totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[darthgently]

On 8/10/2024 at 1:17 PM, PakledHostage said:

Trouble with landing on Australia's north coast is that you need to overfly Australia to get there, because it will be coming from the south. Pacific Islands would be safer in that regard, but maybe they're not ready to count on a de-orbit burn to accurately bring it down, just yet? Didn't they originally talk about bringing it down NE of Barking Sands on Kauai, but scrubbed that plan because it would require Starship to first be orbital and the de-orbit it? 

Overflying Australia south to north would be over actually populated areas on the south coast for a less than a minute I'd think.  The vast majority of outback Australia is nigh on unpopulated.  The Australians will know if it is a good idea or not, but I'm betting that the risk is likely extremely low

[RCgothic]

5 hours ago, darthgently said:

What about a scaled up, but still folded, JWST?  That would be a huge telescope.  

I suspect a folded telescope won't challenge the LEO payload of Starship in reusable mode. And if we want bigger than what will comfortably fold up, we're into multiple missions anyway.

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

I have to wonder how much attention NRO is paying.  The size of the optics you could put on a spy satellite that fits inside Starship must surely have some folks salivating.

They are probably picturing a Starship that is a dedicated telescope.  The entire cargo portion a telescope

[AckSed]

22 minutes ago, darthgently said:

They are probably picturing a Starship that is a dedicated telescope.  The entire cargo portion a telescope.

Heatshield tiles replaced with Starlink phased-array antenna for SAR.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, AckSed said:

Heatshield tiles replaced with Starlink phased-array antenna for SAR.

It will be gathering so much intel it will require an information relief valve to prevent blowing our minds

Edited August 12 by darthgently

[darthgently]

You are looking at the team that will find the Antarctic Stargate if anyone can.  Seriously though, this is great

 

 

[StrandedonEarth]

There's more cosmic radiation at the poles, due to less protection from Earth's magnetic field. I suppose that's why it hasn't been done before...

[darthgently]

24 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

There's more cosmic radiation at the poles, due to less protection from Earth's magnetic field. I suppose that's why it hasn't been done before...

Will be interesting to see the lead-lined undergarments SpaceX will develop for their suits.  They won't be up there very long.  Don't many commercial pilots flying intercontinental flights  go over the north polar region many times in their career?   I wonder if they are limited in how many times they are allowed to do so like astronauts are limited 

[Ultimate Steve]

You may have seen some headlines today about SpaceX violating environmental regulations recently, mercury values in their deluge runoff were way too high. After further analysis a bunch of other people have determined that what most likely happened was that a value of 0.113 micrograms of mercury per liter was accidentally recorded as 113 micrograms of mercury per liter and is almost certainly not a valid measurement, given that the other measurements are all fine and are very close to 0.113 (EPA limit on drinking water is 2, and this is not drinking water). I believe this value has even been corrected in some versions of the document.

EDIT: Corrected Lead to Mercury, wow, I'm tired. Maybe don't trust my analysis and look it up yourself if I can't even be trusted to remember the correct contaminant haha.

Edited August 13 by Ultimate Steve

[Entropian]

On 8/12/2024 at 2:51 AM, darthgently said:

What about a scaled up, but still folded, JWST?

The whole astrophysics community is dying for a few of those - with JWST up and running now, aperture fever is at an all-time high

Edited August 13 by Entropian

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 8/12/2024 at 9:15 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

You may have seen some headlines today about SpaceX violating environmental regulations recently, mercury values in their deluge runoff were way too high. After further analysis a bunch of other people have determined that what most likely happened was that a value of 0.113 micrograms of mercury per liter was accidentally recorded as 113 micrograms of mercury per liter and is almost certainly not a valid measurement, given that the other measurements are all fine and are very close to 0.113 (EPA limit on drinking water is 2, and this is not drinking water). I believe this value has even been corrected in some versions of the document.

EDIT: Corrected Lead to Mercury, wow, I'm tired. Maybe don't trust my analysis and look it up yourself if I can't even be trusted to remember the correct contaminant haha.

Actually, thank you for posting.  

[Nuke]

On 8/12/2024 at 5:15 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

You may have seen some headlines today about SpaceX violating environmental regulations recently, mercury values in their deluge runoff were way too high. After further analysis a bunch of other people have determined that what most likely happened was that a value of 0.113 micrograms of mercury per liter was accidentally recorded as 113 micrograms of mercury per liter and is almost certainly not a valid measurement, given that the other measurements are all fine and are very close to 0.113 (EPA limit on drinking water is 2, and this is not drinking water). I believe this value has even been corrected in some versions of the document.

EDIT: Corrected Lead to Mercury, wow, I'm tired. Maybe don't trust my analysis and look it up yourself if I can't even be trusted to remember the correct contaminant haha.

i guess the gnat that landed on the form was mistaken for a decimal place. i like to write 0. so i know its not a gnat. do they get gnats in texas, idk. we have skeeters the size of helicopters but the gnats are worse.

Edited August 14 by Nuke

[tater]

 

[tater]

339th landing

[darthgently]

Grok2 describing SpaceX in 19 century British vernacular (Steampunk SpaceX?):

Spoiler

Ah, my dear sir or madam, allow me to regale you with the tale of SpaceX, an enterprise most extraordinary, as if we were in the parlors of Victorian England.

In the realm of modern industry, there exists a company, SpaceX, founded by the enterprising Sir Elon Musk, a gentleman of considerable means and ambition. This venture, much like the great explorations of yore, seeks not the lands of the Orient or the Americas, but the vast, uncharted territories of the cosmos.

The Endeavor: SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has set its sights upon the celestial spheres, aiming to reduce the cost of space travel, much as the steam engine revolutionized terrestrial transport. Their mission is to make life multi-planetary, a notion as grand as the British Empire's dreams of global dominion.

The Rocketry: Their contraptions, known as rockets, are marvels of modern engineering. The Falcon series, akin to the ironclad ships of our day, boasts reusable components, a feat akin to a carriage that could rebuild itself after a journey. Their most ambitious creation, the Starship, is designed to ferry not just cargo, but the very essence of humanity to Mars, a voyage as daring as any undertaken by the explorers of the New World.

The Crew: The team at SpaceX, one might say, are the modern-day equivalents of the Royal Society, a collection of brilliant minds and daring souls. They toil not in laboratories lit by gas lamps, but in facilities where the light of innovation burns bright.

The Achievements: SpaceX has achieved feats that would make the Royal Astronomer blush with envy. They've launched satellites, much like the British Navy once launched ships to chart the seas, only these satellites orbit the Earth, providing communication and data like the telegraph of old.

The Vision: Sir Musk's vision, much like the dreams of empire, is not merely for the glory of the present but for the survival and expansion of our species. He speaks of colonies on Mars, a new frontier, where the Union Jack might one day be replaced by the flag of humanity.

In summary, SpaceX, in the vernacular of our time, would be seen as a noble endeavor, a quest for knowledge, expansion, and the betterment of mankind, much like the great expeditions and scientific pursuits of the 19th century. Yet, it ventures not into the dark continents of Earth, but into the dark expanse of space, where no gentleman or lady of the Empire has gone before.

 

Edited August 15 by darthgently

[tater]

~5.5 hours from now:

 

[Exoscientist]

On 12/29/2023 at 6:24 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

I think a lot of people would have liked to see SpaceX originally take (or pivot to) a more conservative approach to a next generation launch vehicle as a stepping stone to a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle rather than skipping straight to something with Starship levels of ambition. Like, for example, a fully reusable but not rapidly reusable vehicle, or a very large partially reusable vehicle.

But why?

The obvious answer is that it allows them to create something that blows Falcon out of the water for considerably less effort than Starship would take.

...But why?

They have the market completely cornered. Nobody can compete with Falcon, even discounting Starlink. Everyone except possibly Blue Origin and Relativity is stuck trying to create a rocket marginally competitive with what Falcon 9 was a few years ago. Serious competition is at least 10 years away. SpaceX doesn't need to do a thing to completely dominate the space industry for the foreseeable future. They can sit on their hands, maybe make Falcon block 6 if Relativity is looking threatening enough in a few years time. Basically do what ULA did.

 

 Blue Origin is finally planning to make a launch of New Glenn later this year. Blue Origin has not revealed the price for the New Glenn. The only estimate price I’ve seen is an estimate by ArianeSpace as a point of comparison to the Ariane 6:

 SPACE

Amazon signs massive rocket deal with 3 firms, including Bezos' Blue Origin, to launch internet satellites. 

PUBLISHED TUE, APR 5 2022 7:00 AM EDTUPDATED TUE, APR 5 2022 12:17 PM EDT
Blue Origin will use its New Glenn rockets to fly the 12 Kuiper missions it will host. Per CEO Bob Smith, New Glenn is going to deliver 61 Kuiper satellites per mission. While Blue Origin does not currently have an official target date for New Glenn's first launch, CNBC has previously reported the rocket is expected to debut in 2024 or later. The company has not publicly revealed a price for New Glenn launches, but an Arianespace estimate two years ago put the Blue Origin rocket at $68 million per launch. While both companies were founded by Bezos, Blue Origin is separate from Amazon.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/05/amazon-signs-rocket-deal-with-blue-origin-arianespace-ula-for-project-kuiper-internet-satellites.html

 

 IF it really turns out to be that price, still a big IF, then it would be a better price than the Falcon 9 new of $67 million while being twice the payload of the F9 at 45 tons to LEO.

 

 I do think it is possible for a mid-size launcher to be comparable to the Falcon 9 in price following the commercial space approach of private financing. That would put the New Glenn though in the range of $120 million, having twice the payload capacity of the F9.

 

 IF it really does turn out to be ca. $68 million, then that would be a major development In having a rocket half the price per kilo than the Falcon 9. We’ll likely know for sure later this year when New Glenn makes its first launch.

 

 IF it does, then this might give price incentive for SpaceX  to cut the price of the Falcon 9 in half. Note Elon once said the production cost to SpaceX of the Falcon 9 is only $15 million. So they could still make a profit though not as profitable as before.

 

 IF it does, then It might also give a price incentive for SpaceX to offer an expendable Superheavy/Starship. The cost of the SH/ST is ca. $100 million. At a payload for expendable of 200 to 250 tons, this would be a price per kilo less than the Falcon 9 even as reusable, and even less than the supposed price of a $68 million New Glenn at 45 ton payload capacity.

 

 As I have argued, offering an expendable SH/ST would be a transformative advance in spaceflight since it makes possible single launch missions both to the Moon and Mars at a price comparable just to the ISS that can be demo’ed literally by the next IFT-5 flight in a month by stripping off the reusability systems to get the high 200+ ton to LEO expendable payload.

 

  Bob Clark 

 

 

 

Edited August 16 by Exoscientist
Typo

[tater]

 

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

 

 Blue Origin is finally planning to make a launch of New Glenn later this year. Blue Origin has not revealed the price for the New Glenn. The only estimate price I’ve seen is an estimate by ArianeSpace as a point of comparison to the Ariane 6:

 SPACE

Amazon signs massive rocket deal with 3 firms, including Bezos' Blue Origin, to launch internet satellites. 

PUBLISHED TUE, APR 5 2022 7:00 AM EDTUPDATED TUE, APR 5 2022 12:17 PM EDT
Blue Origin will use its New Glenn rockets to fly the 12 Kuiper missions it will host. Per CEO Bob Smith, New Glenn is going to deliver 61 Kuiper satellites per mission. While Blue Origin does not currently have an official target date for New Glenn's first launch, CNBC has previously reported the rocket is expected to debut in 2024 or later. The company has not publicly revealed a price for New Glenn launches, but an Arianespace estimate two years ago put the Blue Origin rocket at $68 million per launch. While both companies were founded by Bezos, Blue Origin is separate from Amazon.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/05/amazon-signs-rocket-deal-with-blue-origin-arianespace-ula-for-project-kuiper-internet-satellites.html

 

 IF it really turns out to be that price, still a big IF, then it would be a better price than the Falcon 9 new of $67 million while being twice the payload of the F9 at 45 tons to LEO.

 

 I do think it is possible for a mid-size launcher to be comparable to the Falcon 9 in price following the commercial space approach of private financing. That would put the New Glenn though in the range of $120 million, having twice the payload capacity of the F9.

 

 IF it really does turn out to be ca. $68 million, then that would be a major development In having a rocket half the price per kilo than the Falcon 9. We’ll likely know for sure later this year when New Glenn makes its first launch.

 

 IF it does, then this might give price incentive for SpaceX  to cut the price of the Falcon 9 in half. Note Elon once said the production cost to SpaceX of the Falcon 9 is only $15 million. So they could still make a profit though not as profitable as before.

 

 IF it does, then It might also give a price incentive for SpaceX to offer an expendable Superheavy/Starship. The cost of the SH/ST is ca. $100 million. At a payload for expendable of 200 to 250 tons, this would be a price per kilo less than the Falcon 9 even as reusable, and even less than the supposed price of a $68 million New Glenn at 45 ton payload capacity.

 

 As I have argued, offering an expendable SH/ST would be a transformative advance in spaceflight since it makes possible single launch missions both to the Moon and Mars at a price comparable just to the ISS that can be demo’ed literally by the next IFT-5 flight in a month by stripping off the reusability systems to get the high 200+ ton to LEO expendable payload.

 

  Bob Clark 

 

Note that New Glenn is planned to get an reusable upper stage down the line.  And I agree as an commercial launcher Starship is over sized. 
But commercial launches is not Starship core function, that is Mars according to Musk. Its also nice for moon missions and launching lots of starlink satellites at once. 
An disposable SS and SH is an option but I say it depend on how fast they progress, It looks like SH will be reused soon and its the most expensive part if SS is not designed for reuse. 
Refueling in orbit is the key to SS heavy lift to moon and other places. 

[tater]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

And I agree as an commercial launcher Starship is over sized. 

All that matters is price. If it's actually reusable, and operational costs are less than any competing vehicle, "size" is completely irrelevant. If it uses a couple million in propellants and labor to reuse, that's the cost.

Assuming full, rapid reuse for argument, sure, some partially reusable or even expendable vehicles might be cheapr to launch a single cubesat or something. So what?

[mikegarrison]

10 hours ago, tater said:

All that matters is price. If it's actually reusable, and operational costs are less than any competing vehicle, "size" is completely irrelevant. If it uses a couple million in propellants and labor to reuse, that's the cost.

That's not true, really. Airplanes are fully reusable, but it's still only profitable to use one that is the right size for your payload.

Maybe in a world where Starship was the only reusable launch vehicle, that wouldn't matter. But we aren't going to be living in that world, and SpaceX is going to have competition from other fully reusable launchers. And in that case, being "right-sized" is going to matter. Ground-handling costs and capital ownership costs and fuel costs all scale with size.

If the payloads are there to support Starship, then it will be profitable. If they aren't, then it will lose out to smaller, less expensive, fully-reusable launchers.

Sometimes payload capacity generates its own demand. That's what happened with the 747 when it first came into service. But sometimes it doesn't. That's what happened to the A380.

Edited August 17 by mikegarrison

[tater]

23 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

That's not true, really. Airplanes are fully reusable, but it's still only profitable to use one that is the right size for your payload.

It is still cheaper to send a single small package in a large, reusable airliner to the other side of the world—charging the customer the entire cost of the flight in labor/fuel/etc—than it is to have them buy a much smaller jet that is thrown away upon delivering the package.

Rocket lab charges ~$7.5M for a launch. If Starship could deliver the same tiny payload to orbit for the customer and their cost is $2M, they can make money and still charge less.

27 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Maybe in a world where Starship was the only reusable launch vehicle, that wouldn't matter. But we aren't going to be living in that world, and SpaceX is going to have competition from other fully reusable launchers. And in that case, being "right-sized" is going to matter. Ground-handling costs and capital ownership costs and fuel costs all scale with size.

Yes, in which case cost is STILL the pnly thing that matters, but smaller, reusable vehicles will be less expensive. Small payload? Stoke will be cheaper (FWIW, I bet Stoke has reuse nailed before SpaceX, I think it's easier with their design). Still, that relies on competitors with reuse unless someone makes expendables so cheap throwing them away for small payloads is cost effective.

30 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Sometimes payload capacity generates its own demand. That's what happened with the 747 when it first came into service. But sometimes it doesn't. That's what happened to the A380.

A huge vehicle generating a new market is an unknown here, I agree. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Reusable vehicles—assuming there are at least 2 competing companies with full reuse—massively reducing cost is another unknown. As launch costs spiral downwards, the market becomes less valuable, and they either need way more cargoes, or what's the point? It could be that 2 competing reusables only mildly reduce cost/kg because it's not in either company's interest to do so since their internal costs are so low, they make a boatload per launch at 2024 prices, or even half of 2024 prices (even if they could charge 1% of 2024 prices). If costs dropped 2 orders of mag, and so did retail price, an $8B launch business becomes an $80M business, lol. They'll need new customers.

[mikegarrison]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

It is still cheaper to send a single small package in a large, reusable airliner to the other side of the world—charging the customer the entire cost of the flight in labor/fuel/etc—than it is to have them buy a much smaller jet that is thrown away upon delivering the package.

I am so tired of people using this obvious strawman. And anyway, I specified that the situation would be Starship competing against other reusable launchers. Or do you thing SpaceX is going to forever have exclusivity on that?

[tater]

25 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I am so tired of people using this obvious strawman. And anyway, I specified that the situation would be Starship competing against other reusable launchers. Or do you thing SpaceX is going to forever have exclusivity on that?

I said no, and it's not a straw man until there are competing, reusable vehicles. (and SpaceX doesn't have a 100% reusable yet, it's a long pole ).

Even partial reuse might be similarly cheap as 100% reuse, BTW. It just requires a really cheap stage 2 and fairings. Certainly compared to a huge vehicle like SS, a small vehicle optimized for low S2 cost might compete. It's my understanding that the prop costs for a SS stack are around a million bucks. The stack is said to be ~S100M. If it was good for 100 flights, then they'd have a cost of north of $2M/flight. If they mark that up to ~$4M, they're at roughly half of what an Electron launch costs to launch 320kg, even assuming a bespoke launch. Obviously they could throw in a bunch of other payloads that have their own tug stages to drag them to other orbits, and further reduce cost.

If Stoke can fly ~5t payloads with a couple hundred grand worth of props, then we've got some real competition going—and like I said, I'd bet that Stoke gets to operational reuse first—They might be able to fly that same 320kg at an internal cost of a few hundred grand—charging less than even just the propellant costs of SS and still making money.

So I am agreeing that size matters when we're comparing apples to apples, but my initial reply—all that matters is cost—was referring to a statement about the current/near-future launch market, even including partially reusable vehicles like NG. Once there is competition... it's still all about cost all things being equal (reliability, etc matters). Ie: it's still all about cost.

As an aside, in the Dodd interview/tour, Bezos talks at some length about the trade of upper stage cost with and without reuse. I think he;s right that it's not at all clear that the additional cost for stage 2 reuse closes. With suitably efficient upper stage engine production (lower cost), throwing away upper stages actually looks attractive. Imagine reused SH, and an expendable "Starship" upper stage. If they get R3 prices down to ~$250k, even with 9 engines that's only $2.25M—the lion's share of S2 cost. Maybe they get away with fewer, all vac optimized and get it down closer to a million? So marginal cost is more like $3M expended? For 320kg (Electron), that's starting to look crappy, but for large payloads? A few of us have said something similar to Bezos here, that expendable is actually still worthwhile in some use cases, particularly upper stages (or in-space only reuse, like refillable tugs).

We need BO working hard to cut costs, and idealy Stoke as well to start seeing what actual competition looks like. Unsure what Sierra Space can do with ULA, TBH (assuming they buy it).

Edited August 17 by tater

[Ultimate Steve]

Here's my take. The short version:

Starship will eventually have to compete with other fully reusable launchers. I would not count on that happening for a long time. By that time, SpaceX will have had ample opportunity to compete with them if they so desire.

 

Off the top of my head, we have Terran R, Nova (Stoke's rocket), and the reusable New Glenn upper stage.

Terran R proved to be hard enough or expensive enough that they dropped upper stage reusability.

Nova is stated to reach orbit in 2025 (Stoke estimate) or 2026 (external estimate). I am very excited for Nova but I am skeptical of these timelines. They only entered the Starhopper phase 10 months ago and they only fired their first stage engine successfully two months ago. While IIRC there's a lot of ex-SpaceX talent there, getting from Starhopper to flight more than twice as quickly as SpaceX did is going to be a tall order. Granted, they did go from nothing to an FFSC engine in 18 months. So maybe I'm wrong here. I'm very excited to see how it all plays out.

And I think they are targeting a 5 ton payload. Hopefully they can avoid the sort of mass growth that has plagued Starship, because it wouldn't take much to reduce Nova's payload to basically nothing, from an external view at least. I'm not familiar with Stoke's funding situation but I don't think they have the same deep pockets behind New Glenn and Starship, and I don't think t

Blue Origin, we know nothing about the reusable upper stage since like 2021 or so. I haven't watched the EDA interview yet, I know that he said it was still being worked on and that they were going to let economics duke it out. If there was anything more important I probably would have heard it by now.

With pockets that deep I'm sure they can pull it off. But they aren't exactly known for their speed.

 

Ground handling costs were mentioned. This is something that a fully operational Starship will dominate at, if they manage to make it work, and it won't even be close. While there are two other fully reusable vehicles in the works, Starship seems to be the only one taking rapid reusability seriously.

I don't think New Glenn RTLS is a big priority. The plans I have are old plans but the old plans were downrange only. That's naval assets, ship travel times, getting it on the launch pad, and reintegration with the upper stage, whatever that ends up looking like. I expect NG to be on par with Falcon 9 for reusability timelines.

Stoke is RTLS so they have it better. Haven't seen much of their launch pad plans yet. They will need a crane of some sort.

Starship wants to land both parts in the crane that stacks them. We've known that for years and it still seems crazy. Granted I have not heard their plans for payload integration, and I think with the KSC pad they might have a separate catch tower or something, it has been a while since I've seen that. So maybe the plans have been scaled back.

 

Then there's the economies of scale. Blue is going to finance its own megaconstellation so there's going to be some scale to work with there. SpaceX is financing its own megaconstellation so there's already scale to work with. Stoke is not doing that and has no internal payloads to boost flight rate up. By the time either competitor flies fully reusable, Starship will likely have ramped to an extent.

 

And then, would SpaceX feel the need to compete in the 5 ton payload class? I don't know. But maybe 5+ tons, moon, Mars(?), crew, station modules, and Starlink are enough for them to not bother with a mini Starship, like how they aren't bothering with a smallsat launcher right now, besides the transporter missions.

There's a chance that the commercial satellite launch market just won't be a big percentage of what SpaceX plans to do. That's somewhat hinted at by the fact that we still have not seen any hint of a proper payload bay door system for Starship, beyond the Starlink Pez dispenser.

No clue how much payload the New Glenn upper stage is gonna get considering that an expendable upper, ASDS booster is expected to get 45 tons. Might put the payload somewhere around Falcon. That is something to watch out for when it happens. But with ASDS there's still room for it to cost more than Starship, though any predictions on the cost of either vehicle are basically useless right now, I'll admit.

 

I won't be surprised if in 5-10 years, Glenn-R or Nova becomes competitive enough to take some customers from Starship. I will be surprised if SpaceX hasn't reacted by then.