kernel archive and compile it. I started doing it years ago when my wifi chipset was dropping the connection - using the latest and greatest kernel fixed it. Then later I moved to a new CPU with GPUs that weren't supported by the stock kernel.
I've got it set up such that it takes just a few minutes to set it up to compile, and then just a single command to install it once the compile has finished.
I usually take the current stable kernel but wait until it has received a number of revisions. I have never had any problems even though I've done this dozens of times.
Took IBM 360 assembly in college - a short one credit course where we used punch cards - it was the 1970's. It really taught me how computers work. Later (almost two decades) I used my understanding to rewrite some CFD codes more than doubling their speed. And there were plenty of other "hacks" I was able to do especially back when computers were 16 bit and memory was precious.
One of the most "cost effective" courses I ever took.
Another problem for Boeing is that they use the Atlas V booster to launch Starliner - which is going out of service. They will have to get it requalified on a new booster (Vulcan, New Glenn, ....) if they want to use it on future missions beyond the current number contracted with NASA.
With what money are the Russians going to build a space station? Their economy is in shambles and the sanctions will take years to end even if Putin is deposed. There is a huge brain drain away from the space program to other fields even before the war, and now there is a brain drain away from Russia due to the war. Their military is a mess - depleted material and manpower - which will have a higher priority than a space program. And their space program has lost its profit centers - commercial space launches, selling Soyuz rockets to ESA, and flying other countries astronauts to the ISS.
Had a Mercury Sable station wagon (estate). My sister told me that teenagers like her son wouldn't get caught dead driving one (irony is that they had a minivan). So I named it the "chick magnet".
Bought a red Miata. Wife named it the "Little Red Car".
Bought a red Golf Alltrack. So I named it "Big Red".
You sound like someone who didn't have the opportunity to work with the various flavors of Unix 30 or so years ago if you are trying to equate the differences between the flavors of Unix back then to the differences between the Linux distros. I had the fun of dealing with 6 different Unix flavors and I've used 9 different Linux distros. No comparison.
So if Epic wins, will users see a 30% discount? At best there may be a small discount at first, and then the prices will go up to the "what the market will bear" level which is probably what it is at now. 30% is probably too high but it's not like consumers will see much savings if any if it is reduced or eliminated.
Years ago we had a project that used Informix. They got bought out by IBM who dropped some of their products - including one that we required for our project. To "fix" our problem would have required a good chunk of funding and manpower - something that wasn't available. So the project got shelved and died.
I use non-LTS kernels all the time. And when I use LTS kernels it isn't the reason why - I just pick the newest production kernel every couple of months, compile and go. Never had a problem. But I wait until the kernel has had at least 5 or 6 updates. Right now I'm running 5.10-11, but before that I was running 5.9.8.