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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

#351

Post by ClumsyPilot »

rurban wrote: post #285
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just wait for the private Starships. Hey they should be cheaper than megayachts." Any space rocket can turn the whitehouse, the Kremlin or 10 Downing street into a crater withing 30 minutes, with minimal chances of air defence to stoping it. If we start handing out starships to random shady conpanies registered in tax heavens, 9/11 will look like a peacefull day in comparison

Submarines also. Today

You mean ballistic missile submarines? Do we sell them to random rich people?

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

#352

Post by freemint »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #247
boznz wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asteroid mining. I really cant believe its not on Elon's mind, talk about disruptive!

Why? There are no minerals available in space that wouldn't be cheaper to mine on Earth. Even with Starship's vastly reduced costs. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-k...

Once you have orbital refuelling that changes the asymptotics little so it might be profitable then but that's like post moon station.

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

#353

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mlindner wrote: post #320
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airports do not have minimal safety distance measured in miles. Catastrophic failure of a plane causes a fire, catastrophic failure of a rocket causes a detonation the size of a small nuke.

> Catastrophic failure of a plane causes a fire, catastrophic failure of a rocket causes a detonation the size of a small nuke. Rockets do not detonate. They cause rapid burning. The fuel and oxidizer are not well mixed so cannot detonate.

I meant 'they explode" in laymans terms

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

#354

Post by boppo1 »

thrwawy283 wrote: post #316
ohgodplsno wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tricking investors isn't exactly a high bar to clear either. But sure, you go on ahead and keep telling yourself that Tesla is worth more than the entire, combined auto industry when they can't even make cars with proper joints and door alignments.

We tend to think investors love to chase clouds. These ideas have existed for a long time, and making them a reality - of course - isn't easy. I tend to believe an investor is looking at how good a company can sell the idea to consumers, even if the tech isn't there yet. The company tricks the consumer - not the investor. People buy the half-finished tech, the company appreciates in value, and the investor very likel…

>There are stupid investors out there, but they won't be investors for long.

Not if the federal reserve has anything to say about it! Apparently that'll be changing soon, but the last 15 years or so was all about subsidizing stupid investors.

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

#355

Post by inglor_cz »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #342
sjtindell wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate framing it this way but your passionate hating has me doing it - do you build rockets? Or cars? What exactly do you do that gives you such certainty in bringing down these people who have already achieved so much? Their "dream big" mentality is sorely lacking in a society full of cynical, dead eyed and uncreative drones focused on nothing but financing their own survival or excesses. Applaud it, don't try to b…

The real problem with Musk is that he seems to be a narcissist and a good hypeman. His achievements are that he invested in the right companies and then he ousted the original visionaries / founders... and finally claiming he is the founder... see Tesla. Also a real leader usually gives credit where credit is due. Not once have I seen where Musk has credited his team. And don't get me started with how he's calling a…

Both can be true at the same time.

He has a fragile ego and weird behavior on the social networks. At the same time, SpaceX is by far the most successful of all the space startups that have emerged in this century. Most of its competitors are not even unsuccessful, but outright dead. Blue Origin, financed by Bezos, hasn't yet managed to reach the orbit after 22 years of operation.

Yes, it is possible that random forces of luck selected SpaceX for a string of successes. But I think it is deeper than that. Musk has an ability to attract engineering talent and give it enough leeway so that interesting concepts may emerge. Shotwell has an ability to keep the company financially sound and on track.

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #342
sjtindell wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate framing it this way but your passionate hating has me doing it - do you build rockets? Or cars? What exactly do you do that gives you such certainty in bringing down these people who have already achieved so much? Their "dream big" mentality is sorely lacking in a society full of cynical, dead eyed and uncreative drones focused on nothing but financing their own survival or excesses. Applaud it, don't try to b…

The real problem with Musk is that he seems to be a narcissist and a good hypeman. His achievements are that he invested in the right companies and then he ousted the original visionaries / founders... and finally claiming he is the founder... see Tesla. Also a real leader usually gives credit where credit is due. Not once have I seen where Musk has credited his team. And don't get me started with how he's calling a…

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by inglor_cz »

alpaca128 wrote: post #334
CryptoPunk wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*reusable rockets. Rocket launches are associated with very high costs because rockets have historically been one-time use.

Reusable rockets aren't coincidentally many orders of magnitude safer though. They would need to be just to come even with airplanes. It would also involve acceleration forces far beyond anything a normal passenger would accept. I'd be glad to be wrong, but I have yet to see an analysis that actually does the math and doesn't result in something along the lines of "this concept is insane and doomed to fail". Spaceshi…

" They would need to be just to come even with airplanes."

Airplanes of the 1950s or airplanes of the 2020s? That is a huge difference.

It took the aviation industry 120 years to arrive at current levels of safety.

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

#358

Post by screenbreakout »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #209
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. At $1 MM per launch with 100 t per launch puts Starship roughly at $10 per kg. Asteroid mining: Will be a huge industry. Especially with growing environmental concerns all around Earth. Waste can basically be disposed of very cheaply into the atmosphere or sun. Starlink, Kupier, etc…

The military wants a C-130 payload anywhere in the world in 1 hour. Military up the wazoo in contracts. Militarization of space is inevitable, they'll want bases up there. If the payload costs are true for starship, they'll put big ones up there. Starship will represent a total paradigm change in space superiority on economics alone. I'm surprised China and Russia aren't loudly complaining about this. It would enable…

Umm, what is the CO2 cost ? Oh I forgot, the world is burning up, but it's buisness as usual... I do appreciate the discussion, though , it's justsad to see a lack of concern for real existential worries...

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

#359

Post by SECProto »

jsnodlin wrote: post #185
SECProto wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did Musk solve this problem? SpaceX haven't, yet. > 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. N-1 rocket had many troubles with the engines, but it wasn't specifically due to the number of engines: the NK-15 engine couldn't be test fired, vs the Raptor…

Yes they have. The falcon heavy has 27 engines. How are you so confidently saying they haven’t?

The discussion was about Raptor and Starship, but you're right that the falcon heavy has some similarities in having to synchronize 27 engines. Regardless, the rest of my comment was the more interesting part.

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

#360

Post by bryanlarsen »

moralestapia wrote: post #336
bryanlarsen wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 787 holds 127,000 litres of kerosene and a Falcon 9 holds 175,000 litres of kerosene. That 787 will travel 13,500km on that fuel (1/3 the circumference of the Earth), whereas the Falcon 9 can go all the way around the world on its fuel.

Not all "kerosene" is the same. Jets use Jet Fuel A which is ~$5/gallon while Merlin engines use RP-1 which is ~$100/gallon. Also, on the latter, you need a similarly sized tank of liquid oxygen that the jet gets for free from the atmosphere.

$5 and $100 kerosene emit the same amount of CO2 per liter.

Starship's methane is cheaper than Jet A.

Liquid Oxygen is an order of magnitude cheaper than Jet A or methane.

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