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SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

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Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#31

Post by nerdjon »

enraged_camel wrote: post #20

Incredible achievement, but what is more incredible is how many people (including almost all of my friends circle) have started rooting for SpaceX to fail due to the shenanigans of its founder. I think as a culture we've lost the ability to compartmentalize. We should be able to criticize and even despise the head of a company, and at the same time celebrate when the intelligence and hard work of the countless smart…

This is something I am finding myself wrestling with a lot right now.

On the one hand I am a major space nerd and I see the value of what SpaceX is doing. Especially with it really seeming like no one is anywhere near their level. What kind of scientific advancements will be possible once this thing can be used normally and launches like this become commonplace.

But at the same time it is impossible to ignore the Elon situation. And that also directly relates to Trump as well. We are in this bonkers situation where he helped get a largely anti-science administration in power and yet also runs one of the companies that will help science.

It does raise serious questions about whether or not there will be limitations on what types of science can be done. Will they have some line in the sand and say they won't launch satellites that do "X", like maybe monitor climate change.

I think maybe rooting for them to fail is a bit much, but I am sure as hell hoping that someone else can catch up. But in the mean time I will celebrate these achievements cautiously. Recognizing the amazing work that the engineers at SpaceX have put into this, because they do deserve a lot of credit for that.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#32

Post by stetrain »

fluoridation wrote: post #27
thatoneguy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that matter? It's doing a thing already done nearly 70 years ago but at its own pace. I bet it will get to the moon cheaper, too, and the Muskonauts will use less expensive lenses than Hasselblads to take photos.

Starship isn't exactly the same as Saturn V. It's bigger, for one. The reason why it matters is that efficiency matters. It's fine if it takes longer, not so much if it costs way, way more, especially if such a huge rocket has limited applications. And as I understand it the consensus is that Starship (or at least a fully-loaded Starship) will never go to the Moon. Once it's in orbit it takes like twenty refueling la…

I think that understanding of the consensus is incorrect. The mission plan for Artemis 3 is that a specialized Starship upper stage will be refueled in LEO and then transfer to lunar orbit where it will wait for astronauts arriving on SLS/Orion.

Yes the mission profile is more complex, but that complexity can mostly be settled before the astronauts launch on their mission.

NASA seems to think it is a viable plan which is why they selected SpaceX to execute that part of the mission.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#33

Post by yepyip »

enraged_camel wrote: post #20

Incredible achievement, but what is more incredible is how many people (including almost all of my friends circle) have started rooting for SpaceX to fail due to the shenanigans of its founder. I think as a culture we've lost the ability to compartmentalize. We should be able to criticize and even despise the head of a company, and at the same time celebrate when the intelligence and hard work of the countless smart…

[flagged]

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#34

Post by mikepurvis »

ralfd wrote: post #11
voidUpdate wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to wikipedia, the entire cost of the saturn v project was US$185 million, equivalent to US$33.6 billion today. That's from R&D to all launches

You mis-copied the numbers for one launch. Wiki says: > Project cost US$6.417 billion (equivalent to $33.6 billion in 2023) > Cost per launch US$185 million (equivalent to $969 million in 2023) That a manned Apollo mission would/did cost under a billion dollars (todays money) is surprisingly cheap. A single Artemis launch using the Space Launch System (SLS) costs an eye watering $4 billions. Different metric: > [1966…

Some of this was the overall urgency of the 1960s space race, that people were motivated to cut through red tape and get it done, and I know it's also argued that modern safety standards and requirements around supply chain, real time monitoring, system redundancy, etc all complicate things and raise costs.

That said, it would be interesting to have someone really knowledgeable go over what it is that Artemis has and Saturn V didn't, and then break them down and assign each an approximate proportion of the cost delta.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#35

Post by gcanyon »

Romario77 wrote: post #18

It was a significant progress, but I won't call it "nailed it". As there was an damage or explosion on re-entry where the skirt of the starship got damaged. And we could see pretty significant damage on one of the fins. Nailing it would be without the things above.

The explosion was unexpected and (as far as I know at the moment) unexplained, but they flew the mission at the edge of the envelope, and with a variety of different materials/missing bits on purpose, to better understand where the edge is. Everything that happened (maybe even including the explosion, we'll see in the final analysis) was, as far as we know, within the plan.

The biggest can't-miss milestone was the flawless engine restart. That gives them the go-ahead to hit orbit on the next flight.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#36

Post by criddell »

seatac76 wrote: post #13

Amazing achievement. Just watching no that giant thing lift off is a great feeling.

I know it's a similar size to the Saturn V, but something about the Saturn V just seems grander to me. Maybe it's the paint job?

Frankly, it kind of blows my mind what the US pulled off in the late 60's, early 70's with the technology and materials of the time.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#37

Post by bad_haircut72 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #20

Incredible achievement, but what is more incredible is how many people (including almost all of my friends circle) have started rooting for SpaceX to fail due to the shenanigans of its founder. I think as a culture we've lost the ability to compartmentalize. We should be able to criticize and even despise the head of a company, and at the same time celebrate when the intelligence and hard work of the countless smart…

[flagged]

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#38

Post by dylan604 »

fluoridation wrote: post #29
dylan604 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the cost of all of Mercury and Gemini missions need to be included in this as they could not have Apollo without the others first.

Those weren't on the Saturn V, though. They were various rockets for Mercury, and Titan II for Gemini.

Do you think they would/could have built the Saturn V without building the other engines first?

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#39

Post by potato3732842 »

nomilk wrote: post #19

Given the results of test 10 (successful splash down of Starship), any ideas what test 11 will entail? Could we be looking at a chopstick catch of the Starship itself?

They're probably gonna keep wasting ships until they've got the exact limits of their capability established.

I know it seems counterintuitive to everyone who grew up in the era of the space shuttle, but the ship is the cheap part, the giant booster is the expensive part.

The ship has a way longer cycle time so starship unit costs are going to dominate fleet construction cost despite being the cheaper unit so knowing exactly how hard you can run them is very valuable information it's worth gleaning by wasting some units early on.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#40

Post by ge96 »

gcanyon wrote: post #35
Romario77 wrote: post #18

It was a significant progress, but I won't call it "nailed it". As there was an damage or explosion on re-entry where the skirt of the starship got damaged. And we could see pretty significant damage on one of the fins. Nailing it would be without the things above.

The explosion was unexpected and (as far as I know at the moment) unexplained, but they flew the mission at the edge of the envelope, and with a variety of different materials/missing bits on purpose, to better understand where the edge is. Everything that happened (maybe even including the explosion, we'll see in the final analysis) was, as far as we know, within the plan. The biggest can't-miss milestone was the fl…

The deployment system was interesting, how the last one in the layer would go back then forward before releasing.
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