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Here's where things get really counter-intuitive. If Starship lives up to even a fraction of its potential, it's likely Falcon 9 will be completely retired, bec

Here's where things get really counter-intuitive. If Starship lives up to even a fraction of its potential, it's likely Falcon 9 will be completely retired, because Starship will cost less to launch! The entire point of the Starship is complete and instantaneous reuse. The idea is to have it launching something up, landing right back into its launch pad slot, and then going again. The ridiculous cost saving potential is what makes all of this so much more revolutionary than most realize. This isn't just a new big rocket. This is the most powerful rocket ever built, with the goal of launching it for less than the cheapest rockets cost. The current goal is to aim for $10 million within a few years, and then keep pushing it lower. For contrast, a Falcon 9 currently costs about $67 million to send 18 tons to orbit. Rocket Lab's Electron micro-rocket costs $7.5 million to send 0.3 tons to orbit. Starship can deliver 150 tons to orbit, a number that is planned to increase substantially. The thing about space is that the potential is infinite, but it only becomes possible to start doing stuff once you get launch costs really low. Falcon 9 has brought launch costs down by orders of magnitude, but most people don't even realize this because unless you're a giant telecoms company or something, then $2000/kg doesn't sound that different than $50,000/kg --- wayyyyy too expensive for anything. But now imagine a world where you could launch things for $10/kg. Suddenly the entire universe opens up to expansion and exploitation, and life as we know it would basically change overnight.

concurrentsquar 2y ago
Calculating the cost per kilogram for LEO with Starship gives me a new startup idea: small business (or even personal) interplanetary postal service. It only costs $150 per kg in the near future to send objects into space with Starship; so I could, for example, send a Raspberry Pi (47 grams) into LEO for ~7 dollars (as long as I also had 149 tons of other objects from other people to send). A more useful use case would sending fully automated manufacturing facilities (probably either for semiconductors (https://www.nasa.gov/general/the-benefits-of-semiconductor-manufacturing-in-low-earth-orbit-leo-for-terrestrial-use/ https://www.nasa.gov/general/the-benefits-of-semiconductor-m...) or crystals (https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2017/07/proteinxl https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2017/07/proteinxl))
positr0n 2y ago
What are some example applications that could change life overnight, besides planet-wide connectivity?
- somenameforme 2y ago
  I'm not fond of speaking in specifics. The reason is that everything I am saying is, to the best of my knowledge, correct but the results sounds just so difficult to imagine. It's something like the opposite of cognitive dissonance. I know what I'm saying is true and it also leads to other things that I believe to be true, but the result is so difficult to imagine, that I have difficulty even believing myself. So it's quite odd! But taking things in the abstract, single digit prices per kg to space would transform the Moon (or space in general) to just another place to build stuff and expand out into. Obviously there are technological hurdles but nothing particularly challenging, especially in contexts where we could have regular traffic flow to/from Earth. The possibilities of this rapidly enter into the sci-fi domain. But there seems no real reason for that "fi" suffix to really exist in these scenarios. So again, it's all just quite weird. If things work out as they seem increasingly likely to, then are all living through what will be the most critical segue in humanity's history to date, and perhaps ever. So far as we know space really is the final frontier, and once we can start expanding outward into that, humanity's existence will be radically shifted, and our perpetuation as a species will also be all but completely guaranteed.
- kaliqt 2y ago
  To be brief: Large orbital habitats, like Elysium. Asteroid, moon, and Mars mining. Colonization of the aforementioned, space trade and shipping between Mankind's Interstellar Empire. Demand will rise for energy production and terraforming, all kinds of things will boom. All of a sudden we'll have 100,000x more resources per man than we have now. Everything changes on that track. Everything.

concurrentsquar 2y ago

Calculating the cost per kilogram for LEO with Starship gives me a new startup idea: small business (or even personal) interplanetary postal service. It only costs $150 per kg in the near future to send objects into space with Starship; so I could, for example, send a Raspberry Pi (47 grams) into LEO for ~7 dollars (as long as I also had 149 tons of other objects from other people to send). A more useful use case would sending fully automated manufacturing facilities (probably either for semiconductors (https://www.nasa.gov/general/the-benefits-of-semiconductor-manufacturing-in-low-earth-orbit-leo-for-terrestrial-use/ https://www.nasa.gov/general/the-benefits-of-semiconductor-m...) or crystals (https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2017/07/proteinxl https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2017/07/proteinxl))

positr0n 2y ago

What are some example applications that could change life overnight, besides planet-wide connectivity?

somenameforme 2y ago
I'm not fond of speaking in specifics. The reason is that everything I am saying is, to the best of my knowledge, correct but the results sounds just so difficult to imagine. It's something like the opposite of cognitive dissonance. I know what I'm saying is true and it also leads to other things that I believe to be true, but the result is so difficult to imagine, that I have difficulty even believing myself. So it's quite odd! But taking things in the abstract, single digit prices per kg to space would transform the Moon (or space in general) to just another place to build stuff and expand out into. Obviously there are technological hurdles but nothing particularly challenging, especially in contexts where we could have regular traffic flow to/from Earth. The possibilities of this rapidly enter into the sci-fi domain. But there seems no real reason for that "fi" suffix to really exist in these scenarios. So again, it's all just quite weird. If things work out as they seem increasingly likely to, then are all living through what will be the most critical segue in humanity's history to date, and perhaps ever. So far as we know space really is the final frontier, and once we can start expanding outward into that, humanity's existence will be radically shifted, and our perpetuation as a species will also be all but completely guaranteed.
kaliqt 2y ago
To be brief: Large orbital habitats, like Elysium. Asteroid, moon, and Mars mining. Colonization of the aforementioned, space trade and shipping between Mankind's Interstellar Empire. Demand will rise for energy production and terraforming, all kinds of things will boom. All of a sudden we'll have 100,000x more resources per man than we have now. Everything changes on that track. Everything.