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Not sure who will spend days watching the same rocket takeoff and land :-).

Also at this rate, future generations will have to focus on surviving with much less fossil fuels (we're passed peak oil), in a world that basically wants to kill them due to global warming.

Chances are that days of video of the accomplishments of the generation that actively destroyed their world (while being fully aware of it) won't be their main concern.

Rockets are one of the things where we simply have to use fossil fuels, and its a drop in the bucket.

The resulting services and sats actually help in any reasonable climate change strategy.

> Not sure who will spend days watching the same rocket takeoff and land :-).

Here is the thing. Anytime can be the first time for somebody. If you don't make an effort to show everything you do, nobody will ever know you exists.

Yes some space obsessed people will watch everything, and that's fine also. But you never get those people if they don't see something first time.

I am European too and I like how transparent SpaceX is, and they don't even have to be. Arianespace literally tried to hide for 1 year that they had major issues with Ariane 5. When asked why it wasn't launching they were basically saying 'everything is ok'. But eventually journalist got wind off the fact that there were major issues in the fairings.

The culture of secrecy and non-transparency has done nothing but harm to European space flight.

Its not barging to show a video of a test fire or a test launch.

> Rockets are one of the things where we simply have to use fossil fuels, and its a drop in the bucket.

Well it's more than you may think (don't take only the fuel for the flight, but consider the whole construction of the thing).

But more importantly, they are making space a business. The first plane was a drop in a bucket, but it enabled modern aviation. If SpaceX hits their target of 10M per flight... rich people will go have lunch in space.

> The resulting services and sats actually help in any reasonable climate change strategy.

What? I very strongly disagree. But I won't elaborate more than you did.

> Well it's more than you may think

Currently, no its not.

> don't take only the fuel for the flight, but consider the whole construction of the thing

Making them reusable is a huge gain in efficiency.

> What? I very strongly disagree. But I won't elaborate more than you did.

Earth observation sat measure climate change. We measure the atmosphere with sats. We conduct planetary science. Sat imagery is vital when looking at ecosystems like the Amazon. Space based monitoring is valuable for all kinds of application and can increase efficiency of farming, mining, infrastructure and so on. Weather satellites are vital in many way, including preventing harm people. GPS is a vital technology for so many industries. Space based communication brings modernity to many people who don't live close to major infrastructure.

You simply can't separate modern humanity from space.

Granted space isn't anywhere close to the most important, but it does play an important role. Generally energy production, heating, transport and steel/cement are the real issues. And where the overwhelming focus should be.

> If SpaceX hits their target of 10M per flight... rich people will go have lunch in space.

Just like with aviation we need to consider what regulation we want to apply to these things. I am not against regulating these things.

Your attitude of nobody is allowed to show any pride in anything related to fossil fuels and its general bad and shouldn't be done is simply no way to go forward.

> Your attitude of nobody is allowed to show any pride in anything related to fossil fuels and its general bad and shouldn't be done is simply no way to go forward.

Not saying it should not be done at all. Reusable rockets would be nice, if they were used like the non reusable ones (i.e. rarely). But that's not how technology works: if the technology becomes cheaper, we don't use the same amount for cheaper; we use more.

Can you seriously look at SpaceX and think that they just want to send a few rockets per year, for a fraction of the cost?

> Just like with aviation we need to consider what regulation we want to apply to these things.

That's the thing: if you regulate the rockets market such that it does not start polluting orders of magnitudes more, then it is not a viable market.

> Earth observation sat measure climate change. [...] GPS is a vital technology for so many industries.

We did not need SpaceX for that. Compared to Starlink, Copernicus and all the GNSS satellites (GPS, Galileo, Glonass, ...) just don't count. GPS is something like 30 satellites. Starlink wants to send tens of thousands.

I think that globally communication sats, GPS, planetary sience planetary imaging and so on are well worth the fossil fuel we spend to launch them. I want more rockets to launch because I think these things are good. This is really the disagreement here. Don't think its worth arguing about more.

hayd 1094 days ago

It's also worth noting that SpaceX's Starship uses (will use) methane, not a fossil fuel.

(Rockets are tiny fraction of fossil fuel usage, <1% of aviation industry.)

Methane is a fossil fuel. Its purified natural gas.

neerajsi 1094 days ago

> Not sure who will spend days watching the same rocket takeoff and land :-).

Have you met a small child?

Well at this point it kind of loses a bit the value of "documenting for posterity", doesn't it? At least the small children I have seen don't really seem to realize what an achievement it is to land a rocket.

I mean, it's cool to have some videos. I watched a few SpaceX launches, and I still will watch the next Starship flights. But it's not like I watch every single launch of every single rocket (does SpaceX even make such an event every time?).