So, as I’ve hinted to recently, I’m long overdue on finishing up a rather, shall we say, intense set of articles regarding SpaceX.
More correctly, these articles regard the attitude the SpaceX fan base exudes, which is heavily rooted in the way SpaceX pushes itself to the public – a hype culture the company feeds which, in its most effective form, has created the phenomena I call the “cult of SpaceX.”
I have probably a dozen articles regarding this that I’ve been, for about 2 months now, avoiding. Why? Well, for October I really just didn’t want to deal with it, and for November I just never found a good time. Those months were actually rather light on the SpaceX news front, and I felt it would be good for me to take a break, really, and it just went longer than I planned I guess.
With recent events of missions being delayed, changes in what booster will launch what mission, the return of Launch Complex 40 to operations status, and the planned January 2018 launch of the Falcon Heavy (which has been repeatedly delayed over the past 3 years, but who’s counting right) I feel, as I mention in the December update article, that this is the best month to say what I need to say.
No, many of you won’t agree with it. You might not like what I have to say, but dammit I will say it, and if you are a hyper obsessed fan of SpaceX and can’t look beyond your love of the company or what they do to look objectively at the points presented, well, that’s your problem.
As I’ve said, I’ll never stop sharing this image.
It’s a mistake to not step outside of your personal preferences and look at the facts. I will not deny that a Falcon 9 launch costs less to the end user – the company paying to get a payload into orbit – than any other comparable booster. I will not deny that the current Falcon 9 being capable of landing, being refurbished, and being reflown is quite the achievement, and that this has its uses and could result in a cost savings over time.
Other things, however, like how the fanbase behaves at times? Well, that’s what I’ll get into, now isn’t it?
More to come.