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by tehbeard
1872 days ago
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> Russia and US ULA are flying rockets from 50 years ago with minimal updates. Old Babushka proverb, if complicated explosion related plumbing is working as intended, best not to completely rework it for sake of changelog. Minimal updates to the shape, maybe? But I bet the electronics and manufacturing have seen steady improvements over that time. SLS does feel quite like a pork barrel, but I understand the funding of it along with the other commercial companies as "more options, less risk", if something grounds the Dragon capsules, having a "home" alternative instead of buying seats on a foreign rocket makes sense. |
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Aye, but everyone stuck with that proverb for too long. Then Musk appeared and he doesn't seem to care that his test rockets explode. He revels in it.
To me it's the classic startup vs giant corporation. The bigger you are, the harder it is to change course. And exploding rockets look bad to management. The same reason so many companies are still on IBM mainframes running FORTRAN.
SLS is an insurance policy against SpaceX. But it's being managed by the same old wasteful monopolies as always, plus plenty of government mandated pork.