App recommendation, there is a web site and an excellent app, (Apple and Google), I learned about on hn, called:
next spaceflight.
It lists all the upcoming space flights, launches, etc around the world, with times locations and links to watch. The app is very noninvasive, and for once has a useful notification system you can set to remind you, that a launch is imminent.
Of course has other tabs, such as historical flights, etc.
Starship's Sixth Flight Test
411–420 of 455 posts
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true. SLS is around $ 37000 / kg to Orbit Falcon 9 is around $ 2700 / kg to Orbit So in excess of an order of magnitude difference. Starship build cost is currently estimated at $90 million [1]. Let's call it $100 million to make the calculations simple. So even if they can't reuse anything and the payload is at the low-end of what they expect, so 100t from the 100-150t range, that would be $1 million per ton…
Nobody is arguing Falcon 9 isn't a good deal but you can't compare SLS to Falcon 9, the comparison would be Starship to Falcon 9, of which, Starship ain't finished! That's all I'm saying.
You wrote:
>Falcon 9 and SLS are not in the same class.
Not:
>Starship and Falcon 9 are not in the same class.
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#413I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the g…
China is spending a crazy amount of money with several companies trying to copy SpaceX. They are trying to land boosters right now.
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
> go again the same day. That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.
Some of SpaceX's first stages are getting close to the individual Shuttles' launch counts, with substantially less turnaround time and cost than Shuttle ever had. Starship has work to do, but it's hard to argue they're not at least on the right path.
SpaceX was able to re-fly a Falcon 9 in 3 weeks, and it was reported[0] that the refurb process only took 9 days. So they're well on their way.
It's also worth noting that Booster (the first stage), Starship (the second stage) and Raptor (the rocket engine) were all designed with the benefit of the above experience and with the goal of same-day reuse in mind. They know where all of the refurb time went and where the bottlenecks are.
I have no doubt that they can reduce the turnaround further, but the goal of same-day re-flight does seem mighty ambitious.
[0] https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnar...
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true. SLS is around $ 37000 / kg to Orbit Falcon 9 is around $ 2700 / kg to Orbit So in excess of an order of magnitude difference. Starship build cost is currently estimated at $90 million [1]. Let's call it $100 million to make the calculations simple. So even if they can't reuse anything and the payload is at the low-end of what they expect, so 100t from the 100-150t range, that would be $1 million per ton…
Nobody is arguing Falcon 9 isn't a good deal but you can't compare SLS to Falcon 9, the comparison would be Starship to Falcon 9, of which, Starship ain't finished! That's all I'm saying.
> you can't compare SLS to Falcon 9
I just did, so you clearly can. And it is also meaningful.
In theory, a heavier vehicle should have lower cost to orbit, not higher, all else being equal, as some costs are constant overhead. And this theory turns out to be true when you have a comparable vehicle, the Falcon Heavy:
Falcon Heavy: $ 2,100 / kg to LEO (fully expended)
SLS: $ 37,000 / kg to LEO
If you only need 50t to LEO, price for the Falcon Heavy drops to $1,800 / kg as they can then reuse various components.
So SLS is already completely outclassed as things stand right now.
Then comes Starship. A fully expendable Starship, which they have pretty much demonstrated already, would be a further incremental improvement. Slightly lower cost, double the payload of Falcon Heavy, so around $1000/kg. Add even partial reuse, and you're probably in the $800/kg range.
And then you have full reuse, which they look to be close to demonstrating, which is a complete game changer. In the $10 / kg cost range. 3700x cheaper than SLS. That's two decades of Moore's Law kind of improvement. Absolutely crazy.
Human with food, water and air for a couple of days would be what, $5000?
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#416I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the g…
China is spending a crazy amount of money with several companies trying to copy SpaceX. They are trying to land boosters right now.
Have you got a link?
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but we can already launch rockets. Everything else you’re telling me is not application of it but promises that something will come from it. But not listing anything valuable to my average earth dweller life doesn’t tell me that anything beneficial will come from it. No matter how many times someone insists that “yes there will be many advancements obviously, we just need cheaper rockets to tell you what they ar…
Next time please bother reading my comment if you are going to reply. I listed spefic gains from lower launch costs that are not theoretical and directly improve the lives of everyday people. As I said before, you don't actually want an answer here.
No I got answers. As I’ve been saying before, to which YOU don’t want to listen to my perspective. None of what you list would be halted or forfeited by the discontinuation of Starship. None of what you list would affect my personal day to day.
It is very clear YOU don’t want to consider any other perspective than “of course everything is perfect and good from Starship”.
I will gladly eat my words when it is proven otherwise.
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean after the Boeing debacle?
I think they meant buying Trump. As far as I understand the super heavy launch market doesn’t yet exist. Even if in payload mass capacity Starship can do it, we still need to see one with a payload door rather than a pez-satellite dispenser.
> super heavy launch market doesn’t yet exist.
Ye of little imagination!
Just imagine how differently you can do space exploration when launch costs are not in the multi billion (SLS) or hundred million (Falcon Heavy) dollar range, but more like a million dollars.
You can send much bigger, heavier and cheaply constructed probes. And you can give them lots and lots more fuel, especially if you refuel them in-orbit, so less travel time.
Have a heavily shielded/armored Starship that launches small nuclear propulsion units into orbit that are then connected to the probes.
When launching a super heavy ($1 million for 100-150t to LEO) costs a small fraction of what a Falcon 9 launch costs today ($90 million), you can take over that entire segment as well, even without ride sharing.
Or consider CubeSats. They currently weigh around 2kg and ride share with a primary launch.
At $1 million per launch and 100 tons, you could launch 1000 CubeSats at 100 kg each, for $1000 per CubeSat. Though I am not sure if that would work out logistically.
Maybe 200 CubeSats at 500 kg each would be easier, $5000 a pop. Still very doable.
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
The shuttle boosters required rebuilding / refueling (which is solid rocket goop) and the fuel tank was completely lost and required rebuilding. The head shield tiles were extremely fragile on the shuttle. It was never a fully reusable design, just more reusable than before. SpaceX plans to have no parts that are lost each flight and is working to make the tiles mostly standardized and less sensitive to faults.
Are they going to replace all the tiles before it can relaunch? And what about the engine nozzles? They must be taking quite the beating. No doubt SpaceX has very smart people working on this and I'm not an expert in material science, but I just find it hard to believe that same day turnaround could be possible. If true, that would really make us a confirmed space faring civilization. We could actually start colonizi…
Beware the dunning-kruger effect. There is a lot more to colonizing mars than reusable rockets. Just saying..
Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction. Cheaper launch means more weather satellites covering more spectrum from more angles than otherwise. > What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it? Everything is dependent on cost. If we had a medicine that gave an extra 10 years of healthy life to everyone but cost $100,000,000 per person, it would be utterly infeasible to giv…
Okay, now you want to put more satellites in the sky, for weather and gps. Is there some evidence that what we have now is not enough or wouldn’t ever be replaced? I cannot find anything online about that. So I still do not see how this will necessarily improve my daily life as the weather information I have now is already good.
We don't even have to do "more" satellites, though that's also good.
Putting the same satellites into orbit for $1 million instead of $100 million means we saved $99 million. Which can then be put to other uses.
Lower taxes, spending on other programs, repaying the national debt, your pick.