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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Germany didn’t choose hydrogen because of its greater lifting capacity, they had to use it because the US was the only country at the time with industrial quantities of helium, and they weren’t exporting it. The Hindenburg was originally planed to use helium, but once the Zeppelin Company resigned themselves to having to use hydrogen, they added addition passenger staterooms to take advantage of the excess lift capacity.





  • The problem is SpaceX has the best product around, and it’s not even close. Falcon 9 launches are so much cheaper than anything that ULA has offered that it’s not even funny. They weren’t even looking in to reusable boosters until SpaceX made it a standard practice in their system. For station cargo flights, Cygnus is an option, but it can’t bring anything back the way Cargo Dragon can. For manned missions, the only other option would be Boeing Starliner, and I don’t think anyone else is ready to call that operational.

    Yes, SpaceX has a near monopoly at this point, but for once I don’t think it’s from any underhanded business practices, it’s just they were willing to innovate when the legacy space carriers were coasting along on government contracts. Once NASA, the DOD, the intelligence agencies deemed the Falcon as reliable, the only reasons ULA stayed in business was the government’s desire for a second launch provider for contingencies, and the occasion payload that was too big for Falcon.