[sneak]

Starship is SpaceX’s greatest technological achievement already, even if it never reaches orbit reliably (with the potential exception of the inter-satellite Starlink laser links).

Did you not see the booster catch work on the first try? The partially successful re-entry even with half the control surface melting away?

The hundreds at SpaceX are doing Apollo-level breakthrough work, and it should not in any way be minimized due to tangential Elon-hate.

[djeastm]

>The hundreds at SpaceX are doing Apollo-level breakthrough work, and it should not in any way be minimized due to tangential Elon-hate.

You're right. It shouldn't be. And yet here we are wasting our digital breaths talking about the man. And there's really only one person responsible for that.

[foobarian]

You know what burns me about it? Like it or not, he did set the hard-driving culture of that and other companies he runs. And what's even worse, that kind of culture gets results. I think at the end of the day I just have to quietly respect it, and all the folks putting in the long hours, and be thankful that there exist companies out there that don't demand this where we can still earn a decent living.

[sneak]

Sometimes it gets results. Usually it causes brain drain and the company fails.

Don’t succumb to survivorship bias.

[monkeywork]

yup - it's the users gooseus fault.

If you're wasting your breath talking about someone, it's not on them, it's on you. We live in a world where everyone should have realized by now that attention is the most valuable currency you have ... and yet people continue to use that currency on things they claim to dislike ... I have a hard time feeling bad for them.

[Terr_]

> attention is the most valuable currency

"Grass-fed body mass is the most valuable currency", said the rancher to the fenced-in herd of beef-cows.

Nah, that's what someone with power says in order to distract you from realizing you don't actually have nearly as much. Attention has never been a good substitute for power, or thousands of years of human civilization would be very very different.

There's a fine line between stoicism and self-defeating tactics.

[pythonaut_16]

"Even if it never reaches orbit reliably"

How is that a greater achievement than Falcon 9 and reusable boosters, especially Falcon Heavy? Like sure if Starship lives up to its goals it will be a greater achievement. But how would an ambitious project that fails its most fundamental task (reaching orbit reliably) be a greater achievement than one that actually does meet its goals and was (and is) still incredibly revoluationary?

[sneak]

Because the engineering involved in what has already been achieved with the whole Starship program (the stage0/OLM quick disconnect/chopsticks, as well as the full flow staged combustion Raptor: v1, and v2, and especially v3) is a far greater technological achievement than any part of the F9/FH stack.

Starship is a HARD project, and even the components that they have completed are insane levels of engineering, far beyond even the whole F9 program.

It’s not just a “does the rocket work” thing. Every working part of Starship so far has been a monumental breakthrough of unprecedented scale. The fact that they built the largest ever orbital launch system (it’s currently not yet reusable but it can indeed put a ~hundred tons into orbit in a single 15 minutes) is enough to classify it as an unqualified success. Their stated goal just happens to be significantly greater than even that.

It has already surpassed the (non-reusable) Saturn V in price/perf as well as payload capacity (and development program total cost).

[itishappy]

While I agree with your larger point, I think it's a bit telling that you're using a 50 year old program that launched the only humans to ever visit another celestial body as the standard against which to judge the "greatest achievement." Humanity has sure done some amazing stuff!

[poslathian]

Is it odd or is it kinda central to the point?

It’s exceptional that people centrally organized a huge amount of effort and resources towards something imagined by countless humans since prehistory, was far from being a sure thing, had no possibility of revenue and only indirect value, planned and executed a full decade toward a single objective, and succeeded in a single moment shared by almost everyone with a television.

Arpanet, the transcontinental railroad, the pyramids…amazing still but lacked the 0 to 1 all at once factor. Starship is inspiring and also not a moonshot.

[itishappy]

Hmm... Hadn't considered that. I suppose I was thinking of things in a "for it's time" lens. In general I suppose Starship is quite superior to the Apollo program. Apollo certainly feels more impressive to me, but I completely see how Starship is a greater achievement.