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Starship Update [video]

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Re: Starship Update [video]

#51

Post by toomuchtodo »

sfblah wrote: post #40
panick21_ wrote: post #33

The Raptor 2 engine is just an absurd. The original specs were already kind of insane. But Raptor 2 is an monster. They really pushed already significantly into a second generation design before first flight. Raptor 2 is not just a slight upgrade, its a huge upgrade. If it can actually launch multiple times a day without any refurbishment, it will simply totally break space travel as we have known it. This engine mak…

And then what? What's the use case?

Lifting enormous amounts of mass to orbit and Mars.

Arguing the merits of these activities is beyond the scope of this thread.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#52

Post by SECProto »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

Somewhere around a thousand Americans [1] lose their lives in the construction industry each year. It's not a novel thing for people to die building the future, but Mars would definitely bring some novel methods.

[1] https://midwestepi.org/2017/05/08/construction-fatalities-co...

Re: Starship Update [video]

#53

Post by anonporridge »

aradox66 wrote: post #36
anonporridge wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who achieve massive success are born into privilege. Being able to spend your time studying and getting exposed to cutting edge developments rather than struggling to just survive is a massive advantage. It's largely a necessary, but not sufficient condition for major success. People that rise from nothing to achieve massive success are the exception that prove the rule.

Well put. I've never seen someone use the phrase "exception that proves the rule" non-ironically. Why is it more than just a class of exceptions? How does it prove anything?

I use that phrase as, we usually elevate exceptional things because they are exceptions. That elevation itself implies that it's something special that goes against the norms (or against the rule).

So, our awareness of a small number of exceptions proves the fact that there is an underlying rule that applies to the majority of non exceptional instances.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#54

Post by kortex »

Waterluvian wrote: post #44
kortex wrote: post #34

I love how some folks are like "Elon isn't a real engineer !" and then he starts going on a tangent in the middle of a presser about how flanges are a PITA to seal once you exceed a few hundred bar (just over a few thousand PSI), and how welding improves the plumbing significantly. Like, what!? That's not how C-suite bigwigs talk. That's primo enginerd banter.

I have no opinion to express on Elon but I will say that I’ve heard non-technical managers lap up stuff like that in meetings with the engineers and then regurgitate it elsewhere. If I had to guess his technical competence is somewhere in the middle of the distribution of opinions on the matter. I’m sure he’s fine.

Sure but if you ever listen to his longer interviews, in particular those with Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut), it's very clear he has a deep understanding of rocket mechanics, production, logistics, launch pad development, etc. It's well beyond manager-just-regurgitating-stuff they hear. One interview he stops briefly and gets into some nitty gritty about hold-downs on the starship pad or something.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#55

Post by irrational »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #25
sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

It's not just their sacrifice. They're also sacrificing their children, who had no say in the matter, to have a substantially worse life than they would have had had they stayed on Earth. I wouldn't go so far as to say that is unprecedented in the history of immigration but it does seem pretty uncommon.

By that rationale, any time people have moved any time since humans came into existence they have potentially sacrificed their children who have no say in the matter. Any move could be to a worse situation.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#56

Post by hparadiz »

rtpg wrote: post #19
sillysaurusx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s helpful to remember it’s not a zero sum game. We can do all of that too. The tech for Mars would make it that much easier. No one wants to live in those places because currently they have a choice. But if our planet becomes irradiated, or hit by a meteor, or suffers a sun burst — all very realistic concerns — then those choices become more limited. And it’s good to have options.

The ISS is literally the most expensive physical structure we have ever built, and it's like 5 floating schoolbuses. Now I'm for walking and chewing bubblegum. But if you believe in opportunity costs and care about navigating that, it feels like the same problem. Our planet becoming irradiated is actually not a huge problem! It would still be easier to live on Earth than on Mars! An irradiated radioactive hellscape o…

The ISS was built largely with hundreds of space shuttle and Soyuz launches over two decades hence why it's so expensive. Starship will be able to put an entire ISS worth of stuff into orbit in a single launch for 1/50th of the cost.

It's not a zero sum game. The space industry employs a lot of people.

Some of the stuff they put into orbit are satellites that literally save lives.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#57

Post by Supermancho »

irrational wrote: post #49
rtpg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to fly 3 months to some inhospitable planet that is in worse condition than Earth would be (even after nuclear wars and global warming) to make progress? I suppose there's an idea we could apply everything done on Mars to Earth, but like... seriously, what we just took all the prep for mars and just put it in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the Saraha, Antarctica? People barely want to live in the arc…

The basic idea is to not have all your eggs in one basket. We are one asteroid strike away from losing all human life on earth. Having 2 habited planets spreads the risk. Obviously having those planets in different solar systems would be even better, but we don’t have the technology for that, yet.

> The basic idea is to not have all your eggs in one basket.

A moon base is the precursor to a base on Mars and having humans get anywhere near Mars in the next 50 years (if they return or not) is a PR stunt.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#58

Post by garbagetime »

irrational wrote: post #49
rtpg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to fly 3 months to some inhospitable planet that is in worse condition than Earth would be (even after nuclear wars and global warming) to make progress? I suppose there's an idea we could apply everything done on Mars to Earth, but like... seriously, what we just took all the prep for mars and just put it in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the Saraha, Antarctica? People barely want to live in the arc…

The basic idea is to not have all your eggs in one basket. We are one asteroid strike away from losing all human life on earth. Having 2 habited planets spreads the risk. Obviously having those planets in different solar systems would be even better, but we don’t have the technology for that, yet.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. Our options aren't only (a) live only on Earth, and (b) live on Earth and Mars and potentially other planets. There is, for example, (c) live in man-made structures orbiting the sun at a distance of 1AU, which is debatedly much more sensible than trying to live on Mars.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#59

Post by panick21_ »

kortex wrote: post #34

I love how some folks are like "Elon isn't a real engineer !" and then he starts going on a tangent in the middle of a presser about how flanges are a PITA to seal once you exceed a few hundred bar (just over a few thousand PSI), and how welding improves the plumbing significantly. Like, what!? That's not how C-suite bigwigs talk. That's primo enginerd banter.

One of the secrets about Musk is that he is actually a much better speaker when he just goes of on technical stuff like that.

The problem with Musk is that when you ask him an even slightly open question, he always basically goes to the what he considers the fundamental answer. That's why so many of his answer are the same and people who know him well can already tell what most answers to most question will be.

However good interviewer can actually lead him into explaining into going into actual detail and ask smart follow up question and his answers are usually very good. The problem is, far to often he is either doing presentations like this with Q/A or he does podcast aimed at general audiences.

The best interviews with him are with people like Everyday Austronaut where he gets to follow up multible time to actually get out really good information.

I wish he would do more interviews like that, where people can prepare questions and be more direct at what they want to learn. Musk comes of much better in interviews like that and its where you actually learn more of the technical information. We understand that reusable rockets are important, but not why the engine doesn't blow up after 5 runs.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#60

Post by belter »

ipspam wrote: post #45
belter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one of these personalities is he, when making statements about Tesla FSD? Edit: The answer to this question will be highly relevant during the lawsuits that will follow, the first time the Beta FSD kills somebody.

Your comment illustrates the absurdity of said lawsuit. No one has been run over yet.

By pure luck.

And any driver facing several years in jail for an accident caused while using the Beta FSD, will engage a proper legal team. Any legal team worth its salt, will immediately subpoena Tesla for documents.

They will present a legal case, that will include past YouTube videos and Tesla company presentations. They will state that their client was misled by the company statements, Twitter and YouTube endorsers, and the contents of the car documentation were minor standard disclaimers.

Contrarily to what many think, most legal teams are actually pretty smart and astute;-)

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