New Charity Bet: Date of first time Starship reaches orbit.

[e-FTW]

Losing a Starship is almost secondary at this point, it's "only" 6 engines. Losing the 29 on SH is the big deal imho.
I assume BN5 and SN21 are not far behind, but the real currency right now are engines.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Losing a Starship is almost secondary at this point, it's "only" 6 engines. Losing the 29 on SH is the big deal imho.
I assume BN5 and SN21 are not far behind, but the real currency right now are engines.

Be aware they are planning on losing those 29 engines when the booster drops into the Gulf of Mexico. As is usual with SpaceX, they are rapidly iterating and they are already starting to build Raptor v2. Those V1 engines weren’t going to ever be used on any production booster anyways.

 

[Nikxice]

Elon must want me to win. Am sure that’s it.

With a single photo, SpaceX sent a not-so-subtle message to FAA regulators

Holding back Starship means holding back this progress, Musk was saying.

arstechnica.com

I just watched Dave Lee's latest YouTube interview with Eric. There he also mentions late 2021 for the SH/Starship launch. Which begs the question, who's on first? Perhaps coincidental, SLS is looking at its first test launch around the same time. Elon may not have planned an for an upgraded version of the VG versus BO space race, but he might just be setting one up!

 

[philw1776]

January 2022

 

[nativewolf]

January 2022

If you watch the everyday asto series with Elon it was pretty clear that SpaceX is planning on losing many starships. So, i would not get too worried about the iterations, they are planning on those getting destroyed if need be but not slowing.

The most interesting thing I heard in those interviews was that the oil rigs are a long long way off from being converted to actual launch platforms. Frankly I am not too sure how many starships they can chunk off that beach, certainly no where near the amount needed to do the launch cadence they want to achieve.

 

[Electroman]

All this - multiple launches, rendezvous and cryo fuel transfer in LEO, crew transfer, and then off to moon to orbit and land - all of that looks so ambitious the timeline 2024 is very very unrealistic.

We need to be that ambitious.no doubt. There is no point in doing a mission similar to Apollo and just bring back a few Kgs of moon rock. That is already done 50+ years ago. This upcoming mission should be path breaking and foundational for many more inexpensive missions to Moon and Mars. So in that sense SpaceX design and plans are on the money.

Just that the aggressive timeline is delusional. If you don't set the right expectations now on the timelines, there will be deafening noise in two years that the whole thing is a NASA-SpaceX boondoggle.

 

[philw1776]

If you watch the everyday asto series with Elon it was pretty clear that SpaceX is planning on losing many starships. So, i would not get too worried about the iterations, they are planning on those getting destroyed if need be but not slowing.

The most interesting thing I heard in those interviews was that the oil rigs are a long long way off from being converted to actual launch platforms. Frankly I am not too sure how many starships they can chunk off that beach, certainly no where near the amount needed to do the launch cadence they want to achieve.

Not at all worried about iterations.

 

[Brass Guy]

Elon even went as far as to imply it's almost better if they blow up; otherwise they end up with yet another "lawn ornament."

 

[e-FTW]

Sorry Xepa777, I had to close the bet/contest after the FCC submission about the first orbital attempt became public. So the official entrants are:

e-FTW: 9/15/21
Ben W: 10/31/21
Cosmacelf: 12/1/21
dkemme: 2/22/22
UltradoomY: 3/17/22
Grendal: 5/4/22
Nikxice: 5/6/22
adiggs: 6/2/22

And right now, I've got to say that e-FTW is in the pole position AGAIN.

Based on this, looks like Ben W has the lead. 30 day of public comments starts now:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1438916361716109315

 

[Cosmacelf]

Based on this, looks like Ben W has the lead. 30 day of public comments starts now:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1438916361716109315

I’m still feeling pretty good about my chances sitting at 12/1/21.

 

[e-FTW]

I’m still feeling pretty good about my chances sitting at 12/1/21.

Definitely. There is likely going to be more things in the way after these 30 days, even if the outcome is a green light.

 

[Hurricane4911]

Watching SpaceX since its inception, and my first post here...A question,

Since point-to-point transportation is in Starships future, has anyone calculated the effective range of a starship without a Super Heavy boost?

In short can a starship do "short haul" trips, and how far?

 

[bxr140]

Since point-to-point transportation is in Starships future, has anyone calculated the effective range of a starship without a Super Heavy boost?

Buy the time PTP becomes even remotely possible, starship will be well evolved from what it is today (maybe not as much as falcon’s 2x capacity evolution) so it’s hard to say based on what we know today. …and of course payload mass is going to make a huge difference in range.

But if I had to wildly speculate I’d say many hundreds of km, maybe a thousand?

 

[Hurricane4911]

Buy the time PTP becomes even remotely possible, starship will be well evolved from what it is today (maybe not as much as falcon’s 2x capacity evolution) so it’s hard to say based on what we know today. …and of course payload mass is going to make a huge difference in range.

But if I had to wildly speculate I’d say many hundreds of km, maybe a thousand?

A 100 ton capacity "vehicle" that can deliver PTP goods 1k miles in minutes can be quite useful. No booster needed.

 

[philw1776]

Watching SpaceX since its inception, and my first post here...A question,

Since point-to-point transportation is in Starships future, has anyone calculated the effective range of a starship without a Super Heavy boost?

In short can a starship do "short haul" trips, and how far?

Elon has guesstimated 10,000Km or around 6,000 miles. Maybe a bit of skip glide in there.
That Starship would need more engines to get a decent T/W ratio, maybe 9. The least of the P2P problems.

 

[Hurricane4911]

Elon has guesstimated 10,000Km or around 6,000 miles. Maybe a bit of skip glide in there.
That Starship would need more engines to get a decent T/W ratio, maybe 9. The least of the P2P problems.

Lets set aside passenger transportation. Being able to move 100T of material, 10,000km in about 10 minutes.

A saviour for disaster relief aid and a also new toy for the Space Force.

 

[Cosmacelf]

This articles argues that it is unlikely we'll see this before 2022.

SpaceX's orbital Starship launch debut may be pushed to 2022 by slow FAA reviews

In a rare sign of material progress, SpaceX and the FAA have finally released what is known as a draft environmental assessment (EA) of the company’s South Texas Starship launch plans. Set to be the largest and most powerful rocket in spaceflight history when it first begins orbital launches...

www.teslarati.com

 

[adiggs]

This articles argues that it is unlikely we'll see this before 2022.

SpaceX's orbital Starship launch debut may be pushed to 2022 by slow FAA reviews

In a rare sign of material progress, SpaceX and the FAA have finally released what is known as a draft environmental assessment (EA) of the company’s South Texas Starship launch plans. Set to be the largest and most powerful rocket in spaceflight history when it first begins orbital launches...

www.teslarati.com

I really don't want my June 2022 entry to even get into the basket to win, much less be the winner.

With heavy duty bureaucracy looking like the primary impediment to progress, along with my own expectation we'll see lawsuits by environmental protection related non-profits, I'm suddenly liking my chances of 'winning'.

The lawsuits I expect (but don't know!) to be following along leave me in a personal quandary - my primary target for charitable giving is found in the environmentally focused non-profits, which might also mean that I find myself funding the opposition to progress on Starship. Yeah - that won't be good if it happens.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I really don't want my June 2022 entry to even get into the basket to win, much less be the winner.

With heavy duty bureaucracy looking like the primary impediment to progress, along with my own expectation we'll see lawsuits by environmental protection related non-profits, I'm suddenly liking my chances of 'winning'.

The lawsuits I expect (but don't know!) to be following along leave me in a personal quandary - my primary target for charitable giving is found in the environmentally focused non-profits, which might also mean that I find myself funding the opposition to progress on Starship. Yeah - that won't be good if it happens.

Would it be churlish for me to suggest some economic freedom non profits?

 

[nativewolf]

I think that the environmental impacts of launching a starship is worthy of a bit of study and if SpaceX did not have that going on 2 years ago they are idiots. You are talking about creating noise, heat, and light at a rate that's simply not precedented. They can't move these offshore fast enough.