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Starship is still not understood

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Re: Starship is still not understood

#41

Post by vanattab »

>Starship is intended to be able to transport a million tonnes of cargo to the surface of Mars in just ten launch windows.

So at 100tons per starship sent to Mars that's 10,000 trips or 1000 per launch window. But the current plans call for something like 16 starship launches just for refuelling the one starship for the lunar mission. Suppose we can do the Mars trip with the same number of flights that's 170,000 launches to transport that 100million tons? And this guy is mad that nasa is not assuming that this is achievable?

Re: Starship is still not understood

#43

Post by vidarh »

theshadowknows wrote: post #6

I know that going into space is sexy and nerdy and cool and that it’s a difficult problem. What I don’t get is why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire..and people elsewhere who don’t have access to water at all. Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go u…

Solving food and clean water is not a technology problem. It's a political choice. The money exists to solve those things not just for the US but worldwide.

I'm very much in favour of political change to solve them, but I long ago resigned myself to accepting that there's very little benefit in individual action to try to counter them other than to feel good unless a majority is willing to commit to the necessary societal change.

Meanwhile the money spent on space is a rounding error compared to the many other places you can also choose to cut to lift people out of horrible living conditions, yet so many people focus their ire on space, which, while some of the flights are wasteful, have as a sector done immeasurable amounts of good in terms of improving our ability to e.g. feed the planet (weather forecasting and crop monitoring for example), and will continue to provide advances for a long time.

Focusing the frustrations on space exploration and technology improvement rather than on the lack of political will to solve the problems you mention solves nothing.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#44

Post by panick21_ »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28
ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

NASA just announced that they want to spend $1B per launch for SLS once a year until 2050. For a capability less than what SpaceX might provide for $10M. That's not sensible risk management, that's head in the sand denialism. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/nasa-wants-to-buy-sl...

This is beyond insane and wont happen. Once Starhip flies even the last politicans can be cornered to admit to kill this ridiculous rocket.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#45

Post by ajuc »

theshadowknows wrote: post #6

I know that going into space is sexy and nerdy and cool and that it’s a difficult problem. What I don’t get is why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire..and people elsewhere who don’t have access to water at all. Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go u…

> why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire

Because people drinking bad water are poor so it's not profitable to help them. This problem can be solved with current technology (and in fact was solved in many countries with slightly stricter environmental legislation).

> Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go up, really fast”

The problem with that is assuming that focusing on solving problem X is the way to solve problem X. In history it often turned out that problem X was only solved by people who ignored X and worked on Y instead.

For example the hard problem of 70% of kids dying before adulthood wasn't mostly solved thanks to people who worked on it (shamans, healers and priests) but by people who worked on "useless" abstract stuff like math, philosophy and writing systems. If we put everybody on it we would still devise new ways of praying or dancing to stop gods killing infants.

In general it's better not to put EVERYBODY on the same problem. Humankind is pretty good at solving many problems in parallel. Some people are better at X, others at Y. Also there might be interactions that we don't know upfront. Maybe designing space colonies gives us a cheap way to filter water on Earth as a byproduct? Would be pretty stupid to wait forever because we guessed the order wrong.

Cancer is more serious than broken bones or flu, but it doesn't mean that we should assign all doctors to only deal with cancer until it's solved.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#46

Post by malfist »

ncallaway wrote: post #11
theshadowknows wrote: post #6

I know that going into space is sexy and nerdy and cool and that it’s a difficult problem. What I don’t get is why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire..and people elsewhere who don’t have access to water at all. Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go u…

If we use the same logic, don’t we get a conclusion that we should spend nothing on basic research until we’ve solved world hunger, and every other problem? I agree that we should invest more into safe drinking water (though lead seems like much more of a problem than catching fire). But I don’t think it would be wise to dedicate 100% of our nation’s resources into the problem. Some amount of R&D seems like a worthwh…

Not only that, but R&D can sometimes solve the other problem. Like synthetic nitrogen for fertilizers.

A lot of people say (I have no idea how true this is) that the problem isn't growing enough food, it's getting that food too people. What if we can grow rice or wheat on the moon, or ganymeade, or a spacestation or whatnot and drop it where it needs to go a-la Moon Is A Harsh Mistress style.

R&D is looking forward. Pointing at it and saying "people are hungry" is willfully ignorant of how science has played a roll in feeding more and more people and is a defeatists attitude.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#47

Post by h2odragon »

panick21_ wrote: post #35
h2odragon wrote: post #2

I think he's handwaving a bt on how easy "space tractors" are going to be. Caterpillar etc are as fully invested int heir corporate structures and current practices as Kodak and all the other dead companies he mentions were; just because they could adapt things with "vacuum rated bearings" etc doesn't mean they will. I fear we'll need some legal reforms before we can have "the remainder of human industry" keep up wit…

> They've got Musk's "laws don't apply" card shielding them, or something, to explain how they've managed to innovate this far and this fast. People will quite literally use any excuse to not give them Musk credit. Apparently the reason SpaceX can land rockets and build Starship is that they somehow don't follow the law. It couldn't possible by the the company is well managed, have great engineers and is lead by a gr…

Beg pardon, no denigration of SpaceX accomplishments intended at all. They've put awesome efforts into getting these awesome results and Musk's celebrity shadows the work of some modern heroes who should be further celebrated.

However, all of that wouldn't have been allowed to succeed, without Musk's unaccountable aura of burrocratic avoidance. In my opinion.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#48

Post by panick21_ »

vidarh wrote: post #43
theshadowknows wrote: post #6

I know that going into space is sexy and nerdy and cool and that it’s a difficult problem. What I don’t get is why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire..and people elsewhere who don’t have access to water at all. Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go u…

Solving food and clean water is not a technology problem. It's a political choice. The money exists to solve those things not just for the US but worldwide. I'm very much in favour of political change to solve them, but I long ago resigned myself to accepting that there's very little benefit in individual action to try to counter them other than to feel good unless a majority is willing to commit to the necessary soc…

Not to mention that surviving on Mars will require living with little water and low water agriculture that might help many people.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#49

Post by sailingparrot »

supperburg wrote: post #24

I think it was SN11 that stuck the landing. I was there.

SN10 landed on it's engines as the legs didn't deploy, and exploded on the pad a few minutes afterwards.

SN11 exploded in mid-air in the fog [1].

SN15 landed correctly for the first time and didn't explode afterwards.

[1]: https://youtu.be/cN7855POvJ8?t=172

Re: Starship is still not understood

#50

Post by panick21_ »

coldtea wrote: post #40
wokwokwok wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a difficult argument to argue with because it doesn’t have any constraints. Instead of doing X why don’t we do any of the Y other things we could do? Surely, at least some subset of Y is more important than X, right? …but, is it? Are we better off, specifically with spending slightly more money on proving people with water, than having weather forecasts that can help thousands of farmer provide better yields…

> Are we better off, specifically with spending slightly more money on proving people with water, than having weather forecasts that can help thousands of farmer provide better yields and grow more food? And, with the crumbling infrastructure, declining middle class, poverty stricken working class, and so on, how's that worked out for us?

So the middle class is poor because a tiny part of the budget is invested in space?

I don't understand what argument you are trying to make.

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