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The vision is that the cost per unit of mass to orbit will come down massively with Starship, once it's launching like the Falcon. That will open up hitherto un
by qsi 2y ago
The vision is that the cost per unit of mass to orbit will come down massively with Starship, once it's launching like the Falcon. That will open up hitherto unimaginable missions and markets. And customers. It's all about the the cost!
- simiones 2y agoLike? What industry really needs things floating in space that are only constrained by cost to launch? I can see lots of science mission perhaps, but even that seems somewhat limited.
- tekla 2y agoInternet
- dylan604 2y agoThere have been tests of producing fiber optic cables (iirc) made in zeroG. There are other things as well that are way too cost prohibitive now, but might become viable opportunities with this type of capability.
- ctoth 2y agoAsteroid mining.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoTourism is likely the next big market; cost is a major barrier.
- concurrentsquar 2y agoNobody has mentioned space-based solar power yet (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/otps-sbsp-report-final-tagged-approved-1-8-24-tagged-v2.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/otps-sbsp-re...: "Launch is the largest cost driver..."), which would the cheapest (and currently only technologically feasible) route to turn humanity into a Kardashev Type 1 (or 2 if we construct a Dyson swarm) civilization (without really cheap fusion reactors).
- dragonsky67 2y agoLike, pretty much 90% of any space based things from science fiction. Imagine if what you put in orbit (or indeed into deep space) was limited by your imagination, not by the very limited capability of launch vehicles. I would not be surprised that most revolutionary thing that this level of launch capacity will enable hasn't even been suggested yet.
- the8472 2y agoIt's not only about cost per kg but also maximum payload mass. If you can build bigger satellites then you don't need to optimize for weight as hard and can use cheaper components/standardize. Which means both launch cost and sat costs will come down.
- _ph_ 2y agoOr entirely new capabilities get developed. Look how long it took for the F9 Heavy to get any business because fitting payloads really only got planned and developed after it demonstrated its abilities. With the Starship, there will be single payloads of 100t or more - Elon is even talking about 200t in future versions. That is a total game changer. A station like the ISS could be set up much quicker. You could start designing real spaceships with e.g. ion drives. And a 100t payload might even cost less than currently a single F9 flight.