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SpaceX's load includes its own product, and ISS. I'd like to see a breakdown.
Yes, of course SpaceX is primarily launching its own payloads to orbit but that does not diminish the magnitude of the accomplishment.
In a few years when Starship is operational the same chart will show a far more extreme difference between SpaceX and everyone else.
In a few years when Starship is operational the same chart will show a far more extreme difference between SpaceX and everyone else.
Yes, but if it's all Starlink, what's the point? They might as well call the company Starlink, and refer to the launch business as part of their vertical integration strategy. We want to see Moon colonies, LEO hotels, asteroid mining and the like. SpaceX is building the launcher, but will the payloads come? Or will the company forever operate as the outlet for Elon's pet projects and various government contracts?
I think those things will happen (except the asteroid mining). But given Elon’s wealth and his ability to attract investors, his “pet projects” along with Starlink revenue seem capable of propelling SpaceX forward for the next several decades.
For now, Starlink revenue is “the point”.
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Good questions... but it's interesting that, unlike certain billionaires who have started rocket companies and have thus far only joyrides to show for the $$billions they've personally funded, Elon has found a way to fund his rocket development profitably, even if it meant starting another company to do it... he in essences gets his rocket goal accomplishments paid for other than by writing a personal check.A nd once that is accomplished, he then has a rocket capable of his next goal.
And given those goals... even if it does remain as a company largely just to fufill Elon's dreams... those are grandiose enough to make what's on his docket dwarf most other nation-states' ambitions....
I don't really think it matters where he became aware of the information... the fact that the conclusions he draws about the ESA's recent accomplishments in light of their stance a decade ago are much the same lends credence that folks familiar with space gongs-on don't necessarily think it's a nothingburger.
The problem is that the push will only last during Elon's lifetime. Inertia will carry it a bit farther, but unless another megabillionaire wants to fund the whole thing for idealistic reasons, it's going to falter and fail. We need economic reasons to go to space. We need stuff that we can only manufacture at scale off-planet. We need stuff that we can only collect in volume off-planet. We need a reason for the commoner to want spaceflight.
The one thing that Elon is providing while he lives is the opportunity for somebody to find something that can be manufactured or collected off planet. Without Starship, I suspect nobody would even bother because it's so speculative. We need people to try lots of different things off planet until we find something that is the Killer App for spaceflight.
Ben W
Chess Grandmaster (Supervised)
Fortunately, Starship (if proven viable) will make it about 100x easier to find an economic reason to go to space, for anyone trying to do so in Elon's footsteps. And it seems like the inertia is already there to see Starship through to success; I wouldn't have confidently said this even a year ago. I am also curious about the economics of a scaled-down Starship, still with full reusability, but with Falcon-9-like payload capacity. (Or a scaled-up Starship, for that matter. Is there any economy-of-scale advantage to a 12m or 18m diameter instead of 9m?)
Probably not without a major materials breakthrough.
I suspect harmonic vibrations would be a big problem in a yet more rotund ship.
The more you lift the more fuel required but that adds more weight at takeoff. You only get so much thrust from burning stuff with liquid oxygen. The thing has to support it's own weight on the launch pad as well.
Solid fuels with their own oxidizer have limits too.
I don't know what the innovations were to Starship. Good luck surpassing them.
Yeah, I suspect like many frontier crossings, once the initial pilgramage is made, and the way paved and the manner cross it viable/feasible, there it will be become self sustaining, although as @JB47394 points out, that takes finding thr "killer app"... it's defintely not a done deal, there's a LOT of work to do, but the first trip is the hardest and the way is at least within sight....
Absolutely. Starship presents the opportunity. The only real difference between @scaesare and me is that he seems to assume that a reason will be found while I make no such assumption. The Moon and Mars are like McMurdo Station 1956, not Jamestown 1605. McMurdo is not self-sustaining. In fact, the few attempts at creating a self-sustaining enclosed arcology on Earth have failed.
Yes, I've been wondering about that as well. But I also wonder about ridesharing a bunch of 5 ton satellites on a single Starship launch, using orbital tugs to move them into their proper orbits.
If Starship pans out, then I suspect SpaceX will tune the entire process for the most efficient way to get materials to LEO - the real purpose of Starship. Beyond that, they can create new vehicles for other purposes. For example, they don't need 4mm thick stainless steel bullet-shaped vehicles with 6 or 9 Raptor engines to travel between LEO and the Moon. Mars also doesn't need anything that robust.
And what will happen once we have working humanoid robots? Will they replace people in space? Operating in harsh environments would seem to be an ideal use for Optimus. They would dramatically reduce the requirements for missions. Pack as many Optimus robots as your mass budget allows, and make sure they have spare parts and power.
To get another idea of how hard it is to chuck stuff into space consider the Saturn V that lifted up the Apollo missions. It is still the biggest rocket ever made.
I will have to look up the stats. I would be surprised if the Starship will be more than 10% more efficient in terms of payload to takeoff weight ratio than the1960's tech.
There's a whole lot of fuel and not much rocket. What you save on rocket you can transfer over to payload.
I will have to look up the stats. I would be surprised if the Starship will be more than 10% more efficient in terms of payload to takeoff weight ratio than the1960's tech.
There's a whole lot of fuel and not much rocket. What you save on rocket you can transfer over to payload.
Not sure exactly what you mean by “biggest” but Starship is taller, is far more powerful at liftoff, has a far larger payload volume, and will be able to loft up to 150mt to LEO (more than the Saturn V) while being fully reusable.
That metric is irrelevant. What matters is massive payload capacity and full reusability. In terms of economic efficiency (affordability) Starship is obviously far superior to the Saturn V.
And Starship will be able to be refueled in LEO, giving it the ability to take 100-150mt of cargo to the Moon or Mars. Saturn V was 0.5mt to TLI.
The Saturn V was a tremendous technological achievement for its time. But Starship is a far more capable vehicle and the cost/kg to orbit will be far, far less.
I was looking at rocket dimensions as they relate to BIG ROCKETS, like the Ariane which is the subject of the thread.
It is not a pissing match with Starship over what it can do for what price with a refuel aka TWO rockets.
Simply batting around big payload to LEO capacity and what is possible.
Saturn V was near as powerful as the new kid nearly on the block. You have to wonder what they could have done with 3D printed parts.
Ben W
Chess Grandmaster (Supervised)
What I really wonder is whether stripped-down Super Heavy booster with a nose-cone (no landing legs, grid fins, or hot-staging ring) might be able to achieve orbit as a SSTO. If so, imagine refueling it in LEO (with multiple tankers), mating it with a fully-fueled Starship, and then yeeting it to who-knows-where. That's one heck of a lot of delta-V! Or alternatively, it could make its very own tiny O'Neill Cylinder.
Had a wee dig around. Starliner has a rather heavy structure on account of being reusable. Half as heavy again.,empty of fuel, as a SaturnV! I find that astonishing. Nobody quotes a LEO payload.
SaturnV apparently could LEO hoist 140,000kg but the max it did was the old space station @ 90,000kg. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Why not have a nice roomy space station with a rec lounge wing and pool table if you can?
SaturnV apparently could LEO hoist 140,000kg but the max it did was the old space station @ 90,000kg. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Why not have a nice roomy space station with a rec lounge wing and pool table if you can?
I think you mean Starship. The original material was going to be carbon fiber. The idea was to make it as light as possible, improving on Apollo in every way. Then Elon saw how expensive and slow carbon fiber was going to be to work with, and he started thinking about materials from scratch, and came up with the idea of stainless steel. It has every good property you would want, including low cost, ease of use, the right thermal properties, and so on. One of its unfortunate properties is mass.
Elon quotes LEO payloads all the time, but we don't know what the actual capability is. It may be around 50 tons right now, but SpaceX is just trying to get the vehicle to work right now. Optimization will come later. The goal is to get to 200 tons to LEO, or even more. As Elon says, for now the payload is data. Even if Starship's final mass to LEO is "only" the same as the Saturn V, it would be a massive step forward because of the system's capability over time. Apollo launched every couple months at best, and each rocket cost $1.6 billion in 2024 dollars. The Starship design has the potential to launch daily at perhaps 1% of the cost, and Elon aspires to do better than that.
They didn't need anything larger than they built, and there was plenty of room onboard Skylab as it was. A larger station would have cost more. The astronauts had two hours of free time, but they normally worked during that time. That, or enjoyed the views. This was the early days, and they weren't thinking about playing games in space. Private space stations can figure out entertainment.
Elon and SpaceX have been clear about the Starship LEO payload, many times. Try going to the source https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
I actually am not entirely convinced it will happen... it's more that I see that it could... part of it is that there might be some economic driver that keeps the momentum up... mining is the typical one, but I admit that would have to be some VERY valuable ore to justify going to Mars to get it and ship it back. And I agree that the novelty aspect of it would have a hard time paying the bill, which I suspect is like your McMurdo example.
The one difference would seem that, unlike the Antarctic, Mars might be seen as the gateway for the next exploration step. I'm not entirely sure what that might be.. and quite frankly without the next quantum leap in space travel technology there may not be a real next step... but, if the idea of a spacefaring civilization wherein we travel to, and live in, systems other than ours is one mankind wants to pursue, this might be the first step, and I can see unique interest in that...
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