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It's not like SLS is on schedule either, and it is absurdly more expensive than Starship. It's very likely that Starship will eventually be operational with low
by 0xffff2 7mo ago
It's not like SLS is on schedule either, and it is absurdly more expensive than Starship. It's very likely that Starship will eventually be operational with lower total costs by any accounting measure. (And I say this as a current NASA contractor and current anti-fan of Musk)
- tsimionescu 7mo agoI agree that SLS is not an efficient project by any stretch of the imagination, and they have their own problems. I don't really see a reason to believe that Starship will ever achieve the goals that were declared for it. In particular, their plan for how to achieve the Moon mission, requiring an unclear number of missions to fuel a single flight in orbit.
- brandonagr2 7mo agoYou don't have long to wait to see an obvious reason, the first v3 starship is in preflight testing right now.
- tsimionescu 7mo agoAnd do you think the this next launch will deploy actual satellites in orbit around the Moon? If not, I still don't see why you'd compare it to SLS's current success. Or do you think this will deploy 100 tons to orbit for less than $10/ton, or fly to Mars, since these are the stated goals for Starship?
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoDo you think perhaps you should give SpaceX as much time as NASA has had for SLS to fail at its goals before complaining that SpaceX’s system in testing isn’t accomplishing all of its goals?
- tsimionescu 7mo agoSure, that's fair. My comment above was just about the poster claiming that v3 will prove that Starship can succeed on all of its goals.
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoYour comment was a strawman about launching satellites around the moon which is literally no one’s goal.
- pfdietz 7mo agoEven if Starship completely fails, SLS is a pointless and ludicrously expensive dead end. Terminating it is the only logical thing to do.
- kunai 7mo agoMight as well get some ROI out of it though. IMO the Blue Origin hate was overhyped. They're clearly the only ones who know what they're doing. NASA and SpaceX both are way in over their heads.
- pennomi 7mo agoThe Blue Origin hate is mostly how opaque the program is compared to SpaceX.
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoThe Blue Origin skepticism is based in how many decades they spent in making buildings instead of rockets and how long it has taken them to get anything to orbit.
- luke5441 7mo agoThe whole moon thing is a pointless and ludicrously expensive dead end. But if one wants to do it, one should choose between the working approaches.
- lukeschlather 7mo agoOrion is actually pointless, I don't understand why the mission goals are valuable. Partial success would be meaningless. Success is meaningless. Starship in contrast has a variety of meaningful objectives. Even if Starship only achieves proving that cryogenic fuel transfer in LEO is possible that's a valuable mission goal in and of itself. If you really think "the whole moon thing is pointless" NASA is pointless.
- pfdietz 7mo ago
- avmich 7mo ago> I don't really see a reason to believe that Starship will ever achieve the goals that were declared for it. If you consider declared goals for Starship to be too hard (I assume not impossible), what aspect makes them that hard? And since we talk about the Moon here, not stated goals of using Starships for Mars flights - what part of the Starship design makes it hard to believe that Starships may in next few years be regularly used for flights to the Moon? I'm curious what it is which makes it so hard to believe.
- cjtrowbridge 7mo agoAll of SapaceX rockets waste close to half their payload capacity on extra fuel for landing, extra equipment for landing, and they still have a 100% failure rate on every super-heavy launch they've ever attempted. SpaceX has blown up more rockets in the last year than NASA has in its entire history. NASA's super heavy rockets have been working successfully since 1967. NASA did build the first single-stage-to-orbit rockets that also successfully landed, but it immediately realized that was a huge waste of resources. Instead, they put parachutes on rockets and then refurbished them instead. So NASA gets double the payload capacity for free. The boosters currently strapped to the SLS that's about to go to the Moon are the same ones that previously took space shuttles to orbit in the 90s. NASA has been to the Moon and Mars; SpaceX has never made it to either, and just last week Elon said they've officially given up on going to Mars, and they're hoping to make it to Moon in another decade instead. NASA is going next month. SpaceX is just vaporware being run by a drug addict whose only goal is to sell it to the public markets before the house of cards comes down.
- platybubsy 7mo agoIt would be great to have some actual numbers. How did reuse work out for Falcon 9? How much does the reused boosters for SLS cost? What's the cost and performance of an expendable Starship vs SLS?
- cjtrowbridge 7mo agoIt's not possible to compare, because while the SLS just got back from the Moon and is about to go back; SpaceX has never had a single successful super-heavy launch. Now that Elon has officially given up on Mars and decided to spend the next decade trying to figure out how to get to the moon, we may see some progress. All he has to do is put down the drugs and catch up to the NASA of the 1960s.
- panick21 7mo agoStarship is irrelevant. SLS was dumb already in 2011 when Starship doesn't exist. Its a dumb system and was never the right system. NASA own analysis showed that. People who defend SLS on the bases that Starship isn't good don't get it. It doesn't matter if Starship exists. SLS should have been canceled even if you assume the state of the rocket industry in 2015. Anybody with half a brain and 3h time to do analysis on the topic could figure this out.
- georgeecollins 7mo agoIt's a total jobs program. I don't know what Starship will be, but at least Starship is trying to do something new and potentially very valuable. Maybe it is too ambitious but SLS is not that ambitious and not that successful :(
- ACCount37 7mo agoThe only reason NOT to cancel SLS outright is "we can't get anything better". "Sure, it's pretty dumb, but it can be built, and good luck getting anything better built." Starship is important because the closer Starship gets to coming online the more obviously wrong that line of thought is. As is, Starship, with its first stage being online and reusable already says "we could have done something like SLS much cheaper if we were smart about it". When the second stage comes fully online, the argument for SLS will diminish further.
- panick21 7mo agoThis not actually a good reason. First of all, of course you can't get anything better if you never ask for anything better or consider alternatives or put any money into anything better. If you never invested in anything else, then the M4 Sherman tank would still be the best tank. And then you could say 'we can't get anything better' and continue to use it while refusing to ever even put 1$ into developing anything else. And actually there are plenty of ways, even without Starship to do these things differently. I remember when SLS fans in 2016 told me that SLS is real and Falcon Heavy is fake. Even when Falcon Heavy and now New Gleen can do most things SLS can. One NASA Administer was almost fired for exploring if Orion could launch on Falcon Heavy. The thing is NASA is not looking for alternatives, and it doesn't matter if Starship is fully proven and operational. People will still say its not the same, because Starship will need refuel and isn't direct. You can always find a reason to justify one solution if you only ever consider that solution and refuse to even look at any other possibility.
- itishappy 7mo agoIs it clear how many SLS launches would be needed to subsume Starship's part of the mission?
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoIt doesn’t matter because SLS can’t launch but once a year if lucky. And so far they have never even approached that.
- bparsons 7mo agoWe have no idea what starship has cost. It's a private company.
- 0xffff2 7mo agoI don't think "no idea" is fair. We don't have exact numbers, but there are various statements out there that give clues. Even the highest estimates I can put together put Starship far cheaper than SLS.
- tsimionescu 7mo agoYou have to consider that Starship has not reached anywhere near the operational goals for Artemis, and there is no realistic time line for when it might. So we really do have no idea how much it might cost by the time it reaches the milestone SLS has already cleared (successful flight in lunar orbit, with a full payload that it successfully deploys).
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoYou also have to consider that SpaceX has the fastest, most reliable, most cost efficient launch service in operation ever, and are using the same methodology to develop the most advanced launch system ever attempted.
- biaachmonkie 7mo agoWe also have to consider the other major Musk lead company Telsa had the best selling car in the world and string of successful cars leading up to that before completely shitting the bed on the Cyber Truck. I want Starship to be a success and reduce the cost to orbit and beyond, but past success does not in any way guarantee future success.
- Schiendelman 7mo agoLife has no guarantees. Past success is the best predictor of future success regardless.