4 ms·

Seems mostly reasonable. Except maybe labeling progressive (what's the definition of the progress, again?) democrats the ones who wouldn't go to space - ?.. Mo

by avmich 5y ago

Seems mostly reasonable. Except maybe labeling progressive (what's the definition of the progress, again?) democrats the ones who wouldn't go to space - ?.. More specific - we know how to fly to Mars every 22 months or so. What could prevent SpaceX launching the first unmanned Starship to Mars soon? Stubbornness of FAA refusing to allow enough Starship launches to fuel up one of them for the flight? Last time checked, technical problems were still bigger than navigating bureaucracy - did things change over the last few years? Asking because technical problems with getting Spaceship to LEO are getting solved like on schedule.

mattashii 5y ago
Current significant open technical issues that I know of for Starship are 1.) Raptor engine production being significantly behind on schedule (granted, the schedule is aggressive, but still behind), and 2.) TPS tiles disconnecting from Starship at moments they shouldn't. Issue 1 will likely only delay development and deployment of Starship (production isn't halted), but issue 2 can make-or-break the business model if no solution is found. As opposed to regulatory issues which are generally (!) a case of putting in the effort and time, with a relatively well-known time path to get permission to e.g. launch to LEO or Mars; this has been done before and will be done many times after. The only unkown issues that I believe are still open are mostly related to range and environmental issues, but I don't think those will be the limiting factor to getting the Starship launch vehicle ready for production payloads.
- avmich 5y ago
  While still unknown, issue 2 is hard to imagine breaking the whole plan. TPS were used before - Starship is bigger than Shuttle, but the principal possibility is solidly here at least. Again, it's hard to imagine Elon explaining in half a year the absence of launches by the inability to invent a good attachment of TPS. Let's wait and see. Regulatory issues may have a hiccup on the frequency of heavy flights - liquid propellants in Starship don't have infinite shelf life on LEO, so refueling Starships will need to be launched promptly, and that's something which was never done by humanity - the combination of flight frequency and the size of payload (fuel). So FAA may object. Worse, something bad could happen - like a failure of a Starship, requiring attention of designers again, which would temporarily put on hold all other Starship flights. However, even these issues have low product of probability and severity, so Mars flights are still possible soon. Again, we'll see soon. Now that the wait time to results is compressed from decades to months, we need to adjust to this unusual luxury.
zepto 5y ago
> Except maybe labeling progressive (what's the definition of the progress, again?) democrats the ones who wouldn't go to space - ?.. Progressive democrats may not be against space travel itself, but they are certainly against billionaires and corporations with large market caps. I have also heard a lot of progressives decry Musk for his goals to colonize mars when he could be spending his money to fight climate change or racial inequality on earth.
- avmich 5y ago
  > they are certainly against billionaires and corporations with large market caps True, but maybe we're talking about different definitions of "large market caps". Lately I'm seriously impressed by the apparent shortsightedness of VCs who aren't able to find and fund a reasonable SpaceX competitor. A few companies make promising moves - Orbital, Sierra Nevada, Rocket Lab, Masten Space - but all achievements are just too modest. One would think that 17 years after X Prize was won, VCs would be more fearful of missing out. And of course it's hard to believe that the deficit on the founders' side - while externally impressive, SpaceX mostly does something well known to the modern space engineers, with perhaps Starlink being the largest "side application". Casey Handmers, https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/ , tries to bring attention to the achievements, but maybe stopping a bit short when not discussing possible alternatives of the next years or decades. Of course, one may wonder what SpaceX would do next - by the time Starship lands first time successfully on Mars, it could be seen roughly as the first flight of Falcon Heavy or first landing of Falcon-9 booster.
- avmich 5y ago
  > a lot of progressives decry Musk for his goals to colonize mars when he could be spending his money to fight climate change or racial inequality on earth This is a long-established complaint to space developments as a whole. It was given a rather good answer - among other things, space development makes everybody on Earth richer right now. Don't think it's particularly enlightened people who would still make objections on these grounds.
  - zepto 5y ago

by avmich 5y ago

mattashii 5y ago

Current significant open technical issues that I know of for Starship are 1.) Raptor engine production being significantly behind on schedule (granted, the schedule is aggressive, but still behind), and 2.) TPS tiles disconnecting from Starship at moments they shouldn't. Issue 1 will likely only delay development and deployment of Starship (production isn't halted), but issue 2 can make-or-break the business model if no solution is found. As opposed to regulatory issues which are generally (!) a case of putting in the effort and time, with a relatively well-known time path to get permission to e.g. launch to LEO or Mars; this has been done before and will be done many times after. The only unkown issues that I believe are still open are mostly related to range and environmental issues, but I don't think those will be the limiting factor to getting the Starship launch vehicle ready for production payloads.

avmich 5y ago
While still unknown, issue 2 is hard to imagine breaking the whole plan. TPS were used before - Starship is bigger than Shuttle, but the principal possibility is solidly here at least. Again, it's hard to imagine Elon explaining in half a year the absence of launches by the inability to invent a good attachment of TPS. Let's wait and see. Regulatory issues may have a hiccup on the frequency of heavy flights - liquid propellants in Starship don't have infinite shelf life on LEO, so refueling Starships will need to be launched promptly, and that's something which was never done by humanity - the combination of flight frequency and the size of payload (fuel). So FAA may object. Worse, something bad could happen - like a failure of a Starship, requiring attention of designers again, which would temporarily put on hold all other Starship flights. However, even these issues have low product of probability and severity, so Mars flights are still possible soon. Again, we'll see soon. Now that the wait time to results is compressed from decades to months, we need to adjust to this unusual luxury.

zepto 5y ago

> Except maybe labeling progressive (what's the definition of the progress, again?) democrats the ones who wouldn't go to space - ?.. Progressive democrats may not be against space travel itself, but they are certainly against billionaires and corporations with large market caps. I have also heard a lot of progressives decry Musk for his goals to colonize mars when he could be spending his money to fight climate change or racial inequality on earth.

avmich 5y ago
> they are certainly against billionaires and corporations with large market caps True, but maybe we're talking about different definitions of "large market caps". Lately I'm seriously impressed by the apparent shortsightedness of VCs who aren't able to find and fund a reasonable SpaceX competitor. A few companies make promising moves - Orbital, Sierra Nevada, Rocket Lab, Masten Space - but all achievements are just too modest. One would think that 17 years after X Prize was won, VCs would be more fearful of missing out. And of course it's hard to believe that the deficit on the founders' side - while externally impressive, SpaceX mostly does something well known to the modern space engineers, with perhaps Starlink being the largest "side application". Casey Handmers, https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/ , tries to bring attention to the achievements, but maybe stopping a bit short when not discussing possible alternatives of the next years or decades. Of course, one may wonder what SpaceX would do next - by the time Starship lands first time successfully on Mars, it could be seen roughly as the first flight of Falcon Heavy or first landing of Falcon-9 booster.
avmich 5y ago
> a lot of progressives decry Musk for his goals to colonize mars when he could be spending his money to fight climate change or racial inequality on earth This is a long-established complaint to space developments as a whole. It was given a rather good answer - among other things, space development makes everybody on Earth richer right now. Don't think it's particularly enlightened people who would still make objections on these grounds.
- zepto 5y ago