I don't know guys, maybe it's the fact that my personal experiences have me expect a certain image from the aerospace industry, maybe it's because i get labeled as a NASA apoligist at times, or maybe it's because I just got up at 4 AM, but there's something just not right about this whole ordeal.
It goes back to the definition of professionalism that we all abide by with our look and demeanor whenever we go to work flying the general public around. And our employers also put a lot of effort in maintaining this look. Then we have a thing that looks like it's more at home in an episode of Duck Dodgers than at Kennedy Space Center, kind of hobbled together and with some obvious engineering challenges. And the whole snarkiness about "unscheduled rapid disassembly" or the Falcon 9 explosion compilations set to circus music. Plus I have some personal reasons from my engineering days to believe the safety culture there isn't yet where it needs to be, but that's a story for another day.
There's no doubt the engineers that work at SpaceX are very smart people, and eventually the Falcon 9 worked out to be a solid, reliable launcher at a very competitive price point, also IMO thanks to the regulatory and engineering oversight of "big bad NASA" to ensure it fulfilled the contract requirements. But this whole meme lord approach to engineering, as someone that's had a loved one sit at the pointy end of a launch vehicle, just rubs me the wrong way. I would expect more professionalism from a company trying to become the new gold standard for space exploration, otherwise it just looks like another stunt to sell more Teslas.
Rant over, I'm normally not uptight about stuff but there's a line and I feel we've gone too far across. I'll go "lighten up" now
It goes back to the definition of professionalism that we all abide by with our look and demeanor whenever we go to work flying the general public around. And our employers also put a lot of effort in maintaining this look. Then we have a thing that looks like it's more at home in an episode of Duck Dodgers than at Kennedy Space Center, kind of hobbled together and with some obvious engineering challenges. And the whole snarkiness about "unscheduled rapid disassembly" or the Falcon 9 explosion compilations set to circus music. Plus I have some personal reasons from my engineering days to believe the safety culture there isn't yet where it needs to be, but that's a story for another day.
There's no doubt the engineers that work at SpaceX are very smart people, and eventually the Falcon 9 worked out to be a solid, reliable launcher at a very competitive price point, also IMO thanks to the regulatory and engineering oversight of "big bad NASA" to ensure it fulfilled the contract requirements. But this whole meme lord approach to engineering, as someone that's had a loved one sit at the pointy end of a launch vehicle, just rubs me the wrong way. I would expect more professionalism from a company trying to become the new gold standard for space exploration, otherwise it just looks like another stunt to sell more Teslas.
Rant over, I'm normally not uptight about stuff but there's a line and I feel we've gone too far across. I'll go "lighten up" now