Morsigil t1_j0mf2th wrote
Reply to comment by Hickersonia in SpaceX, Blue Origin Executives Tapped as US Space Council Advisers by Soupjoe5
These are the people all the experts in space travel report to, so theoretically they should have knowledge of their companies capabilities and limits and they are also able to access and leverage those experts most easily. That is my assumption on these decisions.
ondono t1_j0msiwb wrote
> These are the people all the experts in space travel report to
And yet Shotwell sounds completely unaware of the basics of space in every public appearance.
toodroot t1_j0n1x7e wrote
I've seen her speak at Stanford -- a recruiting talk, basically -- and she sounded totally in command of the necessary aerospace engineering and space science to me.
seanflyon t1_j0nrlac wrote
Can you give an example of something she doesn't seem to understand, other than how to make a $400 million dollar rocket?
ondono t1_j0ore6g wrote
Sure, passenger earth to earth travel with rockets makes no sense.
No matter how good your tech, a rocket is still a small capsule on top of an explosion. There are hard limits to your reliability, and a full explosion is always in the cards.
seanflyon t1_j0os7bs wrote
Your own failure to understand is not a mark against Shotwell. It is incredibly obvious that there is not a "hard limit" on rocket reliability, unless by "hard limit" you are talking about asymptotically approaching 100%. Difficult problems are difficult, but that does not make them impossible. People said the same thing about air travel. People said the same thing about speedy ground travel.
When you have an idea that makes sense intuitively, try to think about it rationally and see if it makes sense logically as well.
[deleted] t1_j0ot3b3 wrote
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[deleted] t1_j0qwzzx wrote
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glorylyfe t1_j0ss3s8 wrote
An unstable system balanced at local energy maxima could be used to describe any unstable system, like a fighter jet, which is aerodynamically unstable because it gains a lot of maneuverability by being in that regime.
Rockets are stabilized by throttling and vectoring their engines. Not very different from fighter planes that use flaps to steer and stay on course.
If you are imagining that rockets are somehow uniquely close to being blown up as opposed to all other human endeavours you are both right in wrong. They are close to blowing up, maybe closer than anything else we have done yet. But wouldn't say they are so dangerous that the idea they could be done safely should be written off
jivatman t1_j0ne5ax wrote
What does that say about Bezos who put in enormous effort to poach her for Blue Origin?
ondono t1_j0oru95 wrote
That in the space business is more important who you know that what you know?
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