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Starship is like AI/LLMs in that success would revolutionize the world, but technological failure is very possible. And despite the confident predictions on the
by GMoromisato 1y ago
Starship is like AI/LLMs in that success would revolutionize the world, but technological failure is very possible. And despite the confident predictions on the internets, we don't know which it's going to be.
After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades. A similar thing would happen if Starship fails. Space would remain the province of the military and large governments.
Today it costs ~$3,000 per kilogram to put something in orbit (on a SpaceX Falcon 9). Starship aims to lower that to $10 per kg. That's totally crazy, but even if it could get it down to $300 per kg, that would revolutionize access to space.
Data centers in space, biotech manufacturing, and maybe even asteroid mining and energy generation become practical at those prices. To say nothing of telecommunications, remote sensing, and global navigation--all become much cheaper.
And, of course, that drops the price on all the cool science/exploration goals that we always talk about: massive space telescopes, regular probes to all the planets, and crewed exploration.
We're literally at an inflexion point between two possible futures and we don't know which it's going to be. If I were younger I would absolutely try to work at SpaceX to help tilt the chances.
But as it is, all I can do is root for them.
- nwah1 1y agoAssuming it doesn't trigger Kessler Syndrome.
- nroets 1y agoWith one company being so far ahead is actually a good thing: No tragedy of the Commons. Or reckless gambling on unproven technology.
- GMoromisato 1y agoAgreed! Also, Kessler Syndrome is over-feared, like the China Syndrome from the nuclear age. At Starlink orbits, space debris renters in years, if not months. And even then, having cheap access to orbit would allow us deploy replacements quickly. At GEO, the distances are so vast that Kessler Syndrome is much less likely (though not impossible). In between, there is some danger, but again, cheap access to orbit gives us the possibility of clean up.
- chris_va 1y agoWell, SpaceX originally wanted 1000km+ orbits for Starlink, which would basically never have decayed. Said fear was relevant.
- indoordin0saur 1y agoStarlink satellites are so low in altitude that Kessler syndrome could not occur because their orbits would decay within weeks and reenter the atmosphere and burn up.
- techterrier 1y agooh good, Wall-E levels of space polution
- inquirerGeneral 1y ago[dead]
- lordofgibbons 1y ago> After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades Did it really stop for decades? I think SpaceX and Blue Origin were both already working on re-usable launch systems around that time
- GMoromisato 1y agoAfter the Challenger disaster (1986) it was clear that the Space Shuttle was never going to accomplish its cost and reliability goals. The US military had bet everything on the Shuttle, so it needed a new launch vehicle. The one clear requirement of the new launch vehicle was that it had to be expendable. In fact, the name of the program was "Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle"[1] Remember also that when SpaceX started to develop Falcon booster reuse in 2011, every major aerospace company said that reusable vehicles would never make economic sense. Even after the first Falcon 9 recovery and re-flight, most aerospace companies thought reusability was a dead-end and that belief came from the refurbishment cost that Shuttle had to go through. I count from 1994 (start of EELV) to 2021, when NASA launched astronauts on a reused booster and Peter Beck famously fulfilled his promise to eat his hat if Rocket Lab ever worked on a re-usable launch vehicle. --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Space_Launch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Space_Launch
- jjk166 1y agoSpaceX started with the business plan of low cost, mass producible single use launchers. Falcon 9 was not designed with any level of reusability in mind. There was a major redesign to add landing hardware, but the whole reason for Starship being a totally new design was the reusability that a Falcon "super-heavy" derivative could never achieve.
- GMoromisato 1y agoGood point! I don't think Falcon 9 is large enough for full reusability. I don't think Stoke's first vehicle will be large enough either (beyond proving out the technology). They will eventually need to build a much larger one.
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- WalterBright 1y agoWith the ability to lift more weight, it also means that the travel time to Mars could be shortened considerably (by using more propellant). The minimum propellant travel times are a major barrier.
- ethbr1 1y agoQuestion for the audience, because I've always been curious. Have there ever been any historical plans for a permanently-transiting interplanetary craft? A large craft is built, accelerated up to speed (since time wouldn't be a factor, high Isp/low-thrust engines could be used), then left looping between Earth and X at constant high speed, with smaller (and shorter-term) craft accelerating to meet it (e.g. underway replenishment with crew and fuel transfer) or decelerating at the destination. Heck, if you've got something optionally-crewed, you could have it continuously burning for years to build up speed. Or do solar system astrodynamics make waiting and then burning like hell from orbital speeds during optimal transit windows more efficient?
- schiffern 1y agoYup, someone thought of it. That man's name? Buzz Aldrin. https://buzzaldrin.com/space-vision/rocket_science/aldrin-mars-cycler/ https://buzzaldrin.com/space-vision/rocket_science/aldrin-ma... https://web.archive.org/web/20101102073607if_/http://buzzaldrin.com/files/pdf/1985.10.28.ALDRIN_SAIC_PAPER.Cyclic_Trajectory_Concepts_0.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20101102073607if_/http://buzzald... It is indeed more efficient to perform the usual Hohmann transfer, but the advantage of the Aldrin Cycler concept is you can accelerate a large vehicle once and then 'amortize' that over multiple trips.
- ahazred8ta 1y agoThe problem with an Aldrin Cycler https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aldrin_cycler https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aldrin_cycler is that you pretty much have to leave it unoccupied for several years at a time because the planets are in the wrong place on most orbits. Then after 20-30 years the gaskets start to leak and the electronics get glitchy. Look up how much elbow grease it takes to replace the expired components on the ISS over a 5 year period.
- sciencesama 1y agoEven trash disposal is possible! Dispose all trash in space !!
- thegrim33 1y ago"Space would remain the province of the military and large governments." Falcon 9 launches are already only ~10% government payloads, ~90% commercial payloads. They're already vastly not military/government launches.
- GMoromisato 1y agoFair point! I should have said that the space economy would remain small.
- aduffy 1y agoSure, not directly. But most of that is imaging and communications payloads, and the vast majority there is being purchased by militaries and intelligence agencies. Government still props up this whole market.
- sho_hn 1y ago> After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades. A similar thing would happen if Starship fails. Space would remain the province of the military and large governments. I really don't agree with this take. It may appear as if SpaceX is the only game in town, but in reality a lot of this technology is commoditized now, and space is as diversified and vibrant as ever. The starting point today is very different from the post-Shuttle environment. If Starship fails, it is unlikely to be for pure technology reasons and something else will take its place with perhaps better product-market fit. SpaceX is a symptom, not the cause. The true dangers to all of these lofty human enterprises are geopolitics, domestic political destabilization and environmental collapse.
- GMoromisato 1y agoI disagree. If Starship fails, the most likely reason will be technological. Either they can never get the heat shield to be reliable, or they can't get cost down below Falcon 9 (meaning, refurbishment costs are too high). And if it fails, who will spend billions on a new vehicle? Stoke Space: They are working on Nova, which is designed for 2nd-stage re-use, and they've got a novel architecture. But they are not well-funded and if Starship fails, it is likely that investor sentiment will shift away from full reusability (you know how investors are). And even if they succeed, their current vehicle can only get 3 tons to orbit. That means each launch must cost less than $1 million to get to the $300/kg target. In contrast, Starship can loft 100 tons, so it can cost up to $30 million per launch and still hit the target. Blue Origin: They are still working on 1st stage re-use, and even assuming they get that to work next year, they are at least a decade away from testing 2nd stage re-use. And their current designs don't have any of the cost-savings in Starship (like launch-tower catch). And that's it! There are no other companies seriously working on 2nd-stage reuse. If Starship fails, there will not be another contender for cheap flights to orbit for decades.
- m4rtink 1y agoAFAIK there is a bunch of Chinese startups pitching some fully reusable designs and/or ready to clone something that works. There is already some Falcon 9 like first stage reusable booster prototypes in development.
- hiddencost 1y agoWhy do people talk about data centers in space? Heat management is wayyy harder in space.
- coolspot 1y agoCommon folk assume that the space is super-cold, so it must be good for hot servers.
- GMoromisato 1y agoI don't know about common folk, but I've heard about radiators, which can be as large as you want if you can get mass to orbit cheaply.
- m4rtink 1y agoSure, but also much less efficient per unit of mass than regular cooling using the atmosphere or hydrosphere here on Earth.
- Iwan-Zotow 1y agoWell. 2.7K is cold
- GMoromisato 1y agoLots of things are harder in space; maybe even everything. But it has some benefits, like abundant solar power, lots of room, and line-of-sight to large chunks of Earth. Almost all the problems can be solved by cheaper access to space, whereas the benefits cannot be easily recreated on Earth. Is it guaranteed to work? My point is that we don't know, despite confident assertions one way or the other. If it does work, the benefits are clear, and that's why it's worth trying.
- yencabulator 1y agoSimple: VC money. The only thing surprising to me about that is that the pitch wasn't "AI in space". My take: The idea that heavy computing in LEO is better than sending data down to Earth sounds very naive. Starlink is great proof that the bandwidth is plentiful and the latency is good, once the equipment is modern. Definitely cheaper and easier than cooling a datacenter.
- rozab 1y agoThe thing is, there is no demand to get that much stuff into space. Falcon 9 has massively brought down the cost per orbit, and even with the whole world as a captive market, every university in every country putting up cubesats, they still don't have nearly enough payloads to make the economies of scale kick in. Hence Starlink. The majority of SpaceX payload mass has been Starlink, something nobody was even asking for. 300+ launches. And the idea to reach the economies of scale for Starship is... Even more Starlink. How much Starlink could we possibly need? When will humanity come up with another use for this glut of payload capacity? Even with the Artemis deadline looming large, SpaceX are still pushing this Starlink angle for Starship, it's nuts
- m4rtink 1y agoDemand takes some time to ramp up, especially with quite expensive and complex stuff like Satellites. SpaceX is now even launching competing constellation comsats (project Kuiper), private manned space missions and there are quite a few manned space station projects under development that would be basically unthinkable without the cheaper lift Falcon 9 provides. As for "How much Starlink could we possibly need?" I think the answer is simply "YES". Even when you possibly somehow satisfy all your Internet access customers, you can start adding other services, like mobile phone coms (already in progress) or maybe imaging or hosted payloads.
- GMoromisato 1y agoAgreed! Even at $300/kg to LEO there are a ton of new applications that suddenly make sense. If we get to $10/kg we will literally colonize the solar system.
- m4rtink 1y agoYeah - while real space development will use 99% of local resources eventually, the cheaper we can get stuff to LEO the quicker we can get things going. Not to mention lifting any complex stuff & humans, that which simply not be available otherwise until much more stuff is operational in space.
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- smcnally 1y ago> After the Shuttle program ended in failure, work on reusable launch systems stopped for decades. “ended in failure” sounds harsh in this context. Or is that just me whistling past the sunk cost fallacies?