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Starship Update [video]

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Re: Starship Update [video]

#221

Post by nixarn »

sfblah wrote: post #97
thecrumb wrote: post #3

You'd think someone with Elon's money would spend a few bucks on a public speaking course on Udemy or something.

I may not agree with all of his ideas, but I find his speaking style just fine. Honestly, I prefer someone who reaches for words but says what he means to say.

Totally agree. I like his style a lot, it's a normal conversation, he is who he is and it's honest. But every time he speaks someone has to point out how he's not the greatest presenter, even if he presents the most amazing new things.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#222

Post by onion2k »

The numbers on mass to orbit are fascinating. To date humans have sent 15,517 tons of stuff into space. SpaceX wants to be able to send 15,500 per year with a single Starship, and Elon wants a fleet of 10. That's amazing. That really is "we can have a moonbase now" levels of ambition.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#223

Post by the_other »

nickpp wrote: post #219
jnsaff2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I read enthusiasm like this for space travel .. especially talk of Musks interplanetary species and stuff, I get a flashback to Stark by Ben Elton . Published in 1989, getting closer to true by the day. Also probably the funniest book I've ever read. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(novel)

I prefer to think of The Expanse instead. It seems a much more likely future to me. There are countless dystopic futures (they sell better) we already avoided so I prefer optimism.

Where's the utopia in The Expanse? Humans move offworld; two communities with stable infrastructure spend a century abusing a scattered sub-class; then they all get into a war because a sociopath egotist finds alien technology powerful enough to wipe them all out or mutate them into components of itself. And then there's the meteorites...

Sounds idyllic.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#224

Post by krisoft »

vanattab wrote: post #182
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass to orbit gives you lots of options: Starlink completed, more telescopes like James Webb but cheaper, a moon base, radio telescope on the far side of the moon, orbital rotational space stations (for G forces), missions to asteroids, Mars, outer planets, are just a few things. Point to point transport on Earth, halfway around the world in less than an hour.

The launch costs of James Webb were an insignificant part of the spending on the telescope.

Yes. But the telescope cost as much as it did because they needed to origami it into the available space. If you have much more volume and weight you can design a simpler structure which achieves the same goal. Simpler structures cost less.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#225

Post by krisoft »

HWR_14 wrote: post #158
toomuchtodo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m unsure there’s much to discuss in that specific regard? If you believe in cheap heavy lift and humans colonizing Mars, you agree this project has merit (and the costs and human effort involved reasonable). If you don’t, you see this project as superfluous and wasteful. Is that interpretation inaccurate? It’s somewhat, but not entirely, binary. From the presentation, development costs will be 5-10% of the Saturn V…

What if I believe in government run Mars colonies, but don't believe in private ones like one run as Musk's empire? Am I not allowed a nuanced opinion?

Mars is a big place. If we have the tech to create colonies governments can pay SpaceX for a ticket to get whatever flavour of structure they wish there.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#226

Post by nickpp »

the_other wrote: post #223
nickpp wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer to think of The Expanse instead. It seems a much more likely future to me. There are countless dystopic futures (they sell better) we already avoided so I prefer optimism.

Where's the utopia in The Expanse? Humans move offworld; two communities with stable infrastructure spend a century abusing a scattered sub-class; then they all get into a war because a sociopath egotist finds alien technology powerful enough to wipe them all out or mutate them into components of itself. And then there's the meteorites... Sounds idyllic.

The utopia is that humanity is not stuck on a single planet anymore, with all eggs in one basket - so to speak.

The rest I find just realistic though. I do not expect humans in space to behave much differently from humans on earth.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#227

Post by dragonelite »

the_other wrote: post #223
nickpp wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer to think of The Expanse instead. It seems a much more likely future to me. There are countless dystopic futures (they sell better) we already avoided so I prefer optimism.

Where's the utopia in The Expanse? Humans move offworld; two communities with stable infrastructure spend a century abusing a scattered sub-class; then they all get into a war because a sociopath egotist finds alien technology powerful enough to wipe them all out or mutate them into components of itself. And then there's the meteorites... Sounds idyllic.

Yeah its as if politics while single planet species isn't hard enough already. Still i guess a lot of series and movies are still stuck in this end of history mode of the late 1990s and pre-2008 GFC. One single government inspired by the US system. A lot has changed in the last 14 years we seems to wade into a west vs east planet lets hope its stays a tech cold war.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#228

Post by Seanambers »

monocasa wrote: post #117
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass to orbit gives you lots of options: Starlink completed, more telescopes like James Webb but cheaper, a moon base, radio telescope on the far side of the moon, orbital rotational space stations (for G forces), missions to asteroids, Mars, outer planets, are just a few things. Point to point transport on Earth, halfway around the world in less than an hour.

It also opens up off planet manufacturing in a way that can snowball into self sustaining growth. Which IMO is how we're going to mint the first trillionaire.

If this pans out and rapid and full reusability of the starship system is realized - which by all accounts looks more than very likely at this stage its more a question of when.

Elon Musk will be the world's first trillionaire and he also got Tesla's FSD to pull out of the hat.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#229

Post by bongoman37 »

irrational wrote: post #6

This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Based off of the 5 minutes I watched, he clearly hasn’t gotten to where he is through charisma and public speaking skills. I’m just wondering if this is typical for him. Also, a million tons to Mars? If each starship lifts 100 tons, that is 10,000 launches. I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning…

No post body was provided.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#230

Post by Isinlor »

verytrivial wrote: post #194
inasio wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that they aim to disrupt Earth travel (airlines). Elon pointed out that the reliability of Starship would exceed that of commercial airplanes, and the fuel costs are not that different than, say, a 747. Fewer moving parts than an airplane, less human costs, order of magnitude faster...

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you explain what you are comparing? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-specific_fuel_consump... My understanding is that rockets are good at getting a small mass to move really quickly. They will never win moving a lot of mass within the atmosphere. The fuel costs are radically different. A 747 can lift and land ~80% of Starship's design cargo but uses something like 7 time…

Elon thinking is that on long distance flight you increase moved cargo per vehicle per unit of time.

He was saying that flying to the other end of the world will be 20x faster vs. airplane.

So if you move 20x more cargo per unit of time, then cost of cargo per vehicle + static infrastructure are proportionally lower.

But we need to take into account that number of cycles of a rocket engine may not be as good as jet engines, ground / water infrastructure seems a lot more complicated, fuel costs are higher etc. etc.

I doubt the math will close on it taking everything into account, but maybe there will be some limited use cases. USA army seems to be thinking about it. Extremely rapid deployment capability all around the world may be worthwhile for them.

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