This will make solar radiation management a serious proposition.
Starship’s second flight test
171–180 of 235 posts
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now when I open a tweet without being logged in I can't even see any replies. So…you’re upset that you can’t do something for free now?
Twitter has never been non-free. You just need to register. Premium is nice, but not that critical. I have one account with and one without, mostly just the 280 char limit annoys without premium but that's how twitter was before anyway
“Free” in the holistic meaning, not so much as paid monetarily, but requiring you to trade something (registration and login) for access. It’s not necessarily unreasonable in my opinion to expect login to view content or use the site.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 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 sp…
I'd take the other side of the bet on the #1 hard, and within the relatively near future, depending on how we define passenger. Militaries will 110% be using Starship for this almost immediately after its proven to be tolerably safe and reliable. Getting mass cargo, troops, and transit across the globe in the blink of an eye, with tremendous landing flexibility? If Starship somehow doesn't prove completely unworkable, I would not be surprised to see this happening in #2 becomes a much more interesting debate if you remove the self sustaining aspect of it, and consider just an Earth dependent colony. Full self sustainability will probably only happen decades after the creation of a persistent colony. There's just too much industry to recreate in an entirely new environment for it to be a remotely quick process.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#174Earlier 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?
Maybe move all data centers into geostationary orbit. They would be solar powered with direct communication between each orbiting center and transmitters/receiver stations on the planet surface. With that sort of lifting capacity, it wouldn't take too long to move most data center servers into orbit. Would it be cost effective? Maybe not. But I reckon there would be some climate change benefit by moving all that heat out into space.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any hints on how this is going to change civilisation, for non-space nerds?
Maybe move all data centers into geostationary orbit. They would be solar powered with direct communication between each orbiting center and transmitters/receiver stations on the planet surface. With that sort of lifting capacity, it wouldn't take too long to move most data center servers into orbit. Would it be cost effective? Maybe not. But I reckon there would be some climate change benefit by moving all that heat…
Definitely not. Cooling datacenters is a major cost component and that gets way harder in space as you have to radiate it away and cannot use air/water as a heat sink. Add in repairing components that break and that'll likely never happen.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with Hanlon's Razor is that Grey's Law turns it into just "never attribute anything to malice" which is invalid unless you're willing to assume that no act of malice ever occurs.
Only when incompetence is also a credible explanation.
Hence Grey's Law.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any hints on how this is going to change civilisation, for non-space nerds?
Maybe move all data centers into geostationary orbit. They would be solar powered with direct communication between each orbiting center and transmitters/receiver stations on the planet surface. With that sort of lifting capacity, it wouldn't take too long to move most data center servers into orbit. Would it be cost effective? Maybe not. But I reckon there would be some climate change benefit by moving all that heat…
Unlikely. Cooling is a huge challenge in space, needing crazy big radiators. Dumping excess heat into water or air is a lot more effective than black-body radiating it in a vacuum.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#178If 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.
In order to send HLS to the moon they need something like 20 regular starship launches which is a bit insane. I think it will be great for putting people and things in LEO but past that point I’m not sure.
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 sp…
> 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. Both are in my opinion completely technologically feasible. Just not economically feasible. If we had another space race I could see a mars colony in the 2040. But I don't think it will happen.
We will probably put people on mars eventually but a Mars colony is basically just not going to be self sustaining. We have Antarctic bases that are definitely not self sustaining which is a similar thing
Re: Starship’s second flight test
#180If 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).
But more important first is to put headphones on seals and play sonic boom sounds to test and make sure they aren't startled by the scary rocket sounds. (Ok, stretching a little. That is what a seemingly similar survey did at Cape as a part of some similarly goofy bureaucracy thing that has been holding Starship back the last month or so. For Starship they're worried for the risk of what happens if Starship literally…
I think it’s more of SpaceX’s problem for building their rocket launch site in the middle of a nature preserve