A lot of FSF members I know are active contributors and are fairly reasonable, that said it definetly seems like the milage can vary wildly across the community. I have seen the type of behaviour you describe online but not much in person.
As for RMS, every interaction I have had with him.has been rough at best. I mean he is definetly right about the issues of software but him as a person can be very difficult at the best of times.
Water does work, it is also astoundingly heavy. That is the major issue. Elegant but impractical.
It simply blows out any useful payload volume and costings because of the amount of water required. Last estimate I have seen is they would need 1,500 tons of water to make Starship radiation resistant (80% decrease in exposure). Even at $300 per Kg, about 1/8th the cost of current launches, that is still approaching a half billion dollars per ship with a significant lost of internal space.
Technical viability and economic viability are two very different things as well. This is going to be the thing that I feel will eventually limit our travel outside of the earth system.
I suspect we will see rampant use of Starship in orbit, the occasional run to the moon and maybe once or twice to Mars but beyond that. It will be just another technological lead that ends up in civilizations recycling bin.
It is all very well to quote Roosevelt and yes he is correct. But there is a difference between putting in the hard work and trying achieve something great, SpaceX have done that and will continue to do great things, and the difference between claiming a million people on Mars.
The thing is there are many folks out there that were the nay-sayers and were completely wrong but also many that were completely correct. They are typically not remembered. It is one thing to make bold claims, it is another to out right deny the realities of the universe because they get in the way of a vision.
It can cause more damage than good by making people doubt the entire mission as a whole. Funding will dry up pretty quick if folks think it is just another dead end.
And $30 per Kg would be nice, the last figure for SpaceX is $2,720 per kg. That is a very big difference.
I have nothing against revolutionary technology. The thing is, when it comes to the reusable rockets and near earth orbital stuff - I have never had much doubts that SpaceX would achieve this outside of earth based political issues. I worry that they are pushing an image of what they want rather than what they will achieve.
Look at Blue Origin, I actually don't have a problem with them as they seem to be taking the more cautious approach. It could be a Turtle and the Hare situation going on here.
It isnt so much a case of schadenfreude but more a case of seeing what issues still need to be addressed.
Personally I would love nothing more that to see the doubters get shown up by the likes of SpaceX actually going out there and making it all actually happen.
It is when legitimate issues are being brought up but arent being actively addressed by the likes of SpaceX that is when one has to wonder about how the upper ends of the business is skewing the marketing/output of the company.
I am reminded about the slogan of r/realtesla - revolutionary technology, awful company. I fear that, what if a company like SpaceX over promises and under deliv ers and causes more damage to the field long term than if they had not done anything at all?
The issues of space radiation is far from discredited. It is one.of the major issues that still doesn't have an elegant solution. One.idea that SpaceX is proposing is to try and get the trip to Mars to 6 months. It will still be a serious issue but it would at least be better than the typical trip proposal.
One of the reasons I posted that channel was because they seem to have really done their research far beyond the typical "it wont work, just because". It is biased still but at least they arent just firing blind.
With all the positive talk on here, I shall present a contrary point of view on this.
This is the YouTube channel Common sense skeptic, that seems to be doing a good job if trying to test Musks/SpaceX claims, typically it is not positive at all.
It is clear they have an axe to grind with Musk but they seem to doing a very good job of backing up their criticism s.
Thats interesting. I am running on a GTX 1650, so not what you would consider a real powerful card but it will run at just above 100fps at 1080p with everything maxed out. But that is with some frame stalls when it comes to, what I assume, shader compilation/texture load-transcoding.
I am interested to see were the bottleneck could be.
It seems very much intentional and it happens on the desktop as well. It isnt entirely consistent when it happens but it can take as little as a few minutes until it triggers the notification of account creation.
It sees Google credentials and then auto creates an account that you can change the name on. I keep deleting them but reddit keeps making them. I just gave up and kept u/redditisastupidhead as my minor protest.
It was the final straw, I now just avoid the place altogether. It is like having a preappreoved credit card turn up in the mail, it is trying to suck you in. No thanks!
While I do not approve of the cannonball run in anyway due to the horrendous disregard for others safety, I am a little impressed at the speed they achieve and the optimization they do to achieve this.
Wish it was more an opennly organized even with safety regulation, safety provisions and road closures rather than acting like road thieves, ignoring the rules for glory.
As for RMS, every interaction I have had with him.has been rough at best. I mean he is definetly right about the issues of software but him as a person can be very difficult at the best of times.