
Starship Update - adventured
https://www.spacex.com/webcast?d=20190928
======
strainer
I do find this to be actually legendary. At a target rate of about one per
month, he is set to produce stainless steel, rapidly reusable, 150-ton-capable
Mars transports. And is doing this using currently "about 5%" of the resources
of his own commercially built satellite launch company, grown from scratch in
a decade or so and out-performing every other nations satellite launch
programs - by a large margin.

His presentation is noticeably a little self-concious, but not so much as to
obscure his enjoyment to be standing in front of the first massive shimmering
yet wielded and dented together rocket ship, which is due to demonstrate lift
off and landing in a month or so.

~~~
jillesvangurp
I think he's beating even his own expectations with SpaceX. This company is
just wildly successful in reaching seemingly impossible goals that they keep
setting for themselves.

I think it mainly shows just how ineffective and inept the established players
have become. The companies and organizations that got us to the moon 50 years
ago still exist but seem to have lost a lot of their ability to get things
done.

Now that other countries are landing on the moon, the pressure is on to
deliver the next persons to the moon and ultimately to Mars. Working backwards
from that goal and the goal of going to Mars, Elon Musk has done what Nasa has
not been able to get done for decades at a fraction of the budget they've
consumed not getting there; or even deciding to go there. Better still, he's
turned that into a profitable company.

~~~
sixdimensional
Do you think this is because the people at SpaceX are incredibly motivated by
what they are working on, because of the inspiring leadership of Elon Musk,
because they actually have enough money/funding, because of some unique agile
way of working that SpaceX has developed, because they don't have to deal with
(or have found a way to deal with) as much stifling regulation, or some
combination of all of the above?

I am genuinely trying to understand it as an outsider to SpaceX. It seems like
either SpaceX has figured out a formula for organizational success that we all
need to learn from, or it also seems like there's a possibility something else
is going on. I really can't tell.

EDIT: If anyone has any books or reading material on this topic, please share!

~~~
HenryKissinger
I don't think money is the issue. NASA has a much larger budget than SpaceX,
courtesy of taxpayers. But NASA is a government agency, with more red tape and
bureaucracy than necessary. SpaceX doesn't have to go through a 6 months
approval process to order a part.

SpaceX also benefits from a constant, unbroken vision: develop cheap, reusable
rockets -> lower launch costs -> build a spaceship to go to Mars. That's
roughly the plan, and they've stuck to it since their founding. NASA,
meanwhile, sees every new administration flip the table and change the
mission, because every president wants to have their Kennedy "We choose to go
to the Moon" moment". This makes long term planning impossible, and budgets
are cut when Congress gets impatient.

NASA is still riding on the coattails of the Apollo program, but it takes more
than that to inspire people to work for you. No doubt that NASA remains a
desirable employer full of bright and motivated people eager to contribute to
the larger goal, but NASA just doesn't have this "it" factor anymore. If you
asked someone on the street what NASA is doing back in 1970, they would say
"send people to the Moon". But today? NASA is involved in a plethora of
projects, from the Mars rovers to aeronautics to climate change monitoring,
which is nice, to be sure, but also sucks time and resources from the kind of
"Moonshot projects" that SpaceX and other private actors are working on.

~~~
CrazyStat
NASA is basically a jobs program at this point. Congress keeps funding it
primarily as a way to direct federal money to certain states. There's no
vision.

There are lots of good people at NASA and they manage to do some great work,
but they could do much more with the budget they have if they weren't subject
to the political whims of two branches of government.

ESA/Ariane are in a similar situation. They rejected reusable rockets a couple
of years ago explicitly because they were afraid of the effect it would have
on the jobs on their production line--the calculus is purely political, and
jobs won out over not being left behind with an overpriced single-use launch
platform. To their credit they recently walked that back and are now
developing a reusable launch platform.

~~~
growlist
Hit the nail on the head. If Starship/Superheavy succeeds the contrast will be
stark, with the relative inefficiency of ESA/NASA making them look like
employment schemes that do space as a side-effect. If they care about
remaining relevant in rocketry both organisations need to wake up, smell the
coffee and start disrupting themselves before SpaceX becomes the only game in
town (ESA efforts notwithstanding). This is very much what I would love to
see, it's 2019 and we should have at least a moonbase by now.

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sveit
"One of the really interesting interesting things to contemplate is the total
mass to orbit capability of a large reusable system where you have a
significant fleet in operation. If you've got something like Starship where
you've got maybe 150 tons capable to orbit and the ship can fly, is capable of
say theoretically flying four times a day but you know they call it like 75
percent uptime so theoretical three times a day, three hundred sixty-five days
a year. So that's like about a thousand flights a year for the ship. The
booster can do a lot more than that. This is obviously max theoretical. You've
got, you know, 150 tons that service, 150,000 tons to orbit per year per ship.
If you've got say ten ships you'd have [...] one and a half million tons to
orbit per year. Twenty ships you've got three million tons to orbit per year.
I think the total rest of world capacity, if you take all rockets on earth
including Falcon, the total capacity to orbit I think is around two to three
hundred tons currently. Total Earth capacity to orbit is about two to three
hundred tons if all rockets launched at max rate. So we're talking about
something that is with a fleet of starships a thousand times more than all
earth capacity combined. All other rockets combined would be 0.1% including
ours."

How is this not massively disruptive to the entire space launch industry?

~~~
ac29
Isn't space launch already demand constrained? SpaceX has flown 9 times this
year, with a few dozen undated upcoming missions listed as well [0]. He's
talking about being able to do tens of thousands of launches per year, but
who's going to pay for it? If almost no-one is paying to put a few tons into
orbit now, where is the demand for millions of tons a year going to come from?

[0] [https://www.spacex.com/missions](https://www.spacex.com/missions)

~~~
torpfactory
I think you would be firmly in “creating completely new markets” territory at
that point. It would be like trying to imagine what one would need 1000x as
many transistors for, at the dawn of semiconductors. The world certainly
wasn’t buying that many vacuum tubes, was it?

From my perspective, these are the big ones in the near term: 1) LEO satellite
internet. Fixes the lag issues with GEO orbits, making space internet directly
competitive for some applications. 2) Tourism: I would certainly pay a very
pretty penny indeed to see the earth from space.

Longer term: 3) Global sun shade or other system for preventing global climate
catastrophe. In 30 years I think we’ll be talking a lot about this. 4)
Resource extraction, which otherwise doesn’t make sense with expensive
rockets. 5) Self sustaining mars base. Still can’t figure out what the
economic incentive is for this. It will cost a lot of money for what return
exactly?

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mabbo
"We could see people flying next year".

O_O

This is "Elon Time" at its best, but worth keeping in mind how fast Starship
development has actually gone. Elon Time is becoming more realistic.

~~~
eugenhotaj
I have not seen the presentation yet. Still, I am willing to bet anyone a non-
trivial amount of money that we do not see people flying next year.

~~~
Animats
Well, crewed Dragon was supposed to fly this summer, then this fall, but will
probably slip to 2020.

The Boeing Starliner was supposed to fly uncrewed in 2018, then October 2019,
and now Boeing is shipping it to the launch site but not giving a date.

~~~
king07828
Right, and in response to the parent, a more interesting bet may be whether
crewed Dragon flies first or a crewed starship flies first.

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callumprentice
Musk said at the start of his presentation that the magnitude of earth's
gravity is such that we are right on the cusp of rocket flight possibility. If
the magnitude were a little more, rocket flight would be impossible. If it
were a bit less, it would all be a lot easier.

Can anyone expand on that, assuming it's the truth..

~~~
enjeyw
Ok so doing super-approximate maths:

A fully fueled and loaded Saturn V weighs about 3,000,000 Kg, and has a
payload of about 40,000 Kg to the moon.

So that means once you've put all the bits of the rocket together that
collectively give you sufficient thrust to get you to the moon, you've only
got about 1.3% left for actual payload.

S if earth's gravity had been ~1.3% stronger, then the weight of the "getting
us there" bits of the rocket would have left no room for payload. Any more
gravity, and we wouldn't even be getting to the moon.

Equally, if the earth's gravity had been 1.3% weaker, we could have doubled
our payload to the moon (or done things way easier).

Contrast that with a Boeing 747 which has 50% of total mass as payload, and so
is relatively insensitive to changes in gravity.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
I recently realized that if we got in Jupiter's gravity well we could probably
never escape it again. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. The thought made me
feel really uneasy.

~~~
hossbeast
If that were true, it would be impossible to leave the solar system, since
everything is currently in the Sun's gravity well, and the Sun is larger than
Jupiter. But we have sent probes outside the solar system (did they fully
leave the Sun's gravity well yet though? Not sure)

~~~
davidivadavid
But we didn't send the probes from the Sun.

~~~
furyofantares
Plus I don't think it got its velocity from Earth, but by using gravity
assists to steal momentum from other planets (which, if you don't know how
that works, do yourself a favor and read the wikipedia page, it's pretty
great).

------
snoshy
I didn't notice this being mentioned in the webcast or in any of the follow-up
articles I've read on the presentation: while the timelines for 6-months-to-
orbit seem insane, I believe the underlying drive for an aggressive schedule
here largely derives from Mars launch windows. [1]

We have a launch window to Mars open from July 2020 - September 2020, the tail
end of which is almost exactly one year away. Starship will have to be orbit
capable well before this window, such that the flight and maneuvering
characteristics are understood well enough to reasonably justify taking a
crack or two at an unmanned cargo Mars mission within the 2020 window. Musk
might not have explicitly mentioned it in the presentation, but I would bet
that the Starship teams are internally being driven to these targets.

FTA, Musk is quoted in 2017, saying SpaceX was targeting uncrewed Mars
missions in 2022, but given his ambitions and depending on the progress of the
Starship/Super Heavy, I can see them actually aiming for 2020 such that any
failures would still guarantee a path to making the 2022 window.

All of this is my own amateur speculation, would love to hear corrections or
other ideas.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Launch_win...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Launch_windows)

~~~
Lanzaa
I don't think the schedule is aggressive enough for a 2020 Mars launch with
the Starship.

It is likely that Starship will be capable by then, but the wow factor is
missing. I don't think an interesting mission would be ready. Don't forget
that Musk's Tesla was already launched to "Mars". So it would be safer and
just as impactful to have an interesting mission planned using Falcon Heavy.
The only mission I can think of which might be viable is Starship landing on
Mars. However I don't think SpaceX would have proven Starship enough to get
approval for that.

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superkuh
The most surprising thing to me was nixing the transpiration cooling with
methane and switching back to heat shielding tiles for half of it.

~~~
mabbo
It was such a cool idea, but I imagine it was going to be very hard to make it
work.

~~~
superkuh
Reusable heat shielding tiles are also very hard.

~~~
lukebuehler
Could it be easier compared to other rockets/shuttle since the space ship is
made out of steel?

~~~
nickik
It makes it a bit easier because as Elon mentioned the steel structure can get
much hotter without it being an issue. This makes it easier to connect the
tiles directly to the ship.

However still the primary problem is still to have some surface that can
handle the heat without deterioration over multiple flights.

------
growlist
A couple of takeaways for me:

1\. oldspace and its supporters, if they have a clue, should be even more
terrified than before by the scale of the vision. Even if only a percentage is
achieved the disruption should be shattering

2\. the unspoken juxtaposition between Musk on the one hand - on the face of
it unpolished and light-hearted to the point of flippancy about a topic no
less grand than the destiny of humanity, yet in reality visionary, fiercely
determined and stunningly successful, and proceeding with at least as stated
altruistic goals; and oldspace on the other - polished, solemn, pompous,
claiming the sole capability and privilege to act as gatekeepers to space, yet
in reality outdated, inefficient, outclassed, and acting like a resentful dog-
in-the-manger in response to SpaceX. There's something tragicomic, almost
Shakespearean about it all

~~~
Lanzaa
I don't think any of "oldspace" are terrified by the Starship. I would bet
they are almost as excited as SpaceX.

SpaceX's improved launch capabilities will not kill off "oldspace" companies.
Mainly because access to space is a national/military security issue. The
launch providers for China, Russia, India, and the EU will continue to exist,
if only because those entities don't want to be beholden to SpaceX for their
access to space.

If anything I would expect an increase in funding to some of those "oldspace"
launch providers as countries try to catch up with SpaceX's technology.

~~~
growlist
> I don't think any of "oldspace" are terrified by the Starship. I would bet
> they are almost as excited as SpaceX.

Not so sure about that - ESA's saltiness suggests they are not thrilled:
'Asked about how the Ariane 5 compares to lower-cost alternatives on the
market today, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, Stefano Bianchi, Head of ESA
Launchers Development Department, responded with a question of his own. “Are
you buying a Mercedes because it is cheap?”

Ranzo, sitting nearby, chimed in and referenced the India-based maker of the
world’s least expensive car. As he put it, “We don’t sell a Tata.”'

You are correct that it won't kill off oldspace, but the pressure to change
will be inexorable: it's not difficult to foresee a scenario where commercial
work all goes to SpaceX, apart from situations where companies are forced to
use a national provider; but even then, those companies will thus be forced to
eat the cost of subsidising an inefficient provider, which will lower their
profits making them less competitive, etc. There could be a similar pressure
when one considers military payloads, i.e., the cheapness of launching with
SpaceX offers the US a game changing capability to put materiel in orbit.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/as-the-spacex-
steamr...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/as-the-spacex-steamroller-
surges-european-rocket-industry-vows-to-resist/)

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SomeOldThrow
Is there a transcript somewhere?

~~~
_Microft
Sure, go to the video on Youtube [0], click the three dots menu on the right
hand side below the video and open the transcript from there. This loads all
of it at once, so you can even search through it with your browser's in-page
search function! Clicking a line in the transcript jumps to the correct
position in the video.

It might be the most amazing feature that Youtube has.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOpMrVnjYeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOpMrVnjYeY)

~~~
SomeOldThrow
There is a transcript that youtube provides.

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tibbydudeza
It looks like something from Fallout or Rocketeer ... the space nerd in me is
disappointed at the "look" but I really really hope it works.

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snrji
SpaceX always beats my expectations, unlike Tesla.

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stevebmark
It's time for Elon to step down as the face of SpaceX. He ruins every
presentation he's involved in. I can't imagine how awkward it was to be there
in person and be help prisoner by a completely unprepared, rambling, lazy talk
for over an hour.

~~~
jordanthoms
You're not the target audience for this presentation. It's goal was to provide
an information dump for the people who have been closely following the
project, and it achieved that extremely well.

It's not aimed at the kind of person who prefers a flashy presentation over
substance, which in this case is extremely rapid progress towards the most
capable rocket humanity has ever built.

~~~
jakeinspace
Considering the amount of time he spent explaining rudimentary spaceflight
concepts (getting to LEO is about speed not altitude, who knew?), I wasn't
sure how technical this was going to be.

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gouggoug
What a painful presentation to watch. Musk really needs to either work on his
public speech or delegate them to someone comfortable.

His product reveals could be so much more impactful and inspiring did he not
jump between points he's trying to make and stutter his way through the entire
presentation.

~~~
sidcool
You just described what makes him seem genuine and direct. He's not the best
of speakers, but his cult following can be partly attributed to his quaint
style of communication.

~~~
CrazyStat
Many years ago I heard a best-selling nonfiction[1] author speak who had a
similarly unpolished speaking style. A friend asked me afterwards if his
speaking made me think less of him, and I had the same reaction as you: to the
contrary, it seemed more genuine.

[1] There have since been allegations that he mixed a nontrivial amount of
fiction in with his nonfiction.

