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SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

economist.com

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Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So far, they're more expensive than the Space Shuttle it replaced in NASA contracts do you have a source for this? Wikipedia data in the Launch vehicle estimated payload cost per kg table disagrees with you. By a factor of ~20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio...

The space shuttle is a human-rated launch vehicle capable of taking 7 people into orbit at a total cost of $445M per launch, or about $65M per seat. When subcontracted to Russia, the charge was about $85M per person. Crew Dragon costs about $55M per person - which is one place my 10% number comes from. Cargo flights are different, and you should also look at total program costs from the deal with NASA. The NASA contr…

Notably Falcon 9 launch prices have dropped to ~60M. That means that at this point, SpaceX is about twice as cost efficient per kg to LEO as the shuttle was.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#132
post #5

If only we could lower that peskty 1% chance of exploding each flight down a smidge. Well, at least this means the rockets will be cheaper to replace!

What's the source for the 1%? It's not even flown into space yet. Its extremely high flight rate makes it likely that its reliability will be closer to planes than rockets eventually.

> What's the source for the 1%?

Toilet research.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The design is now thoroughly outdated. It wouldn't be cost-effective to reproduce a Saturn V as-is. The equivalent rocket is the Starship, which clearly can be built. Technologies like 3D printing, new alloys, better fuels, modern computers, etc... have made dramatic differences to the design and construction of these rockets. Have a look at the circuitry used on the Saturn V: http://www.righto.com/2020/04/a-circuit-…

>The design is now thoroughly outdated. Not really, fundamentals doesn't change that much. Starship is not equivalent, it is entirely new, different category. >better fuels, modern computers, etc... have made dramatic differences to the design and construction of these rockets. Saturn V used RP1 and LH2 fuels, both are still widely used. Gas generator cycles are also used in modern engines. You can have smaller compu…

You're implying that it's in some different category that can't replace the Saturn V but what is that? What can't the Starship do that the Saturn V could?

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#134
post #81

The real problem for Starship (IMHO) is Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is now the most reliable launch vehicle ever created. With reuse the may well be $10m per launch or even less by now and likely to continue to drop. F9 can deliver ~22t to LEO and smaller payloads to geosynchronous orbit. The payloads F9 can't deliver are quite small. What people forget is that payloads are deeply coupled to their launch vehicles. The launch…

What wouldn't it be useful for? 1. bigger and much more capable interplanetary probes 2. a much cheaper Webb telescope 3. build a base on the moon 4. make a mission to Mars possible

> 1. bigger and much more capable interplanetary probes

The limitation there is capable RTGs, not launch vehicles.

> 2. a much cheaper Webb telescope

Webb couldn't have fit into a Starship fairing either.

> 3. build a base on the moon

For whom? Launching stuff is one thing, but you'd need to design, build, maintain, and supply such station. If you think the ISS was expensive, a Moon base would dwarf the ISS costs. Even if launches would be cheaper, there's still a lot of logistics and support behind such station, which is one of the reasons no one did it yet.

> 4. make a mission to Mars possible

That could be done without Starship - as much as I think Zubrin has drifted into the nut job corner over the past decade, he still has a point: crewed Mars missions would've been possible since the 1980s.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#135

The thing that's impressive to me, in addition to the sheer size of these machines, is the engines . The Raptor 2 is groundbreaking. And there's 30+ of them between both stages. It's just incredible, and there's nothing like it that's been done.

As I recall, the Soviet moon rocket failed because it had a cluster of engines that they could never get to work together. The Saturn V had a cluster of only 5, and barely were able to get that to work.

How did Musk solve this problem?

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#136
post #88
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer fact she has put up with Elon this long is nothing short of amazing.

One of my favourite passages in the SpaceX book is from Gwen after working with Elon for a couple of weeks. She worked really hard on a proposal about how they would go about selling the Falcon rocket to potential customers. Elon took one look and said "That's great. I don't want you to write reports and proposals, I want you to do it.". My god, I would give anything for a boss like that.

> My god, I would give anything for a boss like that.

You probably wouldn't. A boss that won't give explicit approval for aspects of a project is going to throw you under the bus at the first opportunity. They're not going to take any responsibility if you miss a target. They will however take all the credit for your success.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#137
post #123
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they’re targeting building 2-4 of them per day . https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/14139104042465239...

Why? I mean, if the Starship is reusable, and they're producing enough engines to build 2-4 a month, that seems like overkill. How many Starships are even needed?

Enough to get a million metric tons of cargo to Mars (the estimated minimum for viable long term settlement, as explained elsewhere in comments) on a reasonable timetable.

The most comparable scale they’re targeting for manufacturing Starships is jet airplanes. They’re supposed to be space busses, essentially. The way Musk sees them is, as “cattle, not pets”.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#138
post #123
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they’re targeting building 2-4 of them per day . https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/14139104042465239...

Why? I mean, if the Starship is reusable, and they're producing enough engines to build 2-4 a month, that seems like overkill. How many Starships are even needed?

Elon wants >1,000 Starships due to the Mars launch window, every 2 years. He wants to get a million+ tons of stuff there quickly. At 100T per Starship, and 1,000 starships, it would take at least 20 years to get 1M tons there.

Source for 1M Ton Target: https://www.space.com/elon-musk-spacex-starship-update-orbit...

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#139
post #81

The real problem for Starship (IMHO) is Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is now the most reliable launch vehicle ever created. With reuse the may well be $10m per launch or even less by now and likely to continue to drop. F9 can deliver ~22t to LEO and smaller payloads to geosynchronous orbit. The payloads F9 can't deliver are quite small. What people forget is that payloads are deeply coupled to their launch vehicles. The launch…

What wouldn't it be useful for? 1. bigger and much more capable interplanetary probes 2. a much cheaper Webb telescope 3. build a base on the moon 4. make a mission to Mars possible

> 1. bigger and much more capable interplanetary probes

One of the things I'd dearly love to see in lifetime is a return to the ice giants (ie Uranus and Neptune). We've only visited once and it was in the 1980s with the limited tech of Voyager 1 and 2. Think of what we could learn with a Cassini-level mission and Cassini itself is now ~14 years old.

But these missions take a long time to develop. We actually have a launch window coming up in the early to mid 2030s where we could feasibly reach the ice giants but the development period is so long and no proposals are at an advanced enough stage that we've likely missed it (which makes me sad).

> 2. a much cheaper Webb telescope

Would we make a cheaper version? Or would we take the opportunity to make an even bigger version? I suspect the latter. And JWST took 20 years to develop.

> 3. build a base on the moon

I actually believe we'll see a man on the Moon in the next 20 years. It could be much sooner but these are still government programs subject to change at any moment. I mean think where we could be if the SSC had been completed.

Apollo was driven by Cold War era competition. Our appetite for risk has changed. This means we may not see a Moon mission until rescue in the event of a catastrophe is actually possible. That will delay things.

> 4. make a mission to Mars possible

There's a thread about this from earlier today. IMHO a manned mission to Mars makes almost zero sense. Despite Musk's wildly infeasible and impractical predictions about Mars colonization, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see men on Mars before 2050.

All of the things you've listed here though aren't really commercial enterprises. Or at least they're far from it. They're flagship missions by governments because they're so wildly expensive. This creates some demand but is it sufficient to justify the program? I don't know.

I do suspect we need to find commercial enterprises to justify the Starship economics and I'm just not sure what that looks like yet.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So far, they're more expensive than the Space Shuttle it replaced in NASA contracts do you have a source for this? Wikipedia data in the Launch vehicle estimated payload cost per kg table disagrees with you. By a factor of ~20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio...

The space shuttle is a human-rated launch vehicle capable of taking 7 people into orbit at a total cost of $445M per launch, or about $65M per seat. When subcontracted to Russia, the charge was about $85M per person. Crew Dragon costs about $55M per person - which is one place my 10% number comes from. Cargo flights are different, and you should also look at total program costs from the deal with NASA. The NASA contr…

Mr. Margasahayam does not work on any mission I've been able to find. It sounds more like Business Insider being it's normal self trying to drum up false things about Musk businesses.
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