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Let's hope they continue making progress. Expected failures are fine. Unexpected failures have the potential to derail such a program for years.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Unexpected failures have the potential to derail such a program for years Catastrophic ones, sure. But not just the unexpected. If you aren’t unexpectedly failing in such an endeavour, you’re not pushing hard enough.
panick21_ 2y ago
Not really. Anything other then outright shooting a rocket at an inhabited area, years of derail is incredibly unlikely.
Culonavirus 2y ago
> Unexpected failures That's literally why SpaceX tests the way it does. Unexpected failures are this program's M.O... It's a test program and Starship, unlike Falcon, is not operational (let alone human rated). They can -and do- retrofit fixes to the new vehicles they already had at the time of an anomaly and are now capable of going SN to SN pretty fast (months). An unexpected failure in a program like Vulcan or SLS would -maybe- derail it for years. I say maybe because Vulcan's upper stage's tank exploded during testing and it barely moved its schedule. SLS is a different beast, precisely because they simulate and ground-test every single little detail and possibility and building another SLS with fixes would probably be a multi-year project.
- jojobas 2y ago
  It has the capacity to derail it forever as SpaceX has largely burned through their NASA cash already.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    SpaceX is not cash constrained. Every offering they do is extremely limited in terms of who they let invest, yet is still always massively oversubscribed. They're spending multiple billions per year on both Starship and Starlink but haven't been tapping the capital markets -- IOW internal cash flow is also massive.
    - whamlastxmas 2y ago
      Elon would also undoubtedly pour his Tesla money into SpaceX to keep it afloat. He's a lot more passionate about SpaceX than Tesla. But it's a moot point because SpaceX has a massively profitable monopoly on efficient space launches and probably will for a very long time.
      - jojobas 2y ago
        Which Tesla money? He said if they don't "solve" self-driving Tesla is worth zero. Nobody really knows how profitable SpaceX is.
  - Culonavirus 2y ago
    NASA's cash is nice to have. But it's not what's important to SpaceX at this point. Their estimated valuation is somewhere in the $200bn range. Their cash cow is Starlink (with 3 million subscribers and growing each month), the future profitability and competitivity of which is highly dependent on Starship being operational and fully reusable. I know Elon says Multiplanetary this and Mars that but the real reason for the Starship push is Starlink. They need Starship to put bigger (V2s non-minis and V3s) and more satellites into the orbit if they want to get to that 35000 number this decade and not break the bank. They need to hurry before the likes of Amazon get their shit together and start building their own internet satellite constellations.
    - marssaxman 2y ago
      > I know Elon says Multiplanetary this and Mars that but the real reason for the Starship push is Starlink. Elon Musk has been talking about Mars colonization since 2001, and first brought up the idea of a "Mars Colonial Transporter" mega-rocket in 2012. Starlink did not come along until 2016; that business was created to provide a profit-generating customer for Starship.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Unexpected failures have the potential to derail such a program for years Catastrophic ones, sure. But not just the unexpected. If you aren’t unexpectedly failing in such an endeavour, you’re not pushing hard enough.

panick21_ 2y ago

Not really. Anything other then outright shooting a rocket at an inhabited area, years of derail is incredibly unlikely.

Culonavirus 2y ago

> Unexpected failures That's literally why SpaceX tests the way it does. Unexpected failures are this program's M.O... It's a test program and Starship, unlike Falcon, is not operational (let alone human rated). They can -and do- retrofit fixes to the new vehicles they already had at the time of an anomaly and are now capable of going SN to SN pretty fast (months). An unexpected failure in a program like Vulcan or SLS would -maybe- derail it for years. I say maybe because Vulcan's upper stage's tank exploded during testing and it barely moved its schedule. SLS is a different beast, precisely because they simulate and ground-test every single little detail and possibility and building another SLS with fixes would probably be a multi-year project.

jojobas 2y ago
It has the capacity to derail it forever as SpaceX has largely burned through their NASA cash already.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  SpaceX is not cash constrained. Every offering they do is extremely limited in terms of who they let invest, yet is still always massively oversubscribed. They're spending multiple billions per year on both Starship and Starlink but haven't been tapping the capital markets -- IOW internal cash flow is also massive.
  - whamlastxmas 2y ago
    Elon would also undoubtedly pour his Tesla money into SpaceX to keep it afloat. He's a lot more passionate about SpaceX than Tesla. But it's a moot point because SpaceX has a massively profitable monopoly on efficient space launches and probably will for a very long time.
    - jojobas 2y ago
      Which Tesla money? He said if they don't "solve" self-driving Tesla is worth zero. Nobody really knows how profitable SpaceX is.
- Culonavirus 2y ago
  NASA's cash is nice to have. But it's not what's important to SpaceX at this point. Their estimated valuation is somewhere in the $200bn range. Their cash cow is Starlink (with 3 million subscribers and growing each month), the future profitability and competitivity of which is highly dependent on Starship being operational and fully reusable. I know Elon says Multiplanetary this and Mars that but the real reason for the Starship push is Starlink. They need Starship to put bigger (V2s non-minis and V3s) and more satellites into the orbit if they want to get to that 35000 number this decade and not break the bank. They need to hurry before the likes of Amazon get their shit together and start building their own internet satellite constellations.
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    > I know Elon says Multiplanetary this and Mars that but the real reason for the Starship push is Starlink. Elon Musk has been talking about Mars colonization since 2001, and first brought up the idea of a "Mars Colonial Transporter" mega-rocket in 2012. Starlink did not come along until 2016; that business was created to provide a profit-generating customer for Starship.