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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

#251

Post by GMoromisato »

nroets wrote: post #211
nwah1 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it doesn't trigger Kessler Syndrome.

With one company being so far ahead is actually a good thing: No tragedy of the Commons. Or reckless gambling on unproven technology.

Agreed!

Also, Kessler Syndrome is over-feared, like the China Syndrome from the nuclear age.

At Starlink orbits, space debris renters in years, if not months. And even then, having cheap access to orbit would allow us deploy replacements quickly.

At GEO, the distances are so vast that Kessler Syndrome is much less likely (though not impossible).

In between, there is some danger, but again, cheap access to orbit gives us the possibility of clean up.

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

#252

Post by GMoromisato »

m4rtink wrote: post #247
sho_hn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades. A similar thing would happen if Starship fails. Space would remain the province of the military and large governments. I really don't agree with this take. It may appear as if SpaceX is the only game in town, but in reality a lot of this technology is commoditized now, and space is as diversified and vibrant as ever. Th…

I would actually argue that Apollo and the space race damaged reusable launcher projects more than the Space Shuttle. Before the mad scramble to the Moon there were many interesting infrastructure projects and incremental manned mission planned as well as partially or fully reusable launcher or variants of existing expendable launchers. Then everything that was not contributing to MOON ASAP was thrown away & massive…

Great point! There were many reusable projects in that era, but Apollo budgets consumed everything else.

I still think Shuttle could have worked, if it had been cheaper to evolve it.

Elon's focus on Starship is to make each iteration as cheap as possible, which means they can radically evolve the design without fear. Think of the (recent) switch to hot-staging or the evolution of Raptor.

If Shuttle had been able to evolve like that, I think they could have gotten the cost down. If you think about it, Starship is basically just Shuttle with the orbiter stacked on top of the booster and with propulsive landing.

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

#253

Post by GMoromisato »

m4rtink wrote: post #248
GMoromisato wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. If Starship fails, the most likely reason will be technological. Either they can never get the heat shield to be reliable, or they can't get cost down below Falcon 9 (meaning, refurbishment costs are too high). And if it fails, who will spend billions on a new vehicle? Stoke Space: They are working on Nova, which is designed for 2nd-stage re-use, and they've got a novel architecture. But they are not well…

AFAIK there is a bunch of Chinese startups pitching some fully reusable designs and/or ready to clone something that works. There is already some Falcon 9 like first stage reusable booster prototypes in development.

Maybe. There are a few trying 1st-stage reuse. I don't know of anyone actually working on 2nd-stage (beyond concept stage).

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

#254

Post by aduffy »

thegrim33 wrote: post #202
GMoromisato wrote: post #169

Starship is like AI/LLMs in that success would revolutionize the world, but technological failure is very possible. And despite the confident predictions on the internets, we don't know which it's going to be. After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades. A similar thing would happen if Starship fails. Space would remain the province of the military and large governm…

"Space would remain the province of the military and large governments." Falcon 9 launches are already only ~10% government payloads, ~90% commercial payloads. They're already vastly not military/government launches.

Sure, not directly. But most of that is imaging and communications payloads, and the vast majority there is being purchased by militaries and intelligence agencies.

Government still props up this whole market.

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

#255

Post by coolspot »

hiddencost wrote: post #237
GMoromisato wrote: post #169

Starship is like AI/LLMs in that success would revolutionize the world, but technological failure is very possible. And despite the confident predictions on the internets, we don't know which it's going to be. After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades. A similar thing would happen if Starship fails. Space would remain the province of the military and large governm…

Why do people talk about data centers in space? Heat management is wayyy harder in space.

Common folk assume that the space is super-cold, so it must be good for hot servers.

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

#256

Post by GMoromisato »

coolspot wrote: post #255
hiddencost wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people talk about data centers in space? Heat management is wayyy harder in space.

Common folk assume that the space is super-cold, so it must be good for hot servers.

I don't know about common folk, but I've heard about radiators, which can be as large as you want if you can get mass to orbit cheaply.

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

#257

Post by WalterBright »

GMoromisato wrote: post #252
m4rtink wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually argue that Apollo and the space race damaged reusable launcher projects more than the Space Shuttle. Before the mad scramble to the Moon there were many interesting infrastructure projects and incremental manned mission planned as well as partially or fully reusable launcher or variants of existing expendable launchers. Then everything that was not contributing to MOON ASAP was thrown away & massive…

Great point! There were many reusable projects in that era, but Apollo budgets consumed everything else. I still think Shuttle could have worked, if it had been cheaper to evolve it. Elon's focus on Starship is to make each iteration as cheap as possible, which means they can radically evolve the design without fear. Think of the (recent) switch to hot-staging or the evolution of Raptor. If Shuttle had been able to e…

> I still think Shuttle could have worked, if it had been cheaper to evolve it.

I doubt it. It's a gigantic kludge that isn't fixable.

For example, the requirement that it land like an airplane meant it needed wings, landing gear, and a full set of flight control surfaces. None of that is useful apart from the landing, and yet it is necessary to push it all into space and re-enter it.

I once emailed Homer Hickam about it, and he was kind enough to reply and said he'd argued the same thing.

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

#258

Post by ActorNightly »

terminalshort wrote: post #212
ActorNightly wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So he's generally an ass to work for, got behind a politician you don't like, and fired a bunch of bureaucrats that probably shouldn't have been fired? Is that it? GWB started a completely unnecessary war, so if that's your example of OK in comparison, then I struggle to understand your standards. > Vertical landings using engines to slow is inneficient. Sure, you reduce system complexity in not having wings or parac…

> Is that it?

I was thinkin more along the lines of unconstitutionally cutting things like USAID thats going to actively result in more unnecessary deaths, personal vendetta against LBGT organizations in cutting those budgets, cutting IRS funding which is going to end up costing more ironically as there isn't enough staffing to pursue all the people using tax avoidance

Not to mention in general supporting someone and donating campaign funds who literally tried to coup the government, contributing to him being elected, and thus being responsible for everything that Trump is doing, from fucking up the economy further to playing wanna be dictator with ICE, all of which have long term repercussions.

In comparison to GWB, Trump is going much worse (especially if you want to compare deficit spending), and Musk has a direct hand in that.

>Well, the most cost effective rocket ever built uses this, but please do elaborate.

Cost effectiveness has nothing to do with engineering. For example, I can start a car company, fund it with my other business venture, and then sell cars for $50 and it would be the most cost effective car.

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

#259

Post by m4rtink »

crowbahr wrote: post #144
hnuser123456 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw one of the dummy satellites bump into the edge of the door on the way out.

They were testing different catapult configurations. Seems clear that one is a no-go but others looked good.

Actually existing Starlink satellites regularly bu p into each other when lobbed in benches by the Falcon 9.

They are built to tolerate that, resulting in much better launch volume and weight utilization (sats are stacked on top of each other & held in place by rods that are then released).

The Starship Starlink release demo was quite tame in comparison to that. ;-)

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

#260

Post by dmbche »

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #220
dmbche wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False dichotomy - the mission profile dictates the refuelling station and all that, but it never was the only option. Somehow we've decided we needed to be able to do lots of trips to the moon for Artemis, but it's not clear to me that it's such a precious golden oportunity and warrants this spending/impact on the environnenent. We didn't get to the moon with a refuelling station did we? How come we need one now? We'…

> We didn't get to the moon with a refuelling station did we? No. We did it by throwing away ~98% of the vehicle on the way there. > How come we need one now? Because building a new gargantuan tower and tossing that majority of it into the ocean/deep space every time we need to go the moon is not sustainable. > We're really seeing 15 starship launches per moon trip as reasonable, rather than just building a single tr…

And why do we need to do all this? This is the thrust of my point.

Making trips to the moon sustainable is pointless and nonsensical.

Edit0: good read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40410404

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