5 ms·

Lets not get ahead of ourselves. The ship hasn't flown once. Also, there is an design issue with the Starship, there is absolutely no redundancy with the fins

Lets not get ahead of ourselves. The ship hasn't flown once. Also, there is an design issue with the Starship, there is absolutely no redundancy with the fins on the ship. If any of the fins aren't working as planned, prepare for a disaster.

avmich 7y ago
> Lets not get ahead of ourselves. The ship hasn't flown once. This is the time when forward thinking won't hurt. We don't see significant problems with reaching this goal - not technical, not economical, not others. There were periods with development of technology - e.g. early airplanes or spacecrafts - which significantly changed the approaches to things, so speculation in worst case would remain just that.
gpm 7y ago
By the same logic there is a design error with a boeing 747, if even one wing falls off everyone dies. A wing's controls failing (on either vessel) might be recoverable depending on the details/if the other control surfaces can compensate...
- hsnewman 7y ago
  It hasn't even flown yet. How can you compare an unproven rocket to a Boeing 747, which has millions of hours of proven flight hours on it with something that has none? I realize that the 747 has had failures over the time too, but I'd happily get on a Boeing 747 but would not get on a Spaceship until it's been flown several, if not 100's of times (without incident, as can be said for the 747).
  - gpm 7y ago
    Lack of fight history is not a design error.. Especially in the context of a spacecraft that is specifically designed to be able to quickly gain a long flight history (unlike every other spacecraft we've ever built).
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    Because of engineering and analysis. I don't know where the anti-science "it's impossible to speak meaningfully about anything in the future that hasn't yet been built" idea came from in Internet rhetoric, but it's absolutely ridiculous.
  - jarsj 7y ago
    It's not designed for commercial air travel. Satellites, astronauts have a slightly higher risk threshold that exponentially reduces the provability factor.
  - Lambdanaut 7y ago
    He's comparing it using your own logic. The "fault" you found was that the design itself was fault. He showed that the inherent design of both the Boeing 747 and Starship both have that same "fault" regardless of how far along they are in proving flight-worthiness. Of course Starship has a lot of work to do, but your argument that because it lacks fin redundancy it has a faulty design is invalid.
  - DennisP 7y ago
    If they have multiple Starships each launching once a day, it won't take long to get a few hundred flights.
  - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
    They don't need to do human transport off the bat. I'm sure there's tons (literally) of package delivery to space that can be done to prove out the payload delivery and reliability.
- beerandt 7y ago
  I think the point is that it relies on it's fins much more than previous designs, and less on thrust vectoring and steering thrusters than traditional designs. It's more like comparing a traditional airplane to a B-2 / flying wing design; it's doable, but difficult and not without risk.
  - gpm 7y ago
    I have no trouble with saying that it's a novel design and that brings a lot of risk. Saying it has a "design error" though is the height of arrogance, it's highly unlikely that any commentor here is thinking of anything that SpaceX engineers haven't thought of a hundred times already. Trying to back up that statement with "there is a part that might fail" moves from just being arrogant to also being completely ridiculous. If there is any industry that likes redundancy whenever possible it is the space industry. It has been considered, many times over.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
After the Space Shuttle, a full-envelope launch abort system has been a hard requirement of NASA for human flight. SpaceX's Crew Dragon has such a system; if SpaceX wants to fly NASA astronauts on Starship they'll have to add one.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  No full-envelope abort system exists or likely will exist for human lander ascent systems. That breaks the "hard requirement" argument if we're going to the Moon or Mars.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    A launch escape system from a lunar ascent module would be kind of silly. Where would you escape to?
    - ben_w 7y ago
      Right now, sure. If we use this low cost space access to build a Moonbase equivalent to the ISS, it would be good to be able to return back to that base of the launch failed. I won’t be surprised if there is a better solution than a launch escape system, perhaps like a non-rocket launch in the form of a lunar maglev launch track, but it’s probably worth figuring out soon-ish.
  - derekp7 7y ago
    I don't see anything about the Starship design that would prevent a future version with the nose cone being sealed off with a bulkhead, along with and explosive bolts attachment mechanism and Super Dracos attached (plus parachutes). The mass budget is there, and if it is designed to be detachable only in emergency then it could be a lot simpler than a separate capsule system design.
Robotbeat 7y ago
This isn't a very insightful comment, but I've seen it repeated multiple times in regards to Starship. Do people really find it persuasive? It applies to basically every aircraft (including Shuttle). And it's dealt with the same way: redundancy of actuation and control systems.
vannevar 7y ago
Yes, we've heard this story before. From Nixon's announcement of the Space Shuttle program in 1972: "In the scientific arena, the past decade of experience has taught us that spacecraft are an irreplaceable tool for learning about our near-Earth space environment, the Moon, and the planets, besides being an important aid to our studies of the Sun and stars. In utilizing space to meet needs on Earth, we have seen the tremendous potential of satellites for international communications and world-wide weather forecasting. We are gaining the capability to use satellites as tools in global monitoring and management of nature resources, in agricultural applications, and in pollution control. We can foresee their use in guiding airliners across the oceans and in bringing TV education to wide areas of the world. However, all these possibilities, and countless others with direct and dramatic bearing on human betterment, can never be more than fractionally realized so long as every single trip from Earth to orbit remains a matter of special effort and staggering expense. This is why commitment to the Space Shuttle program is the right step for America to take, in moving out from our present beach-head in the sky to achieve a real working presence in space - because the Space Shuttle will give us routine access to space by sharply reducing costs in dollars and preparation time. The new system will differ radically from all existing booster systems, in that most of this new system will be recovered and used again and again - up to 100 times. The resulting economies may bring operating costs down as low as one-tenth of those present launch vehicles."
- gpm 7y ago
  The logic is as valid now as it was then. The biggest difference between the two is that we know we failed to make the system that time, and we think we might succeed this time. There's good reason to think that SpaceX might succeed where NASA failed. Less politics interfering. A reward system that is actually aligned with results. Decades (47 years since that announcement) of technological advancement. Experience with re-usable rockets.
  - vannevar 7y ago
    It's true that we do know more, but that's reflected in the even more ambitious promises being made. SpaceX will almost certainly improve greatly on the Shuttle, but will also just as certainly fail to live up to the projections being made for it now, before the first flight. And my guess is that it will fall short by quite a bit, these are pretty big claims being made. I think the Starship will become obsolete, for instance, before it ever gets to a flight rate of once per day.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
Actually lets do the opposite and avoid another 4 decades of not getting back to the moon because of risk averse bean counters arguing away any form of progress because it just might not work because of some irrational perceived risk. I mean fin redundancy?! That's not a thing other than in your head. Getting to the moon was based on a mentality of doing things that are barely feasible but could plausibly be done. It had to get done because politics. Your argument is like velcro failing or ball points not working as advertised (too mention some of the lesser innovations from the early space programs). So FF-ing what. Test it and if it really is a problem, fix it. It's not like Aerodynamics are greenfield technology. Some of the people that got us to the moon field tested supersonic airplanes. Spacex is cutting BS like this and is setting feasible targets that are hard and they are ticking them of at a really scarily insane rate. Reusing first stages? Routine. Dual booster landings? Sure; done, multiple times. SpaceX is based on the notion that we've already been there & done that and we just need to get better at it. Where better is cheaper, faster, more efficiently. Starship is amazing in the sense that despite being ludicrously big and awesome it has no obvious reasons why it should not work because physics. Therefore the minor investment of even trying to figure out whether this works is a perfectly reasonable thing given the (pun alert) potentially astronomic rewards. And also in the sense of how rapidly it is coming together. We haven't seen this pace of innovation since we actually got to the moon the first time. Just the switch to steel alone is barely 12 months old. Yet the damn thing flew from A to B a few weeks ago and seems on track to run through test to the point where basically it's a production ready system of a scale not seen since the Saturn program four decades ago. It's hard to not get excited about this "lets just get this thing done" mentality.

avmich 7y ago

> Lets not get ahead of ourselves. The ship hasn't flown once. This is the time when forward thinking won't hurt. We don't see significant problems with reaching this goal - not technical, not economical, not others. There were periods with development of technology - e.g. early airplanes or spacecrafts - which significantly changed the approaches to things, so speculation in worst case would remain just that.

gpm 7y ago

By the same logic there is a design error with a boeing 747, if even one wing falls off everyone dies. A wing's controls failing (on either vessel) might be recoverable depending on the details/if the other control surfaces can compensate...

hsnewman 7y ago
It hasn't even flown yet. How can you compare an unproven rocket to a Boeing 747, which has millions of hours of proven flight hours on it with something that has none? I realize that the 747 has had failures over the time too, but I'd happily get on a Boeing 747 but would not get on a Spaceship until it's been flown several, if not 100's of times (without incident, as can be said for the 747).
- gpm 7y ago
  Lack of fight history is not a design error.. Especially in the context of a spacecraft that is specifically designed to be able to quickly gain a long flight history (unlike every other spacecraft we've ever built).
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Because of engineering and analysis. I don't know where the anti-science "it's impossible to speak meaningfully about anything in the future that hasn't yet been built" idea came from in Internet rhetoric, but it's absolutely ridiculous.
- jarsj 7y ago
  It's not designed for commercial air travel. Satellites, astronauts have a slightly higher risk threshold that exponentially reduces the provability factor.
- Lambdanaut 7y ago
  He's comparing it using your own logic. The "fault" you found was that the design itself was fault. He showed that the inherent design of both the Boeing 747 and Starship both have that same "fault" regardless of how far along they are in proving flight-worthiness. Of course Starship has a lot of work to do, but your argument that because it lacks fin redundancy it has a faulty design is invalid.
- DennisP 7y ago
  If they have multiple Starships each launching once a day, it won't take long to get a few hundred flights.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  They don't need to do human transport off the bat. I'm sure there's tons (literally) of package delivery to space that can be done to prove out the payload delivery and reliability.
beerandt 7y ago
I think the point is that it relies on it's fins much more than previous designs, and less on thrust vectoring and steering thrusters than traditional designs. It's more like comparing a traditional airplane to a B-2 / flying wing design; it's doable, but difficult and not without risk.
- gpm 7y ago
  I have no trouble with saying that it's a novel design and that brings a lot of risk. Saying it has a "design error" though is the height of arrogance, it's highly unlikely that any commentor here is thinking of anything that SpaceX engineers haven't thought of a hundred times already. Trying to back up that statement with "there is a part that might fail" moves from just being arrogant to also being completely ridiculous. If there is any industry that likes redundancy whenever possible it is the space industry. It has been considered, many times over.

bryanlarsen 7y ago

After the Space Shuttle, a full-envelope launch abort system has been a hard requirement of NASA for human flight. SpaceX's Crew Dragon has such a system; if SpaceX wants to fly NASA astronauts on Starship they'll have to add one.

Robotbeat 7y ago
No full-envelope abort system exists or likely will exist for human lander ascent systems. That breaks the "hard requirement" argument if we're going to the Moon or Mars.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  A launch escape system from a lunar ascent module would be kind of silly. Where would you escape to?
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Right now, sure. If we use this low cost space access to build a Moonbase equivalent to the ISS, it would be good to be able to return back to that base of the launch failed. I won’t be surprised if there is a better solution than a launch escape system, perhaps like a non-rocket launch in the form of a lunar maglev launch track, but it’s probably worth figuring out soon-ish.
- derekp7 7y ago
  I don't see anything about the Starship design that would prevent a future version with the nose cone being sealed off with a bulkhead, along with and explosive bolts attachment mechanism and Super Dracos attached (plus parachutes). The mass budget is there, and if it is designed to be detachable only in emergency then it could be a lot simpler than a separate capsule system design.

Robotbeat 7y ago

This isn't a very insightful comment, but I've seen it repeated multiple times in regards to Starship. Do people really find it persuasive? It applies to basically every aircraft (including Shuttle). And it's dealt with the same way: redundancy of actuation and control systems.

vannevar 7y ago

Yes, we've heard this story before. From Nixon's announcement of the Space Shuttle program in 1972: "In the scientific arena, the past decade of experience has taught us that spacecraft are an irreplaceable tool for learning about our near-Earth space environment, the Moon, and the planets, besides being an important aid to our studies of the Sun and stars. In utilizing space to meet needs on Earth, we have seen the tremendous potential of satellites for international communications and world-wide weather forecasting. We are gaining the capability to use satellites as tools in global monitoring and management of nature resources, in agricultural applications, and in pollution control. We can foresee their use in guiding airliners across the oceans and in bringing TV education to wide areas of the world. However, all these possibilities, and countless others with direct and dramatic bearing on human betterment, can never be more than fractionally realized so long as every single trip from Earth to orbit remains a matter of special effort and staggering expense. This is why commitment to the Space Shuttle program is the right step for America to take, in moving out from our present beach-head in the sky to achieve a real working presence in space - because the Space Shuttle will give us routine access to space by sharply reducing costs in dollars and preparation time. The new system will differ radically from all existing booster systems, in that most of this new system will be recovered and used again and again - up to 100 times. The resulting economies may bring operating costs down as low as one-tenth of those present launch vehicles."

gpm 7y ago
The logic is as valid now as it was then. The biggest difference between the two is that we know we failed to make the system that time, and we think we might succeed this time. There's good reason to think that SpaceX might succeed where NASA failed. Less politics interfering. A reward system that is actually aligned with results. Decades (47 years since that announcement) of technological advancement. Experience with re-usable rockets.
- vannevar 7y ago
  It's true that we do know more, but that's reflected in the even more ambitious promises being made. SpaceX will almost certainly improve greatly on the Shuttle, but will also just as certainly fail to live up to the projections being made for it now, before the first flight. And my guess is that it will fall short by quite a bit, these are pretty big claims being made. I think the Starship will become obsolete, for instance, before it ever gets to a flight rate of once per day.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

Actually lets do the opposite and avoid another 4 decades of not getting back to the moon because of risk averse bean counters arguing away any form of progress because it just might not work because of some irrational perceived risk. I mean fin redundancy?! That's not a thing other than in your head. Getting to the moon was based on a mentality of doing things that are barely feasible but could plausibly be done. It had to get done because politics. Your argument is like velcro failing or ball points not working as advertised (too mention some of the lesser innovations from the early space programs). So FF-ing what. Test it and if it really is a problem, fix it. It's not like Aerodynamics are greenfield technology. Some of the people that got us to the moon field tested supersonic airplanes. Spacex is cutting BS like this and is setting feasible targets that are hard and they are ticking them of at a really scarily insane rate. Reusing first stages? Routine. Dual booster landings? Sure; done, multiple times. SpaceX is based on the notion that we've already been there & done that and we just need to get better at it. Where better is cheaper, faster, more efficiently. Starship is amazing in the sense that despite being ludicrously big and awesome it has no obvious reasons why it should not work because physics. Therefore the minor investment of even trying to figure out whether this works is a perfectly reasonable thing given the (pun alert) potentially astronomic rewards. And also in the sense of how rapidly it is coming together. We haven't seen this pace of innovation since we actually got to the moon the first time. Just the switch to steel alone is barely 12 months old. Yet the damn thing flew from A to B a few weeks ago and seems on track to run through test to the point where basically it's a production ready system of a scale not seen since the Saturn program four decades ago. It's hard to not get excited about this "lets just get this thing done" mentality.