RCgothic Posted May 27, 2023 Share Posted May 27, 2023 (edited) On 5/27/2023 at 4:55 AM, Royalswissarmyknife said: Where's my launch license, FAA? The FAA launch license always turns up not long after the rocket is ready. I can't recall a significant delay waiting for a launch license - only for the environmental assessment. And SpaceX used all of the time that took and more getting the rocket and launch site ready. Given what happened to B7, probably just as well they didn't try to fly B4. Edited May 29, 2023 by RCgothic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted May 29, 2023 Share Posted May 29, 2023 They've knocked down the lowbay / windbreak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted May 29, 2023 Share Posted May 29, 2023 Probably posted before, but still gorgeous.... https://i.imgur.com/r05ERqW.mp4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2023 Share Posted May 30, 2023 MCC gotta be happy they are no longer in the hospitality business for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthgently Posted May 30, 2023 Share Posted May 30, 2023 41 minutes ago, tater said: MCC gotta be happy they are no longer in the hospitality business for a while. A healthy frontier needs 90% challenge and 10% hospitality. This keeps the the general public interested and yet not too much in the way while the frontiersppl do the righteous work required Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2023 Share Posted May 30, 2023 Splashdown is at 10pm Central... might see reentry: 1 minute ago, darthgently said: A healthy frontier needs 90% challenge and 10% hospitality. This keeps the the general public interested and yet not too much in the way while the frontiersppl do the righteous work required They were somewhat demanding on MCC (for things that MCC brought up before the mission, and they said they certainly didn't need—until they did). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2023 Share Posted May 30, 2023 (edited) 11 hours: Edited May 30, 2023 by tater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve9728 Posted May 30, 2023 Share Posted May 30, 2023 But tbh, I don't think his trip is related to the space but Tesla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2023 Share Posted May 30, 2023 There's a tesla thread someplace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 31, 2023 Share Posted May 31, 2023 live Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 31, 2023 Share Posted May 31, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuky Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 https://www.npr.org/2023/05/30/1178958051/elons-giant-rocket NPR on whether SpaceX can afford Starship and where the money might come from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 10 minutes ago, tater said: It should be noted that the 30% increase in power production capacity will be the result of the installation and deployment of a total of six new IROSAs, not merely the two IROSAs carried on this launch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 1 hour ago, mikegarrison said: NPR on whether SpaceX can afford Starship and where the money might come from. Pretty much nothing in that that hasn't been discussed in more detail here in this thread, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 2 minutes ago, tater said: Pretty much nothing in that that hasn't been discussed in more detail here in this thread, lol. Yeah, but it's an "outsider" perspective. They spotted right away that the money being invested and the proposed lift-to-orbit capacity is ridiculous judged by the total size of the market today, so it really relies on the idea that "if you build it, they will come". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: Yeah, but it's an "outsider" perspective. They spotted right away that the money being invested and the proposed lift-to-orbit capacity is ridiculous judged by the total size of the market today, so it really relies on the idea that "if you build it, they will come". They (the people on NPR) are operating under the assumption it's to make money in the first place. They are echoing the same mistakes made by "media" regarding SpaceX goals that always get made. It might create new markets. Many here, at NSF, and reddit, have said the same—if costs come down by orders of magnitude, maybe we get a meaningful space economy. SpaceX is not building this with that as the primary goal. They are building the Mars vehicle. Musk has money to spend, and any additional funding/contracts simply offsets what he has to write a check for. You don't have to be on board with colonizing Mars (I'm not) to realize that that's the point of the entire enterprise. Being a major launch provider is to colonizing Mars what selling launches on F9 was to learning how to land boosters—it subsidized learning how to do something they wanted to learn how to do. Revenue exists to offset dev for them. That's it. Bezos is explicit on the "build it and they will come" side—he says he didn't have to invent the mail, internet, or credit cards to start Amazon, and that if they build transportation infrastructure in space, industries will follow. He's still effectively doing it as a sort of infrastructure philanthropy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 The thing is, SpaceX already has a market for Starship in Starlink, which benefits from every dollar Starship can save them on launch costs. So they are providing both the chicken and the egg, and ideas that could never leave the drawing board because there was no way to launch it finally have the possibility of cutting metal. Commercial Lunar has already emerged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 58 minutes ago, tater said: They (the people on NPR) are operating under the assumption it's to make money in the first place. They are echoing the same mistakes made by "media" regarding SpaceX goals that always get made. That's the "new space" reality. If a company loses too much money, it will fail. I don't care if it's Bezos or Musk or whatever. If the companies can't start becoming self-sustaining, they will fail. Amazon may have lost a lot of money during their growth phase, but at least they were chasing after a known market -- retail sales. They only changed how and where those sales were made. They didn't have to hope that people would want to buy stuff, just that they could make them want to buy the stuff from Amazon. Their cloud service and e-books and such are actually new markets that they (at least partially) created, but they weren't able to afford to do that kind of stuff until they had the huge profit stream going. The whole idea behind "new space" is that the space industries pay for themselves by attracting private money. Otherwise it's back to "old space" where instead of a government funding a moon shot you have a few billionaires trying to do it, but you still have the same problem that it's not actually self-sustaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthgently Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 (edited) 26 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said: The thing is, SpaceX already has a market for Starship in Starlink, which benefits from every dollar Starship can save them on launch costs. So they are providing both the chicken and the egg, and ideas that could never leave the drawing board because there was no way to launch it finally have the possibility of cutting metal. Commercial Lunar has already emerged. Couldn't a single Starship put a sparse Starlink constellation around the Moon or Mars? NASA, heck, all space agencies, might like that enough to pay for access. Would need gateway link to DSN and a lightweight ground terminal spec that could be integrated into rovers and such. It wouldn't be 24x7 connectivity but more frequent contact than the norm? Potentially no more blackouts on far side of Moon etc. Assuming sats can laser mesh, of course Edited June 1, 2023 by darthgently Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 43 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: That's the "new space" reality. If a company loses too much money, it will fail. I don't care if it's Bezos or Musk or whatever. If the companies can't start becoming self-sustaining, they will fail. Unless the guys bankrolling them don't run out of money before they die, yeah. And certainly in the longer term, again, yeah, you're right (assuming they need to survive longer than Musk or Bezos are alive). 43 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: Amazon may have lost a lot of money during their growth phase, but at least they were chasing after a known market -- retail sales. They only changed how and where those sales were made. They didn't have to hope that people would want to buy stuff, just that they could make them want to buy the stuff from Amazon. Yeah, hence my usual take that I don't actually see a lot of ways to turn rockets into money. Which the comment above yours sort of addresses relative to Amazon attacking existing markets (vs creating new ones). 1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said: The thing is, SpaceX already has a market for Starship in Starlink, which benefits from every dollar Starship can save them on launch costs. So they are providing both the chicken and the egg, and ideas that could never leave the drawing board because there was no way to launch it finally have the possibility of cutting metal. Commercial Lunar has already emerged. Yeah, this is an existing market that might be captured. Commercial lunar is not really a thing‚ the customer is entirely governments. Maybe someday, though. 43 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: Their cloud service and e-books and such are actually new markets that they (at least partially) created, but they weren't able to afford to do that kind of stuff until they had the huge profit stream going. The whole idea behind "new space" is that the space industries pay for themselves by attracting private money. Otherwise it's back to "old space" where instead of a government funding a moon shot you have a few billionaires trying to do it, but you still have the same problem that it's not actually self-sustaining. I agree, but in this case I think the billionaires in question at least have government levels of money. Hundreds of billions, and businesses that generate many billions per year. If SpaceX is to colonize Mars—yeah, they're gonna need a bigger boat (a boat full of money ). So presumably some large revenue stream. Humans to Mars Musk can pay for, a city on Mars... not so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthgently Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 39 minutes ago, tater said: If SpaceX is to colonize Mars—yeah, they're gonna need a bigger boat (a boat full of money ). So presumably some large revenue stream. Humans to Mars Musk can pay for, a city on Mars... not so much. I gather a part of the plan is that it won't be a free ride to Mars and that there will be plenty of work to be done once there. Who knows? But if another large "dinosaurbane" asteroid is detected heading towards Earth, SpaceX might find itself with lots of funding from many sources Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 (edited) 48 minutes ago, tater said: I agree, but in this case I think the billionaires in question at least have government levels of money. Very, very small governments. US GDP is $23T/year. Elon Musk's entire net worth would fund that for about 3 days. That's GDP, not spending. He could personally fund my state's entire government spending for about three years. A lot of money, but not major space-fairing governmental levels of free cash. Edited June 2, 2023 by mikegarrison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 1 hour ago, mikegarrison said: He could personally fund my state's entire government spending for about three years. A lot of money, but not major space-fairing governmental levels of free cash. The NASA budget is about like the rest of the government space agencies on Earth—combined. ESA spends about twice what SpaceX does per year, for example—and they do more than just build rockets. ROSCOSMOS 2022 budget was ~$2.9B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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