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Don’t stage off Starship

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Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#121

Post by samatman »

snowwrestler wrote: post #120
samatman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well the number one threat to Earth is an impact event. If we can hypothesize a rapidly growing lift capacity, why not use that mass budget to develop a solar-system-wide system for detecting and if necessary altering the trajectory of potential impacting objects? It would be WAY better to protect the Earth than any other backup plan. Detection is a solved problem. Altering the trajectory of an asteroid requires a…

If you build such a capability on purpose you don’t have to hope you’ll be able to adapt a nebulous “positive externality” of some other system.

I don't think a purpose-built capability is anywhere near as good.

It would be a massive drain on the economy that chose to maintain it, there's no guarantee it would actually work when the time came, and it wouldn't benefit from improvements in design over time.

Being profitable, Starship has none of these limitations.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#122

Post by anoncake »

TomMarius wrote: post #114
anoncake wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about Earth, it's about the humans on it. Being able to repopulate Earth after they all died isn't all that helpful.

Then it seems beneficial to have some somewhere else

No, not at all. That doesn't benefit the people who died.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#123

Post by david_draco »

rbanffy wrote: post #110

Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony, I'd like to launch a couple questions: 1- What are the colonists' fundamental rights and who protects them? 2- Under what jurisdiction will they be? 3- Who owns the air? 4- If someone can't pay for their air or food, what happens?

Have you looked at the space treaties agreed by the United Nations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law (covers at least 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_cyberspace (covers at least 1)

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#124

Post by woodandsteel »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #111
rbanffy wrote: post #110

Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony, I'd like to launch a couple questions: 1- What are the colonists' fundamental rights and who protects them? 2- Under what jurisdiction will they be? 3- Who owns the air? 4- If someone can't pay for their air or food, what happens?

> Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony Has SpaceX even had a successful manned space flight yet? I don't think we're quite on the "verge" of colonizing space...

If things go moderately well for SpaceX, the colony will be started within 15 years. In the larger span of history, that is just a blink of the eye from now. And most of the people reading this discussion thread will still be alive, some would like to go.

We better start thinking about the legal issues now, as they are complicated, rather than just doing it in a rush when it starts happening.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#125

Post by maccam94 »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #111
rbanffy wrote: post #110

Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony, I'd like to launch a couple questions: 1- What are the colonists' fundamental rights and who protects them? 2- Under what jurisdiction will they be? 3- Who owns the air? 4- If someone can't pay for their air or food, what happens?

> Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony Has SpaceX even had a successful manned space flight yet? I don't think we're quite on the "verge" of colonizing space...

> Has SpaceX even had a successful manned space flight yet?

That flight will likely happen in the next quarter.

Meanwhile, while SpaceX has been wading through NASA design reviews and red tape (some of which is probably good for them!) for Falcon 9 + Crew Dragon, they've been hard at work on this next-gen rocket for years (the engines since 2009, the rocket itself since 2014). We will likely see a SpaceX Starship reach Low-Earth Orbit within a year, so it's time to start considering what other requirements for getting to Mars might take longer to build.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#126

Post by nkoren »

rtsil wrote: post #103
altcognito wrote: post #4

The 5 million per starship must be the cargo ship only. The engines alone are going to be half that cost.

I assume that's the cost when taking into account the reuses, not the construction cost.

Your assumption is totally reasonable, but wrong. That's the construction cost Musk has said he's aiming for.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#127

Post by marssaxman »

ForHackernews wrote: post #115
aperrien wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm incredibly curious as to how much that cost will be vs. a mid-career employee's 401k. If a middle class family with a decade or so of experience could cash theirs in, would they be able to afford to go?

Why the heck would anyone want to do this? "Hey honey, let's cash in our retirement plan and doom our children to a life where they'll never see the sky except through a visor or viewscreen and never again feel the wind on their face."

I would do this, no question; but I'm not having children, either.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#128

Post by nwallin »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #111
rbanffy wrote: post #110

Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony, I'd like to launch a couple questions: 1- What are the colonists' fundamental rights and who protects them? 2- Under what jurisdiction will they be? 3- Who owns the air? 4- If someone can't pay for their air or food, what happens?

> Since it seems we are on the verge of having an off-planet colony Has SpaceX even had a successful manned space flight yet? I don't think we're quite on the "verge" of colonizing space...

Apollo 11 was a little less than twelve years after Sputnik-1.

The rush to get people into space and men on the moon was because of politics. If Musk wants people on Mars, he doesn't need bodies in orbit, he needs ships capable of carrying bodies in orbit. It's fine (and unnecessary) if they're unmanned. Which SpaceX has already done, docking with the ISS. NASA and the USSR were hasty putting people into orbit because it was a political necessity, not because it was important to the goal of developing ICBMs, surveillance satellites, or whatever else. They each needed to be the first to put an object in orbit, a human in orbit, a human on the moon, etc. Musk needed cheap, reusable spaceflight as an intermediate goal and a maned Martian capable profile as goal number 2. He doesn't need to take his picture at all the road signs along the way.

Musk at some point said he wanted to launch a human toward Mars by the 2024 launch window. I think this is optimistic, but it's not that far off. I would be surprised if they don't launch in time for the 2029-ish launch window.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#129

Post by TomMarius »

anoncake wrote: post #122
TomMarius wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it seems beneficial to have some somewhere else

No, not at all. That doesn't benefit the people who died.

Well you said it's not helpful because everyone would be dead, this response seems like moving the goalpost, also do you think these people will be born mostly on Mars?

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#130

Post by heavyset_go »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #33
heavyset_go wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk isn't an engineer.

I always wonder what threshold people use for this term . This is a site where a person with 4 weeks bootcamp experience call themselves a software engineer

Someone who graduated from an accredited engineering program and is a licensed professional engineer, neither of which Musk did or is.
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