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Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

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Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#371

Post by thinkcontext »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #330
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you write a test case, you define what "Passed" means. If this test flight overall meets SpaceX's definition of "Passed", then it was a success, regardless of what anyone else thinks it should mean.

If your test case for left pad passes when it outputs a string of the right length, your boss is going to judge whether it's a good test case. Since this is all being done on federal grant money, it's legitimate to have higher expectations. This test was good, though - the previous two were disappointing.

> Since this is all being done on federal grant money

Its true that SpaceX has gotten federal money contract for landing on the moon to the tune of $2.9B. But the Starship program is going to cost a lot more than that, Musk estimated $10B and has done stock offerings to raise money. And you have to take into account that the federal money has to support 100% of the moon specific parts of development.

So, its true that the feds are helping w/ Starship development but "all" is not accurate.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#372

Post by gabesullice »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #342
zer0c00ler wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think each test served exactly its purpose and it's incredible to see the rapid progress. Unclear why you believe the first two were not a success at all? Did you expect a novel vehicle like this would just work the first time?

I do. SLS, Vulcan, and most other rockets from reputable space companies have worked first time.

The word reputable was an interesting choice to describe Boeing. It also carries a bold implication that the space company shuttling astronauts to and from the ISS—only two days ago [1]—is… disreputable? Meanwhile, Boeing Starliner certainly didn't perform nominally on its first orbital flight test [2].

Space flight is hard and different testing methodologies are no silver bullet. But, I suppose we will know them by their fruits.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-7

[2] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/?p=802006

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#373

Post by thinkcontext »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #343
f-securus wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. How are people downplaying something so revolutionary. Without those other tests SpaceX wouldn’t have done what it did today and they show progress each step. They are doing what nasa couldn’t (send stuff to space orders of magnitude cheaper) because they aren’t afraid to blow stuff up.

Nobody has done anything revolutionary and nobody has gotten to space an order of magnitude cheaper. The best estimates of SpaceX's cost advantage per kilo put it at 30-50% better than a Soyuz. The Starship program so far has soaked up as much money as SLS, and hasn't even left orbit.

> The Starship program so far has soaked up as much money as SLS, and hasn't even left orbit

There's a bit of nuance to what you are claiming here.

SLS cost $11B to develop, which is estimated to be in the neighborhood of what Starship will cost when development is complete. We don't know how much has been spent so far.

A huge difference is that producing and launching an SLS rocket costs over $2B, while SpaceX is estimating $10M for Starship. Now, I don't trust that $10M number, that's what they aspire for it to cost. To do it they need to be able to reuse the stages dozens of times. It could take a long time to achieve that or they might not make it at all. However, $2B+ per launch is a whole 'nother level of expense.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#374

Post by elihu »

tempaway444641 wrote: post #337
elihu wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the ascent burn. It doesn't look like the engines re-lit at all for the descent. (I imagine they aren't supposed to light until they're a lot closer to the ground than they were when the video was lost.)

At altitude 22km superheavy was moving at 4310 kmh (34:18 in linked video) speed then dropped continually, at 34:45 in the video the icons show that 3 engines were lit, altitude was 1km and speed was 1300 kmh. At 34:49 you can see flames, speed continues to drop, then you see the sea rushing up, then it cuts

Ah, I was thinking about Starship. I forgot that the booster attempted simulated landing was going on at the same time.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#375

Post by pclmulqdq »

sobellian wrote: post #369
pclmulqdq wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by total program cost, both of those are cheaper than Starship. SpaceX does this sleight of hand where they don't count their R&D cost in their calculations, but they do count it in other peoples' programs when comparing. SLS so far is about $2 billion in, and Starship seems to be at $2-3 billion. Vulcan is way cheaper than both.

- Source for Vulcan total program cost? All I can find is their per-launch pricing. Tory Bruno himself apparently said that "new rockets typically cost US$2 billion, including US$1 billion for the main engine." - Not sure where you're getting the SLS number, the GAO report at https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105609.pdf claims, "Since 2011, NASA has spent $11.8 billion to develop the initial SLS capability." - I thin…

I completely agree with you on marginal cost, but I don't believe SpaceX to provide accurate numbers for their own rockets before they are actually built (they love wishful thinking) or their competitors' (making your competitors look bad is better for you).

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#376

Post by pclmulqdq »

jiggawatts wrote: post #356
pclmulqdq wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those all sound like incremental technology advances to me that have yet to deliver any real advances in capabilities. Which is nice - don't get me wrong - but not exactly worth rolling out the aircraft carrier for.

Someone else in this thread pointed out that Starship could get the ISS built in just 3 launches! It originally took dozens. Quantity has a quality all of its own. You should be familiar with this from IT: there’s nothing fundamentally different about the first computer that I’ve ever used to the one I have right now, other than the factor of a million difference in performance!

Starship today can't launch anything. Saying that it can launch the ISS in 3 launches is what Elon Musk says it can do. I don't trust Elon Musk's word for things until I see what someone does with those words. Generally, he is off by a factor of 10-100 on his promises.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#377

Post by relativ575 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #362
macintux wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are also: - More expensive than Starship, or - Took longer to develop than Starship, or - Are significantly less ambitious than Starship (and those are definitely not exclusive ORs)

Going by total program cost, both of those are cheaper than Starship. SpaceX does this sleight of hand where they don't count their R&D cost in their calculations, but they do count it in other peoples' programs when comparing. SLS so far is about $2 billion in, and Starship seems to be at $2-3 billion. Vulcan is way cheaper than both.

SLS flight cost is $2B. Each launch. Did you forget to include the decade prior? It's so expensive that it can fly no more than once a year. The next flight is scheduled for Sep 2025, three years after the first flight. I bet you think that isn't absurd.

SLS use leftover engines from the Shuttle era. Yet it still cost 160 millions. Each. Thrown away after each flight.

Vulcan is a conservative design with no reuse. It also uses BE-4 engine, which costs them nothing to develop.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#378

Post by sobellian »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #375
sobellian wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Source for Vulcan total program cost? All I can find is their per-launch pricing. Tory Bruno himself apparently said that "new rockets typically cost US$2 billion, including US$1 billion for the main engine." - Not sure where you're getting the SLS number, the GAO report at https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105609.pdf claims, "Since 2011, NASA has spent $11.8 billion to develop the initial SLS capability." - I thin…

I completely agree with you on marginal cost, but I don't believe SpaceX to provide accurate numbers for their own rockets before they are actually built (they love wishful thinking) or their competitors' (making your competitors look bad is better for you).

Okay well respectfully I looked at the number you provided for the closest comparison rocket, SLS, and it was 6x too charitable.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#379

Post by mgiampapa »

grecy wrote: post #368
mgiampapa wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, since I was the one that said it, anything more than 5 years away is perpetually 5 years away until it's been proven. Yes, eventually when Starship has enough launches and a track record it will get human rated by NASA to carry astronauts. This is the only actual certification for human space flight worth paying attention to right now. It's possible to get on a rocket otherwise, but the US government isn'…

I just looked it up. The first Falcon 9 flight was June 2010. The first Falcon 9 with astronauts was May 2020. 10 years to get human certified.

That was also with a rush order on it due to the Shuttle's retirement.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#380

Post by thinkcontext »

TMWNN wrote: post #153
wongarsu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a great pipeline for building ships. They want reusability, but for near-term needs like deploying bigger Starlink satellites and their moon lander contract they could probably power through without reentry survival. It would be expensive, but unlike in-orbit refueling not really mission critical

My understanding is that Starship is financially comparable to Falcon 9 on a per-payload basis even if fully expended.

That's what they aspire to. The only way to get there is if they are able to achieve reuse into the dozens of times and there's no guarantee they will be able to do that. I hope they are able to but there's still a lot of work to get there.
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