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Starship Update [video]

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Re: Starship Update [video]

#311

Post by midasuni »

deadbunny wrote: post #297
pmontra wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Man If I could fly (rocket?) to AUS from the UK in a handful of hours I'd be all over that vs. the 24+ hour flights + connections. Sure it doesn't make sense for all routes but for super long distance I can see it being competitive for some section of the market.

27 hours of travelling in a first class suite isn’t that bad

Re: Starship Update [video]

#312

Post by midasuni »

mlindner wrote: post #128
etrautmann wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon seemed to indicate that it would be stretching to get individual launch costs below $1M. That seems at least 2-3 orders of magnitude out of range for most conventional travel?

I think their benchmark is a 100% business/first class ride with every seat having business/first class prices. The idea being they can beat that for long distance. Also time is money arguments as well. As most airlines actually make the majority of their money on business/first class seats for long distance international flights, which is used to subsidize the economy seats. This starts to make long distance flights…

That’s a falicy, why would air airline subsidise economy?

Several airlines have tried all business flights. I’ve taken some - Qatar to London for example, Paris-NY I think was all business too when I flew it, and there a London-New York one

But they are rare exceptions. Yes if you can fill a 787 with 100 first class passengers paying 5k each way you can make money, but the demand isn’t there.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#313

Post by irrational »

giantrobot wrote: post #303
irrational wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So… give up and don’t even bother trying, because failure is probable but not certain. Got it.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#314

Post by Someone »

tim333 wrote: post #304
Someone wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the need arises, they can get back on earth in two days time or so. I also think/guess their major health risks are of the “you die immediately” kind, not of the “it helps a lot of you get to a hospital within x minutes” kind.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#315

Post by bagels »

causi wrote: post #271
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…

I wonder how much an orbital flight would cost if it were reduced to, say, the price of fuel plus ten percent.

About 10k-100k based on 10m launch cost and 100 tonne capacity.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#316

Post by giantrobot »

irrational wrote: post #313
giantrobot wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So… give up and don’t even bother trying, because failure is probable but not certain. Got it.

That's not what I said. I do not find any claims of "colonization" believable because there's absolutely zero interest in solving or even realistically addressing the Hard Problems involved. There's little interest in solving the easier but boring problems.

If the toilets on a Starship get clogged [0] the crew can't wear diapers for a year and a half on their way to Mars. In space a clogged toilet has the fun side effect of aerosolizing feces that the crew will then breathe in, likely killing them.

Big talk about colonizing Mars is just talk without any actual movement on important infrastructure. A big rocket is only the first tiny step on a very very long road and itself is not really all that useful.

If you want to make pithy statements about not trying, direct your energy towards everyone fantasizing about Mars colonies with zero intent to tackle any of the Hard Problems involved.

[0] https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tourist-toilet-alarm

Re: Starship Update [video]

#317

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

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.

Like living in airlocked spaces, with the constant hum of air conditioning? Oh, the slummers on earth have UBI which is basically worth nothing.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#318

Post by lamontcg »

elihu wrote: post #197
lamontcg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gonna be interesting to see how many people actually pony up to really take part in that kind of vision. Are there any economic incentives for colonizing Mars? Asteroid mining makes sense and bases on and around the Moon make some kind of economic sense at least. I don't know how Mars fits into that picture in the 50-100 year "medium" term picture.

Economic incentives include government-funded basic science, mining, tourism, real-estate speculation (i.e. claim a bunch of land while it's cheap), entertainment (sports and movies/TV shows), the ability to do things in a presumably lax regulatory environment that might not be allowed on Earth, and long-term care for those who have disabilities that would require a wheelchair in full gravity but not on Mars, and the…

A lot of that assumes an already functioning economy on Mars. We're not going to be sending anyone other than the richest people up to Mars in their old age. And for stuff like food and hydroponics you could have that on the Moon which is the natural waystation to the Asteroids. The Asteroids are going to be where all the mining is. Entertainment also assumes an already existing economy. Space tourism is the only thing that seems viable in the short term.

About all I can see is producing methane for rockets in Asteroids and being in a much shallower gravity well than Earth. That assumes having an economy established in the Asteroid belt already though, and the cost of sustaining a colony on Mars is going to be its own kind of high overhead. It may be expensive to ship fuel off of Earth, but the people to support the refinement process already exist.

At some point there will be a flip where a Mars economy becomes self-sustaining, but so far I'm not seeing it during my lifetime. My guess is that we're going to be tethered to the Earth for a lot longer.

(Basic science is also great but that's the kind of things that governments support and its not self-sustaining any more than Antarctica is -- which I suspect is closer to the model for Mars in the next 50 years).

Re: Starship Update [video]

#319

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

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.

There is no mutation. That's just the upload into a biocybernetical cloud substrate. Prepare to be disassembled for scanning!

Re: Starship Update [video]

#320

Post by sidcool »

Would it be easier building a huge habitable space station near Mars than on the surface of Mars itself.

Reason why near Mars if because we want redundancy for life. So at a safe distance from Earth.

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