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I think that there will always be a desire for small probes, but you're right that one-offs aren't economical. The advantages of Starship is that with such a m

by Teever 2y ago

I think that there will always be a desire for small probes, but you're right that one-offs aren't economical. The advantages of Starship is that with such a massive payload capacity it can carry many small probes and combined with a low cost per kg it will justify setting up assembly lines that churn out small probes by the thousands. We'll pepper the solar system with these probes and they'll act as nodes in a large interplanetary network relaying data between each other and larger, more powerful nodes as you describe. The nodes in a network are important and more powerful nodes are more desirable, but the network itself is a powerful thing that it greater than the sum of its parts. This combined with economies of scale will always justify more smaller satellites.

gorgoiler 2y ago
With economics, I think we have to be careful when questioning the financial efficiency of organisations like NASA, Universities, research, and the like. Some of these things should be societal cost centers. The question for me therefore, based on your comment, is whether Europa Clipper’s expense can be justified because it is funding the current generation of custom space vehicle and mission experts, keeping alive their traditions and skills for the next generation. The alternative view is that it’s a waste of money to continuously support the careers of what are possibly the spaceship equivalents of wheelwrights, stable masters, and saddlers.
- Teever 2y ago
  I believe that it absolutely can be justified for precisely the reason you state -- it keeps the experts trained so that they can as a minimum produce things like Europa Clipper. But to me that's just keeping their expertise and the potential that it offers on life support. Having the technology and infrastructure to produce the things that they are experts at producing but in an unprecedented scale is what we need if we want them to reach their full potential. It allows them to more rapidly iterate over design ideas by seeing what works and what doesn't. It also allows cheaper destructive testing to work out the bugs instead of waiting a decade to find out if they just wasted billions of dollars and centuries of man years with intrinsically flawed designs. And ultimately it allows us to build modular self-assembling spacecraft on a scale that we've only dreamed of allowing them to practice their trades in new ways that will unlock new science and knowledge for the human race.
- pixl97 2y ago
  With cheap and commonly launched rockets like starship we'll also be able to launch many more cheap test platforms that won't need billion dollar budgets. Take the antenna on this thing, they get one chance to deply it correctly. But now imagine launching a test antenna project where for a few million you can make sure they work before you put them on a more expensive probe.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Well, sure, but how does "peppering the solar system" with 100 probes at a time work when each insertion is wildly different? Lifting 100 probes is great, but only if they are going on same / similar boosts to their targets. And how does it get the initial boost along its trajectory? We could do solar electric and wait a year for it to pick up enough delta-v to start the journey ... Fully disclosing my ignorance here: How does it work to launch 100 probes to 10 planets from earth with one launch?
- Teever 2y ago
  I'm not sure about that specifically, I've only taken an intro to orbital mechanics class so esoteric orbital maneuvers are a bit beyond me but I understand that in some cases it is possible. I would imagine that one technique that we have yet to try is putting fuel depots in long distance places to facilitate the execution of these manuevers. With that said what I had in mind when I wrote my comment wasn't using one rocket to launch a 100 probes to different solar bodies but instead to launch 100 probes to a single body in one go. I envision a time where we'll deploy massive constellations of remote sensing satellites, like mini-star link constellations for each solar body be it a moon or planet so that we can get real-time data across the whole body instead of having to stitch together pieces of data from one probe. Like Starlink these constellations will be able to relay data between the nodes should they lose line of sight with Earth and will be able to relay data to other constellations orbiting other nearby solar bodies to get the data to Earth if the whole constellation is blocked.[0] I could see a near future where we start sending these Starlink like communications/remote sensing craft at the same time we send craft designed to pepper the surface of a body with multiple rovers and stationary probes to survey the surface of planets and again relay the data they collect between themselves and the constellations above. It would be cool to see terrestrial bodies explored with some sort of RTG/solar powered stationary device that has an automated lab for sample analysis and seismic measurements paired with a dozen or so of these sandflea type robots[0] that can roll and hop over the surface to survey and collect samples to bring back to the stationary labs for analysis. You can even look at sample return missions where some of these stationary devices have the means to send samples into orbit around the solar body that they're located on where the sample carrying craft rendevous with an orbiting craft designed to return to Earth perhaps refueling with fuel depots previously put in place along the way. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmYm3gMYOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmYm3gMYOQ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo

by Teever 2y ago

gorgoiler 2y ago

With economics, I think we have to be careful when questioning the financial efficiency of organisations like NASA, Universities, research, and the like. Some of these things should be societal cost centers. The question for me therefore, based on your comment, is whether Europa Clipper’s expense can be justified because it is funding the current generation of custom space vehicle and mission experts, keeping alive their traditions and skills for the next generation. The alternative view is that it’s a waste of money to continuously support the careers of what are possibly the spaceship equivalents of wheelwrights, stable masters, and saddlers.

Teever 2y ago
I believe that it absolutely can be justified for precisely the reason you state -- it keeps the experts trained so that they can as a minimum produce things like Europa Clipper. But to me that's just keeping their expertise and the potential that it offers on life support. Having the technology and infrastructure to produce the things that they are experts at producing but in an unprecedented scale is what we need if we want them to reach their full potential. It allows them to more rapidly iterate over design ideas by seeing what works and what doesn't. It also allows cheaper destructive testing to work out the bugs instead of waiting a decade to find out if they just wasted billions of dollars and centuries of man years with intrinsically flawed designs. And ultimately it allows us to build modular self-assembling spacecraft on a scale that we've only dreamed of allowing them to practice their trades in new ways that will unlock new science and knowledge for the human race.
pixl97 2y ago
With cheap and commonly launched rockets like starship we'll also be able to launch many more cheap test platforms that won't need billion dollar budgets. Take the antenna on this thing, they get one chance to deply it correctly. But now imagine launching a test antenna project where for a few million you can make sure they work before you put them on a more expensive probe.

jvanderbot 2y ago

Well, sure, but how does "peppering the solar system" with 100 probes at a time work when each insertion is wildly different? Lifting 100 probes is great, but only if they are going on same / similar boosts to their targets. And how does it get the initial boost along its trajectory? We could do solar electric and wait a year for it to pick up enough delta-v to start the journey ... Fully disclosing my ignorance here: How does it work to launch 100 probes to 10 planets from earth with one launch?

Teever 2y ago
I'm not sure about that specifically, I've only taken an intro to orbital mechanics class so esoteric orbital maneuvers are a bit beyond me but I understand that in some cases it is possible. I would imagine that one technique that we have yet to try is putting fuel depots in long distance places to facilitate the execution of these manuevers. With that said what I had in mind when I wrote my comment wasn't using one rocket to launch a 100 probes to different solar bodies but instead to launch 100 probes to a single body in one go. I envision a time where we'll deploy massive constellations of remote sensing satellites, like mini-star link constellations for each solar body be it a moon or planet so that we can get real-time data across the whole body instead of having to stitch together pieces of data from one probe. Like Starlink these constellations will be able to relay data between the nodes should they lose line of sight with Earth and will be able to relay data to other constellations orbiting other nearby solar bodies to get the data to Earth if the whole constellation is blocked.[0] I could see a near future where we start sending these Starlink like communications/remote sensing craft at the same time we send craft designed to pepper the surface of a body with multiple rovers and stationary probes to survey the surface of planets and again relay the data they collect between themselves and the constellations above. It would be cool to see terrestrial bodies explored with some sort of RTG/solar powered stationary device that has an automated lab for sample analysis and seismic measurements paired with a dozen or so of these sandflea type robots[0] that can roll and hop over the surface to survey and collect samples to bring back to the stationary labs for analysis. You can even look at sample return missions where some of these stationary devices have the means to send samples into orbit around the solar body that they're located on where the sample carrying craft rendevous with an orbiting craft designed to return to Earth perhaps refueling with fuel depots previously put in place along the way. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmYm3gMYOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmYm3gMYOQ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo