17 ms·

A thing I find mind-blowing is that if this concept succeeds, that I and everyone reading this will be able to afford to go to low earth orbit on a relatively m

A thing I find mind-blowing is that if this concept succeeds, that I and everyone reading this will be able to afford to go to low earth orbit on a relatively modest salary within the next ~20 years (conservatively). This feels like quite a difficult reality to internalise given we all grew up seeing only a select few exceptional people, with the stars aligning in their career, be able to do that.

ledauphin 4y ago
is this a generally agreed-upon fact? I'm not sure I buy it, but I'm interested to see a defense of it.
- lsh123 4y ago
  The number Mask is targeting is $10/kg to orbit. With all supplies, it means under $10k / person for a week in orbit.
  - TOMDM 4y ago
    Is that target $10kg to orbit and back? I imagine the price of getting mass back down from orbit would bump your cost up a bit right?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lsh123 4y ago
      I already doubled it ;)
    - simonh 4y ago
      The starship upper stage has to come back down anyway, so I don’t see why you’d need to double the cost.
      - TOMDM 4y ago
        The upper stage coming down empty vs full of cargo are entirely different beasts surely?
      - dev_tty01 4y ago
        Every kilogram of mass added to the return trip increases the required deceleration, fuel, etc. Not cheap. At some point you can't reach orbit with the required fuel to get everything back. The Falcon 9 boosters are nearly empty when they come back. As a matter of fact, at least one of their early landing failures was because they cut the fuel load too close and ran out of fuel just before reaching the ground. Minimizing weight on the return landing is critical.
  - WheatMillington 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Well the topic of the thread is "if this concept succeeds".
    - friend_and_foe 4y ago
      If a single one of those bridges is anything like launching astronauts to the space station in a reusable private spacecraft and launch system from american soil, it's worth buying.
    - fijiaarone 4y ago
      Sign me up for thirteen bridges on the installment plan.
    - the_optimist 4y ago
      Can you please inform on where you derive your information from? It seems like a valuable source of negative-weight bias.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Do you have history of successful bridge spellings I could look up?
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    That doesn't include the cost of a vehicle that can support you for a week and re-enter and land safely, and does not include cost of ground systems to support the mission and recover you. Nor training or regulatory compliance costs. It's just the mass to orbit. Even if Starship delivers everything promised, I doubt orbit would be within reach of wage earners. Similarly we could afford to pay for a ship to drop a few tons of rock off Guam, but going to the bottom of the Mariana trench and returning alive would be a different kettle of fish.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    The target that's rather optimistic. Initially I would expect at leasy 20x that.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- midland_trucker 4y ago
  Perhaps a lot of people wouldn't agree and I admit I'm stirring up debate a bit to see what other people think. To me it seems if we see orbital success in the next 5 yrs, mass production of starship thereafter and SpaceX sticking to their Earth-to-Earth transport idea - this seems plausible. Airliners developed about as quick, but then again its a far harder environment - it's nice to dream. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 (edit rambling on about the wrong system)
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Airliners also developed in the context of a state supported system that used regulated high ticket prices and mail route subsidies to keep the industry alive for any needed pivot to military aircraft. I don’t know that there is the stomach for such a system today.
    - justinclift 4y ago
      Wonder how fast such a system could move cargo between the US and London/EU? Seems potentially a bunch quicker than current air transport (~12 hours)?
      - Telemakhos 4y ago
        I wonder how fast Starship could move 100 tons of troops and materiel to a war front.
        giantrobot 4y ago
        The C-5 Galaxy can transport 127 tons and land at normal airports with at least one order of magnitude lower per kg prices. A C-17 can transport 77 tons. More importantly they can actually unload their cargo once they land. A Starship would need either special facilities or an as-yet undersigned integral crane to unload cargo.
        idontwantthis 4y ago
sva_ 4y ago
I wonder if people in general are fit for the G-forces they're subjected to when launching into space. I think astronauts usually go through very rigorous testing and training. And I'm not sure that is something we can engineer ourselves out of.
- jfengel 4y ago
  If William Shatner can do it in his 80s, I'm pretty sure that a substantial fraction of the population can do it. Don't get me wrong, Shatner has worked hard to keep himself in shape. And he didn't get to orbit. But if you keep in shape (and are rich or famous) it may be an option.
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    Shatter didn’t go into orbit though. But generally I agree.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
    The dude was 90 when he went to space, 92 now. He won the genetic lottery it seems - in amazing shape/looks for his age.
- fhrow4484 4y ago
  Per https://spaceexplored.com/2021/05/06/can-you-make-it-as-a-blue-origin-astronaut/ https://spaceexplored.com/2021/05/06/can-you-make-it-as-a-bl...: > When it comes to the G-Forces being pushed on you, many roller coasters have peak G’s at or above these limits. Most people are probably familiar with the different rides at Walt Disney World so let’s use those for examples. At EPCOT, Mission Space is a centrifuge-based ride where you go through a simulated launch and landing on Mars. The sustained G’s on that ride is 2.5 G’s, close to how many G’s New Shepard will experience during launch. > For the descent, Blue Origin says you must be able to withstand 5.5 G’s, if you ever rode Rock ‘n Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you would have experienced up to 5 G’s during the initial launch of the ride. Epcot Mission Space (the "Orange" version) is pretty intense as it's really sustained G-forces, but manageable. During the ride, you have to reach in front of you to press some buttons, and that's when you feel the G-forces most. But for SpaceX/BlueOrigin, passengers do nothing. Rock n Roller Coaster itself for the peak G is done by kids, not a big deal.
mrandish 4y ago
Long before heading to orbit, I'm excited to just get a front row seat for the launch of a fully loaded Starship. Apparently, being in the NASA guest stands for a Saturn V launch was mind-blowing and this would be double that. Hopefully, SpaceX will set up some kind of excursion package where you get a Starbase tour, a primo front row seat to a launch and a limited edition T-shirt. Forget Taylor Swift tickets for >$1K when Starship can literally rock my world.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Spectators were kept about 3 miles from Saturn V launches, so you could build a REALLY WIDE stadium for Starship launches. The Circus Maximus wouldn't have ANYTHING on it. We might be less than 50 years out from Starship or similar launches being as boring as a plane taking off or a train passing by.
  - mrandish 4y ago
    I'm hoping it's more like 5 years to Starship launches being 'routine'. Maybe I'm an irredeemable optimist but that would at least be more similar to the curve of Falcon launches being 'routine' (I concede that to some of us, orbital launches will never be considered routine – no matter how frequent). I'd even lay 50%-ish odds that they'll do back to back payload launches in 30 days or less by the end of next year. That'll of course depend on things going very well over the next few months so they manage to get a Starship to orbit and back on the ground at the launch site this year.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  It will fly from Florida so that will be much easier then going to Starbase.
- mstade 4y ago
  I saw an Atlas V launch at KSC in January 2017, from the LC-39 observation gantry, and it was incredible. Highly recommend seeing a launch – any launch! – if you have the means and opportunity.
ck2 4y ago
[flagged]
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  It does feel like we may be entering an era that is more akin to the way I remember the 1970's being. "White label" beer anyone?
  - Kiro 4y ago
    > "White label" beer anyone? What is this referring to?
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      Looks like "generic beer" would have been a more Googleable name. "White label" is what we called it. https://winning-homebrew.com/generic-beer.html https://winning-homebrew.com/generic-beer.html
- darknavi 4y ago
  > I don't think going to "fake space" for a minute is really going to be interesting by the end of the decade. Not sure what you're referring to as "fake" here. LEO? Is the ISS fake space? If Starship fully succeeds it should make trips to and from the Moon and Mars.
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    I think they are referring to the sub-LEO suborbital hops that are being advertised as "a trip to space". Just high enough to clearly see the famous "blue marble" but nowhere close to being able to sustain an orbit or actually classify as being "in space".
    - jve 4y ago
      Its about the speed and not so much the height https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
tjpnz 4y ago
I used to think that being born a millenial was a curse for realising those kinds of dreams. But as someone who's not an influencer and who's not interested in overpriced suborbital carnival rides I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.
fijiaarone 4y ago
If I just give up lattes and new Ferraris for 20 years, and work real hard, I can go to space!
- enslavedrobot 4y ago
  Starship is designed to lower the cost to space below 100$/kg. Forget tourism, at that price beaming solar power back to earth approaches viability.
tim333 4y ago
I think the rocket will succeed but I find Musk's projections of costs as low as $10 a ton to orbit a bit unlikely.
- starbase 4y ago
  No one at SpaceX has projected $10 per ton. Cost of fuel is about $10,000 per ton to LEO, assuming Starship can lob 100 tons at a time. In a speech to USAF in 2019, Musk said SpaceX's out of pocket cost per launch could be "maybe like $2 million," which would be about $20,000 per ton. Adjust numbers for inflation accordingly.
  - tim333 4y ago
    Sorry, $10/kg was what I was thinking of https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/09/28909310/elon-musk-calls-starship-an-incredible-enabler-for-science-launch-costs-at-a-highly-competitive-10kg https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/09/28909310/elon-musk-calls...
    - starbase 4y ago
      Not to be pedantic, but the $10/kg number came from a graphic published by the journal Science, not from Musk. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1571540353978859526 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1571540353978859526 See also this tweet clarifying that fixed costs are expected to exceed marginal costs: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1328770804222468097 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1328770804222468097 "looks like marginal cost of launch will be less than $1M for more than 100 tons to orbit, so it’s mostly about fixed costs divided by launches per year" Not trying to nitpick you here. Just hoping to correct some of the confusion that results from playing Telephone with secondary and tertiary sources.

ledauphin 4y ago

is this a generally agreed-upon fact? I'm not sure I buy it, but I'm interested to see a defense of it.

lsh123 4y ago
The number Mask is targeting is $10/kg to orbit. With all supplies, it means under $10k / person for a week in orbit.
- TOMDM 4y ago
  Is that target $10kg to orbit and back? I imagine the price of getting mass back down from orbit would bump your cost up a bit right?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lsh123 4y ago
    I already doubled it ;)
  - simonh 4y ago
    The starship upper stage has to come back down anyway, so I don’t see why you’d need to double the cost.
    - TOMDM 4y ago
      The upper stage coming down empty vs full of cargo are entirely different beasts surely?
    - dev_tty01 4y ago
      Every kilogram of mass added to the return trip increases the required deceleration, fuel, etc. Not cheap. At some point you can't reach orbit with the required fuel to get everything back. The Falcon 9 boosters are nearly empty when they come back. As a matter of fact, at least one of their early landing failures was because they cut the fuel load too close and ran out of fuel just before reaching the ground. Minimizing weight on the return landing is critical.
- WheatMillington 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Well the topic of the thread is "if this concept succeeds".
  - friend_and_foe 4y ago
    If a single one of those bridges is anything like launching astronauts to the space station in a reusable private spacecraft and launch system from american soil, it's worth buying.
  - fijiaarone 4y ago
    Sign me up for thirteen bridges on the installment plan.
  - the_optimist 4y ago
    Can you please inform on where you derive your information from? It seems like a valuable source of negative-weight bias.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Do you have history of successful bridge spellings I could look up?
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  That doesn't include the cost of a vehicle that can support you for a week and re-enter and land safely, and does not include cost of ground systems to support the mission and recover you. Nor training or regulatory compliance costs. It's just the mass to orbit. Even if Starship delivers everything promised, I doubt orbit would be within reach of wage earners. Similarly we could afford to pay for a ship to drop a few tons of rock off Guam, but going to the bottom of the Mariana trench and returning alive would be a different kettle of fish.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  The target that's rather optimistic. Initially I would expect at leasy 20x that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
midland_trucker 4y ago
Perhaps a lot of people wouldn't agree and I admit I'm stirring up debate a bit to see what other people think. To me it seems if we see orbital success in the next 5 yrs, mass production of starship thereafter and SpaceX sticking to their Earth-to-Earth transport idea - this seems plausible. Airliners developed about as quick, but then again its a far harder environment - it's nice to dream. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 (edit rambling on about the wrong system)
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Airliners also developed in the context of a state supported system that used regulated high ticket prices and mail route subsidies to keep the industry alive for any needed pivot to military aircraft. I don’t know that there is the stomach for such a system today.
  - justinclift 4y ago
    Wonder how fast such a system could move cargo between the US and London/EU? Seems potentially a bunch quicker than current air transport (~12 hours)?
    - Telemakhos 4y ago
      I wonder how fast Starship could move 100 tons of troops and materiel to a war front.
      - giantrobot 4y ago
        The C-5 Galaxy can transport 127 tons and land at normal airports with at least one order of magnitude lower per kg prices. A C-17 can transport 77 tons. More importantly they can actually unload their cargo once they land. A Starship would need either special facilities or an as-yet undersigned integral crane to unload cargo.
      - idontwantthis 4y ago

sva_ 4y ago

I wonder if people in general are fit for the G-forces they're subjected to when launching into space. I think astronauts usually go through very rigorous testing and training. And I'm not sure that is something we can engineer ourselves out of.

jfengel 4y ago
If William Shatner can do it in his 80s, I'm pretty sure that a substantial fraction of the population can do it. Don't get me wrong, Shatner has worked hard to keep himself in shape. And he didn't get to orbit. But if you keep in shape (and are rich or famous) it may be an option.
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  Shatter didn’t go into orbit though. But generally I agree.
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
  The dude was 90 when he went to space, 92 now. He won the genetic lottery it seems - in amazing shape/looks for his age.
fhrow4484 4y ago
Per https://spaceexplored.com/2021/05/06/can-you-make-it-as-a-blue-origin-astronaut/ https://spaceexplored.com/2021/05/06/can-you-make-it-as-a-bl...: > When it comes to the G-Forces being pushed on you, many roller coasters have peak G’s at or above these limits. Most people are probably familiar with the different rides at Walt Disney World so let’s use those for examples. At EPCOT, Mission Space is a centrifuge-based ride where you go through a simulated launch and landing on Mars. The sustained G’s on that ride is 2.5 G’s, close to how many G’s New Shepard will experience during launch. > For the descent, Blue Origin says you must be able to withstand 5.5 G’s, if you ever rode Rock ‘n Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you would have experienced up to 5 G’s during the initial launch of the ride. Epcot Mission Space (the "Orange" version) is pretty intense as it's really sustained G-forces, but manageable. During the ride, you have to reach in front of you to press some buttons, and that's when you feel the G-forces most. But for SpaceX/BlueOrigin, passengers do nothing. Rock n Roller Coaster itself for the peak G is done by kids, not a big deal.

mrandish 4y ago

Long before heading to orbit, I'm excited to just get a front row seat for the launch of a fully loaded Starship. Apparently, being in the NASA guest stands for a Saturn V launch was mind-blowing and this would be double that. Hopefully, SpaceX will set up some kind of excursion package where you get a Starbase tour, a primo front row seat to a launch and a limited edition T-shirt. Forget Taylor Swift tickets for >$1K when Starship can literally rock my world.

bombcar 4y ago
Spectators were kept about 3 miles from Saturn V launches, so you could build a REALLY WIDE stadium for Starship launches. The Circus Maximus wouldn't have ANYTHING on it. We might be less than 50 years out from Starship or similar launches being as boring as a plane taking off or a train passing by.
- mrandish 4y ago
  I'm hoping it's more like 5 years to Starship launches being 'routine'. Maybe I'm an irredeemable optimist but that would at least be more similar to the curve of Falcon launches being 'routine' (I concede that to some of us, orbital launches will never be considered routine – no matter how frequent). I'd even lay 50%-ish odds that they'll do back to back payload launches in 30 days or less by the end of next year. That'll of course depend on things going very well over the next few months so they manage to get a Starship to orbit and back on the ground at the launch site this year.
panick21_ 4y ago
It will fly from Florida so that will be much easier then going to Starbase.
mstade 4y ago
I saw an Atlas V launch at KSC in January 2017, from the LC-39 observation gantry, and it was incredible. Highly recommend seeing a launch – any launch! – if you have the means and opportunity.

ck2 4y ago

[flagged]

JKCalhoun 4y ago
It does feel like we may be entering an era that is more akin to the way I remember the 1970's being. "White label" beer anyone?
- Kiro 4y ago
  > "White label" beer anyone? What is this referring to?
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Looks like "generic beer" would have been a more Googleable name. "White label" is what we called it. https://winning-homebrew.com/generic-beer.html https://winning-homebrew.com/generic-beer.html
darknavi 4y ago
> I don't think going to "fake space" for a minute is really going to be interesting by the end of the decade. Not sure what you're referring to as "fake" here. LEO? Is the ISS fake space? If Starship fully succeeds it should make trips to and from the Moon and Mars.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  I think they are referring to the sub-LEO suborbital hops that are being advertised as "a trip to space". Just high enough to clearly see the famous "blue marble" but nowhere close to being able to sustain an orbit or actually classify as being "in space".
  - jve 4y ago
    Its about the speed and not so much the height https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

tjpnz 4y ago

I used to think that being born a millenial was a curse for realising those kinds of dreams. But as someone who's not an influencer and who's not interested in overpriced suborbital carnival rides I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.

fijiaarone 4y ago

If I just give up lattes and new Ferraris for 20 years, and work real hard, I can go to space!

enslavedrobot 4y ago
Starship is designed to lower the cost to space below 100$/kg. Forget tourism, at that price beaming solar power back to earth approaches viability.

tim333 4y ago

I think the rocket will succeed but I find Musk's projections of costs as low as $10 a ton to orbit a bit unlikely.

starbase 4y ago
No one at SpaceX has projected $10 per ton. Cost of fuel is about $10,000 per ton to LEO, assuming Starship can lob 100 tons at a time. In a speech to USAF in 2019, Musk said SpaceX's out of pocket cost per launch could be "maybe like $2 million," which would be about $20,000 per ton. Adjust numbers for inflation accordingly.
- tim333 4y ago
  Sorry, $10/kg was what I was thinking of https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/09/28909310/elon-musk-calls-starship-an-incredible-enabler-for-science-launch-costs-at-a-highly-competitive-10kg https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/09/28909310/elon-musk-calls...
  - starbase 4y ago
    Not to be pedantic, but the $10/kg number came from a graphic published by the journal Science, not from Musk. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1571540353978859526 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1571540353978859526 See also this tweet clarifying that fixed costs are expected to exceed marginal costs: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1328770804222468097 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1328770804222468097 "looks like marginal cost of launch will be less than $1M for more than 100 tons to orbit, so it’s mostly about fixed costs divided by launches per year" Not trying to nitpick you here. Just hoping to correct some of the confusion that results from playing Telephone with secondary and tertiary sources.