3 ms·

Starship isn't the ticket to colonizing Mars despite the hype. They're just not big enough to bring the people and the goods they would need to even tenuously s

by rtkwe 3y ago

Starship isn't the ticket to colonizing Mars despite the hype. They're just not big enough to bring the people and the goods they would need to even tenuously subsist for a few months at least not the 100 per ship Musk claims would be possible.

enslavedrobot 3y ago
At 10$/kg to LEO it most definitely is, despite the thuderfoot videos.
- rtkwe 3y ago
  Cost to orbit isn't the only issue, maybe as part of building something else but actually shipping 100 people to Mars on Starship is wildly impractical. First big hurdle is actually getting the Eyes Wide Shut refueling to work and you have to do it multiple times for each Starship you're sending. Then there's not that much space in the upper stage of Starships to pack that many people and several months worth of food. It's approaching possible but you'd be jammed in like cordwood not having the time of your life in a big open atrium.
marssaxman 3y ago
As I understand the plan, Starship is the ticket to launching incredible numbers of Starlink satellites very cheaply, which will lead to enormous profits, which will fund the development of an even larger successor rocket, which will allow colonization.
- rtkwe 3y ago
  If that's the plan no one told SpaceX's PR team to use a different rocket design on their pages or Musk himself as recently as 2020. AFAIK he's never said anything about a successor rocket to BFR/Starship being the actual colonization vehicle. https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/ https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/ https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217990326867988480 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217990326867988480 https://www.space.com/elon-musk-starship-spacex-flights-mars-colony.html https://www.space.com/elon-musk-starship-spacex-flights-mars...
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    Perhaps I am reading too much into it - I'm no insider! - but the original 100-tons-to-Mars "ITS" proposal called for a rocket 12 meters in diameter, quite a bit larger than the current 9-meter Starship; then Elon Musk made some tweet back in 2019 after the Starhopper test suggesting that the "next gen system" would actually be 18 meters wide. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1166856662336102401 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1166856662336102401 I can't find anything about any of this on spacex.com. Maybe they've changed the plan or maybe they're just not thinking so much about Mars colonization lately, who knows.
    - rtkwe 3y ago
      He's been much more consistent about "Starship" to Mars than a single tweet about a "next-gen". Maybe they are but Starship is what they're currently saying will take people to Mars and he's said that for a while.

by rtkwe 3y ago

enslavedrobot 3y ago

At 10$/kg to LEO it most definitely is, despite the thuderfoot videos.

rtkwe 3y ago
Cost to orbit isn't the only issue, maybe as part of building something else but actually shipping 100 people to Mars on Starship is wildly impractical. First big hurdle is actually getting the Eyes Wide Shut refueling to work and you have to do it multiple times for each Starship you're sending. Then there's not that much space in the upper stage of Starships to pack that many people and several months worth of food. It's approaching possible but you'd be jammed in like cordwood not having the time of your life in a big open atrium.

marssaxman 3y ago

As I understand the plan, Starship is the ticket to launching incredible numbers of Starlink satellites very cheaply, which will lead to enormous profits, which will fund the development of an even larger successor rocket, which will allow colonization.

rtkwe 3y ago
If that's the plan no one told SpaceX's PR team to use a different rocket design on their pages or Musk himself as recently as 2020. AFAIK he's never said anything about a successor rocket to BFR/Starship being the actual colonization vehicle. https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/ https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/ https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217990326867988480 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217990326867988480 https://www.space.com/elon-musk-starship-spacex-flights-mars-colony.html https://www.space.com/elon-musk-starship-spacex-flights-mars...
- marssaxman 3y ago
  Perhaps I am reading too much into it - I'm no insider! - but the original 100-tons-to-Mars "ITS" proposal called for a rocket 12 meters in diameter, quite a bit larger than the current 9-meter Starship; then Elon Musk made some tweet back in 2019 after the Starhopper test suggesting that the "next gen system" would actually be 18 meters wide. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1166856662336102401 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1166856662336102401 I can't find anything about any of this on spacex.com. Maybe they've changed the plan or maybe they're just not thinking so much about Mars colonization lately, who knows.
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    He's been much more consistent about "Starship" to Mars than a single tweet about a "next-gen". Maybe they are but Starship is what they're currently saying will take people to Mars and he's said that for a while.