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The Falcon architecture is objectively the best rocket that has been designed and flown (most launches, most successes, cheapest). Either that is roughly most t

The Falcon architecture is objectively the best rocket that has been designed and flown (most launches, most successes, cheapest). Either that is roughly most the optimal rocket architecture that is possible within known physics, materials, and Earth gravity, or there is something better. Those are the only two options. Starship is SpaceX's bid for the next best thing to obsolete Falcon. It might not succeed, but the alternative is what? SpaceX just sits around, mirco-optimizes Falcon forever? At least they are trying. The potential is there, and the iteration is what smokes out issues in complex systems much better than analysis paralysis. Let's check back in on this take in 10 years.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
It would be perfectly fine for Falcon to be a workhorse in perpetuity while continuing to R&D Starship. You can only gamble so many times before chance of failure catches up if you keep betting the farm repeatedly. It is a fallacy to think humans must drive towards multi planetary civilization space vehicle systems for the commercial space industry to be successful. SpaceX continuing to inexpensively and reliably haul to space would not be failure. That’s what most businesses do; happy customers, happy, engaged employees, reasonable, healthy profits, improvement when possible and reasonable without pushing the enterprise as a system towards failure. Disclosure: I own a small amount of SpaceX stock, enough for sentimental reasons, but fine if it goes to zero. I also pay for service on more than one StarLink dish.
throwawayffffas 1y ago
The alternative would be "Starship" with a different architecture, like instead of 30 something small engines on the first stage, have one very large one, or a large one and two separating boosters and maybe a big orange tank.
- aerospades 1y ago
  I'm not sure if that's a sarcastic pitch for SLS or shuttle, but both of those have been proven dead ends. I feel like the overarching Starship design could be adapted to accommodate larger engines if SpaceX found an optimization there. What they need is the culture and financial runway to pivot/adjust enough to eventually get to a better optima. Which SpaceX seems to have.
  - nothercastle 1y ago
    SLS was a dead end because the project was poorly executed not because the design concept was bad.
    - throwawayffffas 1y ago
      Is it a dead end? It had a successful launch and there is another one coming next year supposedly. Sure it's delayed, over budget and costs as much as the GDP of a small country, that doesn't make it a dead end, that makes it a government project.
Zigurd 1y ago
Micro optimizing your way to building 17 upper stages of Falcon 9 in a month in order to sell launch capability at the Falcon 9 price is a pretty valuable goal. It's also a better application of iterative development, on a stable base, with a small number of changes at each increment. They don't mask bugs and create more issues than were solved. It's not just that Starship is the wrong idea. It's the wrong idea developed wrong. It's very similar to cyber truck that way for similar reasons.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

It would be perfectly fine for Falcon to be a workhorse in perpetuity while continuing to R&D Starship. You can only gamble so many times before chance of failure catches up if you keep betting the farm repeatedly. It is a fallacy to think humans must drive towards multi planetary civilization space vehicle systems for the commercial space industry to be successful. SpaceX continuing to inexpensively and reliably haul to space would not be failure. That’s what most businesses do; happy customers, happy, engaged employees, reasonable, healthy profits, improvement when possible and reasonable without pushing the enterprise as a system towards failure. Disclosure: I own a small amount of SpaceX stock, enough for sentimental reasons, but fine if it goes to zero. I also pay for service on more than one StarLink dish.

throwawayffffas 1y ago

The alternative would be "Starship" with a different architecture, like instead of 30 something small engines on the first stage, have one very large one, or a large one and two separating boosters and maybe a big orange tank.

aerospades 1y ago
I'm not sure if that's a sarcastic pitch for SLS or shuttle, but both of those have been proven dead ends. I feel like the overarching Starship design could be adapted to accommodate larger engines if SpaceX found an optimization there. What they need is the culture and financial runway to pivot/adjust enough to eventually get to a better optima. Which SpaceX seems to have.
- nothercastle 1y ago
  SLS was a dead end because the project was poorly executed not because the design concept was bad.
  - throwawayffffas 1y ago
    Is it a dead end? It had a successful launch and there is another one coming next year supposedly. Sure it's delayed, over budget and costs as much as the GDP of a small country, that doesn't make it a dead end, that makes it a government project.

Zigurd 1y ago

Micro optimizing your way to building 17 upper stages of Falcon 9 in a month in order to sell launch capability at the Falcon 9 price is a pretty valuable goal. It's also a better application of iterative development, on a stable base, with a small number of changes at each increment. They don't mask bugs and create more issues than were solved. It's not just that Starship is the wrong idea. It's the wrong idea developed wrong. It's very similar to cyber truck that way for similar reasons.