4 ms·

I think these videos and the fact that this rockets actually works is one of the inspirational things in my life (and I am almost 40). I grew up loving everythi

I think these videos and the fact that this rockets actually works is one of the inspirational things in my life (and I am almost 40). I grew up loving everything about space (sci fi books and movies, astronomy in school, etc), and it was very bewildering not to see any progress basically for the first half of my life. Now it seems that humanity is back in the game, and it is amazing! Perhaps kids of my kids would be able to travel to the moon.

bombcar 1y ago
Honestly the most surprising thing isn’t that they’re doing all this stuff - they’re live-streaming it; failures and all. It’s so refreshing in a glossy PR-coated world.
- creer 1y ago
  This launch got a massive amount of ad time for starlink. But as advertising goes, I'm not complaining about that one - just that saying that the PR was pretty thick there.
atlgator 1y ago
I'll never forget watching SpaceX launches during the COVID lockdowns. A beacon of hope in troubled times.
7e 1y ago
The original Starship payload was supposed to be 300 tons. The latest flight was 16. They’ve had to scale everything back because it’s been such a shitshow.
- mempko 1y ago
  Yeah, I don't think the public understands how far behind they are. SpaceX was supposed to have moon missions in 2023-2024 time frame. NASA has said that Starship's timeline is "significantly challenged" and expects the vehicle will be years late. Apollo for comparison took about 8 years from announcement to moon landing. Space shuttle took about 9 years from approval to first flight. Starship has been in development now about 9 years. Despite it's iterative approach (and benefit of decades of space technology and learnings) it has been slower than both Apollo and Shuttle. Keep in mind Starship hasn't even achieved orbit yet. It's making the 2027 Artimis III moon landing increasingly unrealistic.
  - inemesitaffia 1y ago
    Where's SLS? How much was spent on development of SLS, Shuttle and Apollo? Why do you think the other competitors thought it would cost $10 billion for a HLS? Did NASA have $10 billion for HLS? Where are the suits? Where did you get this nonsense about orbit? Is the vehicle incapable?
    - mempko 1y ago
      SLS took 11 years to first flight and cost $29 billion. First flight was perfect and went around the moon. Starship is estimated to have cost about $10B so far and has had 11 test flights and still hasn't achieved orbit. SLS can reach the moon from the earth, Starship can't reach the moon on a signel flight and requires 10-40+ tanker flights to fuel one lunar mission. That's a lot of chances for failure. Even after Starship finally achieve orbit, it's still years away from being able to attempt what SLS did on day one. The claim is that Starship will eventually be cheaper because of it's re-usability because they target $10M per flight you are talking about $400M for a lunar mission. But $10M per flight is insanely unrealistic. Consider that the Falcon Heavy, which is much, much simpler than Starship, costs around $90-$150M per launch. If we generously assume $50M per launch and 15-20 tanker flights that's around $750M - $1B which is suddenly comparable or could be more expensive than SLS. Considering that SpaceX does not currently have a fully reusable rocker and if they manage to make Starship fully re-usable each one would need to be spread out a huge amount of flights to start becoming economical. What's obvious to me, and maybe not everyone here, is the design of Starship is optimized for LEO, not deep space missions. The re-usability features are earth-specific (heat shield tiles, flaps for atmospheric control, landing legs designed for earth gravity). All of this mass is dead weight for a deep space mission. Notice the HLS variant of Starship depot ships don't re-enter the earth and don't have all this re-usability stuff. The refueling requirement is a consequence of the design. Starship is too heavy to reach the moon on one launch. It's massive dry mass prevents it from leaving LEO without refueling. It's design is also not optimized for Mars either. It's optimized for earth operations. Mars has only 1% of the earth's atmosphere requiring completely different aerodynamics. You still need orbital refueling to get there and also back. It needs in-situ propellant production on Mars just to return to earth. All of this is enormous complexity that hasn't been even close to being demonstrated (remember, Starship still hasn't achieved orbit). What they are doing is building a ship to deploy Starlink, and wasting NASA funding to do it.
- The_President 1y ago
  Yet they successfully operate the world's best satellite ISP and reuse their smaller rockets repeatedly. SpaceX is capable of landing a 400 foot corn silo right on top of the chicken coop.
- tim333 1y ago
  The fully reusable thing is hard.

bombcar 1y ago

Honestly the most surprising thing isn’t that they’re doing all this stuff - they’re live-streaming it; failures and all. It’s so refreshing in a glossy PR-coated world.

creer 1y ago
This launch got a massive amount of ad time for starlink. But as advertising goes, I'm not complaining about that one - just that saying that the PR was pretty thick there.

atlgator 1y ago

I'll never forget watching SpaceX launches during the COVID lockdowns. A beacon of hope in troubled times.

7e 1y ago

The original Starship payload was supposed to be 300 tons. The latest flight was 16. They’ve had to scale everything back because it’s been such a shitshow.

mempko 1y ago
Yeah, I don't think the public understands how far behind they are. SpaceX was supposed to have moon missions in 2023-2024 time frame. NASA has said that Starship's timeline is "significantly challenged" and expects the vehicle will be years late. Apollo for comparison took about 8 years from announcement to moon landing. Space shuttle took about 9 years from approval to first flight. Starship has been in development now about 9 years. Despite it's iterative approach (and benefit of decades of space technology and learnings) it has been slower than both Apollo and Shuttle. Keep in mind Starship hasn't even achieved orbit yet. It's making the 2027 Artimis III moon landing increasingly unrealistic.
- inemesitaffia 1y ago
  Where's SLS? How much was spent on development of SLS, Shuttle and Apollo? Why do you think the other competitors thought it would cost $10 billion for a HLS? Did NASA have $10 billion for HLS? Where are the suits? Where did you get this nonsense about orbit? Is the vehicle incapable?
  - mempko 1y ago
    SLS took 11 years to first flight and cost $29 billion. First flight was perfect and went around the moon. Starship is estimated to have cost about $10B so far and has had 11 test flights and still hasn't achieved orbit. SLS can reach the moon from the earth, Starship can't reach the moon on a signel flight and requires 10-40+ tanker flights to fuel one lunar mission. That's a lot of chances for failure. Even after Starship finally achieve orbit, it's still years away from being able to attempt what SLS did on day one. The claim is that Starship will eventually be cheaper because of it's re-usability because they target $10M per flight you are talking about $400M for a lunar mission. But $10M per flight is insanely unrealistic. Consider that the Falcon Heavy, which is much, much simpler than Starship, costs around $90-$150M per launch. If we generously assume $50M per launch and 15-20 tanker flights that's around $750M - $1B which is suddenly comparable or could be more expensive than SLS. Considering that SpaceX does not currently have a fully reusable rocker and if they manage to make Starship fully re-usable each one would need to be spread out a huge amount of flights to start becoming economical. What's obvious to me, and maybe not everyone here, is the design of Starship is optimized for LEO, not deep space missions. The re-usability features are earth-specific (heat shield tiles, flaps for atmospheric control, landing legs designed for earth gravity). All of this mass is dead weight for a deep space mission. Notice the HLS variant of Starship depot ships don't re-enter the earth and don't have all this re-usability stuff. The refueling requirement is a consequence of the design. Starship is too heavy to reach the moon on one launch. It's massive dry mass prevents it from leaving LEO without refueling. It's design is also not optimized for Mars either. It's optimized for earth operations. Mars has only 1% of the earth's atmosphere requiring completely different aerodynamics. You still need orbital refueling to get there and also back. It needs in-situ propellant production on Mars just to return to earth. All of this is enormous complexity that hasn't been even close to being demonstrated (remember, Starship still hasn't achieved orbit). What they are doing is building a ship to deploy Starlink, and wasting NASA funding to do it.
The_President 1y ago
Yet they successfully operate the world's best satellite ISP and reuse their smaller rockets repeatedly. SpaceX is capable of landing a 400 foot corn silo right on top of the chicken coop.
tim333 1y ago
The fully reusable thing is hard.