Probably less than NASA have spent on everything post Shuttle, and what have they achieved other than lining their mates pockets
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** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **
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An (expensive) system that put a capsule into space, sent it to the moon, orbited it, came back to earth and splashed down safely on the very first attempt.
Starship? Currently, nothing except put 10,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
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SpaceX has put multiple capsules into space, same with real people inside,
SLS has done nothing so far, at a far higher cost.
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I said Starship, not SpaceX.
That's like me trying to claim NASA has never done anything because SLS hasn't carried any people...
lol, for Space X to put just a single astronaut on the moon with Starship they have to perform 11 to 12 launches exactly like this and do them without any failures. lol. And imagine today theyre doing launch 10 and during propellant transfer the HLS explodes and now they have to start from scratch with 11 to 12 new launches
The idea of reusable ships that can be sent into deep space doesnt make sense unless you have a reusable fuel source or massive energy dense fuel source. Lugging hydrogen into orbit is so stupid each launch can only spare a small amount of fuel for transfer to HLS.
What HLS needs is a nuclear engine to get from Earth's orbit to the moon and back
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You mean the HLS that no-one has seen any actual designs for under a contract awarded by someone at NASA who now works at SpaceX? That HLS?
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Good Scott Manley vid up, he thinks that loss of atitude control may have been the downfall of both Starship and Super Heavy.
Also anyone who thinks the current development of the Worlds largest rocket that is also designed to be 100% reusable is failure may lack objectivity.
Also anyone who thinks the current development of the Worlds largest rocket that is also designed to be 100% reusable is failure may lack objectivity.
Almost like someone is allowing personal feelings about a slightly controversial figure at SpaceX cloud their opinion.
Just watched the Scott Manley vid, quite a few things he brought attention to that I straight up just missed. Always appreciate his analysis!
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Politicians don't care about the cost as long as the $ get spent in their district/state. So although I'm sure the 2 senators for Texas would love it as would the congress person for whichever districts SpaceX operates in, every other elected official wouldn't. There is a reason why NASA hardware is built all over the US. Its not efficient but it employs people.
As for Starship being fully up to speed if they'd used that money for it. Well they would never spend that money on a private company for the reasons above. And even when they manage to get the booster and Starship to land again there are still huge hurdles to getting it to the Moon. Its estimated it will require around 14 Starships to refuel the one going to the Moon in orbit. That means launching 14 Starships and boosters in 24/48 hours as the liquid oxygen and methane will continue to boil off constantly, the longer they take to refuel it the more it boils off and the more launches they need.
As for the launch, missed it as I had to work sadly
Just watched Scott Manley's video and it looks like they made good progress but still issues to overcome
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There is a difference between a failure and a dumb idea. And nothing so far is actually a dumb idea, using starship for putting heavy objects in LEO is a perfectly fine idea, the stupid part comes trying to send Starship to other celestial bodies
As for failures; you could objectively say there is some failure already since SpaceX has to date failed to meet any deadline they agreed to with NASA years ago. Yea it rocket development is hard, nevertheless project extensions cost investors more money making the project more expensive. And if you don't agree that's any sort of failure, then next time your boss asks for something, deliver it 3 years late and tell them it's not a failure on your part.
And when it comes to financial failures, you don't need to listen to anyone but Elon, Elon has placed it all on the table many times before - it's him who said Tesla will go bankrupt if they cannot build a full self driving car, which they haven't being able to. It's Elon who said starship needs to get down to $10 million per launch, it's Elon who said getting people to Mars needs to come down to $200k per seat, no one else said this, he did
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Well today's Starship test flight #3 was epic, not the final heat tile test we wanted but a step in the right direction. I got lucky and managed to see if during lunch break. The live feed during the start of re-entry was insane. I get the impression that the heating had barely begun for the first 90 secs based on the telemetry on the 2nd stage, it had barely slowed down before we lost the telemetry. It's going 25,000 km/h but it's hitting the very thin parts of the beginning of the atmosphere - so fast, but 'light', if I had my spacesuit on could I stick my arm out the window? The camera seemed fine for a while!
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And no-one is paying that to sit in a Starship for 6 months with some other people, survive (somehow) on Mars with no hope of leaving early for 2 years then spend another 6 months getting home. At least I can understand Tim Dodd being willing to stay on his knees under Musk's desk losing all dignity at this point for the tiniest sliver of hope of getting a trip to the Moon (even I'd do that just to go into space) but no-one is going to pay to go to Mars when they actually have a clue what it would be like, especially not people who can afford 200k.
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Exactly. Starship will be perfect for LEO launches when they get it working. I just don't see how they make it work for say Mars. Are they going to carry all the hardware onboard to keep the cryogenic fuels at low enough temps to stop it boiling off? Plus all the power that will take for months on end. If anything were to happen to that system they'd have zero fuel when they arrived at Mars and so wouldn't even be able to slow down to enter orbit let alone carry out a landing burn. For Mars and the Moon hypergolic fuels would make so much more sense. They never boil off but you'd have to send all the fuel you need to Mars as you can't create it there.
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People won't, companies will.
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Tim's still going one day, they just have to build, test, repeat until it's fit for human space travel.
Rocket development takes a lot trail and error, just like the previous SpaceX rockets (which are now NASA's only way to get crew to/from the ISS).
dearMoon project - Wikipedia
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Soldato
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Tim's still going one day, they just have to build, test, repeat until it's fit for human space travel.
Rocket development takes a lot trail and error, just like the previous SpaceX rockets (which are now NASA's only way to get crew to/from the ISS).
dearMoon project - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
LEO is very very different to going to the Moon. You couldn't pay me enough to be on the first trip around the Moon on a Starship. You couldn't pay me enough to be on the 5th one either.
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Just because you’re scared doesn’t mean something doesn’t work.
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The dearMoon team won't be landing on the moon, 3 days to reach to the moon, quick orbit around (doesn't take long) and back again (another 3 days).
NASA went to the moon last year again with Artemis (orbit only). As there was no rush that took a funky way to get there, a total of a 4 weeks I think to go and come back.