[AR] Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update -- Live Link
- From: Derek Lyons <fairwater@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2015 13:33:24 -0800
On Dec 23, 2015 1:14 PM, "Rand Simberg" <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We're entering a world in which we will be trading infant mortality over
wear/fatigue in terms of reliability (just as aviation has always been). I
think that people who worry about used rockets can't get their heads around
what should be the same philosophy that drives every other form of
transportation, because they've been warped by six decades of riding
munitions.
We're entering that world - but we're still in it's most distant fringes.
And we will be for a very long time yet. By no useful measure is rocketry
anywhere near as mature as any form of transportation, not by orders of
magnitude. If aircraft were on average as (un)reliable as the average
rocket - SeaTac *alone* would see something like fifty crashes a day.
Which is why some of us are worrying about used rockets. There's still a
long learning curve ahead of us. It's a hill well worth spending blood and
treasure to climb, but only a fool would try to pretend it's not there.
D.
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