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Citations, please. NASA's largest payments to SpaceX that I'm aware of have been part of the commercial crewed flight program, which was openly bid, and which

Citations, please. NASA's largest payments to SpaceX that I'm aware of have been part of the commercial crewed flight program, which was openly bid, and which SpaceX has provided the only fully working system so far. Starliner, the only major competitor, is a half-decade behind schedule and stuck at the space station at the moment. Starlink seems to be raking in the cash, and has provided great low-risk demonstration of the world's first flight-proven rockets. Starship has made it to orbit twice now. With apogees intended to bring it down safely in case of failure, as is prudent with a new platform. But orbital velocity is orbital velocity, and Starship has achieved it.

scotty79 2y ago
"In April, NASA selected Musk's aerospace company SpaceX for a $2.89 billion contract to work toward landing "commercial" humans on the moon. Musk beat out Jeff Bezos's aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin for the contract, which gives NASA use of Musk's Starship spacecraft to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon. Musk's company has been developing the spacecraft with the intent of taking the first humans to Mars. " https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12#spacex-lands-a-289-billion-contract-with-nasa-in-april-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-su... > Starship has made it to orbit twice now. With apogees intended to bring it down safely in case of failure, as is prudent with a new platform. But orbital velocity is orbital velocity, and Starship has achieved it. That's still suborbital flight, basically ballistic because they didn't re-ignite engines in space, even if it had orbital velocity (of some orbit) at some point. Also flight no. 3 was helplessly tumbling so even if they could reignite engines it would just move randomly. So far it was basically flung piece of ballistic garbage. Only the last flight achieved some control and only half-burnt on re-entry. The only thing that worked was landing burn (which they had a lot of practice with Falcons) and their engines very gradually improving reliability, which I assume could be done without fireworks if they didn't intend to re-ignite them in vacuum and zero gravity yet. Project Apollo was way further by their fourth flight, without any modern engineering or computing. Falcons are solid although market for their services is mostly Starlink, because the rest of humanity simply doesn't need to hurl as much stuff into orbit yet. Starship is Cybertruck. Baby of Musk's "genius" where "vision" (to mislead investors) overrides actual engineering.
- timschmidt 2y ago
  I don't see anywhere in your citation how much of that money has been dispensed, or for what milestones. $2.89 Billion would have paid for exactly one shuttle launch (https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...). Sounds like a deal to me. > That's still suborbital flight You're just making yourself look silly here. Folks who regularly report on space like Scott Manley have spoken at length about the difficulties in achieving orbit and consider Starship to have done so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo An orbit regularizing burn is not a large obstacle compared to achieving orbital veloticy. The delta-v involved is minuscule. > Project Apollo was way further by their fourth flight Project Apollo operated under different engineering principles which emphasized extra expenditure prior to flight to attempt to ensure successful flights. Starship is being engineered through flight-testing which is closer to how the Russian space program did things. Flying rockets is less expensive than spending endless engineer hours testing on the ground and for something the size and flight profile of Starship, no ground testing can ever fully simulate the forces involved. You're either ill informed, or starting with a conclusion and reaching for things to justify it.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    > I don't see anywhere in your citation how much of that money has been dispensed, or for what milestones. I don't think milestones are public but I can guess that there was some money up front and that some money was attached to Starship launches. That actually explains why SpaceX is sending barely ready empty tubes on ballistic trajectories for no sensible reason whatsoever. And does stupid checkbox things like "opening bay doors" that barely work, even though there's nothing on both sides. > $2.89 Billion would have paid for exactly one shuttle launch (https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost- https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...). Sounds like a deal to me. Depends if you are actually getting the thing or just brief illusion of hope of getting some part of the thing. When it comes to realistic estimates I'd trust Bezos over Musk any day. And Musk outbid him hugely. > An orbit regularizing burn is not a large obstacle compared to achieving orbital veloticy. It is a key thing if you never re-lit your engines in vacuum and zero-g. They broke and exploded in earlier flights after relighting in way more favorable conditions. > Flying rockets is less expensive than spending endless engineer hours testing on the ground and for something the size and flight profile of Starship, no ground testing can ever fully simulate the forces involved. That would have been true. If SpaceX had computers Russians had in the 60-ties. Ability for modelling and simulations and to test things properly on the ground skyrocketed (pun intended) over last few decades. Be real with yourself. Don't but those excuses. They are half-assing it for the grant money they need rather sooner than later. And don't start high-and-mighty ad hominem at me. It serves no purpose. I'm dead inside. Also watch some Thunderf00t between your Scott Manley-s.

scotty79 2y ago

"In April, NASA selected Musk's aerospace company SpaceX for a $2.89 billion contract to work toward landing "commercial" humans on the moon. Musk beat out Jeff Bezos's aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin for the contract, which gives NASA use of Musk's Starship spacecraft to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon. Musk's company has been developing the spacecraft with the intent of taking the first humans to Mars. " https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12#spacex-lands-a-289-billion-contract-with-nasa-in-april-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-su... > Starship has made it to orbit twice now. With apogees intended to bring it down safely in case of failure, as is prudent with a new platform. But orbital velocity is orbital velocity, and Starship has achieved it. That's still suborbital flight, basically ballistic because they didn't re-ignite engines in space, even if it had orbital velocity (of some orbit) at some point. Also flight no. 3 was helplessly tumbling so even if they could reignite engines it would just move randomly. So far it was basically flung piece of ballistic garbage. Only the last flight achieved some control and only half-burnt on re-entry. The only thing that worked was landing burn (which they had a lot of practice with Falcons) and their engines very gradually improving reliability, which I assume could be done without fireworks if they didn't intend to re-ignite them in vacuum and zero gravity yet. Project Apollo was way further by their fourth flight, without any modern engineering or computing. Falcons are solid although market for their services is mostly Starlink, because the rest of humanity simply doesn't need to hurl as much stuff into orbit yet. Starship is Cybertruck. Baby of Musk's "genius" where "vision" (to mislead investors) overrides actual engineering.

timschmidt 2y ago
I don't see anywhere in your citation how much of that money has been dispensed, or for what milestones. $2.89 Billion would have paid for exactly one shuttle launch (https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...). Sounds like a deal to me. > That's still suborbital flight You're just making yourself look silly here. Folks who regularly report on space like Scott Manley have spoken at length about the difficulties in achieving orbit and consider Starship to have done so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo An orbit regularizing burn is not a large obstacle compared to achieving orbital veloticy. The delta-v involved is minuscule. > Project Apollo was way further by their fourth flight Project Apollo operated under different engineering principles which emphasized extra expenditure prior to flight to attempt to ensure successful flights. Starship is being engineered through flight-testing which is closer to how the Russian space program did things. Flying rockets is less expensive than spending endless engineer hours testing on the ground and for something the size and flight profile of Starship, no ground testing can ever fully simulate the forces involved. You're either ill informed, or starting with a conclusion and reaching for things to justify it.
- scotty79 2y ago
  > I don't see anywhere in your citation how much of that money has been dispensed, or for what milestones. I don't think milestones are public but I can guess that there was some money up front and that some money was attached to Starship launches. That actually explains why SpaceX is sending barely ready empty tubes on ballistic trajectories for no sensible reason whatsoever. And does stupid checkbox things like "opening bay doors" that barely work, even though there's nothing on both sides. > $2.89 Billion would have paid for exactly one shuttle launch (https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost- https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...). Sounds like a deal to me. Depends if you are actually getting the thing or just brief illusion of hope of getting some part of the thing. When it comes to realistic estimates I'd trust Bezos over Musk any day. And Musk outbid him hugely. > An orbit regularizing burn is not a large obstacle compared to achieving orbital veloticy. It is a key thing if you never re-lit your engines in vacuum and zero-g. They broke and exploded in earlier flights after relighting in way more favorable conditions. > Flying rockets is less expensive than spending endless engineer hours testing on the ground and for something the size and flight profile of Starship, no ground testing can ever fully simulate the forces involved. That would have been true. If SpaceX had computers Russians had in the 60-ties. Ability for modelling and simulations and to test things properly on the ground skyrocketed (pun intended) over last few decades. Be real with yourself. Don't but those excuses. They are half-assing it for the grant money they need rather sooner than later. And don't start high-and-mighty ad hominem at me. It serves no purpose. I'm dead inside. Also watch some Thunderf00t between your Scott Manley-s.