[sfblah]

Take a look at videos on YouTube by ThunderF00t. SpaceX is pretty problematic. Currently, around 80% of SpaceX's rockets are dedicated to launching Starlink satellites. This is because they've already soaked up all the demand for satellite launches, and things like starship don't really have a reason for existing. Also, in spite of massive improvements in technology since the 1960s, they're vastly underperforming the track record of the Apollo program.

My view is that Tesla, SpaceX, etc. are just cults of personality. Sure, they've produced a non-zero amount of technological progress, but for the most part they're leading us to dead ends.

[mardifoufs]

Thunderf00t has basically 0 credibility when it comes to SpaceX. He predicted that starlink couldn't ever work, for example. In fact, he even thought that this landing would fail.

Like he might have good point hidden somewhere, the issue is that we know that he will reflexively "debunk" anything SpaceX does, and predict failure every time. Meaning that his takes on SpaceX are beyond useless.

[sfblah]

https://www.google.com/search?q=ad+hominem+attack

Edit: Just out of curiosity, I looked up his video about Starlink, and his point was it's a bad business, not that it's physically impossible to do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaUCDZ9d09Y

I'd actually love it if you could find a single thing he says in that video that's provably false. I'm quite confident history will judge Elon Musk properly, as the "Too Big To Fail" version of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.

[jimrandomh]

Talking about someone's track record of predictions is not an ad hominem, in the context of evaluating their credibility with respect to the subject of those predictions.

[sfblah]

Actually, it is. From the dictionary:

An ad hominem attack occurs when someone attacks the person making the argument rather than addressing the argument itself. For example, saying "You're always wrong, so you're wrong about this too" without addressing the current claim would be ad hominem.

That's exactly what the person I responded to was doing.

[rlt]

Claim:

> Take a look at videos on YouTube by ThunderF00t. SpaceX is pretty problematic.

Response:

> Thunderf00t has basically 0 credibility when it comes to SpaceX. He predicted that starlink couldn't ever work, for example. In fact, he even thought that this landing would fail.

You’re claiming Thunderf00t is a good resource on SpaceX. The response gave examples of how he’s been consistently wrong.

That is not an ad hominem attack.

[sfblah]

Actually both the examples you cited are misrepresented. But whatever. You're in the cult. I get it.

[mardifoufs]

>They claim they're going to get these laser communications between the satellites which will make things faster for a long distance... [this is because light travels faster in a vacuum than through fiber optic cable you up to London a very important one for the Global Financial system Starlink latency is under 50 milliseconds while the current Internet is around 70 milliseconds] yeah Starlink can't do any of that at the moment.

>Probably something to do with the fact that the satellites are hundreds of miles or kilometers apart and you're trying to hit a tiny moving Target from another moving target with a laser and then and chaining those together that doesn't sound very easy but they're promising to launch some satellites that can do it in the next generation [getting close to launching satellite 1.5 which has laser interest satellite links]

>Now where have I heard that before... Let's just call me skeptical on this one

https://youtu.be/zaUCDZ9d09Y?t=1688

This entire video is just the same thing over and over. As is usual with him, he doesn't actually make any strong enough claim and just goes on endless sneering. But in the context of the video, it is absolutely clear that he's saying it is just another lie and that it's basically impossible. Remember, this was mere months before the laser network went up. He also claimed that the bandwidth is never going to be usable, but it absolutely is.

Also, that's just the fallacy fallacy. This isn't some sort of debate club, it makes perfect sense to discredit someone based on past record. For example I would absolutely take with a grain of salt anything Musk promises. It would be very dumb to just erase any priors everytime someone claims something. And no one does that expect when it's to play fallacy semantics online. I never attacked thunderf00t as a person, I'm attacking his completely bogus track record on SpaceX.

This basically he does every single SpaceX event. I'm not even exaggerating, I'm pretty sure the exact same happened in the latest stream. Just making up stuff about holes, "guaranteed" failures, it's super weird.

https://youtu.be/OCUceQzCh-Q

[sfblah]

The entire video is not the same thing over and over. He lodges specific, credible criticisms of all manner of Musk claims. I think any reasonable person looking at the history of Musks' businesses would come away viewing Musk as a pathological liar, not Musk's critics.

As for the specific quote about laser communications and latency, Thunderf00t's criticism was specifically talking about the latency claims. I actually thought you might be right, but some research indicates that the laser links do not currently provide improved latency, and they are only used when no ground station is available.

I very much appreciate that Thunderf00t does it for every SpaceX event. Someone needs to tell people the truth. I've known Musk was a con artist for decades (since he was fired from Paypal for gross incompetence), but it seems America just woke up to it when he bought Twitter.

[mardifoufs]

I mean, if you ignore the fact that he displays blatant ignorance in the streams he does. And what reports are you referring to exactly?

It has nothing to do with musk, and that's the entire issue. The dude is obsessed with him, clouding anything he says about SpaceX. SpaceX isn't just musk. It's actually super cringe how he seems genuinely mad whenever SpaceX staff celebrates or when a success happens. Or when he literally makes up stuff as he goes while the stream happens ("wow this is super bad, this shouldn't look like this" or even simple stuff like thinking that the water release before launch is for cooling the engines (???))

It's not the first time thunderfoot has obsessed over someone, he used to do the same with Anita sarkeesian. And the same thing happened, it got to the point where it was so weird and obsessive that it made him lose any credibility.

[sfblah]

I googled for about 15 minutes for reports about starlink’s lasers and latency and found several articles saying what I wrote above. Feel free to look it up for yourself.

As for his focus on Musk, I feel the same way about that as I did about Carreyrou’s “obsession” with Elizabeth Holmes. Good! I’m glad people are debunking our generation’s greatest fraud (which is Musk. Holmes doesn’t even make the top 10).

I’ve never personally paid a dime for a Musk product, but unfortunately my government has financed his frauds to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. So, I’m glad someone is pointing it out

Edit: I just asked GPT about water sprayed on rockets before launch. It specifically mentioned cooling the engines. I’m not sure what your game is here, but i suggest, like, learning some stuff. I’m tired of fact checking you only to find out instantly that you’re lying. Here’s the text:

Water is sprayed on a rocket before launch as part of a sound suppression system to protect the rocket and the launch pad. The intense noise generated during a rocket launch creates powerful sound waves that can damage the rocket or surrounding structures. Water absorbs and dampens these sound waves, reducing their intensity. Additionally, the water helps to cool the launch pad and the rocket’s exhaust, preventing overheating or damage from the extreme heat generated by the rocket engines during liftoff.

[cubefox]

> Also, in spite of massive improvements in technology since the 1960s, they're vastly underperforming the track record of the Apollo program.

The SpaceX budget is several orders of magnitude smaller than the Apollo budget. Also, the Apollo era rockets were entirely unable to launch a large constellation like Starlink at reasonable cost like Falcon and Starship.

> Sure, they've produced a non-zero amount of technological progress, but for the most part they're leading us to dead ends.

Not sure whether you are serious. Assuming you are, what would be the better alternative then?

[sfblah]

It's not several orders of magnitude smaller. According to ChatGPT, SpaceX has spent $20-30B as of 2023, compared to $160-170B in 2023 dollars. That's less than one order of magnitude, and consider that SpaceX is starting with all the knowledge gained from Apollo, plus 50 years of technological progress.

To your second question, the better alternative is not to send a bunch of junk into space. Aside from low-orbit satellites, space is a waste of time and a distraction, and increasingly appears just to be a way to trick people into ignoring disastrous fiscal and monetary policies while enriching one person.

[cubefox]

Don't cite ChatGPT, it's prone to confabulation. According to Wikipedia:

> At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities.

That's far more than the roughly 13,000 SpaceX employees. Moreover, that's just Apollo, there were also related programs like Gemini. (The SpaceX employee number also includes people not working on the Starship program.)

> To your second question, the better alternative is not to send a bunch of junk into space. Aside from low-orbit satellites, space is a waste of time and a distraction, and increasingly appears just to be a way to trick people into ignoring disastrous fiscal and monetary policies while enriching one person.

How do you know Musk gets rich from SpaceX? Do you think they make a large profit? Anyway, Starship could be used to launch giant telescopes, which must be useful for science: https://www.palladiummag.com/2024/10/18/its-time-to-build-th...

[sfblah]

If you can't see that Musk's entire net worth is downstream of US government action and bubble idiots buying his lies, I can't help you.

[minetest2048]

Even if thats true, who else can launch satellites at SpaceX price and regularity? This is an actual question, when Falcon 9 stage 2 exploded several months ago, my cubesats got delayed

I know several space startups that's currently limited by launch prices

[sfblah]

Who cares? Since the 1960s, space launching has never been limited by supply. It's limited by demand. That's why 80% of SpaceX's cargo is for satellites to support their marginally useful Starlink business. Like Hyperloop, "space startups" are just dressed up snake oil.

Imagine if there were hundreds of "startups" aiming to sink stuff for some reason to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Sure, doing that is difficult and fun to think about from a science fiction perspective, but the bar to show how such a thing could be useful is and should be quite high.

I asked GPT to give me the 5 most compelling space startups created since 2020. Here's what it gave me:

* Space refueling

* Getting things back from space more cheaply

* Removing space debris

* Getting things to space more cheaply

* Microgravity life sciences

Of these, only the last one is an actual product. The others are just picks and shovels for nonexistent products. And, I don't see why microgravity life sciences requires the ability to deploy unlimited quantities of crap to low-Earth orbit.

[panick21_]

Oh my good you have really gone deep into the rabbit hole. Sad to see.

> Since the 1960s, space launching has never been limited by supply.

It has been limited by price. Tons of business that now exists could have existed before. There is a whole history of sat companies that went bust, and big reason they did go bust is because the capital requirements were to high.

And even if your statement was true, the only reason it was even remotely true is because things like the Space Shuttle were subsidized by the government at billions and billions of $ ever year.

Now the government doesn't have to subsidize launch anymore.

> That's why 80% of SpaceX's cargo is for satellites to support their marginally useful Starlink business.

4 million subscribers 'marginally useful' ...

> Like Hyperloop, "space startups" are just dressed up snake oil.

Hyperloop was literally just a idea blue paper. Starlink has 400 million subscribers and has had a literal influence in the larges European war in 7 decades. But sure those are comparable. Totally.

> I asked GPT

That you resort to that because you clearly don't know any of the industry yourself is very telling.

[sfblah]

They don’t have 400 million Starlink subscribers you moron.

[panick21_]

Correct, its 4 million. I was thinking about 4 million at at 100$ per month initially. 4 million doesn't change my point however.

[panick21_]

Please for the love of god don't look at ThunderF00t. He is literally just a guy who made a job out of farming money from uniformed people who dislikes Musk.

He has no credibility at all, like literally 0. Nobody that follows this topics, even if they don't like Musk or SpaceX consider him reputable.

He is literally a professional hater. He just continually moves the goal-posts to always present himself as 'the reasonable skeptic'.

> Currently, around 80% of SpaceX's rockets are dedicated to launching Starlink satellites.

And the other 20% are still more launches then the whole of the Western world would have had before SpaceX.

SpaceX is simply so fucking successful that you have to totally reconsider how you look at the numbers.

> and things like starship don't really have a reason for existing

And if Starship is cheaper, then Falcon 9, and that's literally the whole reason it exists, then making Starlink and other launches cheaper still makes sense. Stopping innovating because of market share is an idiotic thing to do. Its what people argue who don't understand the difference between absolutes and %.

The market for space launch and space economy will be much bigger in 10-30 years. Now we can argue how much bigger, but its defiantly gone be bigger.

And also, Starship literally needs to exists because the government want's to land on the moon. And using Starship and sharing lots of technology with a launch vehicle that is needed for Starlink anyway just makes a whole lot of sense.

> Also, in spite of massive improvements in technology since the 1960s, they're vastly underperforming the track record of the Apollo program.

What an absurd criticism is this? In the 1960 they basically had no regulation, 100% political support and literally unlimited money.

SpaceX had barley any money at all until like 2020 for this project and even then they could only invest a fraction of that into Starship.

If you compare Apollo, the NASA budget was around 20-40 billion $ per year compare to SpaceX who only crossed the 1 billion $ per year in like 2022.

So this is exactly what I mean when I say ThunderF00t has 0 credibiltiy. Nobody should talk arguments like this seriously. Its just arguments from bad faith. I suspect he knows that he is fully of shit, but he has makes a lot of money from continually telling everybody what they want to hear.

> My view is that Tesla, SpaceX, etc. are just cults of personality. Sure, they've produced a non-zero amount of technological progress, but for the most part they're leading us to dead ends.

ThunderF00t is closer to a cult of personality. He has achieved absolutely nothing, he can't even edit videos as well as most 13 year old on tictac. He is a man in his 40 and his humor is even more childish then that of Elon Musk.

And your claim is simply bananas. Calling landing rockets and Starlink 'non-zero' is the understatement of the century. Starship has literally revolutionized space internet and global connectivity, and literally everybody, including all their competitors and every government in the world understands and reconizes that.

And literally some of the largest cooperations on earth, plus major nations are trying to replicate it. Amazon is investing 10+ billion $. Europe, China, Russia all will try to replicate even part of it, but they all know they can't match it.

Lower LEO internet will basically not go away for the rest of human history, unless civilization crashes or somebody comes up with something even better, but we have no idea what that would even be. But somehow you call it a 'dead end'. What are you even talking about.

I mean seriously, please break out of your bubble and look at the world with objective eyes.

[sfblah]

Your claims about the dollar amounts the US government has paid to SpaceX are false. The numbers are much higher than that. Just do a quick search.

It’s completely nonobvious to me what value there will be in massively increased amounts of junk being launched into space in the next 10-30 years as you say.

Maybe Starlink is a good idea, maybe not. I don’t really have an opinion on that, and it’s hard for me to picture why and how they have 4 million subscribers.

But even if it is a good idea, what are the next 10 good ideas? And what use is there in sending stuff and people to the moon and mars? It’s all delusional nonsense.

[panick21_]

> Your claims about the dollar amounts the US government has paid to SpaceX are false. The numbers are much higher than that. Just do a quick search.

Can you please be exact on what I am wrong about? I didn't even metion a praticular number, the numbers I mention have nothing to do with how much the US pays SpaceX. The numbers I mention was investment in to moon rocket program.

Total amount paid to SpaceX overall is anyway completely irrelevant. Typical Thunderf00t style obfuscation and confusing spreading.

The Apollo program also didn't include how much money was spent on military payloads, so its again, completely irrelevant in the comparison.

And in your typical fashion, you competently ignored the overall point. Appollo had a far, far, far larger budget then SpaceX ever had and it had if for far longer. Arguing with you is utterly frustrating.

> value there will be in massively increased amounts of junk

Ah the old Thunderf00t moving the goalpost move. I guess humans should never have invented ships, because it massive increases the amount of debris in the ocean.

Also please study orbital dynamics. Starlink itself will leave zero orbital debirs.

> Maybe Starlink is a good idea, maybe not. I don’t really have an opinion on that, and it’s hard for me to picture why and how they have 4 million subscribers.

So because you don't understand how the world works, its everybody else that is wrong. Great attitude to have.

> But even if it is a good idea, what are the next 10 good ideas?

Ah we are moving the goal posts again. I really don't want to have a discussion with you, because whatever I say, you will simply move the goal post again anyway.

There are tons of things humanity already does from space. And we can do those things more and better now. That is already good enough. If you personally don't see the value of any of the things humanity has done in space in the last 80 years, then I can't really help you at this point.

In addition there are literally 1000s of space startups we can have an argument about each one of them. Any that I bring up, you can come up with a bunch of reasons why they aren't actually go ideas and you might be right. But at least I'm not arrogant enough to claim to know if they will work or not.

[sfblah]

I used the word "junk" not to suggest we're putting too much debris in orbit. It was to say that this stuff is borderline useless. I did some research on starlink, and it looks like most of their users live in the US and just signed up because our country is so dysfunctional it can't offer fiber to people living in places like downtown San Francisco (!). I guess I wish we'd solve the actual problems here instead of engaging in weird space fantasies.