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Starship is still not understood

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Re: Starship is still not understood

#161

Post by themaninthedark »

vidarh wrote: post #43
theshadowknows wrote: post #6

I know that going into space is sexy and nerdy and cool and that it’s a difficult problem. What I don’t get is why so many people think about going to space and spend so much money on it when there are people in the US who drink water that catches on fire..and people elsewhere who don’t have access to water at all. Seems like we should work on the truly hard problems rather than the ones that are basically “just go u…

Solving food and clean water is not a technology problem. It's a political choice. The money exists to solve those things not just for the US but worldwide. I'm very much in favour of political change to solve them, but I long ago resigned myself to accepting that there's very little benefit in individual action to try to counter them other than to feel good unless a majority is willing to commit to the necessary soc…

To add, solving world hunger is more than just give everyone food. The USA had been supplying cheap/food to countries but this started causing the farmers in those countries to stop growing food because they could not compete with the free food. So either the US is a monster because they are undercutting the local market or they are a monster because they are throwing away food when people are going hungry.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#162

Post by dr_orpheus »

ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

I think part of the point that the author misses is that while designing a spacecraft for a Starship launch does remove a lot of the constraints there is not the infrastructure to take advantage of that (yet).

There have been some preliminary studies on spacecraft that could take advantage of a Starship launch capability, but we currently can't transport a spacecraft that large over the road. It would most likely have to be transported by ship from the manufacturing facility to the launch site. Additionally, new test facilities like thermal vacuum chambers, acoustic cells and anechoic chambers would likely have to be created to handle the large spacecraft that a Starship could enable. And NASA is not going to make that investment until there is a higher probability of the Starship succeeding.

Those in the industry are pretty cautious about Elon's promises. Back in 2011, SpaceX advertised that the first Falcon heavy flight was going to be in 2013 [0], but the demo flight didn't occur until 2018, with the first launch of an actual payload in 2019.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/space-business-rocket-idUSN0...

Re: Starship is still not understood

#163

Post by panick21_ »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #107
Yizahi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latest post is more of a continuation of this one: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/03/04/sls-what-now/ I'm going to presume what author thought and quote him: ------ What does NASA do with teams that cost a few billion dollars a year to feed and whose main expertise is building rockets and space probes whose entire architectural philosophy is threatened by current launch costs, let alone the order of magnitud…

"Starship will be able to land 100 of them per flight. Now what?" Starship cannot deliver 100 tonnes to mars, only to LEO. The rover was not just a ton, it came with a heatshield and other machinery. Nasa has plenty of other projects, like the SAFE nuclear reactor, and I am sure these teams will be delighted to do something other than track every milligram

Starship with refueling is designed for 100 tones to Mars. Actually if you do the math it can be even more.

> The rover was not just a ton, it came with a heatshield and other machinery.

Great and that was thrown away and didn't add anything to the mission. The actual payload is 1 ton.

> Nasa has plenty of other projects, like the SAFE nuclear reactor, and I am sure these teams will be delighted to do something other than track every milligram

If they allow them to not work that way. That the whole point.

I know for a fact the the people who work on Kilopower are really exited for their reactors to potentially power future Mars base and they really want to be allowed to build larger versions.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#164

Post by ncallaway »

natch wrote: post #99
ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

I would buy your argument if they weren’t assuming the benefits of SLS before it’s proven. Why give SLS, but not Starship, the benefit of the doubt?

I don't think NASA really wants to give the benefit of the doubt to SLS. It's a congressionally mandated program, that NASA regularly proposes reducing the budget and responsibility for (e.g. https://spacenews.com/nasa-budget-proposal-targets-sls/), and Congress regularly rebuffs them and demands SLS.

If Congress passes a budget with $7B in funding specifically for SLS, you can't really blame NASA for spending that money on SLS.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#165

Post by handrous »

api wrote: post #144
bryanlarsen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA just announced that they want to spend $1B per launch for SLS once a year until 2050. For a capability less than what SpaceX might provide for $10M. That's not sensible risk management, that's head in the sand denialism. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/nasa-wants-to-buy-sl...

It's a jobs program for Alabama.

The space museum (also home of the famous Space Camp) in Huntsville, AL sure is pimping it, still. That's the one and only future rocket for USA space flight, one might think if one's only knowledge came from a visit to that museum, rather than a sad zombie project that everyone knows will be badly obsolete by the time it flies. Plus a huge amount of square footage dedicated to advertising for various MIC contractors for stuff that has little or nothing to do with space, and a lot to do with killing people. Super lame. Half of the museum feels like a government contractor trade show, not a museum, which makes sense given where it's located, but doesn't explain why it seems to have a good reputation, as far as space & rocketry museums go.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#166

Post by vanattab »

brianwawok wrote: post #158
vanattab wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2020 there was 114 orbital launches supporting all space missions around the world. That's 0.013 launches per hour. 12 launches per hour to support a single mission does not seem at least a little insane? I love SpaceX and am hopeful for their Mars plans but we are scientists and engineers let's think with our brains and not our hearts.

if computers taught me anything.. it's if you can do 1 thing really really well perfectly, it's not a ton of work to do it 10x or 100x in parallel. We don't have enough data to know reliability of say Falcon long term. Is it 99% successful? 99.9%? 99.999999%? Doing a ton of launches, you really want to work on the 9s, so 0-1 of your launches blow up, not 100+. But once you do, you just copy paste it baby and go to to…

I am not convinced the scalability of cyberspace applies to actual space.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#167

Post by simonh »

baggachipz wrote: post #93
dangerbird2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that for Starship to hit that $10M price point, SpaceX will have to demonstrate several as of yet unproven capabilities: In-space refueling (required for any missions outside LEO), safe and reliable re-entry from orbit, and fast turnaround for Starship to be launch-ready after landing. The last thing NASA needs is a glorified Space Shuttle 2.0 that takes months to be rebuilt after each re-entry, and ha…

> NASA is right to not put all of its eggs in the Starship basket. The problem is that not only are they not putting any eggs into the Starship basket, they aren't even aware (or admitting) that the basket even exists.

>not putting any eggs into the Starship basket

HLS is a $2.89bn egg they have put in the Starship basket.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#168

Post by JaimeThompson »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28
ncallaway wrote: post #8

I’m kinda confused by the criticism of the industry and NASA not designing for Starship. The author argues that NASA doesn’t understand Tempe game changer that Starship is, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the risk to NASA of assuming the benefits of Starship before it’s proven are just too high. If NASA (or other industry players), assume Starship will deliver the benefits it promises, they to fundamentall…

NASA just announced that they want to spend $1B per launch for SLS once a year until 2050. For a capability less than what SpaceX might provide for $10M. That's not sensible risk management, that's head in the sand denialism. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/nasa-wants-to-buy-sl...

I am sure that absent interference from the US House and Senate NASA would say something different but if NASA says too much their stand to have their funding cut.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#169

Post by lkey »

zpeti wrote: post #103
pjc50 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would anyone like to estimate the CO2 emissions produced by that?

You are passive aggressively attacking the guy who is basically doing the only really inspiring thing in the world today, while at the same time basically single handedly forcing the auto industry into electrifying like 30 years early. So, honestly, please, stop.

The beliefs that Elon Musk

A) Was attacked by the parent comment B) Needs defending here of all places C) Is the only person doing something inspiring in the world

Indicate that you might want to broaden your worldview.

Electric cars will not save us from climate change, nor will rockets send us into climate oblivion.

Re: Starship is still not understood

#170

Post by panick21_ »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #112
natch wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would buy your argument if they weren’t assuming the benefits of SLS before it’s proven. Why give SLS, but not Starship, the benefit of the doubt?

Because Nasa is calling the shots on SLS, but Elon could cancell starship with a tweet, or OD on crack and kick the bucket, or go bancrupt, or end up in jail for calling someone a pedo. There is a real non-zero risk of something bad gappebing to him and then future of SpaceX is in question, its not a robust institution like NASA

Elon going to prison would not stop Starship. Neither would it stop if he died.

And in some absurd crazy scenario NASA could basically 'take' it because its relevant for future mission. NASA has done so before if a company they needed went bankrupt.

SLS depends on a incredibly long list of suppliers. Far longer then Starship.

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