** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

Penfold101 said:
Amazing what you can do with infinite money and zero accountability to government and taxpayers... Falcon 9 is an amazing bit of kit, and has made commercial space travel a reality - all credit to the engineers and brains behind SpaceX (not Musk, he's just a salesman with a load of money)

Starship, however, is just a massive white elephant in my opinion. It's managed to just about get to 10km a few times, yet everyone is still going on about it going to Mars and beyond which I just don't get. I will quite happily believe it'll clear the tower, but the idea of those massive arms grabbing hold of the thing on landing is comical, and I shall eat my hat if it happens in the next 2 years. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, and I'm happy to be, but right now I just don't see Starship as anything more than an endless chunk of money being burned.
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Musk is literally the chief engineer of SpaceX so perhaps not accurate to call him a glorified salesman!
 
It would be interesting to see the costs but I would guess that even in a fully disposable form it’s the cheapest super heavy lift rocket per Kg when it flies. Look at the cost of SLS I bet on a like for like basis for non man rated flights ignoring reuse starship will be much much cheaper.
 
Penfold101 said:
Amazing what you can do with infinite money and zero accountability to government and taxpayers... Falcon 9 is an amazing bit of kit, and has made commercial space travel a reality - all credit to the engineers and brains behind SpaceX (not Musk, he's just a salesman with a load of money)

Starship, however, is just a massive white elephant in my opinion. It's managed to just about get to 10km a few times, yet everyone is still going on about it going to Mars and beyond which I just don't get. I will quite happily believe it'll clear the tower, but the idea of those massive arms grabbing hold of the thing on landing is comical, and I shall eat my hat if it happens in the next 2 years. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, and I'm happy to be, but right now I just don't see Starship as anything more than an endless chunk of money being burned.
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Have you been watching Thunderfoot's videos? You seem to have a similar opinion on Musk. The idea he is just a salesman with cash is laughable. People were saying he'd never land a rocket, he's never reuse a rocket, he then strapped 3 of them together. So far he's proved all the doubters wrong so I wouldn't bet against him making Starship a success. I'm sure there will be a few more RUD along the way but SpaceX don't follow the normal path, they prototype, fly, crash, learn.
 
Penfold101 said:
Starship, however, is just a massive white elephant in my opinion.
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Other's are also producing large lifters, noticeably Blue Origin, so i'm not quite sure why you think Starship is a "white elephant" whilst others aren't? Is it purely the fact Musk is aiming for Mars? :confused:

Penfold101 said:
Amazing what you can do with infinite money and zero accountability to government and taxpayers
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You make it sound like they've got/he has carte blanche when in reality they're like any other privatised rocket company, ie - have investors and various agencies to keep happy.

Plus SpaceX have scrapped the barrel a few times in terms of funding.

Penfold101 said:
(not Musk, he's just a salesman with a load of money)
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He's a bit of a Twitter idiot for sure and i'm not the biggest fan of his but you can't say he isn't a smart bloke; you only have to listen to/watch various interviews to realise he has a fairly decent grasp of rocket (and EV) design and mechanics.
 
Macky said:
Musk is literally the chief engineer of SpaceX so perhaps not accurate to call him a glorified salesman!
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Musk has a degree in physics and infinite money. He's not an engineer, and apart from possibly coming up with ideas he wants SpaceX to accomplish, has absolutely no clue what he's doing. You only have to look at every other project he's tried to sell apart from tesla to see that (Boring company, Hyperloop, Robotaxis, the Tesla Semi, solar roof panels, the list goes on). People want to see him as some god of technology, and he really isn't. He's just rich.

PlacidCasual said:
It would be interesting to see the costs but I would guess that even in a fully disposable form it’s the cheapest super heavy lift rocket per Kg when it flies. Look at the cost of SLS I bet on a like for like basis for non man rated flights ignoring reuse starship will be much much cheaper.
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SLS is developed by a government agency who answer to congress, auditors and the taxpayer. They have to get everything right first time and make it all work seamlessly or it all gets cancelled. SpaceX can blow up as many prototypes as they want and no-one really cares because they aren't paying for it. I wouldn't even start to think about launch costs and reusability etc when it hasn't gotten above 10km yet...
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Have you been watching Thunderfoot's videos? You seem to have a similar opinion on Musk. The idea he is just a salesman with cash is laughable. People were saying he'd never land a rocket, he's never reuse a rocket, he then strapped 3 of them together. So far he's proved all the doubters wrong so I wouldn't bet against him making Starship a success. I'm sure there will be a few more RUD along the way but SpaceX don't follow the normal path, they prototype, fly, crash, learn.
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I do indeed - and although his style and bias isn't necessarily the best, you can't argue with what he says if you ask me. HE hasn't landed a rocket, or re-used a rocket, or made Falcon Heavy - his engineers and scientists did, again with infinite money and resources. They do things differently from NASA because of that, and I like what Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy has become and the path it can lead us down in terms of commercialization of space, but to credit Musk with anything other than funding it is going too far. Either that, or show me where his fabled physics-defying hyperloop is...?
 
@Penfold101 if you have watched the 10km flights then suggesting it is some limit they have is disingenuous. We all saw that they deliberately were throttling back on an extremely slow ascent for test purposes and to meet FAA requirements. The Starship could plainly have gone a very significant suborbital flight. The booster is more of a concern but mostly around sound pressure from so many large engines. But engineering mitigation’s for those problems.

The chopsticks concept is high risk but the booster and upper stage far less so many of the biggest hurdles are behind them and this is an experienced design company no start up.
 
Penfold101 said:
...has absolutely no clue what he's doing. You only have to look at every other project he's tried to sell apart from tesla to see that (Boring company, Hyperloop, Robotaxis, the Tesla Semi, solar roof panels, the list goes on).
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What makes you think he "has absolutely no clue what he's doing"?
Off the top of my head, Boring Company are already working on a system for Vegas and Tesla Solar Roof is in production which you can purchase in some locations.

Tesla Semi's do exist, albeit prototypes; Hyperloop is being developed by others (Musk offered the initial idea) and i've got no idea about "Robotaxis" but Elon/Tesla aren't the only ones working on this.

Penfold101 said:
SLS is developed by a government agency who answer to congress, auditors and the taxpayer. They have to get everything right first time and make it all work seamlessly or it all gets cancelled. SpaceX can blow up as many prototypes as they want and no-one really cares because they aren't paying for it.
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I can't tell if you're angry at the rapid-prototype method SpaceX employs or the fact SpaceX are a private company :confused:
Although it does sound like you're confusing NASA with the various partners (ie - Boeing, Rocketdyne etc) involved that are designing and building SLS.

Penfold101 said:
...again with infinite money and resources.
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Have you got a source that confirms Musk/SpaceX having infinite funding and resources? :)
 
PlacidCasual said:
It would be interesting to see the costs but I would guess that even in a fully disposable form it’s the cheapest super heavy lift rocket per Kg when it flies. Look at the cost of SLS I bet on a like for like basis for non man rated flights ignoring reuse starship will be much much cheaper.
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SLS was never going to be a cost effective solution, it'll be as eye watering as the Shuttle was, and i would be surprised if there's any urgency to reduce launch costs unlike with privatised launch companies due to how the whole project is structured etc.
 
Penfold101 said:
I do indeed - and although his style and bias isn't necessarily the best, you can't argue with what he says if you ask me. HE hasn't landed a rocket, or re-used a rocket, or made Falcon Heavy - his engineers and scientists did, again with infinite money and resources. They do things differently from NASA because of that, and I like what Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy has become and the path it can lead us down in terms of commercialization of space, but to credit Musk with anything other than funding it is going too far. Either that, or show me where his fabled physics-defying hyperloop is...?
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Why am I not surprised. Someone pointed Scott Manley at one of Thunderfoots videos where he was ranting about Musk and he basically laughed at him and called him a nut job. The guy is obsessed with Musk, he, like you, have zero idea how much input on the actual engineering Musk does, his dad was an accomplished engineer, he was clearly a very good software engineer when he was younger, its nonsense that he doesn't do anything but sales when he doesn't even do sales for SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell was bought in to sell the SpaceX product and run day to day operations. Look I get the guy can be an idiot, some of his tweets are irresponsible and he's clearly on the spectrum. Some of his businesses haven't been successful but lots of successful people have businesses that fail, that means nothing. He has changed the space industry for the better. All the major companies are now looking to design reusable rockets when 15 years ago when he said his company were going to make reusable rockets they laughed at him. Who's laughing now?
 
Anybody know what that circle is ?

2V8C9PI.png


It's taken from the latest starlink vid


Comes into view at 20:33, is it a piece of one of the stages ?
 
An NDT talk from 2018 about space travel and how politics dictated the history of space travel, especially in the US.

 
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