I find the experience of watching these SpaceX videos very emotional. There's something really inspiring both from an "exploring the universe" perspective and also just from the human side of all of the effort that went into them.
The first video that really got to me was when they landed multiple boosters. This one as well, especially seeing the rocket take off with every booster firing when compared with the first Starship launch when you could see that some failed to light. It's like watching your child take their first steps, and then seeing them win an Olympic medal for running. Just incredible stuff.
For those of you who like dubstep, start the following video first
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2eBMuL0C2o
then 3 seconds later start to watch the (muted) SpaceX video from OP's post
and thank me later. ;-)
Nice, how did you find a music clip with such a good match across the whole video? Or are you saying you know that SpaceX media people were using that as test music when cutting theirs?
Another rough take with some orchestra music from Stellaris, of all things. Start the SpaceX video and 'Towards Utopia' at around the 2:21 mark https://youtu.be/887f76RXvdE?t=141
OK, that's downright creepy. Especially that the singing starts with the lyrics "holding on" at the exact moment the booster is caught by the chopsticks.
And in 2002 a neuroscientist hooked a camera to a blind man's brain and he could see well enough to drive a car around an empty parking lot without running into things. And yet there are still many blind people.
Doing something cool once doesn't impact civilization. Doing it affordably at scale does. If Space X can do the chopstick landing reliably and integrate it into their operations, then that will be impactful - and change civilization.
Is the whole point of this thing to land the first stage on the moon, or just the Starship? My understanding is that it's just Starship, and the first stage will always return to Earth. I think one of us has a very confused understanding of the whole point of the thing.
They did? I've not heard of that, and a cursory search isn't finding anything. Got any more info on this, which rocket, etc? I'd love to learn about that.
Just makes it more humiliating for SpaceX competitors. ESA, China, ULA all playing catchup to NASA tech from decades ago. Why didn't they commercialize it?
Did Apple invent the touchscreen or the cell phone or high dpi displays?
I think it's a really responsible decision by SpaceX to not put their StarShip stage into a full orbit until they have demonstrated the ability to get it back out of orbit.
They should be applauded for this, along with their iterative approach.
Note that this next test will demonstrate re-light of the engine in space at micro-gravity. This is the demonstration needed prior to putting the StarShip in orbit. We'll probably see a full orbital test for the flight after this one.
They could have easily put previous tests into orbit - it's a fairly minor change to their existing regime and they have plenty of fuel to use.
That $3B is milestone based, they don't get it until they deliver on the milestones. AFAICT, they've only hit a single milestone on the plan, and have received <$100M of the $3B to date.
Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.
Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day.
Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.
That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.
The shuttle boosters required rebuilding / refueling (which is solid rocket goop) and the fuel tank was completely lost and required rebuilding. The head shield tiles were extremely fragile on the shuttle.
It was never a fully reusable design, just more reusable than before.
SpaceX plans to have no parts that are lost each flight and is working to make the tiles mostly standardized and less sensitive to faults.
Are they going to replace all the tiles before it can relaunch? And what about the engine nozzles? They must be taking quite the beating.
No doubt SpaceX has very smart people working on this and I'm not an expert in material science, but I just find it hard to believe that same day turnaround could be possible. If true, that would really make us a confirmed space faring civilization. We could actually start colonizing Mars.
The heat tiles are reusable, just like the Shuttle's. They are basically just a material that insulates very well, instead of a traditional ablative heat shield that burns away. With the space shuttle they ended up spending a lot of time inspecting each tile for damage and replacing cracked tiles. SpaceX has a modern iteration of the same material, hopefully with fewer cracks.
Other factors that work in SpaceX's favor are 1) that most launches will be unmanned, meaning they can take bigger risks than the Space Shuttle program; 2) that the steel body of Starship can handle higher temperatures than the Space Shuttle's aluminum, so a compromised heat shield is more tolerable; 3) for now they have a secondary ablative heat shield below the tiles (that does have to be replaced when it gets used, but that should only happen when tiles fall off)
No, those were separate craft, on opposite sides of the country. It demonstrates an ability to manage multiple missions at once, but not rapid booster turnaround.
For context on JumpCrisscross's comment in this thread: the 4 hours is between two separate launches on two separate rockets. This is absolutely not refurbishing and launching the same rocket 4 hours apart.
Seems like the actual record for turning around the same booster is 21 days, which is still quite impressive.
Some of SpaceX's first stages are getting close to the individual Shuttles' launch counts, with substantially less turnaround time and cost than Shuttle ever had.
Starship has work to do, but it's hard to argue they're not at least on the right path.
With the Falcon 9 they're already at over 100 launches this year. It's multiple rockets, but the turn around is pretty quick and getting quicker every year. They're designing starship from the start with same day turnaround in mind. I wouldn't bet against it I guess.
It's a good question. The hurdle to clear for same-day reuse will be the heat shield. SpaceX hasn't yet demonstrated that Starship can reenter the atmosphere and remain fully intact. Doing it while sustaining near zero wear on the heat shield will be even harder. But I think it is not impossible, and I don't know of any other obvious blockers for same day reuse.
They'll likely reuse the booster on the same day well before the starship portion. No heat shield on the booster. Some starships will likely stay in space for a long time before returning.
Zero wear is not necessary. The tiles can be thicker than the minimum, and be reusable until they wear down to the minimum. Like the brake pads on your car.
It was a flap hinge that burnt through, not the flap. They have a solution for block 2 which we'll likely see in test 7 -- move the flap slightly further back so that the hinge isn't in direct flow.
oh, you mean like actual flaps of pretty much any aircraft. doh! i was thinking it was like the folding of the wings for planes on an aircraft carrier. sometimes my brain, boy, i don't know
For the Super Heavy booster, SpaceX is targeting a <1hr turnaround time. For the ship, it gets a bit more complex. Ships have to make complete orbits before returning, and generally they have to be loaded with cargo as well. Tanker Starships for lunar/Mars missions will probably have pretty quick turnaround given that fuel can be loaded on the pad; other ships will have significantly longer turnarounds.
SpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time.
In the near term the biggest reason to do multiple launches in a day will be orbital refueling. This is required for sending much, much larger payloads to the Moon and Mars. It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit, and obviously doing that as quickly as possible will be beneficial. NASA has already committed to this plan for Artemis.
> It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit
Require, or just make comfortable? Saturn V had the lift capacity of "only" a couple of Falcon Heavies, but was enough to carry astronauts, a car, a lunar lander with enough fuel to take off, and a command module.
We're not trying to do Apollo again. That would be easier, but we want to build a base this time. For that we need to send a lot more mass and it needs a lot more fuel.
The HLS (Spaceship) will need many refuels at orbit in order to get to the Moon and back. That means at least a dozen of fully-loaded Heavy launches to LEO just so each one of them can load a bit of fuel into HLS. The fuel in orbit can't sit idle for too long, or it deteriorates; I haven't found a limit on days for that, but a week-long launch window is considered a dealbreaker, we're talking a dozen Heavy launches in a week.
It's either a short launch window, or at least 6 Starships built and launched twice in ~10 days. Don't count out on SpaceX building 12 Heavy Starships just for that Artemis mission.
If we want to establish long term bases on the Moon or Mars then yes, you need not only to send crew and habitation modules but ongoing supplies and equipment.
Other use cases include launching and maintaining satellite constellations (Starling / Starshield), and launching singular large payloads like space telescopes.
Even for smaller payloads, having both the first and second stages be reusable will reduce launch costs.
200 years ago, there was no need to use electricity. 100 years ago, there was no need to use a programming language. 30 years ago, there was no need for gigabit wireless Internet.
Counterexample: space stations. We've had small manned space stations for decades now, but no real application for them. They're national prestige items only.
I think the economics of space are are much more likely to be transformed by something like https://www.longshotspace.com/. Rockets are complex, still costly, and polluting.
The problem with space guns is you can't just yeet rocks into orbit. Any orbit that starts at the surface returns to the surface. So you still need a disposable rocket and avionics and fuel in every payload to change the orbit once out of the atmosphere. Only now the rocket needs to survive being literally shot out of a gun and then traveling at orbital velocity in atmosphere. That puts a pretty high floor on the cost per shot.
If you want to look at someone that is further along on a concept like this you can look at SpinLaunch. Exactly what it sounds like with a gigantic centrifuge to spin and throw things really fast. But they are still throwing a small two-stage rocket.
While mass to orbit costs as much as it does now, sure. However later on it's gonna be great to have humans closer to the working robots to reduce the round-trip latency. They could also perform tasks robots are not suited for.
Consider operators living on Mars and operating drones near their habitat each day. It would be like modern day drone operators and robot assisted surgery. Like remote operators of mega-trucks today.
Those robots could interact with the operators - driving into a "garage" that can be pressurized for maintenance, upgrades or science.
StarShip promises to reduce the cost of mass to orbit, making larger and more complex scientific, industrial and habitat options feasible.
The big thing is that it dramatically reduces the cost of shipping things into space. Previously it was difficult to ship anything much larger than a compact car in to orbit. Now you can ship half of a basketball court into orbit, including all the vertical space.
Until very very recently the roughly bus sized ISS modules were the largest habitable spaces we could ship to orbit (although Skylab in the 70s were basically repurposed Saturn V fuel tanks and also big) so now it's possible/probable we can ship 20 people to space, and have moderately comfortable accommodations for them.
We can also ship mining equipment and substancially more supplies to the moon. Or mars. We went from using pack goats to 18 wheelers to ship stuff in space. The pack goat can ship a handful of hand made silk scarves and Faberge eggs over the Himalayas, but the 18 wheeler can deliver everything from socks and tshirts to cell phones and big screen tvs and trucks and lawn mowers. This really opens up space to more than the highest, most bleeding edge science and we might actually see more than 100 humans in space at the same time, in our lifetimes.
Well, basketball courts have a ~12m diameter 3-point line, and the inside of a starship is ~9m. Swimming pools are mostly rectangular from the outside observer's perspective.
If you go to space, 90% of the cost is the rocket (depending on your accounting). If rockets can be made reusable, then you can drop costs by 90%, to first order. Cheaper rockets means cheaper satellites for internet and sensors and stuff.
Also, as mass to orbit gets cheaper you can build your payload more cheaply. Many compromises in complexity and material cost are made to minimize payload mass - we'll be able to launch cheap and heavy satellites and probes into orbit instead.
It's a rocket in the same ballpark as the Saturn V but where the two stages can both be recovered and re-used.
SpaceX has demonstrated being able to fly the same rocket stage dozens of times with minimal refurbishment with their Falcon 9 family of rockets, but they still have to build and discard the second stage of the Falcon 9 for each launch.
Starship scales that up in magnitude and adds second-stage reusability.
> We need a team of economists to rederive the relative elasticities of various design choices and boil them down to a new set of design heuristics for space system production oriented towards maximizing volume of production.
Great article, but that's not what economists do. It's more what cost accountants do.
Price decreases significantly when you can reuse.
This rocket is the same size as the ones that brought the Apollo missions to the moon, but will cost significantly less because they don't have to build one every time they launch it.
Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn’t cost $500, but only $5, unbelievable, right? This is exactly what Starship will do to space travel. Many things we see in sci-fi, like lunar and Martian cities or orbital cruise ships, could soon become reality.
Personally, I can’t wait to see a massive, kilometer-wide telescope in space or nestled in a crater on the Moon. We might finally figure out dark matter, dark energy, anti-gravity.
It's just an outlandish overly optimistic mishmash of different concepts.
Let's start with your analogy:
> Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn’t cost $500, but only $5, unbelievable, right?
If you mean to use this to explain that what today costs X will in the future cost 0.01X, you're probably right.
But a more accurate analogy is "Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn't cost $50,000,000, but only $500,000, unbelievable, right?"
Same ratios, but deeply different implications.
Today, the idea of setting up a continuously settled Mars colony - hell even a Moon colony - is unfeasibly expensive. It's ACHIEVABLE - we have the technology and the money - but it would cost an intolerable percentage of the GDP of the world to accomplish.
A 100x reduction in costs means that it becomes a fundable endeavour that countries like the US could still justify.
We're still talking about generations - maybe a century - away from someone being able to just pop over to Mars for a summer vacation, the way that a college student could to do today with an intercontinental flight.
> Many things we see in sci-fi, like lunar and Martian cities or orbital cruise ships, could soon become reality.
For a very generous definition of soon and for a highly implausible definition of what a "cruise ship" is - it'll never be as accessible to the average person as earth cruise ships. Not as long as you keep using rockets.
Regardless of reusability, there are realities of fixed FOSSIL FUEL costs associated with getting into gravity. They're not cheap, and they're not frivolous. If you want to be able get things into orbit as cheap as you're suggesting, you need to start investing in a space elevator, which noone is right now.
> Personally, I can’t wait to see a massive, kilometer-wide telescope in space
Cool, yeah, that's true, that becomes more available.
> or nestled in a crater on the Moon.
..why?
> We might finally figure out dark matter, dark energy, anti-gravity.
And the final cherry on the cake. Humanity becoming inter-planetary is important on a macro scale. And trying to go further and further into space will INCENTIVISE research into these concepts.
But in no way does getting to orbit cheaper make it easier to figure out any of these concepts. There's nothing we can do from Mars or on the way to Mars in terms of this science that we can't do from Earth.
> Regardless of reusability, there are realities of fixed FOSSIL FUEL costs associated with getting into gravity. They're not cheap, and they're not frivolous.
I hope you don't mean hydrogen and methane. Those are downright easy to make without fossil fuels. And kerosene isn't all that hard.
> A 100x reduction in costs means that it becomes a fundable endeavour that countries like the US could still justify.
Don't forget the dynamics. Costs of all such projects drop further when early steps become affordable. Like, with 100x reduction on the sticker price, US might feel Mars colony is still too expensive a project, but 100x reduction on trying out some adjacent space tech may just be in range of NASA budget or some private interest. Steps get made, iterated on, making next steps cheaper and more likely to happen. Derisking compounds.
I do agree it'd still be a decades long project at least (with a settlement established early on; it's the tail end that will drag on).
>> or nestled in a crater on the Moon.
>..why?
Having some gravity and hard surface to build on simplifies engineering challenges, particularly on large scales, as in free space, tension becomes a big issue. And, perhaps more importantly, the Moon would shield the telescope from all the electromagnetic noise produced on Earth, and also by the Sun.
Consider ocean-going freight transportation: the container ships and the containers, the port facilities and the cranes. Now imagine that you were able to witness the very first round-trip sailing of such a container ship between two newly constructed still-experimental-and-heretofore-unproven ports.
That'd be pretty cool right? The dawn of a new era in global trade.
This is that, for space. (Booster as container ship, Orbital vehicle as container, launch tower as literal crane, launch complex as port)
No. The ports were just expanding on an existing idea. I live in a port city, a thousand years ago middle ages people with much smaller boats used this same area to travel much shorter distances with fewer goods, today it has those cranes and a railway and moves inter-modal containers which have travelled from across the world, but it's just the same idea.
Why is there a port here? Because of the unusual tidal pattern? Deep water? No. People. The other reasons are reasons to put the port here maybe in particular rather than a few miles in either direction, but the people are why there's a port. In 1024 there were thousands of people, today perhaps closer to half a million depending on how you count.
There are no people on Luna, and no people on Mars. Visiting these barren rocks is like going up Everest.
This damp rock is where our species was born and it's where it will die. It's not much, but its ours, and there's nothing like it within any plausible travel distance.
Honestly of very little significance to the typical individual. It isn't going to pay my bills or provide for my kids. It does nothing for people suffering war and genocide. Nothing for poverty, access to health care and education. Nothing for the biggest threats facing our civilization.
It is still a remarkable technical achievement and I think the people who have designed and built these systems deserve some celebration for their accomplishments. It has the potential to lower costs and increase the capacity for greater commercialization, militarization and exploration of space.
I think the extent you see that as something positive is subject to your faith in humanity. I tend to think technologies connection to social progress is a three steps forward, two steps back sort of thing. We have certainly made gains in my lifetime but we could have gone a lot further.
Your posts reminds me of the building of the first transcontinental railroad. It had many fits and starts, and people thought it would take decades to pay off.
But just as soon as it was completed, it changed everything overnight.
SpaceX are not building a transcontinental railroad. I think that is a false equivalence.
An operational Starship should be very impactful on space exploration but it won't be shipping cattle back from Mars. There is a difficult to discern line between reality and bullshit that Musk likes to blur. The "vision" stuff is there to hype up the troops and investors. You don't need to swallow it to appreciate the technology. It isn't narrow minded to reject stuff that just doesn't add up. The scales, time, distance, energy, investment involved in space colonization are incomparable to settling the USA. The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.
The payload is so big it will be a pretty dramatic phase transition for almost everything space related, assuming theres not some horrible flaw hidden away somewhere.
Quite bizarre how some people genuinely think he's just some guy who allocates capital. Or rich dad or whatever. I guess his dad was probably rich but that's clearly not enough.
I’m with you. As landing the thing means nothing if you can’t get payloads to the destination. To get this thing to the moon would need like 20 refuelling flights to meet it on the way.
Hence the plan to have ten or so launches to refuel the top stage while it's still in orbit, a place that notably _is_ halfway to the moon's surface + the return trip to the earth.
this just reads as very strange. "meet it on the way"? it's not like they can place these in an orbit that they can just pull up and stop to refuel like a highway gas station. the refueling "pod" would need to be moving at the same speed as the ship.
I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the gatekeeper?'
I'm just going to choose peace today and say: the SpaceX engineers who've been at this forever and have shown that crazy stuff is actually possible are seriously amazing humans, and I do hope they are successful.
It is traditional to summon an Elon Musk Flamewar by implying even vaguely that he is successful. Elon Musk’s support for a candidate may have been pivotal in that candidate’s win today. This sort of thing is like bathing in gasoline next to a forest fire.
Well, I started planning a road trip down Austin as soon as I saw this post. Crew of friends is coming together to watch! Thanks for posting. I'm so excited to witness this in person.
"Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations."
Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
They're working off the same license they used for test 5, so they basically have to exactly the same thing they did for test 5. They did manage to add this:
"An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions."
I think that's the last thing they need to do before they can actually launch satellites. I'm surprised there was no attempt on the last launch. Glad to see it this time. The improved Starlink constellation that Starship will enable is going to be awesome.
I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting.
SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)
I think they can probably do both at once - heatshield testing and pez dispenser testing shouldn't interfere with each other, so might as well use whatever spare upmass you have!
Yeah you might lose the payload, but SpaceX has the cheapest satellites in the business from what I understand.
The next block of starship has an altered geometry/location of the flaps for that reason; it's more or less a solved problem, but not worth scrapping the older ones they've already built. Iirc, the launch after this one will be SN7, which is block 2 with the new geometry.
It's not a solved problem. Surviving the re-entry in a condition that makes reuse economical was always the biggest challenge for the Starship. It's far from certain that they can achieve it without a fundamental change in the concept.
The feasibility of building big rockets was already demonstrated a long time ago. Given the reliability of the Falcon 9, it looked plausible that a big rocket could work with many engines. And SpaceX had already shown that they can reuse boosters economically. But reusing orbital spacecraft – the entire upper stage with engines, fuel tanks, and whatever – without expensive and time-consuming refits is something nobody has done before.
And they need to demo that the flaps hold up through re-entry with nominal, minimal damage, otherwise a permit for a plan involving re-entry over land (which is needed to catch the ship) would obviously not issue.
That's cool PR move. If they managed to light one then it's great success. If they don't people will think they just got unlucky. But if they tried to light all and only one would work or none, or one would work but some other blew up whole rocket it would look terrible. That last eventuality is something they want to prevent by trying to light just one.
It's not groundbreaking but it's important. They are demonstrating in orbit relight capability of the raptor engines. This is an absolute requirement before they can put it fully into orbit because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic.
Remote termination is something they can do in the early boost phase, when there is a defined hazard zone over a depopulated patch of ocean. It doesn't cause the rocket to disappear; its effect is to disable the engines, end uncontrolled acceleration, and break the booster apart into small pieces—all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris.
If you did this to a Starship in orbit, you'd likely have large chunks of steel reentering and reaching the ground intact.
If I understand you correctly: So you'd have to do it over unpopulated/depopulated areas, which is impossible to guarantee when you are zooming around the globe at very high speeds. Thanks for explaining.
"...all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris..." After it's been flying in orbit for awhile, where it could in theory hit something else.
As you say, the other part of it--and probably more important--is that if it's turned into orbiting pieces, there's no control over where it lands. Some of it could easily land on the ground rather than the ocean, who knows where. That of course has happened with other satellites and their final stage rockets in the past (notably by the Chinese), but Starship is bigger, and therefore the pieces that hit the ground could be bigger. By launching it sub-orbital for now, and turning off the engines so it lands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the risks of both orbital debris and unknown ground landing points are avoided.
If the object is already in orbit, the debris from an FTS activation would also mostly be left in orbit, which isn't great. They really need to demonstrate the ability to de-orbit the vehicle before putting into orbit.
Generally that isn't done for a vehicle in orbit, since the distribution of debris in orbits used by other spacecraft would be significant.
A Starship second stage stranded in orbit would be a problem because detonation would cause a bunch of orbital debris, but simply waiting for natural re-entry would result in an unpredictable landing location that could result in large debris reaching populated areas.
Reliable, controlled re-entry to a targeted location is very important for Starship to be an operational launch system.
Even at suborbital velocities, putting debris into the path of an existing satellite that is traveling at orbital velocity is enough to trigger a cascade.
No. An object in orbit colliding with anything threatens to create debris in orbit. Debris in orbit collides with other objects in orbit, creating debris in orbit. That's a cascade.
> Debris in orbit collides with other objects in orbit, creating debris in orbit. That's a cascade
For the same reason not every nucleus that fractures on neutron bombardment sustains chain reactions not every orbital configuration supports a Kessler cascade. In LEO, it’s virtually impossible: you get a nuisance, not SOL.
Note that Kessler posited his syndrome before we could computationally verify it. We can now. It’s not a real threat in the long term, and is more of an insurance question than existential issue for spaceflight in the medium term. It’s pertinent in the very short term, militarily, which is partly how we know it’s very difficult to trigger across even limited orbits.
LEO is the exact place you need to be careful. Higher orbits have more space and have fewer satellites overall so it's less of a concern.
Obviously not a problem for IFT6 since it's sub-orbital, but the original comment was about why we need a deorbit burn rather than just triggering the flight abort system.
> LEO is the exact place you need to be careful. Higher orbits have more space and have fewer satellites overall so it's less of a concern
No. In LEO orbits degrade in single-digit years at most. There is no known solution for rendering an orbit in LEO inaccessible with a Kessler cascade—the best you can do is blind an area with repeated ASAT fire.
In higher orbits debris last longer. That makes cascades possible, though again it only denies a limited area and requires almost active effort.
At least in LEO you need to keep expending DeltaV to keep stuff in orbit. Trace atmosphere slows everything down and would eventually clean LEO at 500km of relevant junk in about 25 years depending on altitude.
If you have debris in geostationary orbit, it will stay there basically forever whereas in low earth orbit it will burn up within a few years at worst.
It would work, all too well. Especially if the speed was just slightly suborbital. Rain of steel over a random spot (or, rather, a trace) on the Earth's surface. You may be lucky and that trace might cross a desolate ocean; or you may not be lucky, and some Asian megalopolis with 25 million people may be below.
Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is the best public spot you can watch from (IIRC it's 3 or 4 miles from the launch pad) and it's an amazing experience, highly recommended to anyone who's able to make it out.
I believe they clear out the launch site within a few kilometres so nobody gets hit by random concrete debris or just melt away, literally. The control centre is probably invitational.
But you can freely watch them live on Twitter. Just follow the official @SpaceX account.
Note that there will not be an official livestream on Youtube. Every time there are some people who fall for scammers pretending to be one and end up listening to an AI impersonation of Elon Musk try to sell them cryptocoins, missing the real launch.
If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.
> Nearly four years ago, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak actually sued YouTube over Bitcoin scam livestreams that were using his likeness. So, this has clearly been going on for quite a while now. And, unfortunately, it looks like these fake YouTube livestream schemes are going to continue on, at least for the foreseeable future.
I recently reported a bunch of the SpaceX ones that were running for long time. Nothing happened. I think Google/Alphabet is just happy with the extra ad views.
I'll often spend a little time while watching the flight-tests (usually with Tim Dodd / EverydayAstronaut) just doing a search on YouTube for 'spacex live' and usually report 15-20 each time. They are very easy to spot when you've seen a few of them. I'll usually get a report of a few being shut down later in the day, and more over the next couple of days.
But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automatically - it's frustrating they (and other scams) get to stay online so long.
The Everyday Astronaut was ahead of the SpaceX curated one for Flight 5. It had the weird effect of showing the outcome before the sound of the cheering crowd going crazy when the booster got caught by the chopsticks (which was also audible in the same stream).
Each streamer adds a delay to their stream. This means that any stream forwarded to you by another streamer is going to be delayed.
The delay was between SpaceX recording and uploading an event and Everyday astronaut decoding it at their mixing desk. Their own feeds from their cameras and microphones had less delay than the SpaceX stream did. Everyday astronaut then had another delay between when they encoded this result and you saw it.
If you had opened up the SpaceX stream directly you would have found it was ahead of the stream shown inside Everyday Astronaut.
EA and NSF have their own cameras so they aren't just republishing SpaceX's Twitter stream. But things definitely get out of sync when there are multiple layers of streaming.
Some of the views their cameras get are fantastic - and the tracking on the last flight test would quite possibly make NASA envious. Cameras on the beach and also just next to StarHopper are in harms way too, they've lost a couple of them. I'm not sure what the cost of repair was after a chunk of concrete from what used to be the pad took out the back of a car!
> If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.
It amazes me that NASA Space Flight managed to rip off the names of both the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Their coverage is good but that name is really misleading.
It's ironic given pre-acquisition under every Elon Musk tweet the top replies were always crypto scammers. Hopefully this time YouTube fix the impersonation stream but it was up for a long time during/after the last launch.
I assumed a large portion of YouTube/ Google management had been in a plane crash as that seemed the only plausible explanation for it to stay up as long and have as many viewers as it did. It really was stunning.
Suddenly, all those crypto-scam videos seem plausible now that Elon Musk pledged to give away $1 million daily to individuals who sign his political action committee’s petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.
I’ve liked some of his other videos and made it in twenty minutes. He has three arguments: SpaceX is late and over budget on HLS, booster recapture is the easiest part of Starship’s technical risks and Starship is bad value for money.
On the first two he’s right. Starship was, per SpaceX’s proposal to NASA, supposed to be almost ready by now. It’s not. But neither is any other leg of Artemis, and there is no unforgivable delay in the timeline. (To the degree there are stupid delays, it’s because the FAA was playing water cop.)
Recapture is the easiest technical challenge of the programme. Partly because SpaceX already demonstrated most of the tech with Falcon 9. Partly because in-orbit refuelling is unprecedented. The lunar lander was one of the easiest parts of the Apollo programme, by similar measure—that doesn’t make it unimpressive.
The last—bad bang for the buck—is a value judgement. Do we want a heavy lift booster or more Mars rovers? If we want sustainable access to space, we need cheaper launch. If one doesn’t care about that, rovers are better spend, but at that point I can start arguing for feeding the hungry with those bucks.
I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s price came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense to capture the delta as profit, in part to fund things like Starship. (There is also no inflation adjustment.)
In summary, the technical criticisms are accurate but out of context. The value judgement is subjective. If you don’t value cheap, frequent space launch of course Starship won’t make sense for any amount of money.
EDIT: Kept watching. The energy math on second-stage reëntry is okay as a first estimate. But we don’t have final numbers for anything. And there are a lot of unknowns, e.g. final dry weight, how much energy the heat tiles can store and dissipate, if transpiration cooling could work, how plasma could dissipate energy, whether compression heat could be redirected away from the craft, whether firing mid-descent could reduce heat, et cetera. We certainly don’t have enough data to reject it ex ante. And the second stage being unreadable doesn’t tank Starship, though it probably does Artemis.
> I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s pricing came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (relative to mass; PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense for them to capture the delta as profit versus cut prices for the sake of it. (There is also no inflation adjusting done.)
Exactly, this is such an egregious claim that it proves there is no way this guy is arguing in good faith.
He says SpaceX only saves a tiny bit of money due to reuse because the retail price for F9 expendable is only a bit more than F9 reuseable.
That's like saying because the Big Mac costs $6.29 and the Big Mac combo costs $11.69, then therefore the drink and fries must cost McD's $5.40 to make. Just ridiculous.
I think he is probably right, if you think of Starship has a government-paid program to produce a moon lander. The Starship program has blown though the NASA money to produce the basic version (but not yet the additional money agreed for a more advanced design), but has yet to deliver on any of their contracted goals.
So by its own contract, it is just about to be over-budget, behind schedule, and thus a failed project. You can argue about the pandemic blowing their timing, but the fact remain.
But SpaceX is not treating the Starship as solely a moon landing project. They are using NASA's money presumably alongside other SpaceX and Starlink monies to produce a workhorse for a number of projects alongside the moon lander part. In the closer-term it will become the launch vehicle for Starlink (the next-gen of which is too big to be launched on other vehicles), and in the (very) long-term as a vehicle to Mars.
So SpaceX probably sees the Starship project as behind schedule (par for the course, both for space projects, and for Elon Musk), but not out-of-budget. Whether their customer, NASA, agrees with this outlook is something you would have to ask them.
So I think that the video's points are true, but lack some context.
Thanks to the wonderful SpaceX engineers who are actually responsible for the company’s achievements. What they’ve been accomplishing recently never ceases to amaze me.
The one big difference with the SpaceX organization is the willingness to "blow stuff up" while they are developing, which is enabled by the amount of sensor data they get on each test. That allows them to have a higher revision cadence that decreases development time. Compared to old space tech, where a rocket failure (even during early development) spells the end of the program (such as the X-10 -- it was looking good until a failed landing leg caused an impressive looking loss of vehicle, and then no more program).
Talented people are everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them sit in boring jobs and wear out their brains thinking how to push even more ads on other people etc. As a result, their trace in the world isn't what it could be.
Gathering many talents together, keeping them together and channeling their abilities towards a laudable goal is a huge feat.
Were it not for Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, the brilliant engineers who made the iPod would not have made the iPod. Their talent would have been directed towards yet another Apple inkjet printer PCB, or yet another iteration of the Newton, or something.
Great talent and bold leadership are a uniquely powerful combination.
Do people selectively credit the engineers when a musk company has a success, then blame musk when there's a failure? Teslas have quality issues, why don't people blame the manufacturing engineers and technicians instead of piling on the CEO?
Ah yes yes. Musk had nothing much to do with any of it. He didn't have the vision for SpaceX nor anything they did. He's just the front-man. Everyone I don't agree with is a loser.
Perhaps they will soon be able to reach the first step in their HLS timeline (initially scheduled to be done in 2022 by having an orbital launch test).
Ah yes, I guess only Mayflower descendants can call themselves Americans. Or maybe only natives (er, which ones). Or something. Your comment is really insulting to Americans like me who are Euro/Native mutts.
No, absolutely not! Almost exactly the opposite meaning was intended, and I didn't think for a second that it could be interpreted as you say there. I wrote the comment quickly, thinking the sarcasm was obvious, I apologise for not being more explicit.
The comment I responded to (which has now been removed, I think?) referred to how proud the commenter was that Musk is "American". I found this to be totally preposterous, as his cultural background is so immediately and obviously mixed.
Claiming him as "American" is a strange thing to do, is what I was thinking. Anyway, again, I sincerely apologise, and shouldn't have thrown out the comment when I was in a rush.
The fact that "Dutch English Canadian American" isn't used as a demonym by anyone anywhere is the reason I thought the joke was "obvious" (this isn't meant as a justification for the comment, just to elaborate in the hope of making it more clear).
Oh and last point - Dang is one person, not an army of people. The Trump thread is very very busy, so I presume he is busy. It's unreasonable to expect real-time or even "quick" addressing of every issue you perceive.
> we probably shouldn't be cheering on billionaires going all in on political campaigns
It is, after all, a direct violation of the principle that all political power should come through the popular vote, not back room deals. Politics should operate in plain sight. Always.
He's always been all-in on the winning candidate. His whole business is getting government subsidies. His single principle is sucking up to people in power. He loved Obama when he was in power, too.
Proud to say I've found that asshole annoying since WAY before it was cool.
SpaceX's contracts were absolutely subsidies - the contracted Falcon 1 tests and the resulting Falcon 9 contracts were an expensive moonshot for the USG at first - but even if you discount them, Tesla absolutely hoovered up subsidies like the EV tax credits.
From Wiki [1]:
SpaceX spent its own capital to develop and fly its previous launcher, Falcon 1, with no pre-arranged sales of launch services. SpaceX developed Falcon 9 with private capital as well, but did have pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights once specific capabilities were demonstrated.
Customers: DARPA, DARPA, DOD/NASA, mass simulator (instead of the intended payload after the first three launches), Malaysia (the intended payload of the fourth flight).
"pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights" is a subsidy, as were the milestone payments along the way.
I'm a huge SpaceX fan, but let's not pretend they could've done this alone. They very nearly went bankrupt on Falcon 1, per Musk - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/29/elon-musk-9-years-ago-spacex... - and had they needed to self-fund those launches/payloads entirely they would not have survived. It's a beautiful example of how powerful public/private partnerships can be.
Would you call all options and futures subsidies? Are airlines subsidizing oil companies when they purchase oil futures in order to hedge their oil costs?
There is no indication that these commitments were underpriced by the government, so to call them subsidies is at best baseless misinformation.
> Are airlines subsidizing oil companies when they purchase oil futures in order to hedge their oil costs?
No; both parties in the deal have successfully accomplished their respective roles repeatedly before. The airline isn't doing anything new; the oil company isn't doing anything new.
(And they both absolutely get subsidized!)
> There is no indication that these commitments were underpriced by the government...
They got paid for a launch of an untested platform and a student-built payload, regardless of success, in hopes it would result in a good tested platform. What else do you call it?
No question that NASA was pivotal to SpaceX’s success, especially COTS program. However that wasn’t subsides. They only got paid when they could deliver. Had they fail to launch Falcon 9 or cargo Dragon they would have gotten no dimes from NASA.
You can argue that all government contracts are a different form of subsidy, but in common parlance people do not use the term subsidy when describing government contracts.
A government contract paying to send up student payloads on an untested in-development launcher with no requirement for a successful launch (and there were three failures) is absolutely a subsidy.
As SpaceX is essentially the only mature commercial launch company with reusable rockets, it should be no surprise that the company gets government contracts.
"His whole business is getting government subsidies."
SpaceX absolutely dominates the commercial launch market. No one forces companies from abroad to buy launches from SpaceX - only their reliability and lower prices.
For fully subsidized organizations that nevertheless cannot compete on the commercial market, see Roskosmos and Arianespace.
Artemis' unworkable design is because of the limitations of Starship. I was all-in on "cool, huge rocket go brr" until I realized that it's going to take between 5 and 20 Starship launches per mission just to get to the moon. That's a clear regression from the Saturn V.
That is not actually such a big deal when you realize they are just ferrying fuel on a reusable rocket. They're also doing it well in advance of the mission. There is a massive logistics chain making it possible to buy fuel on your road trip, this is similar.
> That's a clear regression from the Saturn V.
Not exactly, as the fuel provided in orbit by these other missions will allow a much larger payload to reach the Moon's surface and return.
StarShip can already deliver a similar payload to orbit as Saturn V (though a bit less due to reusability) - it is the extra mass to the moon which requires the refuelling.
> Not exactly, as the fuel provided in orbit by these other missions will allow a much larger payload to reach the Moon's surface and return.
Amortized over the number of launches it takes to get a single moonshot.
> StarShip can already deliver a similar payload to orbit as Saturn V
But Saturn V's purpose was not getting things to orbit. We have plenty of rockets capable of getting to orbit. And given that satellites have differing needs when it comes to orbital trajectories, it's unclear whether we even need that capability. By analogy, we've had jumbo jets for decades, but most air routes are not flying on jumbo jets, because the demand isn't there.
> But Saturn V's purpose was not getting things to orbit.
The way rocket staging works - each stage delivers the next stage to a predefined orbit / trajectory or energy level. It is not Saturn V that went to the moon, it just lofted a payload (final stage) into orbit that could perform a TLI.
In orbit refuelling with StarShip is a major innovation, meaning that we don't need to separate payloads into parts and assemble them on orbit. Instead we can refuel a reusable boost stage.
> Amortized over the number of launches it takes to get a single moonshot.
Saturn V was completely destroyed by each launch with only the payload surviving. It's not exactly an apples to apples comparison when you compare # launches.
Those 10-15 launches of StarShip will be a lot cheaper than a single Saturn V launch because at the end you still have all the StarShips you launched and all you used was some methane and oxygen.
Can you expand on that? Biden's space policy was remarkably and suprisingly similar to Trump's. A little bit more money for planetary science, and that's about it AFAICT.
Err he's South African, probably shouldn't even be in the US if judged by the same standards as any other immigrant, Cybercab is a shit show and the campaign support was the sort of thing we'd expect from a Russian oligarch.
If you're going to give anyone credit, the thousands of SpaceX staff who keep this thing on the rails are who need some love.
Edit: so by the downvotes I would assume that people are happy to violate immigration laws, try to buy elections and completely pave over the achievements of the staff to be a billionaire simp? Enjoy your future under the boot.
There are plenty of engineers that won't work there because of Musk. Being divisive and unpredictable is not a good characteristic and not how you run a business.
Basically there are better ways without making the sacrifices that have been and will be made.
> providing a social media platform that doesn’t suppress conservative viewpoints
Now amplifies ONLY them, which if you were claiming to be an impartial champion of free speech (as Musk repeatedly said) is equally as bullshit as what was happening on the platform before.
Instead, this bastion of free speech now considers "cisgender" a slur.
Musk in 2022: "Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic"
Honestly? I'd first prefer he hadn't gone off the deep end. I feel the same sort of sad that I did when Notch (of minecraft) turned out the way he did.
I obviously don't have any person relation to him, but Elon seems to be deeply disturbed. He went from a pretty normal somewhat eccentric millionaire 5 or 6 years ago to his evil villain arc. Maybe he was like this all along, but I feel like he's been too stressed and too us vs them for too long that he no longer has a grounded view of reality.
I still remember when we could not even flush the toilet because CT ran out of water and there were fights breaking out at public water pumps. Then came the electricity crisis and constant blackouts which South Africa has only just gotten out of. Not to get started on the crime...
To be fair, Cape Town has better climate and is extremely beautiful. Tourists generally like it, I can see why someone would have a nice impression without knowing much about what's behind the facade. It could be paradise if not for the politics and general state of things in SA.
But yeah, comments like the above are bizarre. Moving to SA is relatively easy, I lived there myself. If it's so great as some foreigners online seem to think, why don't they give it a try? Why do educated people and skilled workers generally move in the opposite direction and leave?
For South Africa, someone like Trump would be a huge improvement. Their governance is just abysmal, bad even for African standards. For example, you get much more reliable grid in Kenya than in SA.
> a two tiered justice system is dangerous grounds
We don’t repeal citizenship on such flimsy grounds for anyone. The solution is to amend the law to include a statute of limitations on repealing citizenship.
Denaturalization, explained: how Trump can strip immigrants of their citizenship - A new “denaturalization task force” raises questions about who really counts as American.
Many YC founders did the same thing. They worked on their own startups with no salary under a student visa, and applied for H1B/O1 visas once they got funding. Is this illegal?
Yes, working on a startup without pay under a student visa (such as F-1) can be legally problematic. While student visas allow some employment (like CPT or OPT for F-1 students), “self-employment” is generally restricted, especially if it involves day-to-day work or responsibilities without proper authorization. Founders may violate visa terms if their role in the startup constitutes “unauthorized employment,” even if unpaid.
For H-1B or O-1 visa applicants, founders need to prove an employer-employee relationship with their startup and show funding or sufficient structure, which complicates the path from student visas.
Sources:
• USCIS Policy Manual on Employment for F-1 Students
• 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)
Seems he cares about it a great deal, he wants to make sure America is still a country where you can innovate and explore without the state blocking you at every turn. See Arianespace for how things would look if Elon had to deal with infamous European bureaucracy and red tape, the FAA is already bad enough.
You should have seen his Lex Fridman interview then where he talks about exactly that and brings up things like the need to kidnap a seal (twice!), strap it to a board, and force it to listen to sonic boom noises to comply with braindeas government environmental regulations.
He cares about freedom and the spark of consciousness, of which he requires a foundation of a strong and free country; maybe you're being perfectionistic, e.g. The Selfish Gene?
The main thesis of The Selfish Gene is that evolution is best explained by a gene-centered model, rather than an organism or species model. I'm confused what that has to do with not being a perfectionist about Musk.
Since when does he care about freedom? He was shadow banning content that he disliked on X, all the while boosting takes he approved of. Sure, he owns X and can do whatever he wants with it, but he doesn’t care about freedom.
I for one do not care about Mars, the science, all his expensive toys. I'm here on earth trying to make ends meat. What has his rocket done for me?
Who's praising the engineers who are grinding their souls to accomplish? It's not Musk accomplishing this. He just stuck up human with money. Like all.
And as an environmentalist in my spare time, why are we trying to get to some red rock of a planet than fixing the climate where we all live?
He's not contributing anything to the real matter yet we are all happy to bitch about climate change and then dish out praise when we allow someone to go and frack for oil. [0][1]
Sorry if it upsets you that I don't want to be under servitude of some egotistical nit. And, as well also sorry that yourself are too stuck in the fumes of fallacy of one who's causing more issues for this planet for his future for one you yourself will never reach.
> Who's praising the engineers who are grinding their souls to accomplish?
I always credit the SpaceX team for their accomplishments, fully aware they are successful despite Musk, not because of him. He’s good at getting attention and funding.
>I for one do not care about Mars, the science, all his expensive toys. I'm here on earth trying to make ends meat. What has his rocket done for me?
I mean at least for me personally it gave me excellent Internet access when I was on vacation in the middle of nowhere and didn't even have cell reception. And if there's a big disaster in my area I'm sure it will be excellent for maintaining communication.
Again, satellite net has existed since years. He
made it accessible to others which has its merits. But then goes boasting egotistically acting other lesser-evil, almost like sabotaging others with not caring.
Competition always drives down the price. It's not the first satellite in space. You could of had satellite internet prior. But again, like electric cars these companies have been blind and moronic for not moving in making it available for the people.
Google tried with their own fibre not as they're any better in merits.
I don't trust it. I'd rather be without than with but again however I do live in a country where it isn't as critical.
The needs of, and I don't rule out the positive of, I would just prefer it to managed other than himself but, or actually showed some professional qualities owning to it.
To me, the internet now is a commodity; I'm a nerd with colocated servers.
I'm not scared of it, I just don't like it. The person in charge, his agenda does not benefit anything positive To the folks.
HN is a pretty high trust site, I'd hope the community is still mature enough to self-moderate. Then again I was here when Terry would post his (admittedly) entertaining rants, the epic Michael O'Church essays, and flamewars between idlewords and pg. Maybe it always allowed for a little bit of funposting, in moderation.
A brilliant idea some startup accelerator in the EU can create a platform that conforms to EU laws. It can't be that hard, given that the UI hasn't changed much in a decade or more. I can already see it "Hacker news, but hosted in the EU with Swiss privacy and is GDPR compliant".
Seriously, who cares!
There are far more interesting stuff in space exploration than this flight tests of a giant boiler that's been going on for years now.
I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered.
Which is why I find it exciting and am stoked every time I see progress made.
Howevever, it's hard to view an announcement of the next launch with some minor additions to the experimental flight, as the most exciting space news today. Future launches, once they get the license updated, will he more exciting.
Please list them because right now it is a hugely costly project that has shown no significant capital advancement for society beyond propping up Elon Musk and a “someday the average man will walk on the moon” dream. If anything of capital gain comes from it, it will never actually benefit the financial bottom line of the middle and lower class.
Space based technology has massive impact on every day life. From GPS to weather prediction to communications, space infrastructure is critical to modern life.
Launch costs significantly reduce what we can build in space and what research we co do there. Decreasing launch costs makes our research funding more effective and reduces the capital costs and projected profit margins needed to build space based infrastructure.
SpaceX has already enabled significant economic growth and innovation with the launch cost reductions brought by the various falcon rockets and their reusability.
If Starship can accomplish it's reusability goals, an ever greater reduction of launch costs is possible. This would jump start an even bigger space industry boom than the one we are in today.
None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.
The rest of your statement only indicates that Starship is indeed a fat pig when it comes to budget. This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.
Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.
> None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.
Lower launch costs are a force multiplier for all of those technologies and more.
> This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.
It sounds like your issue is more with capitalism than space...
But lower launch costs decrease the capital needed to particpate is space, so you point still doesn't make sense.
> Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.
Everyone is already better off because of the soace dream. You don't seem to actually want an answer to your question.
Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.
Please give me the benefit of the doubt and help me understand what lower launch costs help with the average american today. I am asking an honest question to a different poster who originally indicated that the benefits were easily imaginable.
> We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.
I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS and weather systems that decades of other fields that use those technologies couldn’t improve on already. What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?
I can see the blind Marvel-movie-like fandom of “but it’s science” and “its our destiny” and “imagine all the wonderful things but don’t let me tell you ;)” but I do not see the actual details of what this will enable besides allowing Musk et al to hollow out planets for mining operations for their own gain.
Why would I want to answer my own question when I don’t understand what the original poster was suggesting?
You seem at a loss for these easily imaginable ideas.
> Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.
Cheaper launch means more weather satellites covering more spectrum from more angles than otherwise.
> What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?
Everything is dependent on cost. If we had a medicine that gave an extra 10 years of healthy life to everyone but cost $100,000,000 per person, it would be utterly infeasible to give to the masses. If it cost $100,000 - now that's an easy decision.
If something is cheap you can do more of it.
> I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS
GPS satellites are incredibly expensive because they need to be light enough to fit in existing heavy lift launchers and reliable enough to last for 20+ years. Cheaper, heavier, more frequent launch means you can dramatically reduce the cost per satellite in a constellation, and thus send up more. Having more GPS satellites reduces time to first fix, improves coverage in adverse environments (cities in particular) and improves accuracy.
SpaceX just posted this video of the last test. It's one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64
I find the experience of watching these SpaceX videos very emotional. There's something really inspiring both from an "exploring the universe" perspective and also just from the human side of all of the effort that went into them.
The first video that really got to me was when they landed multiple boosters. This one as well, especially seeing the rocket take off with every booster firing when compared with the first Starship launch when you could see that some failed to light. It's like watching your child take their first steps, and then seeing them win an Olympic medal for running. Just incredible stuff.
This kind of thing is why I got into engineering in the first place.
There's so much more to it than money.
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For those of you who like dubstep, start the following video first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2eBMuL0C2o then 3 seconds later start to watch the (muted) SpaceX video from OP's post and thank me later. ;-)
Especially the catch is awesome!
Nice, how did you find a music clip with such a good match across the whole video? Or are you saying you know that SpaceX media people were using that as test music when cutting theirs?
Another rough take with some orchestra music from Stellaris, of all things. Start the SpaceX video and 'Towards Utopia' at around the 2:21 mark https://youtu.be/887f76RXvdE?t=141
OK, that's downright creepy. Especially that the singing starts with the lyrics "holding on" at the exact moment the booster is caught by the chopsticks.
this was great. i hope someone just recuts video with exactly this soundtrack
I think it's a cool achievement, but for some perspective NASA first did a vertical rocket ship landing without chopsticks decades ago.
And the whole point of this thing was to do that on the moon, which is never going to happen at this rate.
And in 2002 a neuroscientist hooked a camera to a blind man's brain and he could see well enough to drive a car around an empty parking lot without running into things. And yet there are still many blind people.
Doing something cool once doesn't impact civilization. Doing it affordably at scale does. If Space X can do the chopstick landing reliably and integrate it into their operations, then that will be impactful - and change civilization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Dobelle
Is the whole point of this thing to land the first stage on the moon, or just the Starship? My understanding is that it's just Starship, and the first stage will always return to Earth. I think one of us has a very confused understanding of the whole point of the thing.
They did? I've not heard of that, and a cursory search isn't finding anything. Got any more info on this, which rocket, etc? I'd love to learn about that.
I am assuming they are talking about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzXcTFfV3Ls&t=3s
Edit: Another link with probably better info
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC1wgWi9WWU
TLDR: DC-X (Delta Clipper X)
Just makes it more humiliating for SpaceX competitors. ESA, China, ULA all playing catchup to NASA tech from decades ago. Why didn't they commercialize it?
Did Apple invent the touchscreen or the cell phone or high dpi displays?
NASA Landed on the moon in the 60s with an abacus. SpaceX can’t get out of low Earth orbit.
I think it's a really responsible decision by SpaceX to not put their StarShip stage into a full orbit until they have demonstrated the ability to get it back out of orbit.
They should be applauded for this, along with their iterative approach.
Note that this next test will demonstrate re-light of the engine in space at micro-gravity. This is the demonstration needed prior to putting the StarShip in orbit. We'll probably see a full orbital test for the flight after this one.
They could have easily put previous tests into orbit - it's a fairly minor change to their existing regime and they have plenty of fuel to use.
Didn't SpaceX launch Europa Clipper to Jupiter a few weeks ago?
Clipper is a massive payload for a planetary science mission as well. SLS was the only other operational US vehicle with the payload capacity.
They also flung a Tesla Roadster off into a wayward journey around the Sun. Not nearly as impressive I know, but significantly more amusing.
Yup. Passed by Mars in Oct 2020 which is definitely outside low earth orbit.
Do you really believe that they “can’t” get out of low earth orbit, as opposed to “haven’t yet”??
Amazing what one stubborn person can put into motion
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That $3B is milestone based, they don't get it until they deliver on the milestones. AFAICT, they've only hit a single milestone on the plan, and have received <$100M of the $3B to date.
Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.
Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day.
Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.
> go again the same day.
That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.
The shuttle boosters required rebuilding / refueling (which is solid rocket goop) and the fuel tank was completely lost and required rebuilding. The head shield tiles were extremely fragile on the shuttle.
It was never a fully reusable design, just more reusable than before.
SpaceX plans to have no parts that are lost each flight and is working to make the tiles mostly standardized and less sensitive to faults.
Are they going to replace all the tiles before it can relaunch? And what about the engine nozzles? They must be taking quite the beating.
No doubt SpaceX has very smart people working on this and I'm not an expert in material science, but I just find it hard to believe that same day turnaround could be possible. If true, that would really make us a confirmed space faring civilization. We could actually start colonizing Mars.
The heat tiles are reusable, just like the Shuttle's. They are basically just a material that insulates very well, instead of a traditional ablative heat shield that burns away. With the space shuttle they ended up spending a lot of time inspecting each tile for damage and replacing cracked tiles. SpaceX has a modern iteration of the same material, hopefully with fewer cracks.
Other factors that work in SpaceX's favor are 1) that most launches will be unmanned, meaning they can take bigger risks than the Space Shuttle program; 2) that the steel body of Starship can handle higher temperatures than the Space Shuttle's aluminum, so a compromised heat shield is more tolerable; 3) for now they have a secondary ablative heat shield below the tiles (that does have to be replaced when it gets used, but that should only happen when tiles fall off)
> what about the engine nozzles?
Falcon 9 has reflown in just over 4 hours [1]. (EDIT: Operational turnaround. Nozzles have been turned around allegedly without refurb in 3 weeks.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_...
No, those were separate craft, on opposite sides of the country. It demonstrates an ability to manage multiple missions at once, but not rapid booster turnaround.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-launch-doubleheader-ju...
They've since done two flights in about an hour with https://spaceflightnow.com/tag/starlink-9-5/ and https://spaceflightnow.com/tag/starlink-8-10/
I think the first-stage turnaround record is something like two weeks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b...
> B1062 booster holds the record for fastest turnaround at 21 days. It launched on 8 April and again on 29 April 2022.
For context on JumpCrisscross's comment in this thread: the 4 hours is between two separate launches on two separate rockets. This is absolutely not refurbishing and launching the same rocket 4 hours apart.
Seems like the actual record for turning around the same booster is 21 days, which is still quite impressive.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnar...
Some of SpaceX's first stages are getting close to the individual Shuttles' launch counts, with substantially less turnaround time and cost than Shuttle ever had.
Starship has work to do, but it's hard to argue they're not at least on the right path.
Also, less cost in life.
With the Falcon 9 they're already at over 100 launches this year. It's multiple rockets, but the turn around is pretty quick and getting quicker every year. They're designing starship from the start with same day turnaround in mind. I wouldn't bet against it I guess.
It's a good question. The hurdle to clear for same-day reuse will be the heat shield. SpaceX hasn't yet demonstrated that Starship can reenter the atmosphere and remain fully intact. Doing it while sustaining near zero wear on the heat shield will be even harder. But I think it is not impossible, and I don't know of any other obvious blockers for same day reuse.
They'll likely reuse the booster on the same day well before the starship portion. No heat shield on the booster. Some starships will likely stay in space for a long time before returning.
Musk has said they're aiming for hundreds of reuses for the booster and dozens for the ship.
Zero wear is not necessary. The tiles can be thicker than the minimum, and be reusable until they wear down to the minimum. Like the brake pads on your car.
It's certainly looked fully intact when reaching ground.
When they manage to do the intended landing it should be pretty unharmed, but I'm sure it will take a while before same-day reuse is attempted.
One of the flaps burned through again. Not as bad as the first time. The hinge area seems like the hardest challenge.
It was a flap hinge that burnt through, not the flap. They have a solution for block 2 which we'll likely see in test 7 -- move the flap slightly further back so that the hinge isn't in direct flow.
Is this a bit of over engineering? How much is drag reduced during liftoff by having the flaps folded?
The reason the flaps move is to provide attitude and speed control during reentry. Like a skydiver spreading their arms and legs.
oh, you mean like actual flaps of pretty much any aircraft. doh! i was thinking it was like the folding of the wings for planes on an aircraft carrier. sometimes my brain, boy, i don't know
Even if they can reuse the booster, it would be huge.
For the Super Heavy booster, SpaceX is targeting a <1hr turnaround time. For the ship, it gets a bit more complex. Ships have to make complete orbits before returning, and generally they have to be loaded with cargo as well. Tanker Starships for lunar/Mars missions will probably have pretty quick turnaround given that fuel can be loaded on the pad; other ships will have significantly longer turnarounds.
The previous flight was October 13, 2024, so while I can't speak to every day, one month turnaround is a reality.
It's a completely different booster and ship that's flying.
And both are already outdated - flight seven (Ship 33) introduces a new generation of hardware. They're moving fast with these.
Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?
SpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time.
In the near term the biggest reason to do multiple launches in a day will be orbital refueling. This is required for sending much, much larger payloads to the Moon and Mars. It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit, and obviously doing that as quickly as possible will be beneficial. NASA has already committed to this plan for Artemis.
> It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit
Require, or just make comfortable? Saturn V had the lift capacity of "only" a couple of Falcon Heavies, but was enough to carry astronauts, a car, a lunar lander with enough fuel to take off, and a command module.
We're not trying to do Apollo again. That would be easier, but we want to build a base this time. For that we need to send a lot more mass and it needs a lot more fuel.
It's necessary because the Starship upper stage is so heavy. With a non reusable upper stage Starship's capacity would be enormous.
Require. I answered that in this same subtopic.
It's a mandate for the next Artemis Mission. [1]
The HLS (Spaceship) will need many refuels at orbit in order to get to the Moon and back. That means at least a dozen of fully-loaded Heavy launches to LEO just so each one of them can load a bit of fuel into HLS. The fuel in orbit can't sit idle for too long, or it deteriorates; I haven't found a limit on days for that, but a week-long launch window is considered a dealbreaker, we're talking a dozen Heavy launches in a week.
It's either a short launch window, or at least 6 Starships built and launched twice in ~10 days. Don't count out on SpaceX building 12 Heavy Starships just for that Artemis mission.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III
If satellites don't have to worry as much about weight constraints they can be made cheaper and quicker. Space missions can become more routine.
If we want to establish long term bases on the Moon or Mars then yes, you need not only to send crew and habitation modules but ongoing supplies and equipment.
Other use cases include launching and maintaining satellite constellations (Starling / Starshield), and launching singular large payloads like space telescopes.
Even for smaller payloads, having both the first and second stages be reusable will reduce launch costs.
Yes, obviously.
It takes a heavy launch rocket to launch heavier things into space or missions, refueling, and to goto other planets.
Yes, to do anything at all in the rest of the universe.
We are insatiably curious explorers. The cosmos calls to us. Many are willing to do anything they can to answer that call.
Needs tend to develop once the means are there.
200 years ago, there was no need to use electricity. 100 years ago, there was no need to use a programming language. 30 years ago, there was no need for gigabit wireless Internet.
> Needs tend to develop once the means are there.
Counterexample: space stations. We've had small manned space stations for decades now, but no real application for them. They're national prestige items only.
Because launch cost is expensive. There are a lot of interesting things we can develop in zero gravity if the cost per pound was cheap.
Or perhaps earlier and closer to the heart of USA's citizens, 300 years ago, there was no need for rail lines and trains.
Nobody will ever need more than 640k of RAM.
I think the economics of space are are much more likely to be transformed by something like https://www.longshotspace.com/. Rockets are complex, still costly, and polluting.
The problem with space guns is you can't just yeet rocks into orbit. Any orbit that starts at the surface returns to the surface. So you still need a disposable rocket and avionics and fuel in every payload to change the orbit once out of the atmosphere. Only now the rocket needs to survive being literally shot out of a gun and then traveling at orbital velocity in atmosphere. That puts a pretty high floor on the cost per shot.
If you want to look at someone that is further along on a concept like this you can look at SpinLaunch. Exactly what it sounds like with a gigantic centrifuge to spin and throw things really fast. But they are still throwing a small two-stage rocket.
https://www.spinlaunch.com/orbital
Plus, your payload needs to be gun compatible. Not gonna put people in there.
Well, in WW2 we did manage to put working radar in artillery shells.
Space is for robots.
While mass to orbit costs as much as it does now, sure. However later on it's gonna be great to have humans closer to the working robots to reduce the round-trip latency. They could also perform tasks robots are not suited for.
Consider operators living on Mars and operating drones near their habitat each day. It would be like modern day drone operators and robot assisted surgery. Like remote operators of mega-trucks today.
Those robots could interact with the operators - driving into a "garage" that can be pressurized for maintenance, upgrades or science.
StarShip promises to reduce the cost of mass to orbit, making larger and more complex scientific, industrial and habitat options feasible.
I think a reusable orbital tug which rendezvous with payloads is the play here. The tug would refuel from some of the gun-launched payloads.
He's already spent the $3bn funding that was supposed to deliver the rocket to the moon and back.
That's just straight up not true. The $3bn were never meant to fund the entire project in the way you imply.
The big thing is that it dramatically reduces the cost of shipping things into space. Previously it was difficult to ship anything much larger than a compact car in to orbit. Now you can ship half of a basketball court into orbit, including all the vertical space.
Until very very recently the roughly bus sized ISS modules were the largest habitable spaces we could ship to orbit (although Skylab in the 70s were basically repurposed Saturn V fuel tanks and also big) so now it's possible/probable we can ship 20 people to space, and have moderately comfortable accommodations for them.
We can also ship mining equipment and substancially more supplies to the moon. Or mars. We went from using pack goats to 18 wheelers to ship stuff in space. The pack goat can ship a handful of hand made silk scarves and Faberge eggs over the Himalayas, but the 18 wheeler can deliver everything from socks and tshirts to cell phones and big screen tvs and trucks and lawn mowers. This really opens up space to more than the highest, most bleeding edge science and we might actually see more than 100 humans in space at the same time, in our lifetimes.
Literally anything but the metric system, huh? ;)
I applaud GP's effort at also avoiding shipping cliches like Olympic-size swimming pools.
Well, basketball courts have a ~12m diameter 3-point line, and the inside of a starship is ~9m. Swimming pools are mostly rectangular from the outside observer's perspective.
If you go to space, 90% of the cost is the rocket (depending on your accounting). If rockets can be made reusable, then you can drop costs by 90%, to first order. Cheaper rockets means cheaper satellites for internet and sensors and stuff.
Also, as mass to orbit gets cheaper you can build your payload more cheaply. Many compromises in complexity and material cost are made to minimize payload mass - we'll be able to launch cheap and heavy satellites and probes into orbit instead.
Cheaper rockets also mean cheaper payload in that the payloads don't have to be engineered to such high standards of reliability.
>(depending on your accounting).
some of the best weasel words ever laid to print. Enron accounting vs PWC vs your mom using Quickbooks for her side hustle type of depending?
It's a rocket in the same ballpark as the Saturn V but where the two stages can both be recovered and re-used.
SpaceX has demonstrated being able to fly the same rocket stage dozens of times with minimal refurbishment with their Falcon 9 family of rockets, but they still have to build and discard the second stage of the Falcon 9 for each launch.
Starship scales that up in magnitude and adds second-stage reusability.
This article [0] is a pretty good explainer for why Starship is such a big deal
[0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...
> We need a team of economists to rederive the relative elasticities of various design choices and boil them down to a new set of design heuristics for space system production oriented towards maximizing volume of production.
Great article, but that's not what economists do. It's more what cost accountants do.
> Starship is designed to be able to launch bulk cargo into LEO in >100 T chunks for <$10m per launch,
So, for the cost of a single SLS launch ($4B), Starship would be able to put the mass of the battleship USS Texas into orbit.
If the cost is reduced to $1M/launch, it could put the mass of four Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers into orbit.
Brilliant article, and I neglected to bookmark it earlier, thank you.
That's very good. And it's from 2021. Since then:
- Starship is actually launching now
- Boeing's reputation and credibility are in tatters
- Trump won with heavy support from Musk.
Expect a new head of NASA who is pro-Musk, and a cancellation of the Senate Launch System.
On the other hand, it's not clear what a Moon base is good for. The ISS isn't very useful.
This is a great resource for why Starship is groundbreaking. So much so, it’s not even really comprehensive to the existing space-industrial complex.
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...
Price decreases significantly when you can reuse. This rocket is the same size as the ones that brought the Apollo missions to the moon, but will cost significantly less because they don't have to build one every time they launch it.
Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn’t cost $500, but only $5, unbelievable, right? This is exactly what Starship will do to space travel. Many things we see in sci-fi, like lunar and Martian cities or orbital cruise ships, could soon become reality.
Personally, I can’t wait to see a massive, kilometer-wide telescope in space or nestled in a crater on the Moon. We might finally figure out dark matter, dark energy, anti-gravity.
See this is the kind of thing that's not helpful.
It's just an outlandish overly optimistic mishmash of different concepts.
Let's start with your analogy:
> Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn’t cost $500, but only $5, unbelievable, right?
If you mean to use this to explain that what today costs X will in the future cost 0.01X, you're probably right.
But a more accurate analogy is "Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn't cost $50,000,000, but only $500,000, unbelievable, right?"
Same ratios, but deeply different implications.
Today, the idea of setting up a continuously settled Mars colony - hell even a Moon colony - is unfeasibly expensive. It's ACHIEVABLE - we have the technology and the money - but it would cost an intolerable percentage of the GDP of the world to accomplish.
A 100x reduction in costs means that it becomes a fundable endeavour that countries like the US could still justify.
We're still talking about generations - maybe a century - away from someone being able to just pop over to Mars for a summer vacation, the way that a college student could to do today with an intercontinental flight.
> Many things we see in sci-fi, like lunar and Martian cities or orbital cruise ships, could soon become reality.
For a very generous definition of soon and for a highly implausible definition of what a "cruise ship" is - it'll never be as accessible to the average person as earth cruise ships. Not as long as you keep using rockets.
Regardless of reusability, there are realities of fixed FOSSIL FUEL costs associated with getting into gravity. They're not cheap, and they're not frivolous. If you want to be able get things into orbit as cheap as you're suggesting, you need to start investing in a space elevator, which noone is right now.
> Personally, I can’t wait to see a massive, kilometer-wide telescope in space
Cool, yeah, that's true, that becomes more available.
> or nestled in a crater on the Moon.
..why?
> We might finally figure out dark matter, dark energy, anti-gravity.
And the final cherry on the cake. Humanity becoming inter-planetary is important on a macro scale. And trying to go further and further into space will INCENTIVISE research into these concepts.
But in no way does getting to orbit cheaper make it easier to figure out any of these concepts. There's nothing we can do from Mars or on the way to Mars in terms of this science that we can't do from Earth.
> Regardless of reusability, there are realities of fixed FOSSIL FUEL costs associated with getting into gravity. They're not cheap, and they're not frivolous.
I hope you don't mean hydrogen and methane. Those are downright easy to make without fossil fuels. And kerosene isn't all that hard.
> A 100x reduction in costs means that it becomes a fundable endeavour that countries like the US could still justify.
Don't forget the dynamics. Costs of all such projects drop further when early steps become affordable. Like, with 100x reduction on the sticker price, US might feel Mars colony is still too expensive a project, but 100x reduction on trying out some adjacent space tech may just be in range of NASA budget or some private interest. Steps get made, iterated on, making next steps cheaper and more likely to happen. Derisking compounds.
I do agree it'd still be a decades long project at least (with a settlement established early on; it's the tail end that will drag on).
>> or nestled in a crater on the Moon.
>..why?
Having some gravity and hard surface to build on simplifies engineering challenges, particularly on large scales, as in free space, tension becomes a big issue. And, perhaps more importantly, the Moon would shield the telescope from all the electromagnetic noise produced on Earth, and also by the Sun.
Consider ocean-going freight transportation: the container ships and the containers, the port facilities and the cranes. Now imagine that you were able to witness the very first round-trip sailing of such a container ship between two newly constructed still-experimental-and-heretofore-unproven ports.
That'd be pretty cool right? The dawn of a new era in global trade.
This is that, for space. (Booster as container ship, Orbital vehicle as container, launch tower as literal crane, launch complex as port)
No. The ports were just expanding on an existing idea. I live in a port city, a thousand years ago middle ages people with much smaller boats used this same area to travel much shorter distances with fewer goods, today it has those cranes and a railway and moves inter-modal containers which have travelled from across the world, but it's just the same idea.
Why is there a port here? Because of the unusual tidal pattern? Deep water? No. People. The other reasons are reasons to put the port here maybe in particular rather than a few miles in either direction, but the people are why there's a port. In 1024 there were thousands of people, today perhaps closer to half a million depending on how you count.
There are no people on Luna, and no people on Mars. Visiting these barren rocks is like going up Everest.
This damp rock is where our species was born and it's where it will die. It's not much, but its ours, and there's nothing like it within any plausible travel distance.
Rockets that are easily reusable make spaceflight a lot more logistically feasible, which should translate to a massive drop in costs.
We are going to see massively increased space activity of all sorts. It is almost impossible to predict all consequences thereof.
Honestly of very little significance to the typical individual. It isn't going to pay my bills or provide for my kids. It does nothing for people suffering war and genocide. Nothing for poverty, access to health care and education. Nothing for the biggest threats facing our civilization.
It is still a remarkable technical achievement and I think the people who have designed and built these systems deserve some celebration for their accomplishments. It has the potential to lower costs and increase the capacity for greater commercialization, militarization and exploration of space.
I think the extent you see that as something positive is subject to your faith in humanity. I tend to think technologies connection to social progress is a three steps forward, two steps back sort of thing. We have certainly made gains in my lifetime but we could have gone a lot further.
Your posts reminds me of the building of the first transcontinental railroad. It had many fits and starts, and people thought it would take decades to pay off.
But just as soon as it was completed, it changed everything overnight.
This is what Musk is doing.
SpaceX are not building a transcontinental railroad. I think that is a false equivalence.
An operational Starship should be very impactful on space exploration but it won't be shipping cattle back from Mars. There is a difficult to discern line between reality and bullshit that Musk likes to blur. The "vision" stuff is there to hype up the troops and investors. You don't need to swallow it to appreciate the technology. It isn't narrow minded to reject stuff that just doesn't add up. The scales, time, distance, energy, investment involved in space colonization are incomparable to settling the USA. The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.
SpaceX is building a railroad to the solar system. It will change everything, and quickly.
> The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.
That's what people thought before the railroad was completed.
See "Nothing Like It In the World" by Stephen Ambrose:
https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1...
The payload is so big it will be a pretty dramatic phase transition for almost everything space related, assuming theres not some horrible flaw hidden away somewhere.
Quite bizarre how some people genuinely think he's just some guy who allocates capital. Or rich dad or whatever. I guess his dad was probably rich but that's clearly not enough.
I’m with you. As landing the thing means nothing if you can’t get payloads to the destination. To get this thing to the moon would need like 20 refuelling flights to meet it on the way.
Hence the plan to have ten or so launches to refuel the top stage while it's still in orbit, a place that notably _is_ halfway to the moon's surface + the return trip to the earth.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_sy...
this just reads as very strange. "meet it on the way"? it's not like they can place these in an orbit that they can just pull up and stop to refuel like a highway gas station. the refueling "pod" would need to be moving at the same speed as the ship.
I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the gatekeeper?'
I'm just going to choose peace today and say: the SpaceX engineers who've been at this forever and have shown that crazy stuff is actually possible are seriously amazing humans, and I do hope they are successful.
>I'm just going to choose peace today
As an alternative to what? I don't understand how the first part of the comment is connected to the rest.
I think they’re trying to maintain focus on the engineering rather than the politics surrounding Musk at the moment.
The news is about SpaceX sharing the launch date for the 6th Starship test flight. Musk is not even mentioned in the announcement.
Yet people cannot help themselves.
Musk owns, runs, and is the public face of SpaceX, he is automatically germane to any discussion of it.
He choose not to mention the top 20 Diablo IV player.
It is traditional to summon an Elon Musk Flamewar by implying even vaguely that he is successful. Elon Musk’s support for a candidate may have been pivotal in that candidate’s win today. This sort of thing is like bathing in gasoline next to a forest fire.
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Democracy?
Idiocracy
Democracy happened in 1930s Germany as well.
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Well, I started planning a road trip down Austin as soon as I saw this post. Crew of friends is coming together to watch! Thanks for posting. I'm so excited to witness this in person.
> the 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT
Is that correct? They're launching in the afternoon this time?
"Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations."
From the linked article.
It's explained further down the page that this launch time will facilitate the Indian Ocean landing in sunlight, for improved visual capture of that.
For anyone else who was confused and thought this was happening today. It's actually in 12 days:
The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18.
The 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT
They call out later launch on the page linked
Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
Last times catch was incredible, anything groundbreaking being attempted this time?
They're working off the same license they used for test 5, so they basically have to exactly the same thing they did for test 5. They did manage to add this:
"An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions."
I think that's the last thing they need to do before they can actually launch satellites. I'm surprised there was no attempt on the last launch. Glad to see it this time. The improved Starlink constellation that Starship will enable is going to be awesome.
I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting.
SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)
The next block of starship has altered flap geometry that should largely fix that.
I think they can probably do both at once - heatshield testing and pez dispenser testing shouldn't interfere with each other, so might as well use whatever spare upmass you have!
Yeah you might lose the payload, but SpaceX has the cheapest satellites in the business from what I understand.
That and flap sturdiness, if they want to be able to re-enter over land so they can catch the ship.
It's not required for launching satellites. But yeah, they need to figure out the heat shield for the flap hinges before they can recover the ship.
The next block of starship has an altered geometry/location of the flaps for that reason; it's more or less a solved problem, but not worth scrapping the older ones they've already built. Iirc, the launch after this one will be SN7, which is block 2 with the new geometry.
It's not a solved problem. Surviving the re-entry in a condition that makes reuse economical was always the biggest challenge for the Starship. It's far from certain that they can achieve it without a fundamental change in the concept.
The feasibility of building big rockets was already demonstrated a long time ago. Given the reliability of the Falcon 9, it looked plausible that a big rocket could work with many engines. And SpaceX had already shown that they can reuse boosters economically. But reusing orbital spacecraft – the entire upper stage with engines, fuel tanks, and whatever – without expensive and time-consuming refits is something nobody has done before.
They're saying that one specific part burning off is a solved problem, not the entire reuse process.
And they need to demo that the flaps hold up through re-entry with nominal, minimal damage, otherwise a permit for a plan involving re-entry over land (which is needed to catch the ship) would obviously not issue.
They've addressed that in Block 2. Test 6 still flies block 1, so we won't see any substantive improvements on that until test 7.
That's cool PR move. If they managed to light one then it's great success. If they don't people will think they just got unlucky. But if they tried to light all and only one would work or none, or one would work but some other blew up whole rocket it would look terrible. That last eventuality is something they want to prevent by trying to light just one.
It's not groundbreaking but it's important. They are demonstrating in orbit relight capability of the raptor engines. This is an absolute requirement before they can put it fully into orbit because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic.
> because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic
Why? Remote detonation wouldn't work in that case?
Remote termination is something they can do in the early boost phase, when there is a defined hazard zone over a depopulated patch of ocean. It doesn't cause the rocket to disappear; its effect is to disable the engines, end uncontrolled acceleration, and break the booster apart into small pieces—all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris.
If you did this to a Starship in orbit, you'd likely have large chunks of steel reentering and reaching the ground intact.
If I understand you correctly: So you'd have to do it over unpopulated/depopulated areas, which is impossible to guarantee when you are zooming around the globe at very high speeds. Thanks for explaining.
"...all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris..." After it's been flying in orbit for awhile, where it could in theory hit something else.
As you say, the other part of it--and probably more important--is that if it's turned into orbiting pieces, there's no control over where it lands. Some of it could easily land on the ground rather than the ocean, who knows where. That of course has happened with other satellites and their final stage rockets in the past (notably by the Chinese), but Starship is bigger, and therefore the pieces that hit the ground could be bigger. By launching it sub-orbital for now, and turning off the engines so it lands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the risks of both orbital debris and unknown ground landing points are avoided.
If the object is already in orbit, the debris from an FTS activation would also mostly be left in orbit, which isn't great. They really need to demonstrate the ability to de-orbit the vehicle before putting into orbit.
Generally that isn't done for a vehicle in orbit, since the distribution of debris in orbits used by other spacecraft would be significant.
A Starship second stage stranded in orbit would be a problem because detonation would cause a bunch of orbital debris, but simply waiting for natural re-entry would result in an unpredictable landing location that could result in large debris reaching populated areas.
Reliable, controlled re-entry to a targeted location is very important for Starship to be an operational launch system.
Detonation in orbit would cause garbage in orbit that could destroy many satellites. It is absolutely not permitted.
That makes a lot of sense.
Detonating something in orbit could trigger Kessler's Syndrome.
> Detonating something in orbit could trigger Kessler's Syndrome
Unlikely in general, no at LEO and definitely not at the suborbital velocities IFT-6 contemplates.
Even at suborbital velocities, putting debris into the path of an existing satellite that is traveling at orbital velocity is enough to trigger a cascade.
The chance anything hits fragments within the next hour or two is not very high.
Collision, yes, cascade no.
No. An object in orbit colliding with anything threatens to create debris in orbit. Debris in orbit collides with other objects in orbit, creating debris in orbit. That's a cascade.
No. Orbital mechanically, no.
> Debris in orbit collides with other objects in orbit, creating debris in orbit. That's a cascade
For the same reason not every nucleus that fractures on neutron bombardment sustains chain reactions not every orbital configuration supports a Kessler cascade. In LEO, it’s virtually impossible: you get a nuisance, not SOL.
Note that Kessler posited his syndrome before we could computationally verify it. We can now. It’s not a real threat in the long term, and is more of an insurance question than existential issue for spaceflight in the medium term. It’s pertinent in the very short term, militarily, which is partly how we know it’s very difficult to trigger across even limited orbits.
LEO is the exact place you need to be careful. Higher orbits have more space and have fewer satellites overall so it's less of a concern.
Obviously not a problem for IFT6 since it's sub-orbital, but the original comment was about why we need a deorbit burn rather than just triggering the flight abort system.
> LEO is the exact place you need to be careful. Higher orbits have more space and have fewer satellites overall so it's less of a concern
No. In LEO orbits degrade in single-digit years at most. There is no known solution for rendering an orbit in LEO inaccessible with a Kessler cascade—the best you can do is blind an area with repeated ASAT fire.
In higher orbits debris last longer. That makes cascades possible, though again it only denies a limited area and requires almost active effort.
At least in LEO you need to keep expending DeltaV to keep stuff in orbit. Trace atmosphere slows everything down and would eventually clean LEO at 500km of relevant junk in about 25 years depending on altitude.
https://space.stackexchange.com/a/55995
but lower orbits also decay quickly.
If you have debris in geostationary orbit, it will stay there basically forever whereas in low earth orbit it will burn up within a few years at worst.
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It would work, all too well. Especially if the speed was just slightly suborbital. Rain of steel over a random spot (or, rather, a trace) on the Earth's surface. You may be lucky and that trace might cross a desolate ocean; or you may not be lucky, and some Asian megalopolis with 25 million people may be below.
Does anyone know how to witness these launch events live? Is it open to the public or only SpaceX employees + friends & family?
Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is the best public spot you can watch from (IIRC it's 3 or 4 miles from the launch pad) and it's an amazing experience, highly recommended to anyone who's able to make it out.
I believe they clear out the launch site within a few kilometres so nobody gets hit by random concrete debris or just melt away, literally. The control centre is probably invitational.
But you can freely watch them live on Twitter. Just follow the official @SpaceX account.
Yes it's open to everyone. South Padre Island would be your best bet.
So is the Gulf, except in the areas closed by the notam.
Science fiction becomes reality!
Love the diamonds in the exhaust!
Just in case you weren't aware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond
I imagine SpaceX is on for some pretty juicy government contracts now!
Yes, considering they're achieving far better results at much lower cost than the SLS and other launch providers.
That remains to be seen. It ain't finished yet!
They're already the best and cheapest launch provider with Falcon 9.
Falcon 9 and SLS are not in the same class.
Shouldn't they be? Boeing, Lockheed and Blue Origin are welcome to compete and do just as well.
You mean after the Boeing debacle?
They already have lion's share of NASA and Space Force govt contracts.
Cargo runs to ISS, bringing astronauts to and from ISS, NROL missions, scientific missions (like Europa Clipper recently).
Sure they do, but the government could choose to spend more or less on space, couldn't they?
Note that there will not be an official livestream on Youtube. Every time there are some people who fall for scammers pretending to be one and end up listening to an AI impersonation of Elon Musk try to sell them cryptocoins, missing the real launch.
If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.
Considering how long those videos have been allowed on YouTube, you have to wonder...
https://mashable.com/article/fake-elon-musk-crypto-scam-yout...
> Nearly four years ago, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak actually sued YouTube over Bitcoin scam livestreams that were using his likeness. So, this has clearly been going on for quite a while now. And, unfortunately, it looks like these fake YouTube livestream schemes are going to continue on, at least for the foreseeable future.
I recently reported a bunch of the SpaceX ones that were running for long time. Nothing happened. I think Google/Alphabet is just happy with the extra ad views.
This aspect needs regulation.
I'll often spend a little time while watching the flight-tests (usually with Tim Dodd / EverydayAstronaut) just doing a search on YouTube for 'spacex live' and usually report 15-20 each time. They are very easy to spot when you've seen a few of them. I'll usually get a report of a few being shut down later in the day, and more over the next couple of days.
But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automatically - it's frustrating they (and other scams) get to stay online so long.
Perhaps your account has more Youtube XP.
> But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automatically - it's frustrating they (and other scams) get to stay online so long.
It's the Google way. It's impossible until it suddenly isn't.
Break up this monster company and regulate the resulting companies until they behave.
How about RICO act? Youtube is clearly and knowingly profiting from a criminal activity.
The Everyday Astronaut was ahead of the SpaceX curated one for Flight 5. It had the weird effect of showing the outcome before the sound of the cheering crowd going crazy when the booster got caught by the chopsticks (which was also audible in the same stream).
Each streamer adds a delay to their stream. This means that any stream forwarded to you by another streamer is going to be delayed.
The delay was between SpaceX recording and uploading an event and Everyday astronaut decoding it at their mixing desk. Their own feeds from their cameras and microphones had less delay than the SpaceX stream did. Everyday astronaut then had another delay between when they encoded this result and you saw it.
If you had opened up the SpaceX stream directly you would have found it was ahead of the stream shown inside Everyday Astronaut.
BTW I was also watching EA's stream.
EA and NSF have their own cameras so they aren't just republishing SpaceX's Twitter stream. But things definitely get out of sync when there are multiple layers of streaming.
Some of the views their cameras get are fantastic - and the tracking on the last flight test would quite possibly make NASA envious. Cameras on the beach and also just next to StarHopper are in harms way too, they've lost a couple of them. I'm not sure what the cost of repair was after a chunk of concrete from what used to be the pad took out the back of a car!
Thank you for the clarification. It's delays all the way down. :)
I was cycling between the "official" stream and EA to try and catch the most-live and I found EA was a couple seconds ahead.
> If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.
It amazes me that NASA Space Flight managed to rip off the names of both the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Their coverage is good but that name is really misleading.
It's ironic given pre-acquisition under every Elon Musk tweet the top replies were always crypto scammers. Hopefully this time YouTube fix the impersonation stream but it was up for a long time during/after the last launch.
I assumed a large portion of YouTube/ Google management had been in a plane crash as that seemed the only plausible explanation for it to stay up as long and have as many viewers as it did. It really was stunning.
Nah, they are just ignoring the damaging effects on individuals and cashing in the ad money.
Suddenly, all those crypto-scam videos seem plausible now that Elon Musk pledged to give away $1 million daily to individuals who sign his political action committee’s petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.
Can someone give me sources for how to debunk this? https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw
For me, it’s compelling but I’m no expert. Anyone got any background that can prove this guy is wrong?
I’ve liked some of his other videos and made it in twenty minutes. He has three arguments: SpaceX is late and over budget on HLS, booster recapture is the easiest part of Starship’s technical risks and Starship is bad value for money.
On the first two he’s right. Starship was, per SpaceX’s proposal to NASA, supposed to be almost ready by now. It’s not. But neither is any other leg of Artemis, and there is no unforgivable delay in the timeline. (To the degree there are stupid delays, it’s because the FAA was playing water cop.)
Recapture is the easiest technical challenge of the programme. Partly because SpaceX already demonstrated most of the tech with Falcon 9. Partly because in-orbit refuelling is unprecedented. The lunar lander was one of the easiest parts of the Apollo programme, by similar measure—that doesn’t make it unimpressive.
The last—bad bang for the buck—is a value judgement. Do we want a heavy lift booster or more Mars rovers? If we want sustainable access to space, we need cheaper launch. If one doesn’t care about that, rovers are better spend, but at that point I can start arguing for feeding the hungry with those bucks.
I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s price came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense to capture the delta as profit, in part to fund things like Starship. (There is also no inflation adjustment.)
In summary, the technical criticisms are accurate but out of context. The value judgement is subjective. If you don’t value cheap, frequent space launch of course Starship won’t make sense for any amount of money.
EDIT: Kept watching. The energy math on second-stage reëntry is okay as a first estimate. But we don’t have final numbers for anything. And there are a lot of unknowns, e.g. final dry weight, how much energy the heat tiles can store and dissipate, if transpiration cooling could work, how plasma could dissipate energy, whether compression heat could be redirected away from the craft, whether firing mid-descent could reduce heat, et cetera. We certainly don’t have enough data to reject it ex ante. And the second stage being unreadable doesn’t tank Starship, though it probably does Artemis.
> I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s pricing came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (relative to mass; PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense for them to capture the delta as profit versus cut prices for the sake of it. (There is also no inflation adjusting done.)
Exactly, this is such an egregious claim that it proves there is no way this guy is arguing in good faith.
He says SpaceX only saves a tiny bit of money due to reuse because the retail price for F9 expendable is only a bit more than F9 reuseable.
That's like saying because the Big Mac costs $6.29 and the Big Mac combo costs $11.69, then therefore the drink and fries must cost McD's $5.40 to make. Just ridiculous.
Musk expressed outrage that the Russians are massively overcharging the US so he went on to massively overcharge the US.
TF seems to have an axe to grind with all things Musk.
What did he say that was wrong?
I think he is probably right, if you think of Starship has a government-paid program to produce a moon lander. The Starship program has blown though the NASA money to produce the basic version (but not yet the additional money agreed for a more advanced design), but has yet to deliver on any of their contracted goals.
So by its own contract, it is just about to be over-budget, behind schedule, and thus a failed project. You can argue about the pandemic blowing their timing, but the fact remain.
But SpaceX is not treating the Starship as solely a moon landing project. They are using NASA's money presumably alongside other SpaceX and Starlink monies to produce a workhorse for a number of projects alongside the moon lander part. In the closer-term it will become the launch vehicle for Starlink (the next-gen of which is too big to be launched on other vehicles), and in the (very) long-term as a vehicle to Mars.
So SpaceX probably sees the Starship project as behind schedule (par for the course, both for space projects, and for Elon Musk), but not out-of-budget. Whether their customer, NASA, agrees with this outlook is something you would have to ask them.
So I think that the video's points are true, but lack some context.
You're ignoring that this is a fixed-price contract. It will never be over-budget from NASA's perspective.
Also, for a project like HLS, you don't fail until you stop trying (or get someone killed, but SpaceX has been pretty good at not killing astronauts).
TF has had terminal Musk derangement syndrome for a while now. You can safely ignore him.
Completely amazing.
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Thanks to the wonderful SpaceX engineers who are actually responsible for the company’s achievements. What they’ve been accomplishing recently never ceases to amaze me.
The one big difference with the SpaceX organization is the willingness to "blow stuff up" while they are developing, which is enabled by the amount of sensor data they get on each test. That allows them to have a higher revision cadence that decreases development time. Compared to old space tech, where a rocket failure (even during early development) spells the end of the program (such as the X-10 -- it was looking good until a failed landing leg caused an impressive looking loss of vehicle, and then no more program).
Would these engineers have achieved the same working at Boeing?
Talented people are everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them sit in boring jobs and wear out their brains thinking how to push even more ads on other people etc. As a result, their trace in the world isn't what it could be.
Gathering many talents together, keeping them together and channeling their abilities towards a laudable goal is a huge feat.
Were it not for Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, the brilliant engineers who made the iPod would not have made the iPod. Their talent would have been directed towards yet another Apple inkjet printer PCB, or yet another iteration of the Newton, or something.
Great talent and bold leadership are a uniquely powerful combination.
Do people selectively credit the engineers when a musk company has a success, then blame musk when there's a failure? Teslas have quality issues, why don't people blame the manufacturing engineers and technicians instead of piling on the CEO?
> Do people selectively credit the engineers when a musk company has a success, then blame musk when there's a failure?
Yes
Ah yes yes. Musk had nothing much to do with any of it. He didn't have the vision for SpaceX nor anything they did. He's just the front-man. Everyone I don't agree with is a loser.
:eyeroll:
Perhaps they will soon be able to reach the first step in their HLS timeline (initially scheduled to be done in 2022 by having an orbital launch test).
SpaceX is doing well despite the RWNJ at the top.
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This video has such a "what if" quality about it. I had to keep reminding myself it's all 100% real.
That, and the falling booster ~really looks like a cigarette butt.
Speaking of rockets looking like things... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwttKPP52-Q
Yes, a pure and full-blooded Dutch English Canadian American hero.
Ah yes, I guess only Mayflower descendants can call themselves Americans. Or maybe only natives (er, which ones). Or something. Your comment is really insulting to Americans like me who are Euro/Native mutts.
Musk became a legal U.S. citizen in 2002, so yes he is an American.
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No, absolutely not! Almost exactly the opposite meaning was intended, and I didn't think for a second that it could be interpreted as you say there. I wrote the comment quickly, thinking the sarcasm was obvious, I apologise for not being more explicit.
The comment I responded to (which has now been removed, I think?) referred to how proud the commenter was that Musk is "American". I found this to be totally preposterous, as his cultural background is so immediately and obviously mixed.
Claiming him as "American" is a strange thing to do, is what I was thinking. Anyway, again, I sincerely apologise, and shouldn't have thrown out the comment when I was in a rush.
The fact that "Dutch English Canadian American" isn't used as a demonym by anyone anywhere is the reason I thought the joke was "obvious" (this isn't meant as a justification for the comment, just to elaborate in the hope of making it more clear).
Oh and last point - Dang is one person, not an army of people. The Trump thread is very very busy, so I presume he is busy. It's unreasonable to expect real-time or even "quick" addressing of every issue you perceive.
Yup, and announcing this today is the ultimate victory lap.
Let’s see how the next four years play out. I’m not optimistic about US’s prospects.
The cybercab was a bit of a joke, no? Was more hype than a product.
And we probably shouldn't be cheering on billionaires going all in on political campaigns (not that he's the first)
> we probably shouldn't be cheering on billionaires going all in on political campaigns
It is, after all, a direct violation of the principle that all political power should come through the popular vote, not back room deals. Politics should operate in plain sight. Always.
He's always been all-in on the winning candidate. His whole business is getting government subsidies. His single principle is sucking up to people in power. He loved Obama when he was in power, too.
Proud to say I've found that asshole annoying since WAY before it was cool.
SpaceX did get government contracts, but not subsidies, and saved NASA and US Taxpayers lots of money.
SpaceX's contracts were absolutely subsidies - the contracted Falcon 1 tests and the resulting Falcon 9 contracts were an expensive moonshot for the USG at first - but even if you discount them, Tesla absolutely hoovered up subsidies like the EV tax credits.
They even have a page about them: https://www.tesla.com/support/incentives
From Wiki [1]: SpaceX spent its own capital to develop and fly its previous launcher, Falcon 1, with no pre-arranged sales of launch services. SpaceX developed Falcon 9 with private capital as well, but did have pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights once specific capabilities were demonstrated.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_1#Launches
Customers: DARPA, DARPA, DOD/NASA, mass simulator (instead of the intended payload after the first three launches), Malaysia (the intended payload of the fourth flight).
"pre-arranged commitments by NASA to purchase several operational flights" is a subsidy, as were the milestone payments along the way.
I'm a huge SpaceX fan, but let's not pretend they could've done this alone. They very nearly went bankrupt on Falcon 1, per Musk - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/29/elon-musk-9-years-ago-spacex... - and had they needed to self-fund those launches/payloads entirely they would not have survived. It's a beautiful example of how powerful public/private partnerships can be.
Would you call that a subsidy still if the government saved more money than it provided as the subsidy?
Yes, absolutely.
We made money off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program, but it was 100% a subsidy.
Would you call all options and futures subsidies? Are airlines subsidizing oil companies when they purchase oil futures in order to hedge their oil costs?
There is no indication that these commitments were underpriced by the government, so to call them subsidies is at best baseless misinformation.
> Are airlines subsidizing oil companies when they purchase oil futures in order to hedge their oil costs?
No; both parties in the deal have successfully accomplished their respective roles repeatedly before. The airline isn't doing anything new; the oil company isn't doing anything new.
(And they both absolutely get subsidized!)
> There is no indication that these commitments were underpriced by the government...
They got paid for a launch of an untested platform and a student-built payload, regardless of success, in hopes it would result in a good tested platform. What else do you call it?
No question that NASA was pivotal to SpaceX’s success, especially COTS program. However that wasn’t subsides. They only got paid when they could deliver. Had they fail to launch Falcon 9 or cargo Dragon they would have gotten no dimes from NASA.
> Had they fail to launch Falcon 9 or cargo Dragon they would have gotten no dimes from NASA.
That's false.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/189228main_s... - start at page 34.
The first demonstration mission is paid milestone #13. If I'm adding it up correctly, about $200M paid out prior to that first demonstration flight.
You can argue that all government contracts are a different form of subsidy, but in common parlance people do not use the term subsidy when describing government contracts.
A government contract paying to send up student payloads on an untested in-development launcher with no requirement for a successful launch (and there were three failures) is absolutely a subsidy.
As SpaceX is essentially the only mature commercial launch company with reusable rockets, it should be no surprise that the company gets government contracts.
"His whole business is getting government subsidies."
SpaceX absolutely dominates the commercial launch market. No one forces companies from abroad to buy launches from SpaceX - only their reliability and lower prices.
For fully subsidized organizations that nevertheless cannot compete on the commercial market, see Roskosmos and Arianespace.
In fairness the wording is “His”, not “their”. I interpret that as a claim about how Musk achieves success, not about how SpaceX makes money.
Obama space policy was ok though. I think Biden was great in every other respect, but his space policy is a clear step back from Trump's.
To his credit he didn’t kill Artemis, as everyone had expected.
To his detriment, he didn’t kill Artemis and replace it with something workable.
Artemis' unworkable design is because of the limitations of Starship. I was all-in on "cool, huge rocket go brr" until I realized that it's going to take between 5 and 20 Starship launches per mission just to get to the moon. That's a clear regression from the Saturn V.
> 5 and 20 Starship launches per mission
That is not actually such a big deal when you realize they are just ferrying fuel on a reusable rocket. They're also doing it well in advance of the mission. There is a massive logistics chain making it possible to buy fuel on your road trip, this is similar.
> That's a clear regression from the Saturn V.
Not exactly, as the fuel provided in orbit by these other missions will allow a much larger payload to reach the Moon's surface and return.
StarShip can already deliver a similar payload to orbit as Saturn V (though a bit less due to reusability) - it is the extra mass to the moon which requires the refuelling.
> Not exactly, as the fuel provided in orbit by these other missions will allow a much larger payload to reach the Moon's surface and return.
Amortized over the number of launches it takes to get a single moonshot.
> StarShip can already deliver a similar payload to orbit as Saturn V
But Saturn V's purpose was not getting things to orbit. We have plenty of rockets capable of getting to orbit. And given that satellites have differing needs when it comes to orbital trajectories, it's unclear whether we even need that capability. By analogy, we've had jumbo jets for decades, but most air routes are not flying on jumbo jets, because the demand isn't there.
> But Saturn V's purpose was not getting things to orbit.
The way rocket staging works - each stage delivers the next stage to a predefined orbit / trajectory or energy level. It is not Saturn V that went to the moon, it just lofted a payload (final stage) into orbit that could perform a TLI.
This was the final stage of the Saturn V rocket for TLI (123,000 kg): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-IVB
In orbit refuelling with StarShip is a major innovation, meaning that we don't need to separate payloads into parts and assemble them on orbit. Instead we can refuel a reusable boost stage.
> Amortized over the number of launches it takes to get a single moonshot.
Saturn V was completely destroyed by each launch with only the payload surviving. It's not exactly an apples to apples comparison when you compare # launches.
Those 10-15 launches of StarShip will be a lot cheaper than a single Saturn V launch because at the end you still have all the StarShips you launched and all you used was some methane and oxygen.
> But Saturn V's purpose was not getting things to orbit.
Yet it was used to put Skylab in orbit.
Starship is the only part of Artemis that is actually working.
In any case, a reusable rocket architecture is way ahead of the Apollo model, not a regression.
None of Artemis is working. Including Starship. (If Starship is working so is Orion.)
Sorry by working I meant more along the lines of “on track, on budget, meeting expectations” etc.
> I meant more along the lines of “on track, on budget, meeting expectations” etc.
By that measure has humanity ever even been to space?
If you think that's a boondoggle, wait until you find out about the SLS!
Can you expand on that? Biden's space policy was remarkably and suprisingly similar to Trump's. A little bit more money for planetary science, and that's about it AFAICT.
Is this sarcasm?
Err he's South African, probably shouldn't even be in the US if judged by the same standards as any other immigrant, Cybercab is a shit show and the campaign support was the sort of thing we'd expect from a Russian oligarch.
If you're going to give anyone credit, the thousands of SpaceX staff who keep this thing on the rails are who need some love.
Edit: so by the downvotes I would assume that people are happy to violate immigration laws, try to buy elections and completely pave over the achievements of the staff to be a billionaire simp? Enjoy your future under the boot.
> the sort of thing we'd expect from a Russian oligarch
Well, Trump aspires to be America's Putin, so that checks out...
Well exactly. It's not exactly as if there aren't enough well defined archetypes, methodologies and historical outcomes that fit this.
And yet here we are.
Let’s just admit we are a terrible species and wish the cockroaches better luck.
And they wouldn't work there if musk wouldn't fork tons of money and wouldn't aspire to the highest possible standard...
No musk fan here. He is an idiot, but probably a useful one.
There are plenty of engineers that won't work there because of Musk. Being divisive and unpredictable is not a good characteristic and not how you run a business.
Basically there are better ways without making the sacrifices that have been and will be made.
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I think to me it's the combination of the "voter turnout stuff" and his personality cult.
> cash giveaway gimmick
you mean fraud
> providing a social media platform that doesn’t suppress conservative viewpoints
Now amplifies ONLY them, which if you were claiming to be an impartial champion of free speech (as Musk repeatedly said) is equally as bullshit as what was happening on the platform before.
Instead, this bastion of free speech now considers "cisgender" a slur.
Musk in 2022: "Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic"
In 2024:
He has a social media platform now that actively suppresses liberal viewpoints, so he’s a complete hypocrite.
He’s happy to censor some things, but complains about free speech when things he likes, you know, like racist hate speech, is censored.
You have zero evidence of that.
More likely you’re just used to suppression of everyone right of you, and when that was taken away you think it’s unfair.
Yeah, I'll worry about him suppressing liberals when he bans the onion for making a joke.
Until then, I'll call it an improvement.
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Honestly? I'd first prefer he hadn't gone off the deep end. I feel the same sort of sad that I did when Notch (of minecraft) turned out the way he did.
I obviously don't have any person relation to him, but Elon seems to be deeply disturbed. He went from a pretty normal somewhat eccentric millionaire 5 or 6 years ago to his evil villain arc. Maybe he was like this all along, but I feel like he's been too stressed and too us vs them for too long that he no longer has a grounded view of reality.
Nah, it was his former son, now daughter Xavier Musk. Elon is basically dead to her and Musk perceives it as if his son died.
Look at some interviews where he talks about it "That's why they call it deadnaming, because that person is dead"
My South African colleague tells me he is happy that you have adopted him.
And that's why South Africa is the way it is. I recommend living there for a bit, might be an eye opener for some Westerners.
It's like the US in a decade.
(I have been to both and would rather spend a week in Cape Town than Chicago for example)
I still remember when we could not even flush the toilet because CT ran out of water and there were fights breaking out at public water pumps. Then came the electricity crisis and constant blackouts which South Africa has only just gotten out of. Not to get started on the crime...
Ahh more Chicago fear mongering. I've lived here for almost two decades. There's good and bad parts, almost like every other place.
Really? Cape town has a homicide rate of: 63.00 per 100,000
Compared to Chicago: 29.60
And similar crime and violent crime rates.
To be fair, Cape Town has better climate and is extremely beautiful. Tourists generally like it, I can see why someone would have a nice impression without knowing much about what's behind the facade. It could be paradise if not for the politics and general state of things in SA.
But yeah, comments like the above are bizarre. Moving to SA is relatively easy, I lived there myself. If it's so great as some foreigners online seem to think, why don't they give it a try? Why do educated people and skilled workers generally move in the opposite direction and leave?
Of course, there's stuff like this:
https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/american-tour...
https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/witnesses-testify-in-ca...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/doctor-murde...
https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/american-tourist-stabbe...
For South Africa, someone like Trump would be a huge improvement. Their governance is just abysmal, bad even for African standards. For example, you get much more reliable grid in Kenya than in SA.
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Don't worry, he's doing that too
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> a two tiered justice system is dangerous grounds
We don’t repeal citizenship on such flimsy grounds for anyone. The solution is to amend the law to include a statute of limitations on repealing citizenship.
Can you even deprive people of citizenship? I though Universal Declaration of Human Rights (mostly written by US no less) forbid that
> Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality
From 2018
Denaturalization, explained: how Trump can strip immigrants of their citizenship - A new “denaturalization task force” raises questions about who really counts as American.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/18/17561538/denaturalization-citi...
Many YC founders did the same thing. They worked on their own startups with no salary under a student visa, and applied for H1B/O1 visas once they got funding. Is this illegal?
Yes. That's illegal.
Yes, working on a startup without pay under a student visa (such as F-1) can be legally problematic. While student visas allow some employment (like CPT or OPT for F-1 students), “self-employment” is generally restricted, especially if it involves day-to-day work or responsibilities without proper authorization. Founders may violate visa terms if their role in the startup constitutes “unauthorized employment,” even if unpaid.
For H-1B or O-1 visa applicants, founders need to prove an employer-employee relationship with their startup and show funding or sufficient structure, which complicates the path from student visas.
Sources: • USCIS Policy Manual on Employment for F-1 Students • 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)
> He worked in the US without an employment visa
Aha, but... which employer was that?
Not sure he really cares about the country - but I guess you can be glad.
Does that matter?
I’m not American, but for me it would matter a lot. Not aligning with the country’s best interests is a yuge dealbreaker.
Of course, I don't want super powerful people in the US to not have the country's best interests in mind.
Seems he cares about it a great deal, he wants to make sure America is still a country where you can innovate and explore without the state blocking you at every turn. See Arianespace for how things would look if Elon had to deal with infamous European bureaucracy and red tape, the FAA is already bad enough.
Maybe. I don't see Elon saying that much. Mostly it's politically charged crap.
You should have seen his Lex Fridman interview then where he talks about exactly that and brings up things like the need to kidnap a seal (twice!), strap it to a board, and force it to listen to sonic boom noises to comply with braindeas government environmental regulations.
He cares about freedom and the spark of consciousness, of which he requires a foundation of a strong and free country; maybe you're being perfectionistic, e.g. The Selfish Gene?
> e.g. The Selfish Gene?
The main thesis of The Selfish Gene is that evolution is best explained by a gene-centered model, rather than an organism or species model. I'm confused what that has to do with not being a perfectionist about Musk.
Since when does he care about freedom? He was shadow banning content that he disliked on X, all the while boosting takes he approved of. Sure, he owns X and can do whatever he wants with it, but he doesn’t care about freedom.
Without looking it up (honor system), please describe what you think The Selfish Gene is about.
Maybe it's time for you to turn off your screen, go outside and touch some grass.
Musk is an egotistical megalomaniac. To even think of his ego in any positive light makes the problem with you.
Calling someone a pedophile because they wouldn't use his submarine is just an example.
That warped mine is responsible for an enormous amount of innovation. Wish we had more, similarly warped minds.
> Calling someone a pedophile is just one example
This clearly outweighs his efforts to bring the electric vehicle, space, and humanoid robotics revolutions.
This is a fallacy: it doesn't mean it is good to have a warped mind (even if what you're saying is true, which seems less than obvious).
I for one do not care about Mars, the science, all his expensive toys. I'm here on earth trying to make ends meat. What has his rocket done for me?
Who's praising the engineers who are grinding their souls to accomplish? It's not Musk accomplishing this. He just stuck up human with money. Like all.
And as an environmentalist in my spare time, why are we trying to get to some red rock of a planet than fixing the climate where we all live?
He's not contributing anything to the real matter yet we are all happy to bitch about climate change and then dish out praise when we allow someone to go and frack for oil. [0][1]
Sorry if it upsets you that I don't want to be under servitude of some egotistical nit. And, as well also sorry that yourself are too stuck in the fumes of fallacy of one who's causing more issues for this planet for his future for one you yourself will never reach.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/12/24219183/elon-musk-donald...
[1] https://www.hartenergy.com/exclusives/elon-musk-calls-us-fra...
> Who's praising the engineers who are grinding their souls to accomplish?
I always credit the SpaceX team for their accomplishments, fully aware they are successful despite Musk, not because of him. He’s good at getting attention and funding.
I salute their efforts to. It's not as I don't acknowledge their versatility.
Their success in pulling such things off is an achievement but Musk has the real power to make good happen but like most, they just don't.
He just keeps continuing to stir the pot of evil. His internal politics are toxic.
And would say that anyone good at getting attention if you know how to polarise the people.
>I for one do not care about Mars, the science, all his expensive toys. I'm here on earth trying to make ends meat. What has his rocket done for me?
I mean at least for me personally it gave me excellent Internet access when I was on vacation in the middle of nowhere and didn't even have cell reception. And if there's a big disaster in my area I'm sure it will be excellent for maintaining communication.
Again, satellite net has existed since years. He made it accessible to others which has its merits. But then goes boasting egotistically acting other lesser-evil, almost like sabotaging others with not caring.
Competition always drives down the price. It's not the first satellite in space. You could of had satellite internet prior. But again, like electric cars these companies have been blind and moronic for not moving in making it available for the people.
Google tried with their own fibre not as they're any better in merits.
I don't trust it. I'd rather be without than with but again however I do live in a country where it isn't as critical.
The needs of, and I don't rule out the positive of, I would just prefer it to managed other than himself but, or actually showed some professional qualities owning to it.
To me, the internet now is a commodity; I'm a nerd with colocated servers.
I'm not scared of it, I just don't like it. The person in charge, his agenda does not benefit anything positive To the folks.
[flagged]
Don't let spite erode you from within. It is a destructive feeling.
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Sad
Well they were 1 second away from the last one auto-aborting and smashing into the pad instead of catching it.
Thread devolved into petty politics quicker than expected.
I tried to search faq how to block people but couldn't find any info. How do I do that?
If it's not possible, I'm pretty sure this site is breaking the EU social media laws.
The site doesn't need to follow the laws of every country on earth. If they had paid advertisers from EU it would be different.
HN is a pretty high trust site, I'd hope the community is still mature enough to self-moderate. Then again I was here when Terry would post his (admittedly) entertaining rants, the epic Michael O'Church essays, and flamewars between idlewords and pg. Maybe it always allowed for a little bit of funposting, in moderation.
That rule doesn't exist.
I use uBlock Origin cosmetic filters for blocking trolls on here. Something like:
There's no "block user" requirement in the EU DSA.
Which EU laws do you think mandate a 'block' feaure on HN?
A brilliant idea some startup accelerator in the EU can create a platform that conforms to EU laws. It can't be that hard, given that the UI hasn't changed much in a decade or more. I can already see it "Hacker news, but hosted in the EU with Swiss privacy and is GDPR compliant".
Seriously, who cares! There are far more interesting stuff in space exploration than this flight tests of a giant boiler that's been going on for years now.
You must be joking
I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered.
One example off the top of my head:
https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of...
Starship is an enabling technology. We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.
Which is why I find it exciting and am stoked every time I see progress made.
Howevever, it's hard to view an announcement of the next launch with some minor additions to the experimental flight, as the most exciting space news today. Future launches, once they get the license updated, will he more exciting.
Please list them because right now it is a hugely costly project that has shown no significant capital advancement for society beyond propping up Elon Musk and a “someday the average man will walk on the moon” dream. If anything of capital gain comes from it, it will never actually benefit the financial bottom line of the middle and lower class.
Space based technology has massive impact on every day life. From GPS to weather prediction to communications, space infrastructure is critical to modern life.
Launch costs significantly reduce what we can build in space and what research we co do there. Decreasing launch costs makes our research funding more effective and reduces the capital costs and projected profit margins needed to build space based infrastructure.
SpaceX has already enabled significant economic growth and innovation with the launch cost reductions brought by the various falcon rockets and their reusability.
If Starship can accomplish it's reusability goals, an ever greater reduction of launch costs is possible. This would jump start an even bigger space industry boom than the one we are in today.
None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.
The rest of your statement only indicates that Starship is indeed a fat pig when it comes to budget. This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.
Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.
> None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.
Lower launch costs are a force multiplier for all of those technologies and more.
> This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.
It sounds like your issue is more with capitalism than space...
But lower launch costs decrease the capital needed to particpate is space, so you point still doesn't make sense.
> Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.
Everyone is already better off because of the soace dream. You don't seem to actually want an answer to your question.
Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.
Please give me the benefit of the doubt and help me understand what lower launch costs help with the average american today. I am asking an honest question to a different poster who originally indicated that the benefits were easily imaginable.
> We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.
I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS and weather systems that decades of other fields that use those technologies couldn’t improve on already. What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?
I can see the blind Marvel-movie-like fandom of “but it’s science” and “its our destiny” and “imagine all the wonderful things but don’t let me tell you ;)” but I do not see the actual details of what this will enable besides allowing Musk et al to hollow out planets for mining operations for their own gain.
Why would I want to answer my own question when I don’t understand what the original poster was suggesting?
You seem at a loss for these easily imaginable ideas.
> Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.
Cheaper launch means more weather satellites covering more spectrum from more angles than otherwise.
> What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?
Everything is dependent on cost. If we had a medicine that gave an extra 10 years of healthy life to everyone but cost $100,000,000 per person, it would be utterly infeasible to give to the masses. If it cost $100,000 - now that's an easy decision.
If something is cheap you can do more of it.
> I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS
GPS satellites are incredibly expensive because they need to be light enough to fit in existing heavy lift launchers and reliable enough to last for 20+ years. Cheaper, heavier, more frequent launch means you can dramatically reduce the cost per satellite in a constellation, and thus send up more. Having more GPS satellites reduces time to first fix, improves coverage in adverse environments (cities in particular) and improves accuracy.
Okay, now you want to put more satellites in the sky, for weather and gps.
Is there some evidence that what we have now is not enough or wouldn’t ever be replaced? I cannot find anything online about that.
So I still do not see how this will necessarily improve my daily life as the weather information I have now is already good.
Nope, not joking at all.