Edit: We took the penalty off several hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7611240
Certainly I thought the discussion was interesting.
FWIW, it's not me who has down-voted you. Not least, of course, I can't since your comment is a reply to mine. Personally I think your comment should not be down-voted - it's certainly of value.
That said, I have said the following before, but I will repeat it here. These launches are important, in a time when, "[...] in the U.S., I think there has been an under-current feeling for the last several years, that could perhaps be paraphrased as, "Where are we heading, as a nation?" I think it is easy for us to lose touch with the pulse of the nation when we are head-down in code at a start-up or elsewhere, but I think this feeling is real. So, this is perhaps at the root of at least some of this passion and excitement. It perhaps affirms, in some way to us, that the collective "We" are still builders." [1]
We have no way of knowing which of these posts are particularly significant. Many people seem to upvote anything with SpaceX in the title, and I'm skeptical that it should be on the front page so often. Since you say this one is unusual, I believe you.
But really, please send questions like this to hn@ycombinator.com rather than posting them in the threads.
p.s. Downvoting that comment is fine; it's an efficient way for users to communicate that I made a mistake there. That's better than posting a low signal-noise reply.
Edit for clarity.
Punishing worthy, interesting stories because there are too many other stories about the company seems really wrong.
The only issue is that it's not always obvious which stories are the worthy, interesting ones.
Please kindly read my entire previous comment (the one in the link that I provided in the text that you are responding to)... note that I said that I was, "Speaking as an American, here [...]" before I said the quoted text. I believe that the context of my entire previous comment is important.
Respectfully, your interpretation is incorrect. That was not my intention at all, and it does not represent the type of person that I am.
You make a good point about stuff sitting on the front page for hours, though. I've been wondering whether the mega-popular posts of the last day or two are choking out good new stories.
Google/Facebook/Twitter are on the front page all the time, every time they make some little burp. I like those companies and what they do, but SpaceX is 1000x more interesting to me than any of those.
IIRC it's usually like this over holidays.
Even the slightest look into this would have revealed why it is special.