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The average user knows what SpaceX is about, likely has heard the falcon 1 rocket achieved a milestone with rocket reuse after multiple successful launches. Bu

The average user knows what SpaceX is about, likely has heard the falcon 1 rocket achieved a milestone with rocket reuse after multiple successful launches. But, why this launch is so important? why so much is riding on this ?

saberdancer 4y ago
It is the largest rocket in history and it is planned to be fully reusable. If SpaceX manage to make this work they will have a launch vehicle capable of launching much more mass to orbit which will open up space exploration.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  It also provides us with a kind of access to space that we lost when the Space Shuttles were grounded. It's interesting that the Shuttle was considered a hugely wasteful boondoggle in its day and age, yet now a private profit-seeking enterprise is making something that's just as capable on a way bigger scale.
  - agloe_dreams 4y ago
    I would argue that the Space Shuttle was mostly wasteful because it really wasn't that reusable. You had to fully refurbish the SRBs, you lose the tank, The Shuttles required a ton of refurbishment themselves, all for a rather small amount of mass to orbit.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    The shuttle ended up having a cost of $1.5B per launch. Starship is aiming for a cost of $2M per launch. They'll likely miss that goal, but even missing by an order of magnitude will be a huge game changer. And obviously price will be very different from cost. We're looking at the cost of a tonne to orbit being similar to what a kg was during the shuttle era.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      the problem with the space shuttle is that it's minimum payload was an airplane with room for 7 people. it's like if you wanted to mail someone a letter so you put the letter in a van, and called a towing company to send the van.
  - bobsmooth 4y ago
    The shuttle was hamstrung by DoD and senate requirements.
    - dTal 4y ago
      Arguably the entire concept was flawed, fueled more by a sci-fi concept of "wouldn't it be cool if" rather than a sober cost-benefit analysis. It was a space station, built into a rocket, built into an airplane that is also a reentry vehicle - most of the motivation to reuse the vehicle in the first place goes away if you don't make it so damn complex! It just makes so much more sense to launch big payloads on heavy lift rockets, humans separately on human rated craft, and leave the space station part (robot arm etc) in orbit. (The one type of mission you can't do without something like an orbiter is satellite retrieval. This capability was used a total of 4 times. Not really worth it.)
      - brookst 4y ago
        I am 100% good with NASA pursuing "wouldn't it be cool if" and leaving sober ROI-gated developments to private industry.
      - Kim_Bruning 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System The actual concept was actually pretty decent (even kerbals would say so!), except somehow it got cut down to the point of uselessness.
  - saberdancer 4y ago
    It is the same idea that they had for a Space Shuttle. Reusable vehicle that can be used many times and make space accessible. Unfortunately, Space Shuttle did not make that a reality as it was too complex and required a large multi month refurbishment after each mission. Starship should be able to solve that issue and make space accessible. At least that is the idea. We will see how it ends up.
ddevault 4y ago
The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO. It has a payload capacity and infrastructure which can economically deliver massive payloads to any solid surface in the solar system. It could send three full-sized bulldozers to Mars in a single trip. This is the largest scale space project ever conceived and portents a major shake-up to the space industry and a big step towards establishing a permanent human presence off Earth.
- BenoitP 4y ago
  $10/kg to LEO is insane
  - detuur 4y ago
    It is. The Falcon 9, of which there have been hundreds of launches already, costs $60 Million per launch. And somehow Musk thinks he can make a rocket that is 10 times bigger 30 times cheaper? Wishful thinking. Best case imho is that they take the launch cost down to about 200M-ish over the next 15 years. That's a cost of $1000/kg and sounds about right to me.
  - markdown 4y ago
    That's the cost to SpaceX. There's no way they charge customers anywhere near that.
    - MPSimmons 4y ago
      Even if they charged $100/kg it would change the world.
- checkyoursudo 4y ago
  How much of a setback would disaster be? Would SpaceX keep going, or would failure leave room for competitors to take over? (If there are competitors? I don't even know tbqh.)
ragebol 4y ago
Falcon 9 can be partly reused. Falcon 1 was a predecessor, that only flew 4 times IIRC.
notfried 4y ago
TL;DR it’s the tallest and most powerful rocket, is reusable, designed to refuel in space, and intended to take cargo/humans to Mars, and thus its successful launch marks the beginning of us becoming a multi-planetary species, per Musk’s plan.
tjpnz 4y ago
There's far less certainty around how viable a system it will be and the only way to fully know is through a semi-successful test flight.
m348e912 4y ago
It has more engines than any rocketship, making it the most powerful rocket ever built. (33 total) https://ibb.co/7SrTK7P https://ibb.co/7SrTK7P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
blendergeek 4y ago
This will be the first ever launch of "Starship" SpaceX's next generation rocket. Starship (and more specifically the Super Heavy booster that carries Starship) is the most powerful rocket in history and is designed for the purpose of carrying humans to Mars. SpaceX's new Starlink satellites are much bigger than the old ones and really require a larger rocket - this will be Starship. This is also the first ever orbital flight test of a "Full Flow Staged Combustion Engine" [0], making the Raptor Engine the most advanced rocket engine in the world. Many people didn't think that full flow staged combustion would work so this is a great vindication of the concept. Starship will also be the lunar lander for the upcoming NASA Artemis moon landings. [0] https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-engine-cycles/ https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-engine-cycles/
- IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
  Thank you for this
  - aeternum 4y ago
    The key difference is that this is 100% reusable. With Falcon and Falcon heavy, the second stage is non-recoverable which is still quite expensive.
HopenHeyHi 4y ago
They currently send up Starlink satellites in batches of about 50 on the Falcon 9. On a more or less weekly cadence or 4 times/200 satellites a month. When Starship gets going it might carry as many as 400+ per launch. In other words eventually they'll be able to throw more stuff into orbit in 1 month than they currently can in 1 year. It literally means their bottle neck will be producing enough starlinks, and other payloads, per day. Incidentally, those things are also used by the military and in Ukraine. Having this much payload capacity at this moment in time is very important. Without SpaceX people who want to put satellites into orbit would be somewhat at the mercy of Russia and China as capacity elsewhere is extremely limited.
tempaway45751 4y ago
I'd argue not that much actually _riding_ on this, it might just blow up on the launchpad or it might go up in the air. Either way they will try again in a few months. So the difference between success (defined by musk as getting far away enough from the launchpad not to damage it) and failure (rud on pad) is a few months on the development timeline and money to rebuild the (quite complicated) tower. Will be fun to watch either way, unless its a scrub. If they have, like, 3 consecutive launchpad explosions over the next few years, then maybe we'd start talking about the whole project being in trouble. If it actually does the whole flightpath then that will be pretty amazing. The other question, why is this important: Its the biggest, most re-usable most ambitious rocket ever made. The 33 engines, apart from being numerous, are of a design more ambitious/challenging than any other rocket engine we've ever seen. (edit: engine adjectives)
- phkahler 4y ago
  >> Even each one of the 33 engines has more complicated design than any other rocket engine we've ever seen. I was with you up to there. Spacex loves simple designs. The Raptor seems much simpler that the Space Shuttle main engines for example. Moat advanced design maybe, but not sure about "complicsted".
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    To be fair at least one of the intermediate raptors was quite complicated, gp's info might just be out of date
  - tempaway45751 4y ago
    ok maybe complicated is the wrong word, but my understanding is that full-flow staged combustion was rated as very hard to develop verging on impossible a decade or two ago https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ https://hackaday.com/2019/02/13/the-impossible-tech-behind-spacexs-new-engine/ https://hackaday.com/2019/02/13/the-impossible-tech-behind-s...
  - sbuttgereit 4y ago

saberdancer 4y ago

It is the largest rocket in history and it is planned to be fully reusable. If SpaceX manage to make this work they will have a launch vehicle capable of launching much more mass to orbit which will open up space exploration.

zozbot234 4y ago
It also provides us with a kind of access to space that we lost when the Space Shuttles were grounded. It's interesting that the Shuttle was considered a hugely wasteful boondoggle in its day and age, yet now a private profit-seeking enterprise is making something that's just as capable on a way bigger scale.
- agloe_dreams 4y ago
  I would argue that the Space Shuttle was mostly wasteful because it really wasn't that reusable. You had to fully refurbish the SRBs, you lose the tank, The Shuttles required a ton of refurbishment themselves, all for a rather small amount of mass to orbit.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  The shuttle ended up having a cost of $1.5B per launch. Starship is aiming for a cost of $2M per launch. They'll likely miss that goal, but even missing by an order of magnitude will be a huge game changer. And obviously price will be very different from cost. We're looking at the cost of a tonne to orbit being similar to what a kg was during the shuttle era.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    the problem with the space shuttle is that it's minimum payload was an airplane with room for 7 people. it's like if you wanted to mail someone a letter so you put the letter in a van, and called a towing company to send the van.
- bobsmooth 4y ago
  The shuttle was hamstrung by DoD and senate requirements.
  - dTal 4y ago
    Arguably the entire concept was flawed, fueled more by a sci-fi concept of "wouldn't it be cool if" rather than a sober cost-benefit analysis. It was a space station, built into a rocket, built into an airplane that is also a reentry vehicle - most of the motivation to reuse the vehicle in the first place goes away if you don't make it so damn complex! It just makes so much more sense to launch big payloads on heavy lift rockets, humans separately on human rated craft, and leave the space station part (robot arm etc) in orbit. (The one type of mission you can't do without something like an orbiter is satellite retrieval. This capability was used a total of 4 times. Not really worth it.)
    - brookst 4y ago
      I am 100% good with NASA pursuing "wouldn't it be cool if" and leaving sober ROI-gated developments to private industry.
    - Kim_Bruning 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System The actual concept was actually pretty decent (even kerbals would say so!), except somehow it got cut down to the point of uselessness.
- saberdancer 4y ago
  It is the same idea that they had for a Space Shuttle. Reusable vehicle that can be used many times and make space accessible. Unfortunately, Space Shuttle did not make that a reality as it was too complex and required a large multi month refurbishment after each mission. Starship should be able to solve that issue and make space accessible. At least that is the idea. We will see how it ends up.

ddevault 4y ago

The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO. It has a payload capacity and infrastructure which can economically deliver massive payloads to any solid surface in the solar system. It could send three full-sized bulldozers to Mars in a single trip. This is the largest scale space project ever conceived and portents a major shake-up to the space industry and a big step towards establishing a permanent human presence off Earth.

BenoitP 4y ago
$10/kg to LEO is insane
- detuur 4y ago
  It is. The Falcon 9, of which there have been hundreds of launches already, costs $60 Million per launch. And somehow Musk thinks he can make a rocket that is 10 times bigger 30 times cheaper? Wishful thinking. Best case imho is that they take the launch cost down to about 200M-ish over the next 15 years. That's a cost of $1000/kg and sounds about right to me.
- markdown 4y ago
  That's the cost to SpaceX. There's no way they charge customers anywhere near that.
  - MPSimmons 4y ago
    Even if they charged $100/kg it would change the world.
checkyoursudo 4y ago
How much of a setback would disaster be? Would SpaceX keep going, or would failure leave room for competitors to take over? (If there are competitors? I don't even know tbqh.)

ragebol 4y ago

Falcon 9 can be partly reused. Falcon 1 was a predecessor, that only flew 4 times IIRC.

notfried 4y ago

TL;DR it’s the tallest and most powerful rocket, is reusable, designed to refuel in space, and intended to take cargo/humans to Mars, and thus its successful launch marks the beginning of us becoming a multi-planetary species, per Musk’s plan.

tjpnz 4y ago

There's far less certainty around how viable a system it will be and the only way to fully know is through a semi-successful test flight.

m348e912 4y ago

It has more engines than any rocketship, making it the most powerful rocket ever built. (33 total) https://ibb.co/7SrTK7P https://ibb.co/7SrTK7P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship

blendergeek 4y ago

This will be the first ever launch of "Starship" SpaceX's next generation rocket. Starship (and more specifically the Super Heavy booster that carries Starship) is the most powerful rocket in history and is designed for the purpose of carrying humans to Mars. SpaceX's new Starlink satellites are much bigger than the old ones and really require a larger rocket - this will be Starship. This is also the first ever orbital flight test of a "Full Flow Staged Combustion Engine" [0], making the Raptor Engine the most advanced rocket engine in the world. Many people didn't think that full flow staged combustion would work so this is a great vindication of the concept. Starship will also be the lunar lander for the upcoming NASA Artemis moon landings. [0] https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-engine-cycles/ https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-engine-cycles/

IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
Thank you for this
- aeternum 4y ago
  The key difference is that this is 100% reusable. With Falcon and Falcon heavy, the second stage is non-recoverable which is still quite expensive.

HopenHeyHi 4y ago

They currently send up Starlink satellites in batches of about 50 on the Falcon 9. On a more or less weekly cadence or 4 times/200 satellites a month. When Starship gets going it might carry as many as 400+ per launch. In other words eventually they'll be able to throw more stuff into orbit in 1 month than they currently can in 1 year. It literally means their bottle neck will be producing enough starlinks, and other payloads, per day. Incidentally, those things are also used by the military and in Ukraine. Having this much payload capacity at this moment in time is very important. Without SpaceX people who want to put satellites into orbit would be somewhat at the mercy of Russia and China as capacity elsewhere is extremely limited.

tempaway45751 4y ago

I'd argue not that much actually _riding_ on this, it might just blow up on the launchpad or it might go up in the air. Either way they will try again in a few months. So the difference between success (defined by musk as getting far away enough from the launchpad not to damage it) and failure (rud on pad) is a few months on the development timeline and money to rebuild the (quite complicated) tower. Will be fun to watch either way, unless its a scrub. If they have, like, 3 consecutive launchpad explosions over the next few years, then maybe we'd start talking about the whole project being in trouble. If it actually does the whole flightpath then that will be pretty amazing. The other question, why is this important: Its the biggest, most re-usable most ambitious rocket ever made. The 33 engines, apart from being numerous, are of a design more ambitious/challenging than any other rocket engine we've ever seen. (edit: engine adjectives)

phkahler 4y ago
>> Even each one of the 33 engines has more complicated design than any other rocket engine we've ever seen. I was with you up to there. Spacex loves simple designs. The Raptor seems much simpler that the Space Shuttle main engines for example. Moat advanced design maybe, but not sure about "complicsted".
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  To be fair at least one of the intermediate raptors was quite complicated, gp's info might just be out of date
- tempaway45751 4y ago
  ok maybe complicated is the wrong word, but my understanding is that full-flow staged combustion was rated as very hard to develop verging on impossible a decade or two ago https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ https://hackaday.com/2019/02/13/the-impossible-tech-behind-spacexs-new-engine/ https://hackaday.com/2019/02/13/the-impossible-tech-behind-s...
- sbuttgereit 4y ago