totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[magnemoe]

58 minutes ago, Flying dutchman said:

It would be awesome if they put some kind of barge out there for a future launch. It can land om the skirt i think. It won't be pretty but they'll at least have a post reentry starship to examine.

Guess you would get lots of over pressure on touchdown.  Now having some sort of open framework to land on and it probably work if dense enough for the skirt to land on but open enough to avoid over pressure. 
Probably some perforated plate held up by an frame. 

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

Current thinking is that direct aero to landing won’t work for crewed without capture burn, iirc.  G forces I think?

For sure aero-capture before going in for landing seems like a must for safety margin if no other reason. Might even be worth transferring to a purpose-built reusable lander in mars orbit rather than trying to land the interplanetary transfer stage? 

Edited November 20 by Pthigrivi

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

For sure aero-capture before going in for landing seems like a must for safety margin if no other reason. Might even be worth transferring to a purpose-built reusable lander in mars orbit rather than trying to land the interplanetary transfer stage? 

My thought to,  have return ship stay in Mars orbit. its also set up for zero-g living, lander is it and an temporary base. 
ISRU is the main objective but not needed for return flight. 

[darthgently]

Not sure if posted yet:

“…automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt”

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6

 

[Pthigrivi]

Exactly. I have real doubts about the economic viability of a mars colony but I think starship if it works presents above all the opportunity for high-mass, high-redundancy in space, given these initial missions to the moon and mars are funded by the US government. It becomes a pleasant face for spending billions in taxpayer dollars on dominance in space and maybe between starlink and some private contracts that accounts for the demand-need starship's PE investors are depending on for realized returns. Boeing is basically done and Bezos is not much better so there's a strong case for merging the SX monopoly with government in a way they think will be competitive with China's regulatory attitude toward its own space endeavors. I think given the pretty clear advantage they have in terms of cost/mass to orbit even if the US administration changes they're well positioned--unless they do something stupid and kill a bunch of people. Hopefully not.

But let's say given a chaotic future starship remains publicly and privately funded and we have orbital payload, tanker, and moonlander variants. At this point we're launching dozens of starships into space. You'll need first a proof of concept, unmanned lander on mars. Great. Maybe that even happens in 2026 or maybe the aerobrake fails and it blows up. Eventually you want multiple ISRU variants, unmanned equipment delivery variants, probably Mars orbital station component delivery, potentially more efficient reusable NERVA or NSWR transfer systems... like at what point is Starship honestly best suited as a simple mass-to-orbit platform and all of the actual to-mars equipment maybe based on a different platform and starship is just delivering THAT platform to orbit? Like originally Dragon was advertised as a mars lander. That was... not it. Maybe Starship aint it either? Just a means to an end?

Edited November 20 by Pthigrivi

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, Pthigrivi said:

Exactly. I have real doubts about the economic viability of a mars colony but I think starship if it works presents above all the opportunity for high-mass, high-redundancy in space, given these initial missions to the moon and mars are funded by the US government. It becomes a pleasant face for spending billions in taxpayer dollars on dominance in space and maybe between starlink and some private contracts that accounts for the demand-need starship's PE investors are depending on for realized returns. Boeing is basically done and Bezos is not much better so there's a strong case for merging the SX monopoly with government in a way they think will be competitive with China's regulatory attitude toward its own space endeavors. I think given the pretty clear advantage they have in terms of cost/mass to orbit even if the US administration changes they're well positioned--unless they do something stupid and kill a bunch of people. Hopefully not.

But let's say given a chaotic future starship remains publicly and privately funded and we have orbital payload, tanker, and moonlander variants. At this point we're launching dozens of starships into space. You'll need first a proof of concept, unmanned lander on mars. Great. Maybe that even happens in 2026 or maybe the aerobrake fails and it blows up. Eventually you want multiple ISRU variants, unmanned equipment delivery variants, probably Mars orbital station component delivery, potentially more efficient reusable NERVA transfer systems... like at what point is Starship honestly best suited as a simple mass-to-orbit platform and all of the actual to-mars equipment maybe based on a different platform and starship is just delivering THAT platform to orbit? Like originally Dragon was advertised as a mars lander. That was... not it. Maybe Starship aint it either? Just a means to an end?

Wot?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, AckSed said:

accelerated look

The impressive thing for me is the buoy cam; tells everyone they hit their mark.

25 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Maybe Starship aint it either? Just a means to an end?

Entirely possible.  But as a "Get tons of stuff to space" platform - I'm guessing we can all agree that the capability is there (for expendable stage, if not yet routine reuse).  Still, this is the 'farthest along' of any 'land massive stuff on Mars' program.  Possible that SS won't be the final product.  Imagine the excitement, however, once they start trying to land there.

From a "gotta start somewhere" perspective - this is pretty much 'somewhere'.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Entirely possible.  But as a "Get tons of stuff to space" platform - I'm guessing we can all agree that the capability is there (for expendable stage, if not yet routine reuse).  Still, this is the 'farthest along' of any 'land massive stuff on Mars' program.  Possible that SS won't be the final product.  Imagine the excitement, however, once they start trying to land there.

From a "gotta start somewhere" perspective - this is pretty much 'somewhere'.

Oh for sure. Its basically already 2 generations ahead of the competition. The heatshield  may prove a bugaboo for true second stage reusability “like an airplane” but a lot of progress has been made and I have high hopes for version 2. Time will tell. My real worries for starship are economic. Starlink is cool but the vast majority of the world’s population is already being more affordably served by terrestrial fiber optic and cell service. It’ll be interesting to see starlink’s market penetration beyond rural and beyond-last-mile customers. Same with private big-mass to orbit customers. Maybe the demand is there or maybe its not. This is all very build it and they will come and its either the internet or its 3d tv, or AR, or self driving cars. Potentially revolutionary or maybe its DoA or perpetually 10 years from breaking out. Either way Starship really needs those fat government contracts to the moon and beyond as a reliable income stream to justify the overhead in the short term. Hence the marketing and the campaign finance bribes. 
 

Like its weird we’re not talking about starship and asteroid mining, which has some actual long term economic viability. The reason we’re not talking about that is it would need to pass actual quantitative muster on investment horizons.  If it did that would be the pitch in Spacex’s PE funding rounds, but its not.  Instead we’re talking about Mars because your average US senator is prone more to legacy and vanity than ROI. The attractiveness Starship presents to Goldman and Saudi Arabia is that it’s kind of got lock on US space contracts both military and civil, and maybe some upside on Starlink and private launch contracts. SpaceX potentially assuming the lion’s share of US taxpayer investment in space over the next few years  probably looks like a decent fallback.

 

Edited November 20 by Pthigrivi

[Nuke]

so what happened to the banana?

[grawl]

42 minutes ago, Nuke said:

so what happened to the banana?

It's been flambéed.

Spoiler

 

Edited November 20 by grawl
spoiler

[Flying dutchman]

Booster still floating?

[Kerwood Floyd]

Boy it sure is a shame those Raptor engines are so darned unreliable (j/k)

 

[Minmus Taster]

1 hour ago, Flying dutchman said:

Booster still floating?

Not judging by the massive fireball no

[darthgently]

13 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Starlink is cool but the vast majority of the world’s population is already being more affordably served by terrestrial fiber optic and cell service.

Sure, if you only consider the first world.  Most of the world’s population is lucky to have dialup or oversubscribed/spotty lower speed cellular.  A few Starlinks can provide better for a small village.

Also you have clearly never worked a crew hanging or burying and maintaining miles of cable and fiber or building and maintaining cell towers and antennas.   Never mind the hurricanes and tornadoes.  Vast costs are involved that cannot be appreciated from an armchair

Edited November 20 by darthgently

[darthgently]

IFT-7 g2g
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/spacex-just-got-exactly-what-it-wanted-from-the-faa-for-texas-starship-launches/

[bigyihsuan]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

IFT-7 g2g
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/spacex-just-got-exactly-what-it-wanted-from-the-faa-for-texas-starship-launches/

Hoo boy up to 25 launches per year? That's a launch every 2 weeks! I can't wait for Starship launch tests to become as routine as Falcon 9 launches.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

22 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

vast majority of the world’s population is already being more affordably served by terrestrial fiber optic and cell service

I think they're looking at the direct to cell service - just another $100 per month!!!  -- Which will then become so ubiquitous that we almost feel like it's a necessity rather than a nice to have.  Honestly, if someone offered me a chance to buy into a company offering gigabit wired service to homes... I'd not really see that as much of a growth model as I once would have.

Always on, wireless direct to satellite full time internet access?  Once the cloud/snow/rain/indoors thing is figured out - there's likely to be a lot fewer linemen outside of power distribution.

 

[Pthigrivi]

17 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I think they're looking at the direct to cell service - just another $100 per month!!!  -- Which will then become so ubiquitous that we almost feel like it's a necessity rather than a nice to have.  Honestly, if someone offered me a chance to buy into a company offering gigabit wired service to homes... I'd not really see that as much of a growth model as I once would have.

Always on, wireless direct to satellite full time internet access?  Once the cloud/snow/rain/indoors thing is figured out - there's likely to be a lot fewer linemen outside of power distribution.

 

I mean maybe for a relatively small subset that are willing to pay more for coverage in the woods or on their yacht? The average for home internet is 75$/mo in the US, between 20-50$/mo globally. Starlink is currently 120$/mo? Like they can probably bring that down but can they bring it down by a factor of 4? Im sure they will have customers but is it really a cash cow game changer or a nice toy for the wealthy?

Edited November 21 by Pthigrivi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I mean maybe for a relatively small subset that are willing to pay more for coverage in the woods or on their yacht? The average for home internet is 75$/mo in the US, between 20-50$/mo globally. Starlink is currently 120$/mo? Like they can probably bring that down but can they bring it down by a factor of 4? Im sure they will have customers but is it really a cash cow game changer or a nice toy for the wealthy?

If you recall the days of cheap dial up... would you go back to save money?  FWIW - I see homeless people with cell phones.  How that works, I don't know - but they do.  So it's not just for the rich - it's practically required to have connection.

I think if you can imagine someone getting on their phone and NEVER losing connection to the internet, never having to switch wifi - or even have wifi - and cell service - and cable...   I'm serious; once ubiquitous, everyone will have it.

And the cost will be the cost - borne by everyone, one way or another

[Pthigrivi]

3 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

If you recall the days of cheap dial up... would you go back to save money?  FWIW - I see homeless people with cell phones.  How that works, I don't know - but they do.  So it's not just for the rich - it's practically required to have connection.

I think if you can imagine someone getting on their phone and NEVER losing connection to the internet, never having to switch wifi - or even have wifi - and cell service - and cable...   I'm serious; once ubiquitous, everyone will have it.

And the cost will be the cost - borne by everyone, one way or another

I dont know I live in VT and there are a lot of dead zones. How many of my neighbors are going to pay twice to avoid that? For like a fifteen minute stretch on a few highways? Not many. Data service is a commodity. Most people live in cities or towns and pay as close to baseline if possible.  There’s already a baseline thats much less than what starlink is offering. Some people will absolutely pay more for better coverage but i don’t see that being a huge market share, certainly not globally. Only if Starlink can start offering fast, reliable service for less than 50$/mo. Right now they’re charging 120$/mo for 100 mbps or less. 

[DAL59]

Starship landing trajectory

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

If you recall the days of cheap dial up... would you go back to save money?  FWIW - I see homeless people with cell phones.  How that works, I don't know - but they do.  So it's not just for the rich - it's practically required to have connection.

I think if you can imagine someone getting on their phone and NEVER losing connection to the internet, never having to switch wifi - or even have wifi - and cell service - and cable...   I'm serious; once ubiquitous, everyone will have it.

And the cost will be the cost - borne by everyone, one way or another

People are missing the point that many rural villages share one or more Starlink terminals and distribute locally via WiFi and cat 5/6.  Just as passengers on a commercial flight share a Starlink terminal.

 It isn’t about cabins and yachts, for Crom’s sake

[Deddly]

10 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I dont know I live in VT and there are a lot of dead zones. How many of my neighbors are going to pay twice to avoid that? For like a fifteen minute stretch on a few highways? Not many. Data service is a commodity. Most people live in cities or towns and pay as close to baseline if possible.  There’s already a baseline thats much less than what starlink is offering. Some people will absolutely pay more for better coverage but i don’t see that being a huge market share, certainly not globally. Only if Starlink can start offering fast, reliable service for less than 50$/mo. Right now they’re charging 120$/mo for 100 mbps or less. 

In Portugal, Starlink costs 40 euro per month, which is currently the equivalent of $42 US, including sales tax. In Sweden, it's more like $50. They have regional pricing, so they'll charge whatever they are able to get in the local market. But I can't see them being willing to lose money on their plans, so the US ones must be highly profitable, at least until some competition is available. 

[darthgently]

Many here are focusing on service to high population density areas.  But the reality is that half the global population lives in what is often downplayed (derogatorily) as “flyover” country.  The cost equation of installation and maintenance of connectivity very much changes outside of metro and suburban areas.  There are thousands of villages only reachable by small aircraft for all practical purposes in many parts of the world.  They are starving for educational and economic opportunity. This is the long range reality Starlink and similar are looking at

[Pthigrivi]

5 hours ago, Deddly said:

In Portugal, Starlink costs 40 euro per month, which is currently the equivalent of $42 US, including sales tax. In Sweden, it's more like $50. They have regional pricing, so they'll charge whatever they are able to get in the local market. But I can't see them being willing to lose money on their plans, so the US ones must be highly profitable, at least until some competition is available. 

Yeaah that makes sense. I guess we'll see. Hey somewhat on topic I remember Globalstar and other satellite networks had problems with the South Atlantic anomaly. Does anyone know how Starlink deals with that? 

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

Many here are focusing on service to high population density areas.  But the reality is that half the global population lives in what is often downplayed (derogatorily) as “flyover” country.  The cost equation of installation and maintenance of connectivity very much changes outside of metro and suburban areas.  There are thousands of villages only reachable by small aircraft for all practical purposes in many parts of the world.  They are starving for educational and economic opportunity. This is the long range reality Starlink and similar are looking at

Oh definitely, where I live cell service is particularly tough because of the dense, hilly terrain. I think serving rural villages sounds awesome. The question for me was whether the economics will pan out in the long run.