121–130 of 235 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just looked it up and was stunned to see a target of $13/kg cost to orbit. That's insane. A human could go to space for under $1,000 (hand waving away the life support systems)
Those are still Musk numbers. But even 10x of that would be quite good. Pretty crazy how nobody seems to even try to compete.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, what's the point of getting where he is and shutting up just to make random people happy?
Because it would just be nice if he shutup ?
TL;DR: No, you shut up and never say that extremely selfish and destructive thing again.
Can't wait to have Isis in space.. We kicked the problem of growing up as a species down the road for so long, now it's time for a nuke for everyone (who is not in a gravity well). Let's get this over with by bribing us out of today's problems into even bigger tomorrow's problems with the tools of yesterday to handle internal crisis. Sure downvote reality, that will make it go away. The sort of points I want to see,…
I'm downvoting you because you're wasting everyone's time and being demotivational about a great thing. The only true progress is technological.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s bonkers. It’s absolutely bonkers. I feel like I’m witnessing the creation of the wheel. Non-space nerds don’t quite understand why it’s so exciting. But I can’t imagine how much this is going to change the world, and civilization. It’s kind of the equivalent of going from local freighters to the Seawise Giant in one iteration.
Any hints on how this is going to change civilisation, for non-space nerds?
More esoteric: Commercial space stations. Space vacations. Moon base. Humans on Mars, and maybe even beyond. More and better space telescopes. Maybe some space based manufacturing. Eventually asteroid mining.
Counterpoint: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To efficiently reach his target goals? It would be such shame if Starship never flew because he squandered $45B on Twitter and made a lot of political enemies being an edge lord online..
That’s his money, not SpaceX money. Do you think he pays for everything out-of-pocket?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s bonkers. It’s absolutely bonkers. I feel like I’m witnessing the creation of the wheel. Non-space nerds don’t quite understand why it’s so exciting. But I can’t imagine how much this is going to change the world, and civilization. It’s kind of the equivalent of going from local freighters to the Seawise Giant in one iteration.
Any hints on how this is going to change civilisation, for non-space nerds?
If Starship meets its reusability goals it's going to be absolutely nuts. Flying to orbit and back multiple times in a day like an airliner or something, carrying more than the entire habitable volume of ISS every time. It's impossible to overstate how much that would change access to space, and how much of an advantage it would give SpaceX over its competitors (even other nations).
Agreed it would be absolutely seismic. How well does that look, from a cold, objective, non-Elon-hype point of view? I mean, he might happen to be 100% correct in his optimism but by now I learned to trust nothing that man says.
I admit I did get a little caught up in Musk's web of hype in the early days but fortunately my natural scepticism was strong enough to resist him. Eventually, I found a few detailed analyses of some of his technological fantasies which convinced me that some of what he proposes will not be happening any time soon, if ever.
I am by no means an Elon Musk hater but he does speak a lot of nonsense, from time to time, and he seems to be able to persuade many to abandon their scientific scepticism.
I was persuaded by what Common Sense Sceptic says about some of Elon Musk's plans: https://www.youtube.com/@commonsenseskeptic>, even though he is clearly biased against Elon Musk.
I am convinced that
1. A city-to-city Starship shuttle passenger service will never happen.
2. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will not happen in the foreseeable future.
I have strong doubts about other SpaceX and Tesla claims by Elon Musk, but these two events I would actually bet on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
-Not being dependent on Earth for survival of the species as Starship in its huge capability and reasonably cheap cost, among with refuelability on Mars begins the road to believable planetary colonization -Asteroid / Moon mining -Overally, being capable of going to space with more than just miniscule science-oriented payloads. FYI, ISS has cost us over a 100 billion dollars. When Starship hauls its worth in volume i…
What would have to happen to earth to make it less viable a place to live than mars? An asteroid rendering earth’s surface uninhabitable? Even that wouldn’t be enough - there’s still so much more on earth to sustain human life than any planet in our solar system. Apart from proof of concept I just don’t see any practical reason to colonise mars.
First: how awful would you consider a world-wide apocalypse to be, where the human race is effectively ended? Let’s call it massively, enormously bad. How likely is it that that happens? Well, probably incredibly small, but not zero. Multiply the two together and you’ve got a weighting for how much we should care and prepare. In this case, the incredibly small probability is likely balanced by the enormous awfulness - meaning some level of reasonable preparation for existence beyond Earth makes rational sense.
Second: think a thousand years into the future. Do you imagine that humans will be still only on earth, or will we have reached out and explored further - beyond our planet, beyond our solar system? If you can imagine any version of ‘beyond Earth’ - then Starship and Mars might represent the first baby steps needed to ultimately achieve that outcome.
If Starship meets its reusability goals it's going to be absolutely nuts. Flying to orbit and back multiple times in a day like an airliner or something, carrying more than the entire habitable volume of ISS every time. It's impossible to overstate how much that would change access to space, and how much of an advantage it would give SpaceX over its competitors (even other nations).