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The nice thing about fuel launches though is that the cargo isn't valuable. You're not launching exquisite rovers or satellites -- you're launching a bunch of
by ethbr1 2y ago
The nice thing about fuel launches though is that the cargo isn't valuable.
You're not launching exquisite rovers or satellites -- you're launching a bunch of fuel.
So if a reused Starship blows up on accent*, that's not great, but it's not terrible either. Load the next one and try again.
* Obviously, you want to be much more careful on rendezvous
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> if a reused Starship blows up on accent, that's not great, but it's not terrible either You're correct. But Starship, being a multi-use spacecraft, can't capitalise on this differential. Fuel-only launch enables high-g launch options, e.g. rail guns. It could also enable low-reliability low-cost options, but the nature of space launch hasn't opened that niche up, and--I suspect--the nature of environmental regulations ensure it never will.
- ethbr1 2y agoI'd make the point that it can, because {cost for relaunch} = {refurb cost} + {recertification cost}. And likewise, probability of relaunch success scales with the money and time spent on those other two. In fact, I'd strongly argue that fuel-to-orbit is Starship's version of Falcon's "Starlink demand seeding." It's win/win if SpaceX has a high-volume, low-payload-cost, revenue-generating demand for Starship, as it gives them a failure tolerant mission to push relaunches to failure and then use that data to improve future reuse reliability. Of all the things SpaceX has done, getting themselves into positive-feedback flywheels has been the smartest.