This might be petty and off topic, but do others find this sort of streaming-commentary off-putting? I don't so much mind the informational commentary, but the emotional outbursts of yelling, hooting, and hollering is just... not for me and really makes me want to mute the video. Like I said, maybe off topic, but I see this becoming more and more common and wanted to know what people here think?
SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
381–390 of 391 posts
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but I'm not sure difficulty is as relevant if the motivation is there. You can't terraform the South Pole. Mars reopens the frontier whereas the South Pole is a dead end
The South Pole starts out way more terraformed than Mars can ever be. It has air, water, gravity, and is warmer. You can just put up domes and it's already way better than Mars. Mineral wealth is only a mile down, under the ice. Under the sea starts out way more terraformed than Mars can ever be. It has water, gravity, and is warmer. Mineral wealth is right at hand. The cloud tops of Venus start out way more terrafor…
If your goal is to be a multi-planet civilisation, neither Antarctica nor the oceans of Earth would work; also the layer of Venusian atmosphere that you’re describing is way too cold for there to be useful quantities of metals you could extract from the rain (unlike the lower layers, where mountain tops are frosted with metal: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11506/hea...).
The other option is the Moon, which has even less atmosphere and even bigger temperature swings than Mars.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my mind, the multiple complex reorientations while falling at terminal velocity — with no plan B — just seems particularly harrowing..
Plan B is one more orbit and try again...
Once you've entered the atmosphere, you're falling to earth whether you like it or not. As it stands now, you must execute every move in the procedure or you crash into the ground at 120mph and explode.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
The South Pole starts out way more terraformed than Mars can ever be. It has air, water, gravity, and is warmer. You can just put up domes and it's already way better than Mars. Mineral wealth is only a mile down, under the ice. Under the sea starts out way more terraformed than Mars can ever be. It has water, gravity, and is warmer. Mineral wealth is right at hand. The cloud tops of Venus start out way more terrafor…
If your goal is to be a multi-planet civilisation, neither Antarctica nor the oceans of Earth would work; also the layer of Venusian atmosphere that you’re describing is way too cold for there to be useful quantities of metals you could extract from the rain (unlike the lower layers, where mountain tops are frosted with metal: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11506/hea... ). The other option is the…
Planets are for extreme primitives, anyway.
But the point was, if you haven't even proven you can settle a mildly challenging environment, your odds on an actually difficult one don't look good.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crazy part is that Elon has said this will look like a rowboat compared to their future rockets
Could you share a source for this quote?
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your goal is to be a multi-planet civilisation, neither Antarctica nor the oceans of Earth would work; also the layer of Venusian atmosphere that you’re describing is way too cold for there to be useful quantities of metals you could extract from the rain (unlike the lower layers, where mountain tops are frosted with metal: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11506/hea... ). The other option is the…
Planets are for extreme primitives, anyway. But the point was, if you haven't even proven you can settle a mildly challenging environment, your odds on an actually difficult one don't look good.
We know by demonstrations that we can make settlements in Antarctica and underwater, we just don’t have any reason to do more than science and military.
Venus, you could only settle by bringing in everything from outside unless and until you can convert the atmosphere in a large way into building materials — Mars at least you only need to convert it into fuel, because you can do at least some of your construction from rocks.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Planets are for extreme primitives, anyway. But the point was, if you haven't even proven you can settle a mildly challenging environment, your odds on an actually difficult one don't look good.
We know by demonstrations that we can make settlements in Antarctica and underwater, we just don’t have any reason to do more than science and military. Venus, you could only settle by bringing in everything from outside unless and until you can convert the atmosphere in a large way into building materials — Mars at least you only need to convert it into fuel, because you can do at least some of your construction fro…
All the settlements on Antarctica are utterly dependent on enormous support frequently airlifted from outside. There have been no settlements underwater at all; little more than camping trips have been essayed.
On Venus, plastics, carbon fiber, water, buoyancy gas, and breathing air (I repeat myself) can be made directly from the air and clouds. Plastic and carbon fiber gives you building materials. Robots can gather minerals from the surface and deliver them by balloon to the cloud tops. Insolation provides abundant power, moreso than here; or, a lightweight, unshielded nuke plant may be suspended a mile or more below industrial plant, supported on its own balloon.
Mars will be much more unpleasant than Antarctica. We don't even know whether people can live for long in Mars gravity. We know that long weightlessness is quite harmful.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
We know by demonstrations that we can make settlements in Antarctica and underwater, we just don’t have any reason to do more than science and military. Venus, you could only settle by bringing in everything from outside unless and until you can convert the atmosphere in a large way into building materials — Mars at least you only need to convert it into fuel, because you can do at least some of your construction fro…
All the settlements on Antarctica are utterly dependent on enormous support frequently airlifted from outside. There have been no settlements underwater at all; little more than camping trips have been essayed. On Venus, plastics, carbon fiber, water, buoyancy gas, and breathing air (I repeat myself) can be made directly from the air and clouds. Plastic and carbon fiber gives you building materials. Robots can gather…
If you’re going to use that standard against nuclear submarines and deep-sea oil drilling, it is unreasonable to also say we can make those things from Venusian air. Yes, in a lab, sure — that’s proof of concept, far less than a camping trip, and roughly the same level as extraction of oxygen from rocks.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
> game changer Absolutely, and the quantitative analysis is just stunning. In 2018 all of humanity launched a total of 111 payloads into space (out of 114 attempts). At around 5t per launch, that would be 555 tons. Starship is supposed to have a payload to LEO of > 100 tons. So 5-6 launches would handle all of that, by weight. But SpaceX says their goal is to fly these up to 3 times a day. So let's assume they can do…
Perhaps a stupid and naive question, but is there even the demand to lift that much mass into orbit? I may just be lacking in imagination. Obviously most of that mass would have to leave orbit in order for it not to end up looking like an LA freeway in rush hour. edit: i guess propellant/fuel would be one of the heaviest and important payloads we would need to get up there.
I read once that with a 100m telescope, we can image continents on exoplanets. We could construct a 100m segmented telescope in orbit, if only we had sufficient launches to get all the segments up, and sufficient capacity to send the assembly robots / astronauts. Today's tech, launch limited.
Here's a writeup: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1375/
In general, once you get to LEO, you're half way to anywhere ... That is, getting to low earth orbit is half the battle. Spacex will remove that battle for everyone, making space expansion and exploration 2x easier.
My dream is earth-orbiting shipyards for outer planet missions and interstellar missions. There's nothing stopping us but will.
Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you are not working in a field that is intrinsically motivating to you. Perhaps you should find an employer with a product whose end value you can appreciate? For example I work in CAD. I'm just a software engineer. But the products we make help engineering companies design huge beautiful monsters of steel an concrete. Sure, they are not rockets, but they are things that impact peoples lives. Working o…
> Perhaps you should find an employer with a product whose end value you can appreciate? If only it were that simple. Sometimes the stars align and that happens yes, but for many people - especially those of us with families that can't just up and move somewhere else - it's not reality. Let's say you reside in an area with such a job to begin with. First your resume has to be looked at, so let's assume it makes it th…
Sure, family comes first. My intent was to imply that the space of meaningful work is plausibly a lot larger than space vehicles.
My intent was not to imply that an employee can always utilize complete deterministic agency in their career path.