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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

#271

Post by Swannie »

thebigman433 wrote: post #239
trhway wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The amount of people that can afford to pay that is minimal average American wedding is close to $30K, so i think there is a large market at the top. Plus corporations with their outings/offsite/etc. for S/E/VPs flying business class to nice places, influencers/promotions/raffles, midlife crisis and retired doctors, lawyers, execs as well as tens (if not a hundred) of thousands of young FAANG employees making $500K+…

The logistics do not just revolve around safety (although that is a major factor), its also stuff like noise and environmental pollution. Residents werent happy with the Concorde noise, people are going to be furious with the noise of a Starship taking off. All of the launches are going to have to be done offshore essentially to avoid this, so now youre also looking at spending probably a couple hours waiting on ferr…

Ferries? Fast helicopter to the nearest airport to pass customs/immigration.

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

#272

Post by mkl »

WalterBright wrote: post #135
geocrasher wrote: post #14

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?

I'm guessing mainly computing power. We have a lot more now.

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

#273

Post by tigershark »

terafo wrote: post #127
jmyeet wrote: 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…

I believe that expendable upper stage alone costs 10 million. It can't cost them less than that.

I think that was in the region of 5-7M. If I remember correctly a Falcon 9 launch costs around $15M, maybe something less.

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

#274

Post by tigershark »

qayxc wrote: post #150
bmcniel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the thesis is if cost per kg fall enough then the implausible becomes plausible. F9 reduced costs to make starlink possible, what will starship make possible?

"The consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong." Seems to me as if Starlink without Starship isn't all that great. Also, OneWeb - despite being smaller in scop…

No, OneWeb didn’t do anything remotely comparable. Starlink satellites are currently more than all the human satellites ever launched. Smaller in scope is a euphemism, you are comparing a mere 650 satellites with 42k, 2 orders of magnitude more.

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

#275

Post by rileyphone »

metadat wrote: post #79
kilroy123 wrote: post #6

If you're ever in the Houston area, I highly recommend going to see NASA Johnson Space Center. They have a full-size replica (?) Saturn V rocket on its side, you can see. You simply can't grasp how big these rockets are until you see it up close. It's like a tall building blasting off into space. They're humongous. I hope to one day see Starship up close in person as it takes off to space.

I loved visiting the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. There is a REAL Saturn-V on display! Not to mention the VAB.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building Pretty much everything about the place makes you feel real small ;)

I got to go up in, and on top of it once - an unreal experience. It is also the tallest exurban building in the country IIRC. From across the river, you can see it from over 10 miles away quite distinctly.

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

#276

Post by kisstheblade »

copperx wrote: post #267
JaimeThompson wrote: post #55

I think Gwynne Shotwell is the rather unsung hero keeping SpaceX running correctly day by day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell

Is Shotwell a real last name? Seems too appropriate.

No post body was provided.

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

#277

Post by demadog »

kisstheblade wrote: post #276
copperx wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Shotwell a real last name? Seems too appropriate.

Quoted post unavailable.

The hardest part is selling a compelling vision that connect with people and motivates a whole new generation, not to mention investors and the gov to invest.

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

#278

Post by betwixthewires »

WalterBright wrote: post #251
jmyeet wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you imaginging a JWST or similar telescope that isn't a government program?

Why not? Capitalism has a record of funding a lot of scientific expeditions, for example. Let's say Microsoft wanted to generate goodwill in the scientific community? What could be better than funding a space telescope?

Microsoft has had many incidents in which generation of goodwill would've been very valuable, so where's the Microsoft space telescope?

Goodwill isn't going to cut it. There needs to be a tangible incentive.

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

#279

Post by Cpoll »

kisstheblade wrote: post #276
copperx wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Shotwell a real last name? Seems too appropriate.

Quoted post unavailable.

According to wiki, though:

> Shotwell is married to Robert Shotwell, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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

#280

Post by kisstheblade »

demadog wrote: post #277
kisstheblade wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The hardest part is selling a compelling vision that connect with people and motivates a whole new generation, not to mention investors and the gov to invest.

Yes. See Theranos.

There has to be some sensible ratio of bullshit/vision.

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