Huh, growing crops in a desert is not such a great idea, isn't it?

Agreed, "those that do not study history..."

But really, a Liberal Arts degree is useless. Liberal Arts classes can be quite useful.

But perhaps our AC friend should not not be in any higher education at all. It sounds like he can't (or couldn't) make the cut.

Reminds me of the late 90's when I graduated. Got my first real job, pre-bubble, and the amount I was making wasn't really all that impressive, but a full time salary is a full time salary. My uncle exclaimed "You make THAT much? Man, how do I get into that industry?"

My reply was, and still is, "If you ask that question, you can't."

This isn't sunken cost as much as pork barrel. Someone promised a Senator from Mississippi that hey would get 300+ million dollars from NASA and by god he was going to get it regardless of how much of a waste of money it is.

Also not surprising that this was from the South where they are against big government, but pro pork barrel.

Ahh good point.

Then I will restate as: What is the point of comparing all European rockets to American rockets? Different people developed different rockets, so you can not make assumptions about quality by comparing rockets from different manufacturers.

If only Napoleon III used Uranium utensils.

It was pick one, and they picked "impossible to use".

A graphene condom for me would be the same as a space elevator.

That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life.

Nope, that wont help you.

Why would I include rockets from a different company when determining quality?

Do we lump Microsoft and Apple together when discussing quality of their software, since they are both from the USA?

Yeah right. They will just keep things as shitty as before except charge even higher prices once they get Uber and Lyft banned.

What makes you think they won't protest over that as well? Anything that hurts their regulatory capture will cause the same reaction.

I am a big fan of SpaceX but it is hard to compare this. You can't realistically lump in all of USA made boosters and compare them to a single rocket. But you can compare each company and rocket family individually.

Ariane 5 has been flying in various configurations since 1996, and after the first disastrous failure due to a software error, and 4 failures in its first 14 launches, it has over a decade without a single failure for 63 launches in a row.

Falcon 9 has a perfect record for 13 launches, but is much younger, only flying since 2010, so it is more difficult to compare reliability. However rockets tend to fail more early on. (see Ariane 5 for an example)

Both are excellent launch platforms, but it is likely that SpaceX's cost is less which makes it popular. Once they have the reusable system going, Falcon may become unmatched in price per launch.

I have never seen a bottle of beer overfoam at a bar before unless it was spilled.

Try not drinking shitty beer.