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There is a quote somewhere (by Elon?) saying that FH is not "just" 3 F9s strapped together. A significant source of the slowdown for FH was the desire to not la

There is a quote somewhere (by Elon?) saying that FH is not "just" 3 F9s strapped together. A significant source of the slowdown for FH was the desire to not launch it without full reusability of all 3 stages and not to launch it without significant improvements (block 5 etc). Starship has none of those potential delays and has already solved most of the hard problems (as evidenced by the Hopper hopping already). Starship has all of the learnings and experience that FH and F9 didn't have. There will be delays, sure. But we won't be waiting 5+ years again for a single launch. Those days are over, and SpaceX is proving it. Some context, I haven't read this yet: https://www.quora.com/What-makes-SpaceXs-Falcon-Heavy-more-than-just-three-Falcon-9-rockets-strapped-together https://www.quora.com/What-makes-SpaceXs-Falcon-Heavy-more-t... Edit: > Keeping that in mind, having 5 year delay on brand new design, using totally different materials, new engine, etc isn't far fetched. The first full size Starship prototype is already built though (within ~2 years of initial announcement? Not behind schedule basically at all, so far?). IIRC for FH it was a ~5 year delay before SpaceX even starting construction on the first parts. The difference with Starship is staggering. The pace is dramatically faster, the risks are reduced up-front, and the tests are planned on a much shorter timeframe. We would frequently go 6 months to a year and hear no news at all about FH. There is news, updates and progress available to the public on an hourly or daily basis about the Starship progress. Night and day.

justapassenger 7y ago
Hopper shows that engine works outside of test lab. That's great, but it's far far away from showing that they solved most of the hard problems. Experience from FH and F9 is useful, but it's a totally different type of spacecraft, with different use-cases, different materials, engines, cooling, etc. There's TONS of new stuff that they have to research, experiment, fail, try again, etc, until it's doing even 50% of what Elon promised.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something. I thought Hopper was not about Raptor tests but about VTOL as well. The FH had to wait while F9 got down the vertical landing science and engineering (though a lot of tests, explosions, delays). StarHopper seems like it can use those learnings, and that was tested recently. The engine was already functioning on a test stand and mated to Hopper for static fires; the Hopper hop itself is testing the engine, sure, but also the complex math of doing a vertical landing with a gimballing engine, etc. The general space industry considered reusabable spacecraft that land vertically to be pretty much impossible until F9 and FH did it. But Hopper just does that casually, you don't bat an eye, you don't even comment that Hopper was testing a new rocket dynamics/physics for the math that (almost) only SpaceX has figured out. I just don't see the pessimism here. I've been watching SpaceX for 12+ years and I don't see any of the same issues plaguing them today as did in the past. New issues, but not the same ones. The new issues have dramatically smaller turnaround time to resolve. The days of 5-year SpaceX delays are over.
  - elif 7y ago
    I'm not sure I would call starship VTOL maybe vertical takeoff acrobatic landing? I'm sure falcon helped a lot, especially with control surface actuation resilliency, but I think they still have a lot to learn about this amazing new maneuver. They are building 4 partially functional prototypes to mess up and learn stuff fast.
  - justapassenger 7y ago
    > The general space industry considered reusabable spacecraft that land vertically to be pretty much impossible until F9 and FH did it. But Hopper just does that casually, you don't bat an eye, you don't even comment that Hopper was testing a new rocket dynamics/physics for the math that (almost) only SpaceX has figured out. VTVL isn't new. To do it you need ability to throttle engine and do trust vectoring - once you have that, it's "fairly" simple math and physics. SpaceX is first company that commercialized it, and huge props for that. No one cracked economy of it before (and it's not 100% sure that spacex did - no one saw their financials). > New issues, but not the same ones. The new issues have dramatically smaller turnaround time to resolve. We'll see, but I'm extremely sceptic about it. With F9/FH SpaceX did amazing but incremental improvements to current rocket technology. Starship has tons of uncharted territories.
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      So that quote by the CNES director of launchers praising SpaceX for pioneering supersonic retropropulsion... he's confused and SpaceX didn't do anything new?

justapassenger 7y ago

Hopper shows that engine works outside of test lab. That's great, but it's far far away from showing that they solved most of the hard problems. Experience from FH and F9 is useful, but it's a totally different type of spacecraft, with different use-cases, different materials, engines, cooling, etc. There's TONS of new stuff that they have to research, experiment, fail, try again, etc, until it's doing even 50% of what Elon promised.

cryptoz 7y ago
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something. I thought Hopper was not about Raptor tests but about VTOL as well. The FH had to wait while F9 got down the vertical landing science and engineering (though a lot of tests, explosions, delays). StarHopper seems like it can use those learnings, and that was tested recently. The engine was already functioning on a test stand and mated to Hopper for static fires; the Hopper hop itself is testing the engine, sure, but also the complex math of doing a vertical landing with a gimballing engine, etc. The general space industry considered reusabable spacecraft that land vertically to be pretty much impossible until F9 and FH did it. But Hopper just does that casually, you don't bat an eye, you don't even comment that Hopper was testing a new rocket dynamics/physics for the math that (almost) only SpaceX has figured out. I just don't see the pessimism here. I've been watching SpaceX for 12+ years and I don't see any of the same issues plaguing them today as did in the past. New issues, but not the same ones. The new issues have dramatically smaller turnaround time to resolve. The days of 5-year SpaceX delays are over.
- elif 7y ago
  I'm not sure I would call starship VTOL maybe vertical takeoff acrobatic landing? I'm sure falcon helped a lot, especially with control surface actuation resilliency, but I think they still have a lot to learn about this amazing new maneuver. They are building 4 partially functional prototypes to mess up and learn stuff fast.
- justapassenger 7y ago
  > The general space industry considered reusabable spacecraft that land vertically to be pretty much impossible until F9 and FH did it. But Hopper just does that casually, you don't bat an eye, you don't even comment that Hopper was testing a new rocket dynamics/physics for the math that (almost) only SpaceX has figured out. VTVL isn't new. To do it you need ability to throttle engine and do trust vectoring - once you have that, it's "fairly" simple math and physics. SpaceX is first company that commercialized it, and huge props for that. No one cracked economy of it before (and it's not 100% sure that spacex did - no one saw their financials). > New issues, but not the same ones. The new issues have dramatically smaller turnaround time to resolve. We'll see, but I'm extremely sceptic about it. With F9/FH SpaceX did amazing but incremental improvements to current rocket technology. Starship has tons of uncharted territories.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    So that quote by the CNES director of launchers praising SpaceX for pioneering supersonic retropropulsion... he's confused and SpaceX didn't do anything new?