201–210 of 351 posts
What is the benefit of settling on Mars? Until we explain that in some kind of sane way that doesn’t just involve the earth being a crutch for raw materials, it all seems rather stupid to me. Settling an earth-like planet? Sure! Seems logical. Mars? Not really.
Why Mars, specifically? Why not "settle" Antarctica or Marianna's trench? Aren't these orders of magnitude easier?
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> Purpose is so hard to come by now because we all don't know what we want. When we do know, we're constantly unsure about it. This statement resonates deeply with me. Whenever I meet someone new or that I might be interested in dating I ask "What are you doing with your life?" or "What are you striving for?" and I find the extreme majority of people don't have an answer beyond "I just go to a job I don't really like…
It's definitely very difficult. I'm striving to learn a new language,improve at chess and olympic weightlifting but that's a much lower level of purpose than building spaceships to reach Mars. I hope that I can find something in my career that fuels a burning desire like some of the SpaceX employees
Not that my opinion matters, but I think those are fantastic goals to strive for. If it's making you happy to challenge yourself, go for it!
THAT is exactly the purpose I'm talking about vs. someone that doesn't try at anything and doesn't have any idea what they'd like to do, or achieve, or improve in the next 10 years.
> I hope that I can find something in my career that fuels a burning desire like some of the SpaceX employees
I've accepted I won't find that kind of career, so I to do it in my outside life (like you are!)
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Correct. You can (super¹)linearly increase launch mass by adding fuel. The rocket equation hits when you're trying to go farther, rather than more massive. ¹ Superlinear because tank mass scales with a lower exponent than tank volume.
> tank mass scales with a lower exponent than tank volume I'm confused here. How are they not both cubic?
I don’t get the point 1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn’t it be good to solve that first? 2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn’t be better to fix that first? (No, electric cars won’t suffice) 3) is it really necessary to spoil astronomy/night sky to finance one’s dream? (No, vantablack w…
1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn’t it be good to solve that first? I don't see why we can't do both. Maybe if you come up with an actionable plan you can start your own company like Elon and tackle that problem. 2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn’t be better to fix that first? (No, el…
Making a steel or glass plate requires a lot of industrial capability and a capable supply chain to say nothing of raw materials. Both are cheap on Earth because we've built that infrastructure over the past two hundred years. That infrastructure was relatively easy to construct because the workers could wear overalls and hard hats rather than space suits. Taking a lunch break doesn't mean disrobing and piling into a pressure vessel.
Go camping for a weekend in the desert or in the snow sometime. Consider all the crap you need to take with you to not die of exposure or thirst. In those environments where you've got air for free and usually water if you know where to look, you've still got a fair bit of equipment. If you forget anything or lose it you could end up seriously injured or even dead. That's somewhere that's lousy with breathable atmosphere, protection from most ionizing solar radiation, and an average temperature high enough your lungs won't freeze.
Surviving inhospitable environments on Earth requires effort and technology. Surviving outside of Earth is several orders of magnitude more difficult. Thriving outside of Earth is more orders of magnitude beyond mere survival.
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AFAIK they work in shifts, non-stop; crazy hours & weekend is irrelevant in this context.
This part of the article is about shifts for assembly workers: So Musk is making the machine to make the machine. Musk has brought lessons learned from Tesla’s assembly line so workers do not burn out. They will work three 12-hour days and then have a four-day weekend. Then they’ll work four 12-hour shifts with a three-day weekend. Thus, with four shifts, the Boca Chica site can operate at full capacity 24 hours a da…
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I'm not in that area, but I struggle to find an analogue of a large pressurized tank on Earth where mass is the dominant cost factor. You might have equally big tanks on Earth, under equal pressures, but it will be more cost-effective to just increase the material used on the shell of the tank to solve your problems. Whereas in space, every kg that can theoretically be removed from the launch vehicle is worth investi…
>I'm not in that area, but I struggle to find an analogue of a large pressurized tank on Earth where mass is the dominant cost factor. If you stretch the definition of "tank" and "on Earth" then modern pressurized airliner cabins definitely qualify.
It's a good reference point, even if there are some key differences worth mentioning.
First up, an airliner fuselage is specced for tens of thousands of pressure cycles; needs to sustain the wear & tear, accumulated stress, and distortion. The rocket needs to handle maybe a dozen pressure cycles at most, and it is feasible to only handle one cycle for first few experimental vehicles.
Secondly, the airliner fuselage has much more complex shape, due to conflicting needs for aerodynamics, attachment of wings & control surfaces, etc.. This, together with varying materials and large openings concentrates stresses in key points. The rocket tank is as close to a big dumb uniform pipe as you can get. Even better, a rocket may rely on internal pressure for structural rigidity, while airliner needs to handle depressurization.
Lastly, the Starship is designed to survive re-entry, thus heat resistance is a major concern there; not anymore for an airliner ever since the Concorde SSTO got retired.
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Depends on how you measure "behind". If you measure it by "times been to the moon" SpaceX sure is behind. Less money? Less motivation? Less talent? The number of factors that contribute to success are unmeasurable, what a silly question.
Let's be objective: SpaceX has radically lowered the cost to get to Earth orbit, and commands a majority of the worldwide launch market. They are simply more efficient than other launch providers, so much so that they are branching out into global communications (StarLink) to capture more revenue (global comms is 10x the market size of the launch market). They don't need to go to the Moon to succeed. There is no mark…
Slightly off-topic but apart from Mars-related things, I don't think are appreciating how big of a deal Starship/Super Heavy will be. Because space is hard and expensive, when designing payloads, they also have to be over-engineered to make sure you're getting the most out of your ride, which then makes the rockets over-engineered and expensive to make sure they don't blow up carrying the precious cargo. It's a posit…
> What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime? That's exactly the premise of Starlink. SpaceX know they can launch those things 100x cheaper (1000x ?) than ever before in history, so they're churning them out and throwing them up. Even though the ones going up right now aren't "finished" it doesn't matter, because replacing them with new and better ones is so cheap.