Great Space Speeches

[happyflower]

Two of my favorite space speeches ever. I adore Jeff Greason. This guy is just awesome.





http://www.ideacityonline.com/video/xcor-aerospace-jeff-greason/

Please reference any great speeches you know that we can watch and enjoy.

[jongoff]

In some ways rewatching that Jeff Greason Space Settlement speech is depressing, because it really seems like we've made almost no progress in three years...

~Jon

[QuantumG]

One of the best "space speeches" I ever got was face to face with Lee Valentine. He occasionally gives me a replay on various blogs

[happyflower]

One of the best "space speeches" I ever got was face to face with Lee Valentine. He occasionally gives me a replay on various blogs

Too bad you didnt tape it, I would have loved to hear his thoughts.

[QuantumG]

Too bad you didnt tape it, I would have loved to hear his thoughts.

Closest I could find:

[dkovacic]

I would recommend this lecture from Antonio Elias, very elaborate critique of SpaceX and Elon Musk approach I have ever heard:)

[Nomadd]

I would recommend this lecture from Antonio Elias, very elaborate critique of SpaceX and Elon Musk approach I have ever heard:)

"Elaborate" is putting it politely.

[wjbarnett]

I would recommend this lecture from Antonio Elias, very elaborate critique of SpaceX and Elon Musk approach I have ever heard:)

Brilliant!! What a great talk to present to engineering students. We need much much more of this in our society!

[Proponent]

I would recommend this lecture from Antonio Elias, very elaborate critique of SpaceX and Elon Musk approach I have ever heard:)

An excellent lecture in both content and style.  It's always good when people apply hard data.

I do have a couple of major concerns, however.  The video is quite right in pointing out that little progress has been made in the headline technical metrics of specific impulse and structure fraction in recent decades.  But it seems to ignore the possibility that innovations in management and manufacturing might enable considerably cheaper space launch even without improvements in the headline metrics.  And it's in those areas where SpaceX claims to be doing things differently.  SpaceX's claims don't prove that it will succeed in drastically cutting costs, but I don't find the video's critique of SpaceX comprehensive in this regard.

[dkovacic]

I would recommend this lecture from Antonio Elias, very elaborate critique of SpaceX and Elon Musk approach I have ever heard:)

An excellent lecture in both content and style.  It's always good when people apply hard data.

I do have a couple of major concerns, however.  The video is quite right in pointing out that little progress has been made in the headline technical metrics of specific impulse and structure fraction in recent decades.  But it seems to ignore the possibility that innovations in management and manufacturing might enable considerably cheaper space launch even without improvements in the headline metrics.  And it's in those areas where SpaceX claims to be doing things differently.  SpaceX's claims don't prove that it will succeed in drastically cutting costs, but I don't find the video's critique of SpaceX comprehensive in this regard.

I would agree with your assessment. He is bluntly correct that the KPIs of the launch vehicles have not changed - ISP is still the same, and so is the mass ratio. The LV market analysis is superb. But, what has changed dramatically is the cost of the development. And that cost was reduced mainly by the effects of the Moore's law. Antares + Cygnus development cost was estimated around 500 million. Falcon + Dragon development was around 850 million (for development from scratch). The quoted estimate of at least 50 flights per year for RLV does not take into account reduction of up-front development costs.

The second possible game changer that he disregarded is space tourism. He omits that there is only one visiting location available (ISS), unhappy partners for hosting turists (NASA), with limited seats (at most one, now typically occupied with NASA astronauts because of space shuttle retirement), very crumpled transportation, designed 50 years ago, requiring extensive six months training.