I've been addressing plans for a dramatic increase in the constellation above what's there now. Supposedly the Starlink unit is cashflow positive, and you're right they could sit on it and print money, likely in perpetuity. What I question is the idea there's sufficient demand to justify a larger launcher.
When did America stop dreaming big? On colonizing/exploring Mars and hating on Musk
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I said it the other day but it bears repeating: they believe Starship will be cheaper overall, not per kg, to launch than Falcon.
That requires reliable reuse of both stages but if it works out then demand isn't a problem
I do think Starship would be more economical both in terms of raw per kg costs and in particular for enabling capabilities of the larger sized Starlinks. I see no reason to believe they can't recoup their R&D costs especially since it has multiple applications, all at industry overturning pricing.
If this ozone aluminum issue turns out to be a big thing, I'll have some reservations, but the raw economics seem very much to be in Starship's favour to me.
If you haven't figured out that Elon sets audacious goals so that even the attempt and failure to meet those goals ends up vastly ahead of the competition... well, you haven't been paying attention. It's been explicitly stated more than once.
"Should have been"?
Nah.
If you're going by the 2015 presentation, 2021 wasn't going to be the "first year". Did they fail to meet the timeline? Absolutely. Who should be surprised by that? Nobody who paid attention.
We again are back to "not paying attention".
Size doesn't equate to cost, much less cost per kg of payload.
Which do you think costs more? Delivering a washing machine to my house with an 18-wheeler while making other deliveries and continuing to use the truck for another 20 years, or delivering a washing machine to my house with a box van and setting the van on fire after delivery?
I think I understand the landscape of this discussion a little better now, thank you. When you said "[citation needed]" I mistook that for a sincere request that I support my claims, rather than a wholesale rejection of the idea that consensus reality applies to Musk.
I know you chose this analogy because it's the default in the argument for reusable launch vehicles but I would remind you we have a pretty good idea of how it works when Musk builds an 18-wheeler, and I think you're being a little hasty in ruling out setting the box van on fire. It might be an established mode of transport that we know objectively works, but that still doesn't mean it works when the design comes from Musk in a manic episode throwing a napkin sketch at his staff on the way out the door to do lines of ketamine.
And that's an established mode of transport that we know objectively works, the technical feasibility wasn't even in doubt.
If you have serious doubts about Starship at this point, you haven't been paying attention. It's already proven as an orbital rocket - they're still working on optimization and reusability.
Falcon 9 and the Merlin engine went through all sorts of modifications and ended up being by far the most reliable rocket in history. IIRC the longest string of successful launches for all other orbital rockets is around 100.
A quick refresher of where F9 reusability development started out:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ
Nobody has made a reusable earth to space and back rocket cost effective. I'm pessimistic on the concept. It takes a whole lot of fuel to put something in orbit. Putting something that can land from orbit in space probably only makes sense if you have something you need to bring down -- typically people. And I don't actually foresee a future in which there will be Starship size payloads of people to bring down.
Fuel is a rounding error in launch costs. I think Starship uses a few hundred thousand dollars in fuel per launch IIRC
Just to emphasize this, Falcon 9 v1.2 needs extra significant figures to express its estimated reliability, relative to any other launcher:
I don't understand how any of these stats are supposed to work. Starship as an orbital... rocket?. I along with 7 other students made an orbital rocket in university. Does that count? Then there are literally in the order of hundreds of successful orbital rockets. Is this an achievement?
Longest string of successful launches to orbit... does that include military? Because the V2 had much longer strings, and literally 1000+ successful suborbitals. That's 80 years ago now.
How do you subdivide versions? Are all Delta rockets eligible? Is it just engines? Then ESA wants to have a word with you.
There is a pretty serious difference between a lack of doubts about getting this thing to work (they can probably manage that) and not having serious doubts about Starship. After all, just getting the thing to work doesn't imply that there is a market capable of sustaining it's operation. Realistically, there are a number of serious failure modes which have little to do with technical function.
Falcon 9 fuel might actually be more expensive per launch: rocket grade kerosene isn't exactly cheap compared to LNG. I don't know exactly what grade Merlin needs, prices on that list vary widely.
And if I told you you hadn't been paying attention for doubting the shuttle? It's already proven as an orbital rocket, after all. You wouldn't find that argument convincing and you'd be right not to, because the shuttle had intrinsic engineering flaws that weren't resolved by a successful flight. They became more and more of a problem to the program as time went on, in fact.
Size matters as well. But yes, having an orbital rocket is a pretty important benchmark. Just ask Blue Origin.
I'm not finding anything about a University team actually getting a rocket to orbit - just "to space" like New Shepard. Did your rocket achieve orbital velocity? I'm fine if you chose an orbit with a perihelion below atmosphere for safety reasons. Documentation would be appreciated.
1) Orbital was specified. I also don't count Stinger missiles, Javelins or Estes rocket kits.
2) Gonna need some documentation on the reliability of the V2. The documentation I found does not support your reliability claim.
"V-2 missile reliability as tested increased from 30% in January 1944 to 70% immediately before combat firings began in September 1944. Dornberger claims it reached nearly 100% after the final technical fix was introduced into production in December 1944. Some authors credit combat missiles with a reliability of 80% to 90%"
"Nearly" 100%. Sounds like something of 99% or lower, even if we believe the most optimistic claims. Otherwise we go with 80-90%.
One would subdivide Delta into II, III and IV. You know, like the manufacturer did.
If you want to go back to look at all the pre-Delta II with all the letters and x000 series, feel free. Doesn't change anything.
STS was a deathtrap from the beginning, and the engineers on the ground knew it.
So was Apollo/Saturn V, by the way.
Again, we're talking about a rocket being built by the company with a reliability record that FAR exceeds any other orbital rocket. NASA-led rocket projects typically have had a shitty safety record.
Is Musk an asshole and often a dumbass, particularly about societal things? Absolutely.
Isn't SpaceX one of the companies that needs a layer of Musk-Management to insulate it from his decisions and micromanagement style?
Oh, yeah. Thankfully Gwynne Shotwell has been there since early days to run the business side. Tesla would be FAR better off if they had someone like Gwynne.
The rockets are cool, but I’m pretty sure there’s an Observatory thread for dorking out.
In more actual Musk-news, which might or might not be related to his rockets going boom at times, he’s had another claim of inappropriate behaviour levelled at him over at SpaceX. Eight engineers say that he’s created a terrible working environment, in part because he apparently can’t stop trying to personally create more candidates for colonising Mars.
Speaking of which, he’s had another kid with one of his execs, bringing the total number of known Musk children up to twelve.
I honestly can’t believe that his companies still claim him as some sort of golden boy. Shotwell and the rest must really have drunk the koolaid, since they seem just as culty as his followers at this point.
In more actual Musk-news, which might or might not be related to his rockets going boom at times, he’s had another claim of inappropriate behaviour levelled at him over at SpaceX. Eight engineers say that he’s created a terrible working environment, in part because he apparently can’t stop trying to personally create more candidates for colonising Mars.
Speaking of which, he’s had another kid with one of his execs, bringing the total number of known Musk children up to twelve.
I honestly can’t believe that his companies still claim him as some sort of golden boy. Shotwell and the rest must really have drunk the koolaid, since they seem just as culty as his followers at this point.
You concede what you attempt to deny, that there is room for doubt after an orbital flight. Presumably you would agree the engineers on the ground were paying attention when they had reservations, yet STS-1 was successful.
So I am very sorry but it seems strange that you insist only ignorance can justify doubts in Starship, when you wouldn't accept that reasoning in any other context.
And if Shotwell were in charge of Starship that would mean a lot, but with Elon taking direct control of the program there is ample evidence that he can fuck it up even if there's nothing especially novel about the idea and even if the technical feasibility is not in doubt. And it looks a lot like Musk has gotten worse over time at taking engineering feedback from subordinates, not better. This is not a good sign for something as challenging as orbital launch.
You seem to think I'm only talking about running a business, in the abstract. Seems to me he needs and has handlers who manage him on the technical side.
I don't know about that, after all, she has to butter him up just to do her job. So who knows what she actually thinks about Musk. If anyone important at his companies claims anything other than the professed perfection of their glorious leader, they will quickly find that someone else can do their job.
Of course there is always "room for doubt" on just about anything. That's not really a meaningful point.
I 100% reject your claims of knowing what reasoning I would or would not accept.
Try me with something substantive instead of just throwing FUD. What exactly are your concerns?
But that's the problem after we've gone around similar points a few times, I now know what you said.
I've made the technical arguments, you can go back and find them if you're really that interested. You challenged me on my report that Musk claimed Starlink would be competitive with terrestrial fiber, I dug up the old video I half remembered, I found the timestamp, I transcribed it for the thread so it would be easily available, and what did that get me? The narrative was seamlessly rewritten before my very eyes, no longer an obviously nonsense claim or potential wire fraud, now it's an "audacious goal". Even though a few minutes earlier you understood perfectly well the claim was such obvious nonsense it didn't even occur to you to believe Musk really said it.
Your response is basically a bunch of different versions of accusing me of not paying attention, even after I'm the one that managed to remember an offhand comment from almost 9 years ago. I mean, come on. I am obviously in the top 0.01% of obsessive space nerds. If I'm not paying attention then no one is. You just don't like what you're hearing. Not my problem.
Starship burns methane and oxygen, and the exhaust is just water and carbon dioxide. The water isn't an issue, and the carbon dioxide is inconsequential compared to the amounts generated by everything else. Like I said, I have my doubts that the burning up satellites are actually any kind of an environmental problem, but the Starship launches are definitely not a problem.
Not true, the main combustion chamber is fuel rich. Note that this is a separate consideration from the dual preburners, which as a full flow engine are oxygen and fuel rich. Those both feed into the main combustion chamber, which is fuel rich overall. The math just works out that the ISP is a little better that way, and it also lowers the combustion temperature somewhat. So there probably is some residual methane, which is a problematic GHG.
Unclear how much. I'm not saying it's definitely an issue. Just because it's fuel rich doesn't mean the leftover methane all makes it through intact. A lot of it is going to be partially oxidized into stuff that is much shorter lived than methane. And a lot of what's left will combust with the air. But again, there's likely residual methane and a bunch of other stuff.
Not a chemist, but wouldn't the residual methane from a fuel-rich propellant mixture be burned up in the exhaust stream?
Aluminum Oxide from the satellite de-orbit hurts the Ozone Layer, specifically. Article from Phys.org:
This sounds like a lot of satellites that SpaceX, Amazon and more are planning. Way too many planned satellites, IMO:
Farther in the article:
Pollutants increasing 8-fold across 6 years.
This sounds like a lot of satellites that SpaceX, Amazon and more are planning. Way too many planned satellites, IMO:
Farther in the article:
More Aluminum Oxide in the atmosphere is not a good thing. As climate change intensifies, we do not need the Ozone Layer healing more slowly.
Some would, especially at low altitude. But probably not all, and definitely not all at higher altitudes.
Aren't climate change and the ozone layer pretty much orthogonal?
There are probably physics connections between the behavior of the two, but for practical and policy purposes, they are pretty much separate.
Aside from specific pollutants, it's useful to know that in the order of 10^5-10^6 tons of meteorites and space dust enter the atmosphere and fall down to earth every year. From a pure mass perspective, deorbiting satellites are a rounding error on a rounding error.
I guess the pertinent question is how much aluminium oxide these asteroids leave behind vs artificial satellites. Given the current rate of increase, "not much from meteorites but a lot from satellites" at least sounds plausible to me.
Actually, that isn't quite the point. The real question is "how much does satellite debris degrade ozone compared to meteorite debris"
Apparently iron oxide is quite effective at breaking down ozone as well. Meteorites typically have a large proportion of iron. Then you need to look at nickel, silicates, etc, etc.
Which seems to indicate that the article linked was vastly overstating the concern about satellites by taking an overly narrow view of the situation and only looking at aluminum oxide.
Not uncommon in my experience. Remember, getting a PhD means becoming an expert in an infinitesimally tiny area of knowledge. It is not training for "big picture" thinking. Some of them develop big picture thinking, many do not.
Adding tens of thousands of manmade structures that, when they de-orbit, release ozone-destroying molecules that will be around for decades, and then sending more up to replace them, is still really bad. Especially when we can supply Internet to people through fiber and fixed wireless:
Karl Bode is a journalist that does a lot of work on the telecoms beat. Last week, he posted a thread to Bluesky about how the Biden infrastructure bill has been helping and will continue to help, and assholes like Musk are decrying it as a "waste of taxpayer money".
...nothing I guess.
You completely failed to address the point regarding the enormous flaw in the study you cited, then started gish-galloping about personal opinions of Musk.
Yes, fair point.
Two questions pop to my mind, given what you've just said:
- How effective is aluminium oxide at depleting the ozone layer? It's hard to find useful comparison numbers, but I did find an interesting forum post that tried to do some calculations of the potential damage level, coming in at a worst case of 200 parts per billion per year. Like the author thought, that doesn't sound like a huge amount to me, especially given the author's highlight that the maximum ozone concentration is around 20 parts per million at 30km.
- How finely balanced is the current ozone destruction/replenishment rate? Could something small tip it into a serious depletion rate? I don't have a good idea of the figures there at all
And apparently their later calculations to consider ozone concentration dropped the ozone losses to the PPT levels.