Comment on Why are people impressed with SpaceX?
meekah@lemmy.world 5 weeks agoThey are essentially doing the good side of capitalism - making stuff cheaper
I mean yeah, it’s cheaper due to technological advancement, but I fail to see how that’s an effect of capitalism. I’d argue similar developments would have been made even without capitalism. I just don’t think we would have the desire to leave this place without capitalism, but that’s besides the point.
i_ben_fine@lemmy.one 5 weeks ago
It’s not clear to me how SpaceX has managed to do things for cheaper. Are they cutting labor? QC?
meekah@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
They are axle to reuse the rockets
thalience@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Two things, mainly. They do a lot of the production steps in-house, as opposed to having a web of subcontractors (who have their own subcontractors)for each component. But the big thing is just efficiency of scale. Building and launching 100 rockets per year doesn’t cost 100 times more than one launch per year.
greyw0lv@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
They really haven’t yet. The concept is that reusable rockets will be cheaper than soviet era single use rockets… eventually.
On a surface level it makes sense, taking a rocket refurbishing it, and refueling sounds cheaper. But its not. Not yet anyways. Too complex and expensive presently.