It was obvious to me that we could never colonize Mars without reusability, any more than America would have been colonized if they had to burn the ships after every trip.
The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb.
The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It'll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn't been reusable.
A photograph doesn't gain weight or lose weight, or change from being happy to being sad. It's frozen. You can use it, then recycle it.
Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines. And everything can be reused. - Hephaestus
I don't know all the future steps, but I know one of them: we need to build a low-cost, highly operable, reusable launch vehicle. No matter which path we take, it has to include that gate, and so that's why that's Blue Origin's mission.
Since SpaceX's very beginnings, they have talked about recovering and reusing at least the first stages of their rockets.
You can just reload, propel it and fly again. This is extremely important for revolutionizing access to space because as long as we continue to throw away rockets and space crafts, we will never truly have access to space.
My impression is that a really, really high-order concern for the whole development community is interoperability and consistency.
Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year. Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It's absurd.
Another trick in software is to avoid rewriting the software by using a piece that's already been written, so called component approach which the latest term for this in the most advanced form is what's called Object Oriented Programming.
Certainly not every good program is object-oriented, and not every object-oriented program is good.
Architects love to rethink a project - that's what we do. If something is successful, like a house or a kettle, in this case, it's a great compliment when someone wants another one.
After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.
There's only one trick in software, and that is using a piece of software that's already been written.
You never throw away your work clothes. There is always something to do in the house.
SpaceX lowered the cost of going into space by 10x.
In addition to the vehicles currently known, the holy grail of commercial spaceflight remains a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) reusable spaceplane.
Our ultimate goal is extensible programming (EP). By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.
I mean, if cans can be recycled, why not spirits?
Don't reinvent the wheel, just realign it.
Sometimes you find an old tune so good you can use it several times for different purposes.
I don't like stuff that can only go into one set; I want stuff that can be applied across sets. It's a more real Lego building experience. And, of course, it's the same from a manufacturing point of view. I want elements that are universal; that gives me the best economics and best utilisation of the mould.
Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful.
Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)
