totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Minmus Taster]

29 minutes ago, Exoscientist said:

Robert Zubrin’s made a key statement in this SpaceWatch.Global interview that Elon told him SpaceX could build Starship for $10 million.

This leads to a surprising conclusion: 

SpaceX can build a Moon or Mars rocket for ca. $10 million. Now.
Such a rocket could offer costs of $100/kilo to orbit. Now:

SpaceX routine orbital passenger flights imminent.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/11/spacex-routine-orbital-passenger.html

 

 Bob Clark

 

Wow. That's big.

[AckSed]

The key thing I'm interested in here: Zubrin's refutation of the meme-complex that the Mars colony, and the entire motivation for SpaceX (and Blue Origin's aspirations of an O'Neill cylinder), is a way for all the billionaires to leave Earth and the proles behind to our fate. Which is straight out of Ben Elton's satirical Stark.

Granted, I haven't seen it lately, but it was entrenched in my circle of friends just a year ago, because (the feeling went) there must be a motive that lines up for all this effort. Now it's switched to, "Work in the mines for the megacorps on Mars and die."

[darthgently]

18 minutes ago, AckSed said:

The key thing I'm interested in here: Zubrin's refutation of the meme-complex that the Mars colony, and the entire motivation for SpaceX (and Blue Origin's aspirations of an O'Neill cylinder), is a way for all the billionaires to leave Earth and the proles behind to our fate. Which is straight out of Ben Elton's satirical Stark.

Granted, I haven't seen it lately, but it was entrenched in my circle of friends just a year ago, because (the feeling went) there must be a motive that lines up for all this effort. Now it's switched to, "Work in the mines for the megacorps on Mars and die."

Occam’s razor cuts through all these things, thankfully.  Life simply inherently desires to expand outward. It’s baked in.  All it takes is a simple walk in the woods and everywhere you look is life trying to spread out and gain new footholds and rootholds.  We just need to be humble enough to not deny this sublime inherent motive within ourselves.  And it is reason enough. No conspiracy theories required

Edited 2 hours ago by darthgently

[AckSed]

8 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Occam’s razor cuts through all these things, thankfully.  Life simply inherently desires to expand outward. It’s baked in.  All it takes is a simple walk in the woods and everywhere you look is life trying to spread out and gain new footholds and rootholds.  We just need to be humble enough to not deny this sublime inherent motive within ourselves.  And it is reason enough. No conspiracy theories required.

This particular circle of friends is invested in their opposition, their hate. I have found myself keeping very quiet whenever space innovation (which is inevitably SpaceX) comes up.

[Terwin]

Just now, AckSed said:

This particular circle of friends is invested in their opposition, their hate. I have found myself keeping very quiet whenever space innovation (which is inevitably SpaceX) comes up.

That does not seem particularly mentally healthy, are you confident that spending time with those people is not having a deleterious effect on your own mental health?

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, Terwin said:

That does not seem particularly mentally healthy, are you confident that spending time with those people is not having a deleterious effect on your own mental health?

Agreed. On that path lies ungrateful extinctionism if one goes down it far enough.

[AckSed]

I don't think it's healthy for them, for sure: it's a FB conversation of a few old uni friends I occasionally mark "Read", only dipping in when I've braced myself enough and the last response isn't too cynical and matter-of-fact, "We're so smart, they're sleep-walking into this, why don't they see?" or words to that effect.

And round and round they go, posing their cynicism as rebellion.

I've stopped going to the monthly catch-ups.

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

SpaceX could build Starship for $10 million.

This leads to a surprising conclusion: 

SpaceX can build a Moon or Mars rocket for ca. $10 million. Now.

I’m pretty sure $10M is for just Starship, not the booster as well. So not an entire Moon rocket for just $10M

And then there’s the cost of outfitting the ships. A cargo ship shouldn’t take much, but a manned ship? I reckon the price of a manned Starship should be at least double a cargo ship by the time it’s on the pad, and then there’s the price of the payloads in the cargo Ships.