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It's really hard to put a dollar value on what the value of having something like SpaceX Starship available is, and it's hard to evaluate what the Starship proj
by lukeschlather 2y ago
It's really hard to put a dollar value on what the value of having something like SpaceX Starship available is, and it's hard to evaluate what the Starship project would look like if we hadn't put the money into the Apollo/ISS/STS/SLS before.
With the current state of things, I would bet that with a fully reusable orbiter like Starship, space-based solar with microwave transmitters will probably be a cheaper option than fusion. But we should work on both because we can't predict it until both are tried. It's easy to say no to a project when we don't know what the outcome will be, but we need to take on a lot of big risky projects to see which ones give outsized returns.
- Dylan16807 2y agoSLS only started in 2011. If SpaceX learned anything from it, it was not much and it was after they'd proven themselves. Starship has been quite from-scratch outside of the engines.
- lukeschlather 2y agoI mean, SLS was definitely a waste of money, and arguably so was STS. But that's easier to say in hindsight, and it's also easy to say in hindsight that SpaceX had an obviously better approach, but that was harder to support in 2011.
- pfdietz 2y agoOh, I think plenty of insiders were calling STS a waste in foresight. I recall a story (no source, sorry) that one of von Braun's people lamented about it: "they've reinvented the wheel, and made it square." Minimum Cost Design methodology for launchers dates from the 1960s.