• rmuk@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    It seems crazy that a company that’s only really known for cars, motorbikes, tuning forks, heat pumps, brake pads, pens, tractors, fertilizer, display panels, outboard motors, pneumatic systems, oil tankers, furniture, locomotives, bricks, solar panels, ATVs, generators, hot air balloons, dinghies, hydrogen fuel cells, submarines, crop dusters, jet engines, cultivators, hedge trimmers, lawnmowers, precision optics and robots would suddenly pivot to rockets.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      To be fair to Honda, they are doing what is expected of any companies in a capitalist system, actually innovate and diversify in order to remain competitive. Most other companies would rather stick to their traditional products and services, even if those products and services are written on the wall that they are becoming obsolete.

    • Bobby Turkalino@lemmy.yachts
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      1 month ago

      I imagine they poached a lot of Spacex engineers by simply telling them “we won’t make you work ungodly hours, nor will we subject you to a narcissistic manchild with no engineering education dropping in on your meetings and trying to tell you how to do your job”

      • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        You do realize it’s Japan right? China, Japan, Korea all have work life balance issues.i wouldn’t want to work 996 or 007 lol

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          We would like to contact you for job offer in the same role as your current.

          We cant pay you as much per hour but we can give you more hours to match it.

          “Promise me i wont ever have to deal with Musk and i am in”

        • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
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          1 month ago

          As much as it’s true, not all company are doing this. There are plenty of good East Asian company with good work life balance, especially newer company that already recognize the issue.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 month ago

      Eh, it’s just a start of development. It only goes 300 meters. Blue Origin goes higher, but even they aren’t in orbit.

      Japan also has some odd limitations on their rockets as part of their self defense only constitution. They don’t build a rocket that could potentially be used to strike mainland Asia.

      https://youtu.be/UZaIs6oSlOI

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Unfortunately, the next competitor will be Amazon…

      And then we’ll see what happens next, getting a whole constellation up is no small feat, I can’t see a third company getting a system working before 2050.

      • Pyr@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Also with starlink even one company’s constellation is causing issues with astronomers and launches.

        How bad will it be if there are 5-6 different companies with their own network floating around up there. And then other countries with their own network.

        • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Yeah, it’s a bad situation. I’m against monopolies, but I also see how filling the sky with redundant satellites is a terrible plan, so I don’t like the idea of lots of competition either.

          I think low orbit satellite communications is a pretty awesome concept. It has the potential to become like a second Internet backbone, but a backbone that can bring data directly to users without the additional router hops that local ISPs introduce. On paper, it’s amazingly efficient and can distribute service to all of the world… But in practice the business and management side is deeply problematic. One company should absolutely not be in charge of global Internet service. And one country would not be any better.

          The only solution I can see is to make it safe and feasible to have way more satellites operating in low earth orbit. I’m really not sure what that solution might look like…

          Here’s an off-the-cuff idea though: One solution could be an extremely robust low earth orbit maintenance and “pruning” system. All satellites would need to be monitored by third parties. And those third parties would need the authority and ability to quickly deorbit (prune) any satellite that deviates from its exact expected orbit. If satellites can ensure no deviation from their path and can safely maneuver to avoid collisions, it could be possible for many more satellites to safely share an orbital altitude.

          • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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            1 month ago

            Deorbiting is all well and good, but more and more we’re finding that these satellites contain chemicals that are very disruptive to the ozone layer. It’s going to be CFCs all over again, but with even more corporate capture of government.

  • Kindness is Punk@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    And Hyundai is making hydrogen powered tanks, what a world. I wonder if hydrogen fuels poses any unique risks as compared to petrol.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          At the end of the day, making EV cars isn’t either unfortunately…but in the grand scheme of things. Both hydrogen and EV cars are more environmentally friendly than gas powered cars.

    • Cocopanda@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Because the last stage of existence on this planet. Will be febel plans to try and colonize other planets. Because our planet will start to poison us as a defensive mechanism. All of these Corporations need a plan to get off planet.

      • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        Imo it’s a good thing tho. Spreading our civilization across multiple planets is the only way to guarantee long long term success. Obviously we should also fix the climate change issue (and many others). But still, being spread across the solar system would give our species redundancy. An extinction event on earth like a large meteor strike would no longer be the end.

        • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Well good thing it will never happen. ☺️

          Imagine trying to undo thousands and thousands of years of evolution surrounding…. Earth’s gravity.

          But you go ahead and fantasize about us destroying all the planets in the universe. After all; we’re the only thing destroying ours.

          • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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            1 month ago

            Call me an optimist, but I still hold the hope that we can one day do better as humanity than we do now. Humanity has become a “better” species throughout its existence overall. Even a hundred years ago we were much more horrible and brutal than we are now. The current trend is not great, with climate change and far-right grifters taking control. But I hold hope that in the end this is but a blip on the radar. Horrible for us now, but in the grand scheme of things not something that will end humanity. It might in the worst case set us back a few hundred years.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Since when is Honda a rocket company? This is literally the first im hearing about this. They kept this quiet for a while, and im not sure why.

    • minkymunkey_7_7@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’s new. Honda Space Development Division.

      Honda R&D to Conduct Testing with Sierra Space and Tec-Masters on the International Space Station | Honda Global Corporate Website https://share.google/3CwIsYUh8eWsohht4

      A lot of the global conglomerate Asian based companies do R&D across many fields, rather than just the product they’re most know for. Toshiba makes nuclear reactors! Samsung has phones and sewing machines and microchips… and nuclear reactors research.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    This wasn’t much more than a toy rocket:

    6.3 m in length, 85 cm in diameter,
    The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters.

    But still they were successful on their first try, so we will have to see where they take it from here. 🚀

    • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      It’s proof of tech. It’d be stupid and wasteful to do all the tests on a full size rocket.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Whatever they tested it’s probably proof of that, but such a small rocket and only 300 meters means that a lot of things were not really proven, because scale is a HUGE issue.
        Just ask Elon Musk / SpaceX, the Falcon rocket is fine, but Starship is horrible. And the difference is scale.

        • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          That is not why starship fails. Starship fails because like everything that Elon does lately it emphasizes style over practicality. Starship is a very badly designed rocket that looks cool to Elon. Not unlike the Cyber truck which has been an abject failure in every way possible.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            You are missing the point that size makes a difference. Obviously SpaceX has the technology to do what Honda did, but SpaceX can do ti with a real rocket.
            But they can’t do it with the bigger Starship rocket. Scale matters.

            • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              And when SpaceX does it with real full size rockets and they explode scattering debris and chemicals everywhere, the nearby towns pay the price.

              I don’t see any towns being decimated by Honda’s approach.

            • dustyData@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Size is only a proof of logistics. Not tech. Physics don’t change fundamentally between 6 meters and 120 meters. You learn a lot from scale modeling without the added costs. Starship’s real challenge is actually the logistics necessary to fulfill the desired specifications and experimenting with engineering to reach the scale. The most innovative aspect of Starship would be orbital refueling, and they aren’t there since the thing hasn’t reached orbit yet. SpaceX problem right now is insisting on high turnover engineering, which doesn’t work at scale without heavy costs, because it is a logistic problem, not a engineering problem.

              • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                Physics don’t change fundamentally between 6 meters and 120 meters

                Yes it does. Mass to strength ratio of structural components changes with scale. So does the thrust to mass ratio of a rocket and its fuel. So does heat dissipation (affected by ratio of surface area to mass).

                And I don’t know shit about fluid dynamics, but I’m skeptical that things scale cleanly, either.

                Scaling upward will encounter challenges not apparent at small sizes. That goes for everything from engineering bridges to buildings to cars to boats to aircraft to spacecraft.