3 ms·

You seem to be under the impression that mass is the main restriction - it isn't. Like at all. Starship as a concept is nothing new - the Soviets developed the

by qayxc 3y ago

You seem to be under the impression that mass is the main restriction - it isn't. Like at all. Starship as a concept is nothing new - the Soviets developed the Energia in the late 1980s and the second version was supposed to be 100% reusable as well. After the downfall of the Soviet Union, Roskosmos couldn't find any customers for it, though, despite it being able to lift up to 100t to LEO and being super cheap. The thing is that the larger (and heavier) the payload, the more expensive it usually is. No one is launching dead mass to orbit just for shits and giggles. The bigger the vehicle, the more (expensive!) tech is packed into it. To give you a hint of why Starship wouldn't change the landscape as much as many seem to think: compare the number of launches between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy: the launch cadence of F9 is bi-weekly and rising, whereas FH had 8 launches in 5 years or less than 2 per year. The main purpose of Starship is to allow for Starlink to continue to exist and similar mega constellations to be launched. Single missions of 100t or more to LEO (Starship cannot go beyond that without refuelling) are usually multi-billion dollar flagship missions that simply don't launch very often.

pfdietz 3y ago
You are assuming the cost/mass of a spacecraft is somehow a constant of nature. It's not, not at all. Reduce the cost of launch and there's enormous benefit of reducing the cost of the spacecraft, since that cost now dominates. Use cheaper (if heavier) materials, use higher margins to reduce design and testing costs. Use COTS technology and spend mass (shielding, pressure vessel) to make it work in space. Perhaps most importantly: launch large numbers of spacecraft with the same design to amortize design cost over more vehicles. Reduce design cost by hardware-rich development where problems are found by testing in space, not exhaustive preliminary analysis.
- qayxc 3y ago
  The problem is that the assumption holds true more than ever: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/small-satellite-market-150947396.html https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/small-satel... Small sats are cheaper and a rapidly growing market. Technical question: what do you suppose a - say - 50t commercial payload would even be? Currently there's two options that I am aware of: space stations (where again launch cost is NOT the primary cost factor) and space telescopes. Unless you can provide actual data and facts, I am not convinced at all this is going to change. Especially, since COTS hardware already IS used in the commercial spacecraft business. You can simply buy a standard bus and put your own hardware on it. Heck, you can even buy satellite components online: https://www.cubesatshop.com https://www.cubesatshop.com
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    You post a link about satellite construction at current launch costs. That has nothing to do with what I was talking about, which is what happens when launch costs fall to as little as $10/kg. I want you to imagine what happens if two countries in conflict have cheap launch. Space assets are important, and it would become worthwhile to protect them. That means mass, the more the better. The market here would be almost unlimited. And that's just one possibility. Consider space manufacturing (like ZBLAN fibers), high power (multimegawatt) comsats, high resolution imaging from high orbit (mirrors tens of meters across). These are just off the cuff ideas; we could keep listing others. None of them have to be terribly convincing to rebut an argument there's obviously nothing to be done.
Ancapistani 3y ago
I feel like this is disingenuous. If launch costs truly go down to $300/kg - or even within an order of magnitude of that - you’ll see affluent hobbyists sending up microsatellites just because they can. Hell, I’d be interested in doing it if I could put together a 2kg package for under $20k or so. Why not?
- pfdietz 3y ago
  And $300/kg is the cost when they are still discarding the upper stage. The target for full reuse is more like $10/kg.
- fragmede 3y ago
  It would “only” cost $126 million to put the ISS in orbit at that price. At $300/kg, I could see a space hotel for the ultra rich (given the market for trips to the titanic). How much would a rich person pay to go stay at a space hotel for a week? Is $1 million out of the question? How many people paying that would you need to make it economically worth while? After 126 of them you’d pay for the cost to lift it to orbit, another 126 of them could pay for a lot of creating it and staffing, so we need 500 UHNW individuals to commit to taking a trip to space to have a space hotel be viable? I’m skipping some numbers here, but I’m sure there’s a pitch deck being circled around for that already. Edit: oh someone’s already way ahead of me. They’re charging $5million for a the day trip. https://www.businessinsider.com/voyager-station-first-ever-space-hotel-set-open-in-2027-2021-3#:~:text=The%20first%2Dever%20'space%20hotel,set%20to%20open%20in%202027.&text=Construction%20on%20the%20first%2Dever,will%20cost%20around%20%245%20million https://www.businessinsider.com/voyager-station-first-ever-s....
ben_w 3y ago
> The main purpose of Starship is to allow for Starlink to continue to exist Nope, the main purpose of Starship is to implement Musk's life goal: "to die on Mars, just not while landing". Will that happen? Too early to tell. But that's the goal.

by qayxc 3y ago

pfdietz 3y ago

You are assuming the cost/mass of a spacecraft is somehow a constant of nature. It's not, not at all. Reduce the cost of launch and there's enormous benefit of reducing the cost of the spacecraft, since that cost now dominates. Use cheaper (if heavier) materials, use higher margins to reduce design and testing costs. Use COTS technology and spend mass (shielding, pressure vessel) to make it work in space. Perhaps most importantly: launch large numbers of spacecraft with the same design to amortize design cost over more vehicles. Reduce design cost by hardware-rich development where problems are found by testing in space, not exhaustive preliminary analysis.

qayxc 3y ago
The problem is that the assumption holds true more than ever: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/small-satellite-market-150947396.html https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/small-satel... Small sats are cheaper and a rapidly growing market. Technical question: what do you suppose a - say - 50t commercial payload would even be? Currently there's two options that I am aware of: space stations (where again launch cost is NOT the primary cost factor) and space telescopes. Unless you can provide actual data and facts, I am not convinced at all this is going to change. Especially, since COTS hardware already IS used in the commercial spacecraft business. You can simply buy a standard bus and put your own hardware on it. Heck, you can even buy satellite components online: https://www.cubesatshop.com https://www.cubesatshop.com
- pfdietz 3y ago
  You post a link about satellite construction at current launch costs. That has nothing to do with what I was talking about, which is what happens when launch costs fall to as little as $10/kg. I want you to imagine what happens if two countries in conflict have cheap launch. Space assets are important, and it would become worthwhile to protect them. That means mass, the more the better. The market here would be almost unlimited. And that's just one possibility. Consider space manufacturing (like ZBLAN fibers), high power (multimegawatt) comsats, high resolution imaging from high orbit (mirrors tens of meters across). These are just off the cuff ideas; we could keep listing others. None of them have to be terribly convincing to rebut an argument there's obviously nothing to be done.

Ancapistani 3y ago

I feel like this is disingenuous. If launch costs truly go down to $300/kg - or even within an order of magnitude of that - you’ll see affluent hobbyists sending up microsatellites just because they can. Hell, I’d be interested in doing it if I could put together a 2kg package for under $20k or so. Why not?

pfdietz 3y ago
And $300/kg is the cost when they are still discarding the upper stage. The target for full reuse is more like $10/kg.
fragmede 3y ago
It would “only” cost $126 million to put the ISS in orbit at that price. At $300/kg, I could see a space hotel for the ultra rich (given the market for trips to the titanic). How much would a rich person pay to go stay at a space hotel for a week? Is $1 million out of the question? How many people paying that would you need to make it economically worth while? After 126 of them you’d pay for the cost to lift it to orbit, another 126 of them could pay for a lot of creating it and staffing, so we need 500 UHNW individuals to commit to taking a trip to space to have a space hotel be viable? I’m skipping some numbers here, but I’m sure there’s a pitch deck being circled around for that already. Edit: oh someone’s already way ahead of me. They’re charging $5million for a the day trip. https://www.businessinsider.com/voyager-station-first-ever-space-hotel-set-open-in-2027-2021-3#:~:text=The%20first%2Dever%20'space%20hotel,set%20to%20open%20in%202027.&text=Construction%20on%20the%20first%2Dever,will%20cost%20around%20%245%20million https://www.businessinsider.com/voyager-station-first-ever-s....

ben_w 3y ago

> The main purpose of Starship is to allow for Starlink to continue to exist Nope, the main purpose of Starship is to implement Musk's life goal: "to die on Mars, just not while landing". Will that happen? Too early to tell. But that's the goal.