A little decompressing after very satisfactory if long hectic day, I could write paragraphs about it (more family) but will spare you. I did stumble on this and something else erupted out of my fingers, inspired by this set up. So now, good night.
Starship vs N1… Is Starship doomed to repeat history?
Everyday Astronaut - Jun 1, 2023
Has SpaceX fallen into a similarly flawed design that plagued the N1? Why did they choose so many engines? Will it continue to suffer a similar fate over and over like the N1 or is there something inherently different?
Today we’ll answer those questions and compare the two most powerful rockets ever made, from different sides of the world and from completely different eras to figure out how they’re similar and perhaps more importantly, how they’re different.
Article version with links and sources - https://everydayastronaut.com/starshi…
What really confuses me, is what’s the payback to Earth and society going to be? I think of all the resource wealth and increased environmental degradations - what are we really getting out of it? There are limits to how many satellites we can put up there. There are limits to how many satellites we put up there.
How do we balance satellites and global communication and dreams of moon tourism against increasing water shortages for increasing major population areas around the world? Heck, water for cooling electrical production. Or dealing with increasing flood challenges and sea level rise impacts, (getting worse by the season) - among other crises?
It’s like the movers and doers have totally lost sight of humanity. All that matters to these modern day billionaire gods driving this show is personal aggrandizement and profits . How many critically important ( → so far as the well-being of billions of people) - projects will be denied needed intellectual and material resources? ?
But I forget, it’s all about increasing riches to squander on more stuff to show off, in their self-made isolation chambers (yachts & planes & gated resorts & communities and all the rest), in absolute cynical disregard for humanity’s needs.
This passion for space tourism and satellites is the most foolish manufactured-economic-bubble yet, to top all the rest.
“Winning the battle while losing the war,” doesn’t even come close to the folly we are witnessing.
Oh flying into Nashville I got a Birds Eye view of some outrageous mega-mansions beyond the usual Charlotte and a few other southern cities I’ve flown to. At first I was shocked, beyond anything around Charlotte or other southern cities, don’t get me wrong mega-mcdonald mansions seem to be around a lot of cities, but this was over the top. Shows you how out of touch I am, it wasn’t until after we disembarked and I saw a guitar display, oh hell yeah, I was blind but now I see.
You know, I was raised in a financially strapped family, never felt we were poor, but there weren’t many extravagances, with the scared teenaged refuge in Central Europe still residing within her heart and memories. She knew starvation and homeless and scared and she raised us accordingly, waste was sinful, not cheerfully helping others with no expectation of reward was drilled into us. It was the decent thing to do. It echoes in all of her five children to this day.
All the wanton waste of food and resources I witness is astronomical and it does rattle me. Of course I’m no saint, I waste, I’m ashamed of the food I’ve tossed out, and go through moral turmoil, which is why the compost heaps I have and maintain at home are so nice, it’s a soothing giving back, even if only symbolic. After all, nothing I myself could do, will “save this earth,” and I will be climbing onto another jet in a couple days. Mea culpa. Still it matters to be striving to do better, to do the decent thing.
First and foremost I’m a man of my moment, I could run and hide, or I can interact with the people who come into my life, some by blood, in addition to the love.
When in Rome …
For me the important thing is that I rarely waste without being cognizant, that makes me try to minimize where I can, doing the best I can with what I have, and being ready to do better.
I look around and it seems at every level the increasingly prevailing attitude is one of genuine, proudly “brash” disregard for others. ‘I deserve the most I can get, with the least amount of actual effort.’ It’s hideous and these rocket ship BDGs are simply the icing on the cake.
and so on and so forth . . .
