SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#61

Post by peter303 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #6

I am so happy Elon Musk exists today. The world is a much more interesting place to live in. I was outside the other night on a walk and all the sudden I see a 60 satellite Starlink fleet above me and it honestly brought me to tears. He has made science fiction real and has progressed all of humanity more than anyone else alive today IMO. I can't wait for the Elon hate replies.

China too.

When I lived in China I felt like I was in the Jetsons- 200 mph trains, gleaming airports more skyscrapers in Shanghai tahn in the Ten top US cities combined. Plus new mission to the Moon every year.

In American I feel like the Flintstones- so backwards.

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#62

Post by Octoth0rpe » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

gary_0 wrote: post #38

How does this compare to what the Space Shuttle offered in terms of delivering large payloads to orbit?

Wikipedia says that the shuttle's payload to LEO is 24,310 kg, at least 4x less than Starship (currently quoted at "100+ tons", meaning it could be somewhat higher, probably depending on where the booster lands (boostback to shore vs autonomous droneship vs no recovery).

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#63

Post by fastball » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #57

luma wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere on the globe in less than an hour... plus months of planning and days of preparing the launch vehicle. How fast can one "scramble" a Starship off the ground?

I assume fast turn around times from the Boca Chica (Texas) spaceport. Pick whichever Starship SN is refreshed and ready to go. Less Space Shuttle, more Southwest Airlines. Vehicles on the ground are vehicles not generating revenue.

Problem is you kinda need a spaceport at the destination so that the starship can get back to you.

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#64

Post by Octoth0rpe » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #47

Ballu wrote: post #44

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with bigger payload. There are models created earlier that using rocket technology/mechanism, LA-HK can be reached in 2 hours. This can have huge impact on avionics esp with trade.

If it's not cheaper than overseas shipping or cargo aircraft, it won't work. It's basic economics.

That doesn't take into account the speed of delivery. There may be some customer out there that doesn't know when they need something delivered, but once they know, they'd be willing to pay an extravagant amount of money to have whatever it is there in 30 minutes.

The most immediate thing I can think of is a bomb, which is pretty much exactly that need :) But there may be other use cases with similar required delivery times.

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#65

Post by fastball » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

Ballu wrote: post #44

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with bigger payload. There are models created earlier that using rocket technology/mechanism, LA-HK can be reached in 2 hours. This can have huge impact on avionics esp with trade.

Pretty sure it would be much faster than 2 hours (at least of flight time).

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#66

Post by cromwellian » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

fy20 wrote: post #59

Ballu wrote: post #44

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with bigger payload. There are models created earlier that using rocket technology/mechanism, LA-HK can be reached in 2 hours. This can have huge impact on avionics esp with trade.

For cargo I don't really see how it could have that much on an impact. Using aircraft we can already transport large volumes of items fairly quickly around the world, yet most freight is still transported by sea because it's cheaper. A standard '96" pallet' on aircraft is 317cm x 244cm x 244cm (125" x 96" x 96") and can hold 6,804 kg (15,000lb). Specialised aircraft can carry even more - some aircraft can transport t…

Starship carries 100 metric tons, a C-17 only about 70, but can get there in 90 minutes, which could be critical for the military.

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#67

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

digdigdag wrote: post #50

Ballu wrote: post #44

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with bigger payload. There are models created earlier that using rocket technology/mechanism, LA-HK can be reached in 2 hours. This can have huge impact on avionics esp with trade.

Ask yourself -- what object would be so massive and heavy and yet needed with such immediacy that a company would be willing to pay millions -- perhaps beyond the cost of the object itself -- to ship in a sub-orbital manner? Large and critical infrastructure components like generators, large piping and ducts, etc. are already transported at a fraction of the cost by the likes of the AN-225 Mirya within a matter of ho…

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#68

Post by fastball » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

elihu wrote: post #52

Ballu wrote: post #44

"The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport." Why no one is talking about this. This will be game changer if can be done with bigger payload. There are models created earlier that using rocket technology/mechanism, LA-HK can be reached in 2 hours. This can have huge impact on avionics esp with trade.

That seems very expensive and inefficient compared to planes or ships. What's the use case you're imagining where a plane is just too slow? The only thing I can think of is if some service like FedEx can amortize the cost of the launch across a very large number of low-mass items and charge a premium for fast delivery. Still, I'd assume that this would use vastly more fuel per mass of cargo moved than a plane, and sh…

SpaceX's goal[1] is to be able to ship people for around the cost of a business-class ticket[2] to the same destination.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dar8P3r7GYA

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#69

Post by gok » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

Squeezing 100 people into this thing for a multi-month journey continues to give me pause. It has smaller internal volume than the ISS, which has never had more than 9 people, and it was considered uncomfortably crowded when that happened.

Re: SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

#70

Post by aardvark179 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #36

Regarding the PDF: Why does it seem so hard to get good looking justified text? It appears to me that only (La)TeX manages to get spacing 'correct' / aesthetically pleasing (IMHO). Going from the metadata, this file was generated by "Microsoft Office Word": you'd think MS would have the resources to figure this out.

TeX does do a good job, but it is not totally unique in this, and it’s not perfect because it doesn’t know enough about glyph shapes to avoid creating rivers.

The thing that TeX, InDesign, and other systems that can do really good layout often allow is hints for ways to fix otherwise difficult cases (where it might be good to hyphenate or introduce a line break).

Word is in a tricky middle ground where it is ostensibly concerned with the pure content of the document (where you shouldn’t be worrying about line justification issues) but is being used to produce final output where you would expect to be providing those fix ups.