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What's the best thing I can do to help out with this as a software engineer? Is SpaceX in need of any critical software components? I think this is honestly the coolest thing to happen in my entire lifetime so far, and I would love to be a part of it, but I'm not sure I'd be useful since I'm not a mechanical engineer.
Plenty of places for SWE - embedded, enterprise software, flight software, etc. No prior knowledge on rockets needed.
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>The design is now thoroughly outdated.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…
RP1 deposits too much coke in the engines to allow reuse, or even extensive static test firing. LH2 is stupid dangerous to use, requires physically large rockets due to the low density, and as I mentioned, requires extensive leak detection to be integrated into the design. Super-chilled methane as used by Starship is "just better". You really should read through the Saturn V manuals and documentation. NASA put a lot…
Falcon 9's Merlin engines use RP1 and are re-used.
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
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https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html Soyuz is the only rocket that has flown much more than 100 flights, and it has a reliability of 97%. Several other rockets, including Falcon 9, have flown enough successful flights that statistically their reliability is unlikely to be less than 99%, but we cannot know that it's any higher than that. NASA figures that the failure rate of a Dragon flight is about 1 in 500…
> Soyuz is the only rocket that has flown much more than 100 flights Falcon 9 has had 140 flights of which 138 were successful, but that includes 1.0 and 1.1 which were significantly different early designs. It's had 120 flights for F9 FT, all successful (though over 111 flights ago one was destroyed in preflight testing). It's arguably the safest rocket system ever made [0]. That said, Starship should easily surpass…
I think Gwynne Shotwell is the rather unsung hero keeping SpaceX running correctly day by day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell
This from her seemed dangerously like fraud: https://www.ted.com/talks/gwynne_shotwell_spacex_s_plan_to_f... Passenger service by 2028 on starship for between an economy and business class ticket. A couple years later they confirmed they were still going for the same timeline.
Pretty heavy statement. Which part is the fraud? The timeline or the ability?
I think it's fair to say far-fetched, but the label fraud or even "sounding like fraud" sounds too heavy.
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You raise a good point: taking multiple payloads could help bridge this gap. But I still believe it'll take quite awhile to match the economics of an F9 launch (assuming that payload is within the launch parameters). Falcon Heavy is again evidence of this. We're not seeing ride-sharing on FH. We're seeing large (primarily military) payloads that F9 just can't do.
> Falcon Heavy is again evidence of this. Not necessarily. I'm not a rocket scientist or economist, but it is possible that FH is less cost-effective per kg on LEO than F9. You need to accelerate three boosters to several thousand km/hour and then to decelerate them to 0 km/hour at ground level. And then to do all the maintaining on those boosters, which takes about a month. Does it allow for 3x payload? There are ot…
Mass to LEO (from the SpaceX site): F9: 22,800 kg; FH: 63,800 kg.
So 2.8 times. Both expend the second stage, so if they recover all the boosters then FH possibly has lower cost per kg, but they're not saying.
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…
Asteroid mining. I really cant believe its not on Elon's mind, talk about disruptive!
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-k...
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I suspect it could disrupt at least some form of earth transportation. The fuel costs are not that different than a transatlantic 787 flight, and it's likely simpler and with fewer moving parts. In similar style to Tesla's vertical approach, they could own the full stack (rocket, fuel production, launch/landing facilities).
>The fuel costs are not that different than a transatlantic 787 flight [...] LOL, not even in the same order of magnitude ...
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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
Nobody seems to think about space stations. You could launch much bigger modules with Starship, and many more of them, so you could create a much larger space station for a cheaper price.
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I suspect it could disrupt at least some form of earth transportation. The fuel costs are not that different than a transatlantic 787 flight, and it's likely simpler and with fewer moving parts. In similar style to Tesla's vertical approach, they could own the full stack (rocket, fuel production, launch/landing facilities).
There is a reason Musk and co have stopped pitching the point to point transfer on Earth. Aside from technical challenges, this is a massive regulatory and logistics problem