Elon asking for help

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

their company internal goal

slogan != goal

Various organizations in the human history had a declared goal, and an actual goal. Usually money.

8 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

But SpaceX seems confident that 9m Starship is enough to do the job.

SpaceX hasn't ever shown any survey of their colonial facilities, or even mentioned some preliminary studies.

All it currently has, is the landing of a 4 m rocket first stage, and a methalox engine.
It never provided any habitation equipment. Even no calculations or draft design. A distribution of the 9 m volume. Nothing.
Compare this at least to the ESA study, to the ISS or Mir description. to Project Horizon, to Barmin's base, to other studies of 1960s-70s.
Just nothing to compare, as SpaceX provides nothing.
What is the Starship enough for, when they even didn't care to first design what exactly they want to deliver?

8 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

While a 747 only needs 2 engines

Usually 4.

8 hours ago, Meecrob said:

So your argument is that SS/SH WILL suffer RUD's.

Five shuttles had it twice. Of course, they will, from time to time.
Titanic was large, too, and also didn't need enough lifeboats. 

8 hours ago, Meecrob said:

My car would cost like half a million dollars if I had to equip it for combat, but I do not engage in combat, so is it ridiculous that my car only costs 10 grand?

When your car breaks, you just stop and call the service. Or just drive slowly to the service.
When a regular plane has troubles, it can stop flying and land on any runway, enough long.
So, yes, Starship should be at least as expensive as a fighter above the hostile territory, because it doesn't have another chance.

7 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

but SpaceX pioneered anti-fratricide armor on Falcon 9 to keep engine failures from even stopping the mission as planned

Iirc, the first Starshiphopper flights got interesting exactly from the engine fratricide, if watch the video.

7 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Exactly, engine failures do not equal catastrophic loss of vehicle.

Interesting to recall, when an engine failure was not a loss of the launch vehicle. 

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

If it isn't 100% self- sustaining, it's not a "colony". The moment Earth dies, they die too because of a million reasons, one of which being they can't provide their own salt.

Afaik, the chlorine is almost the only resource they can not worry about on Mars. They should worry of its excess in the ground.

7 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

if Starship is being launched in waves of thousands of ships per synod toward mars, sure,  some people will die.

140 Shuttle flights = 2 in-flight RUDs.

Is the Starship anything but just another cryotank with engines?

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Noone is attempting to justify the SpaceX company goal. But it IS their goal, unreasonable as it is...

The keyword is "their". There can be various "theys" in a company, and while the company nerds are aiming to Mars, the tops may aim at anything other. Usually money.

Is the Disneyland aim to make the children happy?
No, it's to make their parents bring their money. The children are just the parents' weak point.

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Like Kennedy's mission, the SpaceX goal affects everything they do. "Does this help us get large numbers of people to mars"

The Kennedy's mission was causing a motion in economics, and was rather short-term.
They just sent 12 humans to the Moon and immediately back, and after 10+ years it was cancelled with no further investments.

Starship (if it happens to fly) is just a new Saturn 5, partially reusable.
It's incomparable even to Nexus or SeaDragon.

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

"Starship isnt going to carry 100, it can barely manage 18"

I'd like to see your math there- it's got the internal cargo volume of a jet that seats 500+, so 18 seems a ridiculusly low number.

According to the Soviet and ESA studies, 27..28 m³ of inhabited voulme per human is required for interplanetary flight.
27..28 / (pi * 9² / 4) ~= 0.5 m of hull length per human.

How long is the Starshp habitat part?

Any information about the SpaceX life support system? Are they going to regenerate the water and air, or to take it enough?
It any case, they need at least 800 kg of food and ~200 kg of regenerative water, and ~500 kg of hygiene expendables per human for a 1000 day trip, let alone the colony.

I.e. at least 2+ t of expendables and furniture per human.

So, yes, the Starship capacity is actually ~20 humans (a cabin, a diameter-long habitat, and 50+ t of the life support cargo).

***

Quote

Motorbike helmets (without sun-proof visors?), rubber boots (for lunar "marshes" and Martian channels), visually widened shoulders, and no radprotection around the family souvenirs.

Exactly what's needed in space.

Somebody was watching anime too much.

[Beccab]

12 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

140 Shuttle flights = 2 in-flight RUDs.

Is the Starship anything but just another cryotank with engines?

Challenger exploded because of the SRB. Starship has no SRB, so this cannot happen.

Columbia exploded because of the foam hitting the heat shield. Starship's heat shield isn't placed like the shuttle, so this cannot happen, and having a LES wouldn't have been of any use here like the original point was.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Beccab said:

Challenger exploded because of the SRB. Starship has no SRB, so this cannot happen.

Columbia exploded because of the foam hitting the heat shield. Starship's heat shield isn't placed like the shuttle, so this cannot happen, and having a LES wouldn't have been of any use here like the original point was.

Soyuz-1 crashed do to the chute. Soyuz-11 depressurized. Apollo-13 exploded.

The entropy will find a way.

[Beccab]

14 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Soyuz-1 crashed do to the chute. Soyuz-11 depressurized. Apollo-13 exploded.

The entropy will find a way.

Starship has no chute. Soyuz 11 should just not have happened. Everyone in apollo 13 survived.

I am aware you can't account for every possibility, but comparing it to the shuttle in terms of safety is a joke

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

I'd like to see your math there- it's got the internal cargo volume of a jet that seats 500+, so 18 seems a ridiculusly low number.

You want to sit in a coach-class seat all the way to Mars?

[kerbiloid]

34 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Starship has no chute. Soyuz 11 should just not have happened. Everyone in apollo 13 survived.

I am aware you can't account for every possibility, but comparing it to the shuttle in terms of safety is a joke

Read the Shuttle flight history.  How many times it had the heat protection nearly burnt.

When you don't have a system, its functions and malfunctions are just redistributed between other systems,
so the famous "the most reliable system is the non-existing system" is just a showing off.
Say, Soyuz or Apollo would never fail the landing due to the engine failure if it happened, as their landing engines are auxilliary. Starship would fail, though it can't crash on a chute failure.

15 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

You want to sit in a coach-class seat all the way to Mars?

A seat? Who needs it.

Ask the professionals: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/feb/28/ryanair-standing-only-plane-tickets-regulator

Edited July 10, 2021 by kerbiloid

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

SpaceX hasn't ever shown any survey of their colonial facilities, or even mentioned some preliminary studies.

The thing about this is that their modus operandi is to "design as they go" to save money, instead of building everything all at once. So they won't design life support systems until after they prove Starship itself works through flight tests with prototypes. So not designing colony facilities until Starship is ready is deliberate.

Whether that is a good idea or not is another question.

-----------------------------------------------------

I think the people who say Starship "will not work" and "will work"- professional critics of Starship or SpaceX, respectively- need to take a look at history. OKB-1/TsKBEM thought they were doing everything right, and the N-1 failed. NASA thought they were doing nothing wrong, and Space Station Freedom was never built (in fact, it was nearly cancelled, and had it been, there would be no ISS). No one can say whether something "will" work or "won't" work definitively (obviously, unless it is something outrageous like trying to get to orbit by bicycle).

As to how this applies to SpaceX and Starship- unexpected problems appear and plans can be realized as unfeasible as they near closer to completion.

There was a ridiculous amount of optimism in the early 60s about the importance the USSR and US would place on space exploration. Proposals were drawn up for huge spaceflight programs. And then only later was it realized that the people who control the state purse didn't care about space unless it pertained to Earthly military uses.

The engineers and scientists of the early 60s had no way of knowing that. Likewise there may be some event either inside or outside of SpaceX that kills the Mars colonization program.

It is healthy to take a look at what the "naysayers" have to say. There were some voices in the USSR that said a test stand was necessary for the N-1 first stage. Others said no- they believed the plan was perfectly sound, enough to stake their careers and reputations on- and the dreams of the people working on the L3 program were slowly crushed by each N-1 failure.

Starship and to a lesser extent, SpaceX's endeavors as a whole are a little unnerving in that regard. I am not denying SpaceX hasn't done any thing good or innovative, or declaring as a fact that they are doomed to fail, but many seem so focused on their successes that they have come to believe failure to be impossible (in the long run), and therefore refuse to think about what might go wrong, especially on the business/corporate side of things.

In my personal opinion though it will likely succeed as a cargo launcher in some form, I think a number of good arguments have been presented for why it won't become a crew vehicle as it is currently designed.

We will have to wait and see, obviously, to have a definitive answer.

[swjr-swis]

4 hours ago, Jacke said:

And a lot of this isn't transparent, as it would be if it was a government program.

I realize you meant this seriously, but... best spontaneous belly laugh I've had in a good while.

Anyway, carry on.

[kerbiloid]

59 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

OKB-1/TsKBEM thought they were doing everything right, and the N-1 failed.

OKB-1 was lacking both time and and proper engine, so the N-1 was a kit of patches and a duct tape.
It had its strange shape and construction because they had to place 30 smaller engines, so the cylindric first stage would be wider than higher, so they used the spherical tanks inside the cone, to keap the H/D reasonable and to have enough wide bottom for the 30 engines.
Also this allowed to separate the structural integrity of the hull and of the tank problems for the cost of greater mass.
They lacked money for a static fire test stand, so were testing the whole rocket by launching it in one piece.
They engine was raw and unreliable for that moment, that's why they added KORD, so if when an engine fails, it should try keeping the flight stable (never succeeded).
The payload, which it finally could  deliver to the Moon and back, had no redundancy or reserve at all. A single engine for everything, a simplified docking adaptor requiring a EVA acrobatics, etc.
Any system malfunction would cause a catastrophe. Almost everything should go fine to return to home.
So, N-1 was anything but right, and unlikely they didn't understand this.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The thing about this is that their modus operandi is to "design as they go" to save money, instead of building everything all at once. So they won't design life support systems until after they prove Starship itself works through flight tests with prototypes. So not designing colony facilities until Starship is ready is deliberate.

They should at least know how much payload are they going to deliver in total.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

There was a ridiculous amount of optimism in the early 60s about the importance the USSR and US would place on space exploration.

Both were mostly military. Recons and interceptors, sometime suborbital bombers.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Proposals were drawn up for huge spaceflight programs.

Because the equipment was unreliable, and the electronics couldn't transfer images in real time.
So, a spysat was much better with a photographer on board, and a combat orbital base required numerous personnel.
Once the electronics allowed to make photos on semiconductor matrix instead of a chemical film and send it to the ground station (the step from KH-10 Dorian / MOL to KH-11 Kennan, and from OPS Almaz to uncrewed Almazes), the humans became obsolete, so the space romantic plans evaporated.

[Rakaydos]

When I find hilarious about this naysaying, is that the orbital test flight is scheduled for next month. Now given that spacex's hardware rich test program means that they will have a bear minimum heat shield that might not be enough, in order to find out how much is enough, there's about a 50/50 chance that that flight will not make it down to the water. And y'all are going to lose your minds if that happens, calling it in another SpaceX failure, when it is in fact the intended result.

 

This is why spacex's eventual success is assured. They're not afraid of the occasional explosion (as long as people aren't around for them) if it gets them to their goal faster, and the money stream isn't going to turn off halfway, because the chief engineer is the money man.

[Deddly]

This thread seems to be devolving into a debate about SpaceX and their technology. There will be some overlap, of course, but please make an effort to keep it on topic and come with constructive ideas rather than merely debate whether they should be doing it or not. 

That means don't just post something claiming that it's all going to fail - post instead what is needed to make it work. 

[Rakaydos]

So, the current program  is sending whole starships, landing probes and rovers (probably off the shelf Boston Dynamics robodogs like the ones seen at the texas launch site) in 2024 to confirm the presence of water at a landing site chosen for easy access to water.

Probable next steps include scouting the site and packed-dirt pad creation over those first 2 years,  followed in 2027 by enough starships are landed to run a fuel plant, plus 2 crew ships each capable of carrying the entire expedition back in case of problems with one,  food for 5 years, in case something goes wrong with the fuel plant and the first resupply mission, a MOXIE CO2 cracker and CO2 scrubbers with equipment to bake them back after they are used as redundant air supplies with the electrolosys/fuel plant, and a shovel and electric heater as an ultimate backup plan for water supply. Enough solar panels to run the fuel plant is also enough to run life support through even the worst dust storms if you turn the fuel plant off.  Also, knowing Elon, the first mission will have a greenhouse module with the traditional martian potatoes.

[Deddly]

This is not a SpaceX bashing thread. There may or may not be good reason to bash them, but this is not the place for it. Please see my message two posts up. Posts that don't fit the topic have been removed. 

[StrandedonEarth]

My 5 cents (Cdn exchange rate, inflation, etc):

On topic: Nothing wrong with crowdsourcing. There may be a pearl in one of those oysters.

Going down the rabbit hole:

Spoiler

Regarding outfitting/colonial planning: IIRC SpaceX is in the transport business; they mainly want to provide the vehicle. Outfitting the crew cabin is secondary; ECLSS is NASA's specialty, after all. SpX appears to be running on a "build it and they will come" mentality, but if they finish the vehicle and nobody has stepped up with a cabin or Mars infrastructure, IMO they will figure it out themselves, with help from NASA (NASA is/was meant to be a tech incubator, much like DARPA). But SpX is concerning itself with things they need, like methane synthesizers for both terrestrial and martian use, which will need to be in place long before any crew arrives.

 

[southernplain]

On 7/9/2021 at 6:51 PM, GoSlash27 said:

You're entirely missing the point. If it isn't 100% self- sustaining, it's not a "colony". The moment Earth dies, they die too because of a million reasons, one of which being they can't provide their own salt.

Colonization is a process that is going to take decades or centuries to reach some arbitrary definition of self-sustaining. Just because we can't be self-sustaining from the first landings doesn't mean we can't continue the process of colonization.

As the colonization process unfolds, we would be shipping enormous amounts of stuff to Mars to bootstrap the colonization process. That is what SpaceX is trying to accomplish, providing a (relatively) cost-effective means to ship stuff to Mars.

Never mind the fact that we are reasonably certain Mars has sodium and chlorine in some quantities just at the landing sites we have sampled. Synthesizing the frankly trivial amounts to satisfy daily human dietary salt intake isn't out of the realm of possibility after a decade or two of colonization attempts. We don't synthesize salt here on Earth because it is insanely cheap and plentiful, but that constraint need not apply to Mars.

[Rakaydos]

So apparently SpaceX is going to be breaking ground on a new raptor factory, capital of shipping more engines per day then we can build space shuttle main engines per year.

Fully functional, this factory will be able to build several hundred starships worth of engines every year. Each starship can carry a good 100 tons to Mars if refilled reusably, and if it's refilled on Mars, it can come back and carry another load.

 

For those complaining about how large and undertaking a colony is... Elon knows. For the doubters, I wonder what you expect SpaceX to do with that many engines.

[GoSlash27]

20 minutes ago, southernplain said:

Colonization is a process that is going to take decades or centuries to reach some arbitrary definition of self-sustaining. Just because we can't be self-sustaining from the first landings doesn't mean we can't continue the process of colonization.

The definition of self- sustaining isn't 'arbitrary'. It means that absolutely no imports are necessary for survival. And clearly we *can* continue the process (SpaceX is doing that now), the question is whether we *should*, especially if there's a long laundry list of reasons why a Martian colony can never be self sustaining. At the very least, it undermines the main reason for having a colony on Mars; "survival of the human race in the face of an extinction level event".

On 7/10/2021 at 7:53 AM, Deddly said:

don't just post something claiming that it's all going to fail - post instead what is needed to make it work. 

Deddly,

 If that's the case I guess I'll have to bow out because IMO there is no way to make it work. Not a dig on SpaceX, just the reality of the situation. They can easily do human exploration and even an outpost/ settlement, which still puts their capabilities far ahead of any other space agency.

Best,

-Slashy

[kerbiloid]

The originally Musk's post in twitter literally says:

Quote

What are we doing wrong at SpaceX? You probably have some good ideas.

1. So, how could anyone answer this question without telling what are they doing wrong, when the question is exactly about that?

2. To say, what are they doing wrong, one should first understand what are they doing at all? (In the question context).

 

[StrandedonEarth]

Quote

What are we doing wrong at SpaceX? You probably have some good ideas.

Well, some people seem to think planning a Mars colony is the wrong goal. But that goal is resulting in this potentially amazing vehicle, so how can it be wrong?

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

long laundry list of reasons why a Martian colony can never be self sustaining.

Never say never, because that's a mighty long time. With the resources of the Solar System at our disposal and the means to make use of it (I realize this will take a very long time just for that), eventually, hopefully, we'll figure out how to make a self-sustaining colony somewhere, that could provide lessons useful elsewhere. If and when we establish outposts on Mars and the Belt, it may be that none are self-sustaining on their own, but may be able to eke out an existence helping each other if a global catastrophe befalls Mother Earth. 

I realize that's far-future thinking, because none of that appears remotely possible in the near term. But it has to start somewhere, and the vessel that could enable it to all happen is being developed now.

Pessimists figure it'll never work, and put little effort into trying. Optimists keep trying until it either it works, a showstopper emerges, or die they trying. Of course, history is littered failed optimists, but once in a while one succeeds at the impossible and changes the world.

Edited July 11, 2021 by StrandedonEarth

[GoSlash27]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Pessimists figure it'll never work, and put little effort into trying. Optimists keep trying until it either it works, a showstopper emerges, or die they trying. Of course, history is littered failed optimists, but once in a while one succeeds at the impossible and changes the world.

I hear what you're saying and all, but it's not Elon Musk or the good people at SpaceX who will be dying if/ when it doesn't work. If they go and start an unsustainable colony up there, one of 3 things will result: 1) They will be obligated to supply that outpost forever 2) They will have to bring everybody home or 3) Everybody who went up there dies. 

 Option 1 is especially troubling, because SpaceX may go bankrupt and then *we* are the ones stuck sending supplies to an unsustainable colony forever.

 There is a line between "optimism" and "recklessness", and I think this is pretty far over that line. When risking human lives, it's best to have some idea of how you're going to make it work *before* you start, not after.

Best,

-Slashy

[cubinator]

If a Mars colony isn't self-sustaining, then forget about Mars as the final destination. Make the entire solar system one big self-sustaining colony. Then do it again with the Milky Way. Fly spaceships between Earth and Mars and Venus and Titan and Europa and Pluto as much as you need to. Fill a whole tanker with salt. Life finds a way.

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Well, some people seem to think planning a Mars colony is the wrong goal. But that goal is resulting in this potentially amazing vehicle, so how can it be wrong?

I don't think it is necessarily the goal per say. It is the execution. Most people in the thread so far have not said "don't colonize Mars at all, forever", just criticized SpaceX's current plan. I'm sure if SpaceX presented a valid plan those people would change their minds. But they have not.

Also I don't think Mars is absolutely necessary as the main goal for Starship to exist at this point. It gave birth to Starship but that doesn't mean it has to stay. To put it in a saying modelled after discussion about NERVA and the Space Shuttle in the 70s, "Mars needs Starship, but Starship does not need Mars". There are other projects like space based solar power satellites and a large lunar outpost that Starship would be useful for.

I personally however think (hold the personal opinion that) the Mars colony project will die not because SpaceX just decided to stop because people kept nagging them to, but because it will prove to be infeasible for some economic or technical reason that SpaceX will discover down the road, or an outside event will "destroy" SpaceX or SpaceX as it exists now. As to what will actually happen though, my view is that we will have to wait and see, and therefore should take these discussions more lightly.

[Kirbin Kerman]

Just dropping in here to say that there's sodium on Mars. And there's chlorine on Mars. Sure, they're separate, but there is salt on Mars.

[Rakaydos]

10 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

I hear what you're saying and all, but it's not Elon Musk or the good people at SpaceX who will be dying if/ when it doesn't work. If they go and start an unsustainable colony up there, one of 3 things will result: 1) They will be obligated to supply that outpost forever 2) They will have to bring everybody home or 3) Everybody who went up there dies. 

 Option 1 is especially troubling, because SpaceX may go bankrupt and then *we* are the ones stuck sending supplies to an unsustainable colony forever.

 There is a line between "optimism" and "recklessness", and I think this is pretty far over that line. When risking human lives, it's best to have some idea of how you're going to make it work *before* you start, not after.

Best,

-Slashy

Do you disagree that for every need a mars colony has, there exists a large, heavy machine that can provide that function on earth? 

The a-priori assumption the the outpost CANNOT become self sustaining within the lifetime of SpaceX is the problem here. The spaceX plan is actually to push through the unsustainable outpost to sustainable colony as fast as possible, and they estimate it will take 20 years even with the new raptor assembily line their building in texas.

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, Rakaydos said:

Do you disagree that for every need a mars colony has, there exists a large, heavy machine that can provide that function on earth? 

The a-priori assumption the the outpost CANNOT become self sustaining within the lifetime of SpaceX is the problem here. The spaceX plan is actually to push through the unsustainable outpost to sustainable colony as fast as possible, and they estimate it will take 20 years even with the new raptor assembily line their building in texas.

The 2050s are 30 years away, not 20