totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[tater]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

3 launches a day? Like I love (and hate) you man but that can't be feasible. Stick to 3 a week, right?

That is from Everyday Astronaut, or SpaceX? Because it's not a "promise" at all if it's a fan graphic.

If it is SpaceX talking about sending 1000 ships a year to Mars, and each requires 6-10 tankers, then do the math. They'd need to launch 1 per HOUR for a year to do that if it only takes 9 launches for each Mars ship.

Yeah, it's completely insane.

[Pthigrivi]

44 minutes ago, tater said:

That is from Everyday Astronaut, or SpaceX? Because it's not a "promise" at all if it's a fan graphic.

Good question... Im lead to believe its from a SpaceX presentation from Feb. by this Scott Manly Vid... am I interpreting this wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/c/szyzyg/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=0

[tater]

You are right, it is.

3 times a day would be 100-120 Starships to Mars (10 vs 9 total launches per flight to Mars). Course spreading those out over a year would require propellant depots. Still a crazy number.

[Pthigrivi]

I mean in theory with anything approaching that kind of tempo you're building an orbital fuel depot for lunar missions and other shenanigans, tourism projects for the super wealthy,... thats all revenue but its also lag. And we're being nowhere real about years upon years of 15-20 rem per year until you build subterranean colonies on a planet with unbreathable air and average temps at -80 degrees F. This is the actual goal, spending billions of dollars to send people to colonize a place 500% less pleasant than Antarctica. 

Im just saying the Hydrogen Economy was way, way more plausible. Maybe the idea is by the time this stuff is really actionable life on earth will be so unbearable that that -80 degrees sucking C02 with cancer on your cancer would be preferable? 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[StrandedonEarth]

Bear in mind that the Mars-bound flotillas will be leaving every 26 months, not every year…

Which makes the numbers only half as crazy. Still crazy though 

Edited May 25, 2022 by StrandedonEarth

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong, starship is really, really cool and the potential is absolutely game changing. And I love what Tesla did. The global lithium production problem is hard but what are you going to do... no matter the chemistry Li is a damned good candidate and you need a lot of it and the environmental consequences of extraction are not great but better than total biospheric collapse? The real problem is macroscopic, robust and resilient grid scale storage for renewables across a range of environments and climates, including efficient residential heating and AC, industrial thermal efficiency, doubling down on converting mass timber into a global construction carbon sink... I mean are we even trying here?   

We've got all these supposedly brilliant billionaires and they're all focused on max wealth extraction and vanity projects and Im sorry but there's a real problem to be solved here and its how do we as a people get along and not kill each other for increasingly scarce resources over the next 100 years? Because with without that there's no one making rockets, or fuel, or chips, let alone food or housing and this whole stupid idea of an interplanetary species is BS snake oil because we will be a non-planetary species. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

they're all focused on max wealth extraction and vanity projects

SpaceX literally exists to colonize Mars. I think it's nuts, many of us here might agree, but that is the point. Tesla exists to help transition to renewable energy. I'm more of a split atoms, not wood guy, so renewables are fine to a point for me (even if electric would make even more sense with ~endless electric power available 24/7), but that's the goal of tesla. It's not really a vanity project. They are annoyingly slow, but I don't think BO is, either. I'm pretty sure Bezo's O'Neill colony dreams are legit. If both companies were moving decent mass to space (then extracting mass IN space), I think that moves the ball down the field pretty substantially to making humans truly spacefaring—and the end result I think is good for humanity, and Earth.

[Vanamonde]

Even though current politics are relevant, history has shown that they cannot be discussed on this forum politely. So please stay away from that. 

Some content removed. 

[SunlitZelkova]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Okay forgive the lazy screengrab but can we have some real-talk for a minute among amateur interested parties?

 

Look, so off the bat I don't comment in this section much, but let me blare through some disclaimers: a) this isn't about politics, but personality and ethics matter when a CEO is so involved in the process, b) Elon is a notoriously awkward and obnoxious weirdo who steps on his own feet as often as he makes (arguably brilliant) decisions; and c) you can love a thing and still criticize it, maybe even more so, for instance I can make fun of Tolkien for being a racist who's got some weird issues with women and still love LOTR to death--this isn't incompatible, you should love and be honest with family too,  etc. etc.

But can we talk about overpromising for a moment? Seriously watching starship's development has been like nothing in my life and I think its among the most amazing machines ever constructed, but... 3 launches a day? Like I love (and hate) you man but that can't be feasible. Stick to 3 a week, right? We're talking achievable averages and I know you're trying to get to 100k/ton and you've got to be optimistic but like give people reasonable, achievable claims that you can deliver on so you build confidence and sustainable growth and stability in your stock prices so there's some reliability there and the whole thing doesn't go Theranos (Poof) or spruce goose (poof) for all of those amazingly talented engineers and craftspeople actually making these incredible things, right? Like have some respect for your people and stop *ahem* roostering around with their lives and futures?

Just because someone says something doesn’t mean it is true.

The reason Musk sets such high goals is because in his and a lot of the people at SpaceX’s view, if you don’t set high goals your people tend to get lazy or something happens and it messes up the plan. I’m sure Musk and SpaceX know just as you do that it sounds crazy but they don’t set such goals because they actually think it can happen or don’t care, they are setting it as a psychological motivator.

IMO that is a little flawed and SpaceX needs to be careful with it. Space Shuttle had a goal of being in service in 1977- pretty quick considering it was the first ever spaceplane and was only approved in 1972- and that ended up killing 14 people.

A thing to note about their Mars city is that it is a dream, not a plan. Things will change along the way like how Starship’s design changes. They may very well end up switching to a floating Venus colony if they find Mars to be unworkable.

[Lukaszenko]

8 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong, starship is really, really cool and the potential is absolutely game changing. And I love what Tesla did. The global lithium production problem is hard but what are you going to do... no matter the chemistry Li is a damned good candidate and you need a lot of it and the environmental consequences of extraction are not great but better than total biospheric collapse? The real problem is macroscopic, robust and resilient grid scale storage for renewables across a range of environments and climates, including efficient residential heating and AC, industrial thermal efficiency, doubling down on converting mass timber into a global construction carbon sink... I mean are we even trying here?   

We've got all these supposedly brilliant billionaires and they're all focused on max wealth extraction and vanity projects and Im sorry but there's a real problem to be solved here and its how do we as a people get along and not kill each other for increasingly scarce resources over the next 100 years? Because with without that there's no one making rockets, or fuel, or chips, let alone food or housing and this whole stupid idea of an interplanetary species is BS snake oil because we will be a non-planetary species. 

Not sure what you're proposing here. That someone who has an understanding, drive, and passion for "A" to just drop it and focus on "B" instead? Whether he gives a damn about it or not?

I mean, even if "B" was more important than "A", which in this case is very arguable, I still don't think that expecting people to do a good job at something they don't have a passion for is reasonable or realistic. 

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, Lukaszenko said:

Not sure what you're proposing here. That someone who has an understanding, drive, and passion for "A" to just drop it and focus on "B" instead? Whether he gives a damn about it or not?

I mean, even if "B" was more important than "A", which in this case is very arguable, I still don't think that expecting people to do a good job at something they don't have a passion for is reasonable or realistic. 

Yeah I mean both Tesla and SpaceX are private companies and their chief aim is to make money, but the claims they are making are about salvation of the species by switching to electric over fossil fuels and delivering us to Mars as a hedge. Im questioning the authenticity of those claims, because if salvation of the species was your actual goal you’d probably stay focused on things like tackling grid scale storage and building up an all-electric timber harvesting and processing industry for CLT construction and not buying twitter. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

5 hours (ish)

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by tater

[GuessingEveryDay]

If it's not too cloudy, I might be able to see it from my school again!

[Beccab]

QD arm hinges have been installed on the new tower segments

[Terwin]

46 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah I mean both Tesla and SpaceX are private companies and their chief aim is to make money, but the claims they are making are about salvation of the species by switching to electric over fossil fuels and delivering us to Mars as a hedge. Im questioning the authenticity of those claims, because if salvation of the species was your actual goal you’d probably stay focused on things like tackling grid scale storage and building up an all-electric timber harvesting and processing industry for CLT construction and not buying twitter. 

To be fair, there may be 100x as many people working on tesla mass energy storage(Tesla wall?) as there are working on Starship, and I cannot see it mentioned in the news, especially here.

There was also mention of converting atmospheric co2 into methane for Starship.  If we are launching 1000 fully fueled starships towards mars every 26 months, that sounds like a lot of carbon that will be not only long-term stored, but physically removed from earth(some will come back, but I expect that most of it will not once out of earth orbit).

I could even see the efforts towards buying twitter as an effort towards trying to prevent/limit civil warfare, especially around his research/production areas.(Assuming he could make discourse more civil on a large social platform that thrives on conflict(conflict increases engagement which in turn increases revenue))

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, Terwin said:

There was also mention of converting atmospheric co2 into methane for Starship.

This is basically nonsense. The amount of energy it would take to extract the 400 ppm of CO2 from the air in large quantities is immense, and then you still have to crack it into methane, which I remind you requires at the very least all the energy that you can release by burning it up.

We would have to be just swimming in free green energy before this made any sense at all other than for PR greenwashing purposes.

Meanwhile trees are busy extracting the CO2 from the air for free, if we would just stop slash-and-burning them.

[Beccab]

Stream began just now, t-7 minutes

[insert_name]

Liftoff!

[tater]

 

Lag for fairing must be to place it for recovery, usually it seems to follow closer on stage sep.

 

[Beccab]

Pretty nice launch! I didn't expect to see the entry burn from the ground cam POV, pretty rare view these days

[tater]

5 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Pretty nice launch! I didn't expect to see the entry burn from the ground cam POV, pretty rare view these days

I want a pad cam like that one they did for Starship... looking right up the engine bells as it lands.

[AVaughan]

8 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

This is basically nonsense. The amount of energy it would take to extract the 400 ppm of CO2 from the air in large quantities is immense, and then you still have to crack it into methane, which I remind you requires at the very least all the energy that you can release by burning it up.

We would have to be just swimming in free green energy before this made any sense at all other than for PR greenwashing purposes.

Meanwhile trees are busy extracting the CO2 from the air for free, if we would just stop slash-and-burning them.

Personally I think the "make our own methane" project won't get any further than a pilot plant to develop the processes and equipment they intend to eventually use for ISRU on Mars.  

If they are making large amounts of LOX on site, then they might be able to capture small amounts of carbon dioxide from that plant, for relatively low additional energy and cost, which might be enough for an ISRU pilot plant that only runs some of the time.

I also recall hearing something about Musk offering a prize for carbon capture technology, so I think they are hoping for a better capture tech.  

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, AVaughan said:

Personally I think the "make our own methane" project won't get any further than a pilot plant to develop the processes and equipment they intend to eventually use for ISRU on Mars.

That makes sense -- kind of. The actual capture of CO2 is very different from Earth, because on Mars while there is very little atmosphere, what little there is is mostly CO2. Here on Earth, you have to somehow separate out the 400ppm of CO2 from the 999600ppm of everything else.

So it's not like you could just plop a Mars ISRU out on the beach in Texas and have it make all your rocket fuel for you. But at the same time, you do have to pilot the technologies involved.

[tater]

 

[Beccab]

28 minutes ago, tater said:

 

Looks like they are rolling it out for some cryo, then if it's successfull rollback to the high bay to complete heat shield installation and put on some Raptors