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Starship Update [video]

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Re: Starship Update [video]

#301

Post by tim333 »

pmontra wrote: post #166
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 that this will ever be viable for the general population. Think about the acceleration at launch and reentry. It's more an amusement park experience than travel by car, ship or plane. There will be people mentally and physically fit for that (past some age and before another one) and people that will never be. Other problems like cost, time from home to spaceport and boarding can be fixed or be irrelevan…

They launched people to the space station ok. The max acceleration isn't actually at launch as the rocket is heavy with fuel then - it increases as it gets lighter.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#302

Post by me_me_me »

PSA

Link to Common Sense Skeptics channel shredding the whole idea of Starship starting from the rocket to logistics of Mars settlement to bits where even one point means total dealbreaker for the whole idea.

TLDR The whole thing is a wishful thinking at best if not an outright scam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYt-phUAxY&list=PL-eVf9RWeo...

Re: Starship Update [video]

#303

Post by giantrobot »

irrational wrote: post #286
giantrobot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are one asteroid strike away from losing all human life on earth. We're one asteroid strike from losing all human life in the solar system even if you had a bunch of people living on Mars. It would take a very long time to get even a single Mars colony self sufficient. Without resources of Earth supporting the colony it would die out the first time the air conditioner broke. Putting people on Mars isn't putting…

By that logic we will never leave Earth. Let’s say it takes 200 years to get a fully self sufficient colony on Mars. If we start now, it could be self-sufficient by around 2222. But, according to your logic, we shouldn’t start since the colony won’t be immediately self-sufficient. Instead we should wait until… until when? Assuming it will always take 200 years to make the colony self-sufficient, do we wait until 2222…

A 200 year timeline is likely far too short. There's nowhere on the planet a human (or any multicellular Earth life) can survive without an active life support system. Every square meter of living and farming space needs to be enclosed with powered life support. There's no lubricants, easily accessed water, or even raw materials for heavy industry.

Even if Starship was ready to go tomorrow zero percent of any of the infrastructure needed to keep humans alive on Mars exists. The infrastructure needed to let some Martians be self sufficient only exists in artist renderings.

Getting a hundred tons of crap to Mars is the easiest part of the problem. Building a reliable toilet that won't clog and kill everyone or an air filter that never breaks is hard. Having enough food and medical supplies to keep people alive after a crop fails is hard. Building a factory that doesn't need a huge supply of oil-based lubricants is hard. Crowing crops in shitty soil is hard. Shit just building a big sealed structure is hard.

I don't find any claims of colonizing Mars believable because there's only lip service paid to boring infrastructure. Infrastructure can't just be patched in later.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#304

Post by tim333 »

Someone wrote: post #96
SECProto wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Mars in the first years (probably for decades) will likely be way worse. Workers will spend all 24 hours of every day in risky circumstances, and the quality of aid will be worse. For example, even if there is a MRI machine, will there be surgeons? A small population simply cannot support a wide range of medical specialists.

People on the ISS have similar issues and it doesn't seem such a problem.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#305

Post by nickpp »

TwoFerMaggie wrote: post #251
nickpp wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> birth lottery Elon Musk was born in South Africa so compared to anyone born in the USA or EU he has lost the birth lottery, I guess.

I would argue that it doesn't just depend on which country. Being born into a privileged class in a less developed country is often times better than an average family in, let's say, US. The inequality is much more severe meaning that you might actually have access to more resource and power.

Sure, the type of family one grows up in has a tremendous impact on one’s outcome in life, but Elon deliberately moved to the USA to have access to opportunities Americans have access to. Location matters too.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#306

Post by fastball »

sangnoir wrote: post #208
fastball wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it. Because any such project is going to require herculean effort on the part of many humans, and many humans are interested in colonizing Mars but not so many are interested in colonizing volcanoes. Your question is basically: why do people care about this thing I don't care about and instead care about this thing that neither…

> Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it If an asteroid destroys earth, your Mars base won't save life as we know it either. There's a lot of handwaving in this thread on the technologies required to bridge the gap between Starship existing and self-sustaining life on Mars. Paradoxically, self-sustaining space manufacture/Mars colony will obviate the need for freq…

How is that paradoxical? Bootstrapping a self-sustaining colony on Mars will require getting a massive amount of payload to the red planet. Once bootstrapped, yes that will no longer be required.

Nobody is arguing that Starship is sufficient, just that it is necessary.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#307

Post by Isinlor »

maccam94 wrote: post #281
Isinlor wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there is fuel in space - water and sunlight. You can split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from sunlight. In long term, most likely both Hydrolox and Methalox will be in use.

I think the parent comment meant to say there is no propellant in space.

There are comets in space, so there is water and water can be made into propellant.

Ceres also seems to have a lot of water: https://astronomy.com/news/2020/08/ceres-an-ocean-world-in-t...

Re: Starship Update [video]

#308

Post by SECProto »

Someone wrote: post #96
SECProto wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Mars in the first years (probably for decades) will likely be way worse. Workers will spend all 24 hours of every day in risky circumstances, and the quality of aid will be worse. For example, even if there is a MRI machine, will there be surgeons? A small population simply cannot support a wide range of medical specialists.

> For example, even if there is a MRI machine, will there be surgeons?

100% yes, there will be surgeon(s). Likely cotasked with other roles (medical studies etc?) until the population would get significantly larger. Antarctic missions have performed surgery (and everyone gets their appendix removed before going on an overwinter).

Re: Starship Update [video]

#309

Post by midasuni »

elihu wrote: post #232
Isinlor wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

...also, shipping high-value time-sensitive things across the planet in a few hours or less may be a viable business model.

Didn’t work for Concorde, and that was in the days before widespread electronic documents and video conferencing.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#310

Post by jandrewrogers »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #279
jandrewrogers wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American is not an unexpected $400 bill away from bankruptcy. This has been debunked countless times. Per the US government's own detailed statistics (BLS), the median household has $1000 per month leftover after all ordinary expenses. That's literally money available to piss away on whatever after all the basic lifestyle expenses, so it will definitely cover a $400 expense. Americans have a lot of discre…

Am American. Did go bankrupt. Bill was $4k. Hospital trip. You’re quoting the fed and seem a little out of touch with the realities that most Americans face on a day to day basis. I didn’t grow up in a bad part of town. I’m a successful programmer.

I am probably more in touch with that reality than most people here. I have decades of first-hand experience with the economics of being poor in America, and had to dig out of holes much larger than $4k. Never went bankrupt, though I came close once. I am financially comfortable now but I still have a lot of contact with that world, and am familiar with their finances.

The Federal Reserve and BLS data accurately reflects the realities average Americans face day to day in my experience. Individual situations are always somewhat unique and varies a bit depending on where you live in the US, but the statistics are broadly correct.

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