Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Joe Scott" channel.

In its simplest terms yes but it gets more complicated. This is one of the very few reviews I have ever seen that even attempts to cover both sides. On one hand it was an extraordinary technical success in that they got the thing to simply fly into space and get back. As he rightly point out without it way fewer people would have flown in space. On the other hand its completely wrecked manned exploration of space. At the end of the Apollo program they worked out that it was completely unfeasible to keep building giant single use rockets. At that time the initial suggestion was to extend the X-15 program into its later proposals. Its not widely known but there were proposals for D, E & F variants which included 2 seat, delta wing and scramjet variations. One of the initial proposals was for a 4 seat + cargo or 2 seat + extra cargo variant of X-15 Technology. BUT NASA were told they needed the Air Force to partner. That also lead to the CIA sticking their nose in as well. The Air Force wanted bombing capability and the CIA wanted 30tons of payload. Those are the 2 requirements that flipped X-15 technology THAT WORKED into the giant financially expensive hyper-complex difficult to maintain space shuttle. Where the Space shuttle screwed a generation out of any chance of space exploration was THAT IT COST SO MUCH TO OPERATE. That starved all the other programs out of money. Then that was compounded by all of the ISS components that HAD to be launched on the space shuttle which added extraordinary costs to the ISS which further starved other programs of money and resources. I know it sounds cold but the real failure of the shuttle wasn't the 2 crashes it was starving all the other programs of money and resources.
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And I forgot to add - I am an aerospace engineer and yes it sucks what the shuttle didn't deliver. I actually watched, from ~60 miles away on Orlando the flight before Challenger take off. A few weeks later back at school and all our dreams vanished.
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@HDnatureTV Don't be so blindly in the pro-Elon camp. For sure he has done some great things the most important of which was break Boeings (and others) strangle hold on NASA. One thing that is not well known is that NASA has almost NO CONTROL over its programs since the end of Apollo. There has been some incredible waste in the American space program, SLS being a good example. Its all being driven by congress and they are all driven by the commercial interests. We here about the MIC - Military industrial complex all the time. What we don't ever here about is the Space Industrial Complex who dominate everything. You r quite right NASA would have (figuratively) spent 10x as much to build a reusable rocket, but that's not because of NASA that's because of how the Space Industrial Complex works. Elon's gift is that he had enough money to break into that club and prove that people could break into it IF THEY HAD ENOUGH MONEY. On the flip side of Elon's achievements is his bullshit technologies. Hyperloop was bullshit long before he claimed it. Most of his rockets are NOT INNOVATIVE they are upgrades of technologies. Making a powerful chemical fueled rocket IS NOT INNOVATIVE, we had those 50 years ago. Driverless cars were bullshit long before he ever mentioned them. The simple fact is trying to write and then verify that the software WILL WORK anywhere and everywhere as advertised is impossible.
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@HDnatureTV Don't be so blindly in the pro-Elon camp. For sure he has done some great things the most important of which was break Boeings (and others) strangle hold on NASA. One thing that is not well known is that NASA has almost NO CONTROL over its programs since the end of Apollo. There has been some incredible waste in the American space program, SLS being a good example. Its all being driven by congress and they are all driven by the commercial interests. We here about the MIC - Military industrial complex all the time. What we don't ever here about is the Space Industrial Complex who dominate everything. You r quite right NASA would have (figuratively) spent 10x as much to build a reusable rocket, but that's not because of NASA that's because of how the Space Industrial Complex works. Elon's gift is that he had enough money to break into that club and prove that people could break into it IF THEY HAD ENOUGH MONEY. On the flip side of Elon's achievements is his bullshit technology claims. Hyperloop was bullshit long before he claimed it. Most of his rockets are NOT INNOVATIVE they are upgrades of pre-existing technologies. Driverless cars were dismissed as bullshit long before he ever mentioned them. Verifying the software will work in them for every situation is effectively impossible. If he is trying to stimulate innovation then fine, but he needs to be clear about that. You are right Space-X is kicking butt, but dont; take that as techno-gospel.
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@BobSmith-dk8nw Sorry but that's a garbage answer and its garbage answer but its nothing but a claim. If you want to say someone is wrong you better have a reason other than just a hollow opinion. The simple fact is that after Apollo when NASA wanted to keep going with what they wanted to do they were told NOT without the USAF participating. You can scream all you like about that, but NASA like many other institutions had a budget. They didn't budget well. They let themselves be bullied by industry and let many programs get starved of funding while letting others go staggeringly over budget without producing results. You can complain all you like but those are facts.
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@dunning-kruger551 Sorry missing the point. What's exactly ground breaking new about the Raptor engine? Not saying that it isn't a step forward or an improvement but its not earth shattering innovative either. Its one thing in engineering you learn after a while there's not a lot of truly innovative technology these days. I did a fairly serious proposal recently and part of the historical material for justifying it was part of the X-15 program that never happened. Most people don't know that the X-15 had at least 3 more variants on the drawing board. A 2 seater, a delta wing and a SCRAMJET powered model. So in the 1960s they not only had plans for a scramjet powered plan they had even proven supersonic combustion. Little known fact and very rare paper by Billig (it was part of my literature search in post grad) was on the first confirmed supersonic flow combustion. Before him it was only theory. From memory that paper was from 1967. So when people harp on about SCRAMJETS my first question is what are they doing that's actually innovative? It never gets answered. Just imagine where we might be today if they had continued that X-15 program for those 3 proposals and made them work. It really is one of the great "What ifs?" We might have had working SCRAMJETS 50 years ago. Instead we got the Space Shuttle. As I said it was an incredible technical achievement but also a failure.
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