Brian Wang Neil Degrasse Tyson has a poor grasp of business and finance. He also made statements that he knew were not accurate. He knows there was refurbishment and there is reusable. He is also just wrong when he says that SpaceX only has made engineering advances on what was unrealistic in terms of cost. This clip is odd because the opposite is true. SpaceX first landed an orbital rocket in 2015… No one has matched the feat 9 years later In fact NASA is up Schitt Creek without Elon’s SpaceX who will literally rescue NASA Does Neil have a new sponsor?pic.twitter.com/Mnm7oJQqoX Storage area networking But it was Amazon AWS that brought it together with the right business models to make the multi trillion cloud computing industry. Rapid Reusability is not the Same as Recovering and Rebuilding over Many Months Rapidly reusable in weeks. Days and soon hours is not the same as recoverable and repairable for a billion dollars and months of rebuilding. The shuttle had three reusable components: the orbiter, the space shuttle main engines (SSME), and the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB). Upon landing the orbiter was essentially decertified for flight. The recertification process require over 1 million work hours. Hundreds of thousands of these hours were required to refurbish the thermal protection system (TPS). The first 13 Space Falcon 9 recoveries had some heat shield and other refurbishment. However, the block 5 Falcon 9 has seen SpaceX master reuse. There is very little maintenance and inspection. SpaceX has turned around and reused a booster in 21 days. The inspection and maintenance times have dropped to about 1000 work hours. This is one hundred to one thousand times better than the Space Shuttle. The actual refurbishment process for this record-breaking turnaround took only 9 days, according to SpaceX. This indicates that the real turnaround time could potentially be even shorter than 21 days if not for other logistical factors. Crossing the Atlantic – Time Matters Crossing the Atlantic in months like Columbus is not the same as container ships crossing in 10-20 days. Columbus version barely lets you start discovering and colonizing North America and other supports a global economy with hundreds of millions of tons of goods traded and multi-trillion economy. Astronomy Comparison Our Sun is a G-type star. A star ten times less powerful than a G is a red dwarf. A star 6 times more powerful (luminous) than a G-type star is an F-type star. An A-type star is 40 times more luminous than a G-type star. They are all stars but they go into entirely different categories based on temperature, luminosity, size and other factors. Brian Wang Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology. Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels. A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements. Categories