[hpoe]

I remember watching the Tesla going into space and the rockets landing on the platform. I remember thinking "Wow this man has restarted the space race for my generation." It was a hopeful and wonderful feeling, I figured with the budget cuts, the politics, and the general "been there done that" attitude that was prominent for much of my life space was closed.

To see it opened again, gives me some sort of hope, some idea that there are things bigger than our squabbles, we took one giant leap for mankind when we stepped on the moon, but it's time for the next step to see what we can do after a leap.

[nynx]

As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible.

[Melting_Harps]

> As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible.

That is the goal for me, I'm not going to Mars and I knew that as soon as I went to the MDRS. I also made it an effort to make the director (commander on several mission) to realize how important it is motivate the younger generation and not just the future astronauts that come aborad for analogue missions.

SpaceX doesn't pay much, and you have to make a ton of sacrifices to even be considered, but I can tell you that being there you get this 'I wouldn't be any where else' feeling that I think is far superior to any monetary value.

Unfortunately, many of this year's missions at the MDRS are postponed due to COVID, but the robot challenge (mainly comprised of college aged students) is the one I really felt felt disappointed about. I was going to try and make it out this year to help out with that.

I hope you decide to get involved in this space (pun intended); I know if I was in my 20s, I'd do it all over again.

[nynx]

Getting involved is a dream of mine, but it's been quite difficult for me to get my foot in the door, so to speak.

[Melting_Harps]

> Getting involved is a dream of mine, but it's been quite difficult for me to get my foot in the door, so to speak.

It is for all of us, it makes the journey that much better. I didn't get into to do any of that above until my mid 30s after starting late at ~26.

[nynx]

Does the journey have to be difficult to make the destination worth it? I suppose it does. Doesn't feel that way when you're still on your way though.

[agustif]

But it's all about the journey bro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZsSR225Ti8

[mstade]

I guess it doesn't have to, but it sure adds to the sense of accomplishment if you had to struggle to reach those goals.

[benhurmarcel]

First requirement is to be American. That rules out most people.

[ajnin]

> MDRS

Is it Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station ? Space nerds tend to abuse acronyms almost as much as developers.

[Melting_Harps]

> Is it Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station ? Space nerds tend to abuse acronyms almost as much as developers.

Yes. Agreed, I probably should have written that out. Or maybe its just my (weak) developer side speaking...

[garmaine]

This may be off topic and probably person specific, but what made you change your mind?

[Melting_Harps]

> This may be off topic and probably person specific, but what made you change your mind?

Too long to discuss here, but suffice it to say that my priorities are Earth based. I also realized that Mars is in good hands given what I've seen.

[garmaine]

Yeah, I went off and had kids since Mars wasn't an option in my 20's. Now I want to be where they are.

Of course that leaves me free to become the oppressive Earth-based space industry tycoon who owns all those comet mining ships and belter stations :)

[Melting_Harps]

OPA for life, bossmang.

[ridgeguy]

As an old guy, I feel the same way.

I was in JPL’s SFOF building watching Armstrong and Aldrin step out onto the moon. Today’s SN8 mission gave me reasonable hope I’ll live to see somebody set foot on Mars.

It’s been a good day.

[boothby]

At your age, I had a similar feeling as the pictures from Spirit and Opportunity started rolling in. Quit my cushy but relatively dead-end web dev job, and went back to school. Busted my ass, got the grades, and found a love for math, but eventually found my way back to high tech. It's not what I set out to do, but absolutely worth the effort.

An amazing future is within your grasp. It might not be what you're picturing, but an education in math, physics, engineering, mechatronics, whatever... will open doors to a brilliant future. Go get em!

[nynx]

Thank you! I'm pursuing engineering science. Until recently, I wasn't sure what I wanted to go into... but now I think I know.

[marricks]

I'd really think a bit more about it. We have so many problems here and none are solved by leaving. Climate change, wealth inequality, hungry, poor. None of the billionaires (Musk/Bezos) building rockets treat their workers terribly well now, and their end game will just be exploiting workers around the solar system. Coming as a past fan of space exploration is was pretty devastating to realize...

[inglor_cz]

"terribly well"

What would be your standard in treating employees terribly well?

And it is strange to mention Musk and Bezos side by side. Their mode of employment is very different.

In Amazon, you are a preprogrammed cog in a spinning retail machine, micromanaged and followed everywhere by algorithms that seek to squeeze maximal output from you and punish you for slight deviations from the script (such as "not having your hand on a railing if you go upstairs"). They even encourage other workers to report you if you do something frowned upon. Human robots - which corresponds well to the nature of Bezos, who is often described as a way-too-rational, aloof man.

This is not what happens around Musk, who is a very different type of personality. In SpaceX, young engineers do overtime voluntarily because they are working on interesting unsolved problems, precisely the thing that you want to take part in at least once in your life. And it is understood that once they leave for a workplace with less driven culture, their stint at SpaceX will be considered very valuble.

Edit: If you are a youngish creative engineering type, you want to have a go at something that is both difficult and world changing. Most people will never have a chance to do so. So if you really become a part of a team that designs Starship etc., no wonder you will spend hours and hours there.

From my personal experience, chasing a difficult bug in my program means that the day flies by and suddenly, the streetlamps are lit. But the victorious feeling is worth it. And my software products are nothing like Starship.

[imdsm]

I think with SpaceX there are people who leave and tell people they were expected to work long, hard hours, as though not having a 7.5 hour days is a crime against employment. There are jobs out there for folks who want 7.5 hour days, but these will not be jobs where you're putting feet on Mars.

There will be people who want to work long, hard hours on complex problems, and for them, somewhere like SpaceX will be perfect. Just because it doesn't fit the ideals of others doesn't mean that it's bad.

The key is choice. I doubt anyone is forced to work at SpaceX. I'm sure they could leave if they had enough, or not join if they didn't like the deal.

If anything, having it available for people who /do/ want to dedicate themselves to something is a good thing. I think some folks could do to remember that. There are enough easy jobs.

[ajnin]

I think there is a certain discrepancy between how progressive Musk is in technological terms, and how he behaves like any other billionaire in social terms. Look for example how he pushed for the reopening of the Tesla factories despite covid lockdowns, potentially putting the workers lives at risk. Or how he recently tweeted against the US stimulus package while Tesla is receiving billions in corporate aid.

This discrepancy is preventing me from fully cheering for the man, and I guess it causes a certain cognitive dissonance and an irrational defense of everything the man does by his fans.

[hackerfromthefu]

I recall hearing Musks engineers are also not paid very well, despite the expectation to work very hard.

[kolinko]

Did you read about how the whole space race (and the first photo of earth) inspired people to start the environmental movement in the first place?

Also, btw, my gf is a full time climate change activist and watched sn8’s start witb as much excitement as myself.

[nitrogen]

Earth's problems are largely political, bureaucratic, and cultural. The people who love and are good at those areas have very little overlap with people who love and are good at tech, science, or space. The best we can do is provide something that magnifies our aspirations as a species, so that we and others will be inspired to improve our lot.

[texasbigdata]

Perhaps Elon is not the best example for climate change due to his battery research, solar panels, electric cars, etc...

[marricks]

Eh, I’d say he’s a fine example. Musk may be trying to help the environment but he’s not going to save it, that’s for sure, and his future dream doesn’t involve treating his workers any better than he is now.

[FeepingCreature]

Is this about the environment or about labor rights?

And if Elon "solar panels, electric cars and in-house batteries" Musk doesn't contribute enough to save the environment, what exactly are you hoping for instead?

[nickik]

So because he can't fix the climate by himself, fuck him. And his workers are treated pretty well, his companies often rank on top of places people want to work.

[marricks]

His factory workers are? With all the workplace injuries? If you're just talking about his engineers then I think you have some serious issues.

[dr_dshiv]

Irrational optimism is far more likely to lead to irrationally optimistic outcomes. Today is a good example. Space exploration gives people hope for what is possible. That is very, very important.

[sneak]

Ms Shotwell is no man.

[mhh__]

The fact that SpaceX's President and COO is a woman seems to get surprisingly little publicity, especially given that she seems like the more qualified engineer out of Musk and herself as well.

[sneak]

I think CEOs tend to be publicly assigned most credit for what their companies do, for some reason.

This also happened to Jobs.

People talk about "Elon Musk is building rockets to go to Mars". While not strictly incorrect, the insane numbers of people working long, hard hours for years on end is the reason these rockets are getting built, despite the indelible fact that Musk has served as a nucleation site that allowed and facilitated so many incredibly talented people to come together around a shared dream. Zubrin tried for decades and failed, and yet Musk succeeded.

Anyway, Jobs would usually get pretty much full credit for just about anything that came out of Apple, too. He accomplished a lot, to be sure, but I always tell those people the iPod fishtank story, or the details of the wage pricefixing scam he masterminded that successfully stole billions of dollars from his staff.

I think people just really really need to personify large groups into a person or facsimile, so that they can fit large entities into narrative structures in their heads (whether true or false). The same thing happens to nations, too: the political result of tens of thousands of people working very long hours is assigned singularly to Xi, or Putin, or Trump.

The system is not its figurehead.

[japanuspus]

I find it disingenuous to refer to Elon Musk as a "figurehead" of spaceX, see e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...

I actually believe that the fact that spaceX has a leadership qualified to make technical decisions is the reason they are the ones pushing the envelope.

[sneak]

First, I didn't make that claim. I do think, however, that the contributions of others must necessarily far outshadow his own considering that he is dividing his time between at least four companies. Even someone of equal competence (to say nothing of greater) working full time on just spacex would likely have a greater impact.

Then again, the thing would not have happened without him, so credit where credit is due.

You're right that figurehead probably isn't exactly the right word.

[ngcc_hk]

Probably one said it is both. But in real life the direction especially in firm and totalitarian countries are really affected much more by the leader.

Not sure about trump. You look at the way hus sect of state work abd you wonder whether it is trump or in spite of trump sometimes.

And he gave you a good example of migrating from California to Texas, not because of Trump or Biden.

But I would blame xi for all the human violations in Hong Kong and U and T etc. It is not a democracy. So is firm or many firms.

[disown]

> The fact that SpaceX's President and COO is a woman seems to get surprisingly little publicity

How much publicity do COOs of other companies get? Hardly none.

Shotwell is all over media. She has given tons of interviews that are on youtube/social media as well. Most of them are great so feel free to watch them at your leisure. She's also in the 2020 Time's 100 most influential list.

For a COO, she's gets surprising too much publicity rather than too litte.

> especially given that she seems like the more qualified engineer out of Musk and herself as well.

Why does she seem like it? Just because she's a woman? She's mostly worked on the business side at spacex.

Are you as concerned that the male COO of tesla is getting no publicity? It's a trick rhetorical question so you needn't answer it.

[wolf550e]

She's a mechanical engineer who worked in aerospace before joining SpaceX (and was considering leaving the industry because old space sucks), so technically she is more qualified than Musk (a physicist and economist who worked on supercapacitors and non-realtime not-highly-reliable software before founding SpaceX).

[anovikov]

Except he didn't restart the race itself: there are no opponents.

[dawnerd]

Uhh: Blue Origin, ULA, etc.

The race for gov contracts is definitely on. We’re on the cusp of seeing these companies fight it out over who can start exploiting space first. Sure might be years out still.

[emilecantin]

It seems people are giving way too much credit to Blue Origin; they haven't even sent hardware to orbit yet. They have a bunch of cool paper rockets, but they haven't achieved much beyond New Shepard (and that rocket has only done test flights). They are not even in the same league.

ULA on the other hand is much more accomplished. Tory Bruno seems like a cool dude (he even comments on /r/SpaceXMasterRace!), and his factory tour with SmarterEveryDay (on YouTube) was very instructive. However, they seem to have absolutely no regard for costs. You can see it in the factory tour; they machine huge aluminium blocks down into panels for the rocket sides, removing ~90% of the material in the process. How is that cost-effective in terms of time or materials? They send back the chips for recycling, but still. And that's not even starting on the reusability angle; SpaceX is currently working on a fully-reusable rocket (and has flown hardware!) when ULA only has vague plans to save the engines at some point on their next rocket.

I think the only launch company that could credibly compete on innovation would be Rocket Labs, but I fear they're too small and too late to compete commercially; they'll probably end up in the "very small sats in weird orbits" niche, as ridesharing on Starship will eat the rest of the small-sat market.

[sombrero_guitar]

SpaceX doesn't compete directly with them but the rockets from Virgin Orbit, RocketLab, and Relatvity Space are also exciting.

[garbagetime]

I don't understand what you mean. Surely the big space programmes such as CNSA and NASA are ahead of SpaceX in most measurements?