Elon Musk

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, I was thinking of the American panic after Sputnik and a number of our rockets (Redstones, I think? ETA -- on checking, at least one was a Thor, .gif below) would launch, rise a few dozen feet, and then fall back onto the pad. Atlas was involved in a couple of these incidents as well.

Thor:

Yeah, being a space enthusiast, I'm familiar with those as well. The Soviet disaster just takes the cake. The first time I read about it, I was taken with the notion that the Soviets didn't do anything small. That was especially true of their fuck-ups. When they fucked up, they really fucked up!

Being more political in nature myself, I see a parallel between then and now in the sense that America is having problems with modern rockets while Russia sticking with the tried and tested seems to be able to better do launches and recoveries regularly, while Elon -- and Boeing, for that matter -- seem to be clearly pushing boundaries his company is having problems overcoming. That was my point.

The rush to build these newer, better craft strikes me as borne of catch-up mentality.