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Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back
by modeless 2y ago
Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day.
Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.
- nexus6 2y agoIs there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?
- stetrain 2y agoIf we want to establish long term bases on the Moon or Mars then yes, you need not only to send crew and habitation modules but ongoing supplies and equipment. Other use cases include launching and maintaining satellite constellations (Starling / Starshield), and launching singular large payloads like space telescopes. Even for smaller payloads, having both the first and second stages be reusable will reduce launch costs.
- soperj 2y agoIf satellites don't have to worry as much about weight constraints they can be made cheaper and quicker. Space missions can become more routine.
- modeless 2y agoSpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time. In the near term the biggest reason to do multiple launches in a day will be orbital refueling. This is required for sending much, much larger payloads to the Moon and Mars. It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit, and obviously doing that as quickly as possible will be beneficial. NASA has already committed to this plan for Artemis.
- dmurray 2y ago> It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit Require, or just make comfortable? Saturn V had the lift capacity of "only" a couple of Falcon Heavies, but was enough to carry astronauts, a car, a lunar lander with enough fuel to take off, and a command module.
- modeless 2y agoWe're not trying to do Apollo again. That would be easier, but we want to build a base this time. For that we need to send a lot more mass and it needs a lot more fuel.
- fernandopj 2y agoRequire. I answered that in this same subtopic.
- thinkcontext 2y agoIt's necessary because the Starship upper stage is so heavy. With a non reusable upper stage Starship's capacity would be enormous.
- SAI_Peregrinus 2y agoAlso because of the Lunar Gateway part of the plan. That pretty much just serves to waste fuel and funnel taxpayer money to the companies funding several congressmembers' election campaigns.
- dmurray 2y agoIs that true? SpaceX [0] gives the capacity as 150t reusable or 250t expendable, which is significant, but not enough to make one "enormous". If you really got order-of-magnitude gains from an expendable upper stage, it wouldn't be that exciting to have reusable rockets (which are more complex and still only fly one order of magnitude more times) in the first place. [0] https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/ https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- inglor_cz 2y agoNeeds tend to develop once the means are there. 200 years ago, there was no need to use electricity. 100 years ago, there was no need to use a programming language. 30 years ago, there was no need for gigabit wireless Internet.
- JacobThreeThree 2y agoNobody will ever need more than 640k of RAM.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoOr perhaps earlier and closer to the heart of USA's citizens, 300 years ago, there was no need for rail lines and trains.
- Animats 2y ago> Needs tend to develop once the means are there. Counterexample: space stations. We've had small manned space stations for decades now, but no real application for them. They're national prestige items only.
- pixl97 2y agoBecause launch cost is expensive. There are a lot of interesting things we can develop in zero gravity if the cost per pound was cheap.
- rodiger 2y agoNot true! The ISS has functioned as an outpost for science- 3,000+ experiments and counting https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/five-space-station-research-results-contributing-to-deep-space-exploration/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/five-space-station-res...
- mrguyorama 2y agoAnd most importantly for anyone who cares about space the way Elon claims to: The ISS has done pretty much all the research we have on how humans survive in space.
- edm0nd 2y agoYes, obviously. It takes a heavy launch rocket to launch heavier things into space or missions, refueling, and to goto other planets.
- fernandopj 2y agoIt's a mandate for the next Artemis Mission. [1] The HLS (Spaceship) will need many refuels at orbit in order to get to the Moon and back. That means at least a dozen of fully-loaded Heavy launches to LEO just so each one of them can load a bit of fuel into HLS. The fuel in orbit can't sit idle for too long, or it deteriorates; I haven't found a limit on days for that, but a week-long launch window is considered a dealbreaker, we're talking a dozen Heavy launches in a week. It's either a short launch window, or at least 6 Starships built and launched twice in ~10 days. Don't count out on SpaceX building 12 Heavy Starships just for that Artemis mission. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III
- dwaltrip 2y agoYes, to do anything at all in the rest of the universe. We are insatiably curious explorers. The cosmos calls to us. Many are willing to do anything they can to answer that call.
- childintime 2y agoThink about it, Starship enables a new era of military dominance in space. Military stuff is notoriously heavy. Besides, Elon is the first to go after supervillain territory.
- eunoia 2y ago> go again the same day. That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.
- modeless 2y agoIt's a good question. The hurdle to clear for same-day reuse will be the heat shield. SpaceX hasn't yet demonstrated that Starship can reenter the atmosphere and remain fully intact. Doing it while sustaining near zero wear on the heat shield will be even harder. But I think it is not impossible, and I don't know of any other obvious blockers for same day reuse.
- YetAnotherNick 2y agoEven if they can reuse the booster, it would be huge.
- soperj 2y agoThey'll likely reuse the booster on the same day well before the starship portion. No heat shield on the booster. Some starships will likely stay in space for a long time before returning.
- thinkcontext 2y agoMusk has said they're aiming for hundreds of reuses for the booster and dozens for the ship.
- BurningFrog 2y agoIt's certainly looked fully intact when reaching ground. When they manage to do the intended landing it should be pretty unharmed, but I'm sure it will take a while before same-day reuse is attempted.
- modeless 2y ago
- 7e 2y agoI think the economics of space are are much more likely to be transformed by something like https://www.longshotspace.com/ https://www.longshotspace.com/. Rockets are complex, still costly, and polluting.
- modeless 2y agoThe problem with space guns is you can't just yeet rocks into orbit. Any orbit that starts at the surface returns to the surface. So you still need a disposable rocket and avionics and fuel in every payload to change the orbit once out of the atmosphere. Only now the rocket needs to survive being literally shot out of a gun and then traveling at orbital velocity in atmosphere. That puts a pretty high floor on the cost per shot.
- gridspy 2y agoPlus, your payload needs to be gun compatible. Not gonna put people in there.
- WalterBright 2y agoWell, in WW2 we did manage to put working radar in artillery shells.
- itishappy 2y agoWith vacuum tubes, no less!
- 7e 2y agoSpace is for robots.
- gridspy 2y agoWhile mass to orbit costs as much as it does now, sure. However later on it's gonna be great to have humans closer to the working robots to reduce the round-trip latency. They could also perform tasks robots are not suited for. Consider operators living on Mars and operating drones near their habitat each day. It would be like modern day drone operators and robot assisted surgery. Like remote operators of mega-trucks today. Those robots could interact with the operators - driving into a "garage" that can be pressurized for maintenance, upgrades or science. StarShip promises to reduce the cost of mass to orbit, making larger and more complex scientific, industrial and habitat options feasible.
- irthomasthomas 2y agoHe's already spent the $3bn funding that was supposed to deliver the rocket to the moon and back.
- vojtapol 2y agoThat's just straight up not true. The $3bn were never meant to fund the entire project in the way you imply.
- panick21_ 2y agoThat is totally false, but you are not the first person I have heard spread this roomer. You can go to the official govenrment website and look at the contract, it tells you exactly how much has been paid out and how much has not been. The money is getting out as SpaceX hits development milestones. I don't remember, exactly but about 2.x billion $ were paid out so far. The money is spread over 40ish milestones. And they have done like 25 or so by now. To get the full pay out, they will be required to land on the moon and take off again. Those are likely the last couple milestones.