• SpaceX’s eighth Starship launch ended in a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
  • The company reportedly lost communication with the rocket before it began tumbling and eventually, blew up.
  • The Super Heavy Rocket returned to Earth safely and was caught by Mechzilla.
  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I wonder if Elon has driven off a good chunk of his quality SpaceX employees yet?

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Despite what he may say at times. He’s not necessary for SpaceX operations. Gwynne Shotwell runs the day to day company, and they aren’t public so no need to say anything publicly for headlines like he does with Tesla.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        The topic of conversation is how tons of people don’t want to be associated with anything eel-on-musk is doing anymore after he more or less took the mask off, did his “weird hand motion (twice in a row, on national television, one of which was in the direction of orangeboi)”, and then started (and is continuing) to take a chainsaw to silly little government agencies like the CDC, NOAA, CFPB, Social Security Administration, and so on.

        Most smart people don’t like dumb and evil people. I would not at all be shocked to learn SpaceX is facing some serious brain drain.

      • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Sure, but that is a valid concern nonetheless. One major reason for the early successes of SpaceX and Tesla was their ability to attract top talent. I don’t think anyone with any self respect wants to work there these days.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Could say the same about Facebook, and Google. Yet they don’t have any issues funding talent.

          Money makes the world go round, at least most of the time. And enough of it can make just about everyone shove their principles into a box.

          • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Meta and Google throw money at people as compensation for making them build unethical, immoral stuff.

            SpaceX has traditionally paid far less, relying on “we’re building fucking reusable rockets”, which in normal circumstances, to a lot of engineers, is pretty rad, and kind of its own selling point.

          • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Well, privacy invasion and eccentricity is one thing. Overt fascism and staging a coup are on a whole other level.

  • Gil Wanderley@lemmy.eco.br
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    2 days ago

    Ah, yes, the SpaceX method of rapid development and iterative design by… testing in production and making debris rain over the Caribbean, disrupting air traffic in the region.

    I’m done with fanboys calling this method genius. “Oh, it would make the production lines idle for months”. Bullshit. Just make it right. Compare it to the Saturn V, it only needed one test flight to orbit and never had a major failure, and the Saturn V had components welded and drilled by hand, with 60’s tech. Oh, and it launched once every two or three months in 1969, just like Starship today.

    • Badabinski@kbin.earth
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      2 days ago

      If SpaceX could do this shit in a way that’s more respectful to the environment and other humans then I think it’d make a lot of sense.

      A lot of the early US space program used what is basically iteratively design. The military wanted big nukey rocket quick like what for to exploderate the Ruskis, and even NASA was honestly pretty cavalier until the Apollo 1 tragedy.

      This doesn’t excuse SpaceX for their shit at all. Find a way to do this shit safely or don’t do iterative design.

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
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      2 days ago

      I get the criticism but this method obviously works, spaceX is the most successful and profitable launch company because of this iterative design strategy on Falcon 9.

      In the not too distant future starship will be successful as well and everyone will move on to reiterating the same complaints to whatever project they work on next that will also succeed. The engineers at SpaceX are modern day magicians, no matter how much you disagree with their method to achieve success

  • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The Super Heavy Rocket returned to Earth safely and was caught by Mechzilla.

    It’s so hard to take Musk seriously sometimes.