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Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

arstechnica.com

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Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#311

Post by DuskStar »

addisonl wrote: post #157
Miraste wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not differentiating between an iterative design process, during which failures are expected, and a monolithic one where the end product is final. When Starships blow up, Musk can build new ones and try again. When the probe crashed, that was the end of the mission and there was no more Mars Climate Orbiter. It was a one-off. This is a common problem in spaceflight. The Webb Space Telescope is another example.…

They are not that different from other space startups. > "We succeeded in launching the rocket," Zhang told the media. "The experience we gained from evaluating the rocket's flight conditions will help us remodel the rocket as well as advance new rocket research and development." http://www.bjreview.com/Business/201811/t20181126_800149381.... Plenty of trials and errors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of…

When's the last time that someone tested a series of satellites (or launch vehicles), with a number of up-front failures? Prior to SpaceX, of course. To me it looks like that sort of iterative trial-and-error design process died with the end of the space race.

For instance, looking at LandSpace - that quote relates to the launch of Zhuque-1, of which there has never been a repeat despite a maiden flight in 2018, and Wikipedia says that a second flight ever happening is doubtful. The company's second launch (and probably any after that, too) will likely be with a completely different, liquid-fuelled design.

THAT's what failure normally looks like in aerospace. Whoops, we fucked up, and so now that design never flies again, or the company goes bankrupt, or everyone panics and goes through a massive design review because everything was supposed to be perfect and now obviously it wasn't.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#313

Post by ilyich »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #284
ilyich wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only fucking idiot among top Soviet politicians was Gorbachev who sold one of the world's biggest economic, scientific and military powers just for 30 pieces of silver. His predecessors were no idiots at all. They are depicted as complete morons by the western propaganda - it's true. But propaganda and reality are two completely different things. I would advise you to learn history instead of blindly believing th…

So the politician who sent the world's greatest rocket engineer to the gulags out of spite isn't an idiot? I'd be happy to learn more if you can point me towards some sources.

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after.

Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_...

> On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. From that day on, the two men were bitterly opposed to each other.

So as you can see he was not sent to gulag out of spite by Stalin but out of envy and professional competition by his fellow rocket engineer.

While in gulag he was not tortured or sent to gold mines. He and other scientists continued their work in relatively comfortable conditions in so called "sharashka": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka

I'm not saying that Stalin was a saint or a winged seraph. But definitely he was anyone but an idiot.

Also Korolev did not died because he was sent to the Gulags. He died from a chronic disease from which he started suffering long before he was imprisoned.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#314

Post by viklove »

virgilp wrote: post #225
missosoup wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile I'm working at an advertising company. That's a funny way to spell Google.

Or Facebook. Or heck, even Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe if you're in the "wrong" department. I bet even some Apple employees might occasionally feel they work at an advertising company.

Well, Apple is a marketing company.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#315

Post by viklove »

zionic wrote: post #200
cstross wrote: post #181

This is a spectacular gamble, however Musk has a track record and I think Superheavy/Starship will pay off with unpredictable dividends. But the elephant in the room that Musk appears to be ignoring is the life sciences side of things. Only 12 humans have sortied outside the Van Allen belts (which protect us from the deep space radiation environment). Nobody has spent more than 18 consecutive months in space or reduc…

One interesting idea I heard: Send starships in pairs. When in interplanetary coast attach each at the nose with a long (300+m) tether. Use RCS to start a spin. You can then simulate 1G the entire way.

What are you building the starships out of that they can withstand those forces continuously over multiple years?

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#316

Post by shauhdej »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #56

The pace of innovation here is absolutely ludicrous. They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks ? They've gone from a production rate of one prototype in 8 months to one prototype every 2 weeks in less than a year. They doubled the size of their workforce in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna have to agree with the article author here: this is absolu…

Given that the USA is apparently forming a Spaceforce and the long history of astronomical products becoming military products I'm surprised that more companies aren't trying to "go to Mars". Elon can probably tell that a race to be the first to expand heavily into space is coming and that even if he can't sell people on Mars he can sell tourists and the military on the moon.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#317

Post by nopzor »

viklove wrote: post #315
zionic wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting idea I heard: Send starships in pairs. When in interplanetary coast attach each at the nose with a long (300+m) tether. Use RCS to start a spin. You can then simulate 1G the entire way.

What are you building the starships out of that they can withstand those forces continuously over multiple years?

wouldn't 1g of force be the same as they'd be subject to sitting on earth?

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#318

Post by [deleted] »

ilyich wrote: post #313
BigBubbleButt wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the politician who sent the world's greatest rocket engineer to the gulags out of spite isn't an idiot? I'd be happy to learn more if you can point me towards some sources.

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after. Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_... > On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. From that day on, the two men were…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#319

Post by BigBubbleButt »

cbHXBY1D wrote: post #310
BigBubbleButt wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the politician who sent the world's greatest rocket engineer to the gulags out of spite isn't an idiot? I'd be happy to learn more if you can point me towards some sources.

I read Stephen Kotkin's excellent three part series on Stalin this summer and Kotkin (who is by no means a Soviet apologist; he's a conservative) thinks Stalin was a political genius, a modern Machiavelli. For example, in this interview [1] he explains how Stalin's administration was what he considers a "transcendental work of art" while also explaining how it was psychotic and evil. I highly recommend Kotkin's books…

Thank you! I appreciate it.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#320

Post by BigBubbleButt »

ilyich wrote: post #313
BigBubbleButt wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the politician who sent the world's greatest rocket engineer to the gulags out of spite isn't an idiot? I'd be happy to learn more if you can point me towards some sources.

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after. Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_... > On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. From that day on, the two men were…

An engineer was imprisoned because another engineer was spiteful. You don't consider this a dumb political decision? I consider the default judgment of "everyone goes to the gulags" to be shitty governance, and also quite stupid.

My understanding is Korolev's health greatly declined because of his time while imprisoned, and had he never had to endure it he likely would have lived much longer.

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