Spaceception

I've been gone for a couple days. You would think I'd have gotten better suggestions for the title. (Changed, I think I'm trying too hard with it) jk jk

Feel like this fits better in this thread. I came across it in the SpaceX facebook group - I only started reading it, fyi.

HOT CHOCOLATE. Wait. That picture looks really nice. It for some reason reminded me of an aurora surrounding the engine. I hope we get another video.

Not really. In five of those cases, they never left LEO, in two they can go out to the Moon (or Mars in Orion's case), but at that point, the LES has already been detached. Plus they're all significantly smaller than Starship, and don't double as the second stage. How would you design an LES for Starship that doesn't cut too much in the payload on ascent, and can be detached to avoid dead weight for the rest of the journey? Or is useful enough to keep the whole journey? Such as what @magnemoe suggested with making it a usable room. But that may only work when the crews are small. The interior is already somewhat larger than the ISS, you don't want to cut that down too much. And it's supposed to eventually carry a lot of people. While that may be reason enough to want an LES, it may just make it harder to have one in the first place. I think @sh1pman's points are something to consider. Is a stripped down Dragon with extra Draco's or SRMs even enough to carry the starship away from an exploding superheavy fast enough? Fuel and all? I suppose launching the crew separately on crewed Dragons may be a good idea for the first missions, but it becomes infeasible if they get to the point of launching many of them to Mars at once.

I honestly didn't notice that until after I posted it. I can't wait for an update on that test fire though.

Don't have anything useful to add, so here (Not mine, from the KSP facebook)

I wonder what the burn duration will be. And I hope he or SpaceX shares it.

Maybe only the core engines at first? It's a grasshopper-esque rocket too, right? And then they could have placeholder engines to simulate the rest of the weight.

And aren't they going to start Superheavy booster construction within the next few months? Updates, updates, updates. But now I really can't wait to see interior shots of the Starship (CG shots are okay), and that presentation that will happen when the hopper flies. Ooh, you're right. It made sense in the back of my head, but yeah. They'll never need to expend the booster, or land on a droneship.

Did they redesign the engine to be more rugged? It looks dusty, and awfully close to the ground. It could make sense, in line with another pretty recent tweet from Elon.

How long does it take to get from Moon to Moon in a gas giant system? à la Cassini?

Yes. I'm assuming you will need to clean it, but I'm making sure.

That's cool, by the time it can form those products, it's not an issue anymore. What about on the return trip, will you need to clean it off, or will it do the same thing?

Well, I guess that "unforeseen" issue happened

I don't think an LES in the nose section would work out, due to the way the Starship's heatshield will work, right? Unless it disconnected similarly to the cargo variant of the Starship in a way (The front of the ship gets deployed). But that would mean needing a bulkhead or something in-between the nose section and the rest of the habitat area. And separate plumbing for all the life support and all.

Let's say SpaceX somehow installs an LES on Starship, how much would it cut into the payload budget? Due to their need for reusability, it may have to be a part of the ship, instead of something that flies off. How bulky would it be? Could it even be safe enough to be worth it? Because it'd only be useful for ascent, since there's no way they can abort once they leave LEO. So it'd be dead weight after that point. So again, would it be worth it?

A lot of it, yeah. The first song is probably my favorite in the list.

Yeah, that's why I think the date may be close. But then again, we've barely seen anything aside from an engine test. So...

In the description, they say it'll debut in 2021. I just wish we know what they have developed by now But they must have some idea of when it'll fly at this point, that's just a couple years away. Who knows though, it could turn into another Falcon Heavy, but I hope they will be capable of sending stuff to the Moon in the first half of the 2020s.

As much as I may agree with the first part, leave that music alone (You would probably hate my writing music playlist)

Yeah. I can't think of a good scenario though. So it may be one of those plot points you just need to have suspended disbelief over. Like something bad is happening, that you extrapolate to be bad enough to warrant leaving Earth, even though you may be able to scrap by on Earth without heading to space. Unless you have a set of cascading problems that just makes things worse and worse. Instead of 1 hard problem you see in a lot of these movies.

I'm so sorry to hear about that, she really did sound like a good kitty. Losing pets is terrible.

Earth is toxic! Let's go to Io where if the Earth's toxicity didn't kill you, the radiation of Io will. I mean, if we needed to escape Earth, why not the Moon, or Mars (or Callisto if you really wanna go to Jupiter)? It's like they came up with the title, backed themselves into a corner, and ran with it anyway. What I'd really like to see in these movies where we need to leave Earth, is if they just go to the Moon, and begin the cleanup process of Earth while making sure the remaining populace isn't faced with immediately dying. Craft the plot around people who want to return Earth to its previous state and rebuild, and people who are pulling the strings behind the scenes to put them on top once finished. Or something like that.

Yeah, has anyone looked for transits? That would be good too. Are you going to email them about it? Or do you think they're just getting to it?

Welcome back Tau Ceti e, now confirmed as the closest potentially habitable world around a G type star. Unfortunately, it seems Ross 128 is no longer potentially habitable from possibly being too hot. And the site is also going through some changes so more may be added/removed with new data. The previous count was 55, now it'll be 48 once Tau Ceti e is re-added. The masses of e and f are still the same, so further observations will be needed to confirm their masses.