Page 24 of 24 FirstFirst ... 14161718192021222324
Results 576 to 590 of 590
  1. #576
    Making people dance. :-)
    Edmond's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Cebu
    Posts
    13,884
    It's great, but also a bit sad that around the end of my lifetime there will be no real new places for humans to go to for hundreds if not thousands of years, until there are massive advances in science and some sort of teleportation or wormhole-esque command of space and time is mastered. Or very, very fast spaceships that have very, very big ceramic brakes. Mars, perhaps Ceres. Then that's about it for a few centuries until we master the art of beaming people to places or deepfreeze and thawing them.

  2. #577
    Member
    Bettyboo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Last Online
    Today @ 10:20 AM
    Location
    Bangkok
    Posts
    34,271
    ^ we will see... "Livable permanent spaces/environments" on the moon or mars seem very far off to me. &, I don't trust Musk with anything.


    Edit to add: just watched that video, and errm, well, nobody will be riding that design anytime soon.

    The final part, re-entry, the ship successfully lost 2% of the required speed loss and at no point was under control. There may well be many positives, but there's a long way a lot of $$$ to be spent before it works fully as designed, imho.
    Last edited by Bettyboo; 16-03-2024 at 11:04 AM.
    Cycling should be banned!!!

  3. #578
    Thailand Expat
    aging one's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    22,631
    One of my daughters works for Space X and is in Hawthorne for the launches. She said today the company is very happy with the 3rd launch and had gained valuable telemetry from the loss.

    Betty she sent me these figures to show why Space X prefers to lose spacecraft. Simply because its a cheap way to learn.

    " NASA's new rocket, the SLS or Artemis, is over $4B per launch, so it isn't even close. SpaceX's new rocket Starship will be the cheapest yet at about $30M for a huge payload capacity. It is completely reusable, which brings cost way down."

  4. #579
    Making people dance. :-)
    Edmond's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Cebu
    Posts
    13,884
    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    ^ we will see... "Livable permanent spaces/environments" on the moon or mars seem very far off to me. &, I don't trust Musk with anything.


    Edit to add: just watched that video, and errm, well, nobody will be riding that design anytime soon.

    The final part, re-entry, the ship successfully lost 2% of the required speed loss and at no point was under control. There may well be many positives, but there's a long way a lot of $$$ to be spent before it works fully as designed, imho.
    Well I hope to live for another 30 years, so will presumably see people walk on Mars. Possibly have some sort of moon base, and that will be about it. Humans will probably have some sort of Mars base in the next 100 years or less. After that, there's Ceres, and not really another place to land on for the first time for a long, long time after that. Barring landing on asteroids that come nearby.

  5. #580
    Member
    Bettyboo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Last Online
    Today @ 10:20 AM
    Location
    Bangkok
    Posts
    34,271
    Quote Originally Posted by aging one View Post
    One of my daughters works for Space X and is in Hawthorne for the launches. She said today the company is very happy with the 3rd launch and had gained valuable telemetry from the loss.

    Betty she sent me these figures to show why Space X prefers to lose spacecraft. Simply because its a cheap way to learn.

    " NASA's new rocket, the SLS or Artemis, is over $4B per launch, so it isn't even close. SpaceX's new rocket Starship will be the cheapest yet at about $30M for a huge payload capacity. It is completely reusable, which brings cost way down."
    You may well be right, I simply don't know. I would suggest that they'll be a fair few tests before they get to those "completely reusable" rockets, and I'd also suggest the actual cost will never be close to US$30 million per rocket...

    I do know that I don't trust Musk and his discourse.

    But, on the positive side, for folks interested in space travel and the such it's interesting times.

  6. #581
    Thailand Expat
    Takeovers's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    Today @ 11:12 AM
    Location
    Berlin Germany
    Posts
    7,056
    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    I would suggest that they'll be a fair few tests before they get to those "completely reusable" rockets, and I'd also suggest the actual cost will never be close to US$30 million per rocket..
    There will be a fair number of flights before they achieve complete reusability, that's for sure. Many of those will be operational flights. I do expect that they will master booster reuse first.

    Also quite possible that the cost of a Starship will be closer to $50 million than $30 million. Not very important as they can expect to get at least 100 flights out of them. Except for ships they send into deep space that won't return. But SpaceX has designed Starship to be very affordable from the beginning. The steel used is a lot cheaper than the aluminium used for Falcon and the competition. It is kind of the material you may have in your kitchen sink. The manufacturing methods are taken from the methods used by water tower companies. The Raptor engines are by now below $1 million per engine. The aim is to reduce that to $250,000. Maybe that's too optimistic but I am very confident they will get the cost below $500,000. With 9 engines on Starship future versions that would just be $4.5 million for one Starship. Engines are usually the biggest cost factor for rockets.

    NASA schedule presently has astronauts flying on Starship to Moon landing in 2026. Likely to slip a year, maybe two. That version will for sure cost more than $30-50 million.
    "don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"

  7. #582
    Custom Title Changer
    Topper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Last Online
    Today @ 09:04 AM
    Location
    Bangkok
    Posts
    12,119
    What surprised me about the reentry was the sheer number of heat times flying off.

  8. #583
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    11,648
    Quote Originally Posted by Takeovers View Post
    NASA schedule presently has astronauts flying on Starship to Moon landing in 2026.
    A wild guess would be that the testing should be done by then....then.

    2 years + !

    Hmm

    Anyway, Good Luck

  9. #584
    A Cockless Wonder
    Looper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 10:15 PM
    Posts
    15,185
    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    Edit to add: just watched that video, and errm, well, nobody will be riding that design anytime soon.
    I have just finished reading Isaacson's biography of Musk. It is a good read.

    Musk has something called The Algorithm that he applies to his projects

    Which includes things like 'question every requirement', 'Delete as much as you can', 'If you don't end up re-adding at least 10% of what you deleted then you did not delete enough.' -to make sure money is not wasted on non-essentials

    One of the principles he uses in SpaceX is to not be afraid to fail and crash. He says you learn more from crashing and trying again than from playing safe and being cautious in design. And you also end up with the minimal and optimal solution design.

    It seems like he has made the biggest leaps in the Billionaires rocket club so his design philosophy seems to work.

  10. #585
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    11,648
    Quote Originally Posted by Looper View Post
    It seems like he has made the biggest leaps in the Billionaires rocket club so his design philosophy seems to work.
    And then comes the human factor, real Astronauts, and his philosophy will meet some opposition

  11. #586
    Member
    Bettyboo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Last Online
    Today @ 10:20 AM
    Location
    Bangkok
    Posts
    34,271
    Quote Originally Posted by Looper View Post
    I have just finished reading Isaacson's biography of Musk. It is a good read.

    Musk has something called The Algorithm that he applies to his projects

    Which includes things like 'question every requirement', 'Delete as much as you can', 'If you don't end up re-adding at least 10% of what you deleted then you did not delete enough.' -to make sure money is not wasted on non-essentials

    One of the principles he uses in SpaceX is to not be afraid to fail and crash. He says you learn more from crashing and trying again than from playing safe and being cautious in design. And you also end up with the minimal and optimal solution design.

    It seems like he has made the biggest leaps in the Billionaires rocket club so his design philosophy seems to work.

    A great philosophy for making profit in manufacturing. Not so sure that it works where other issues (i.e. saving lives) are very important. Time will tell...

    The worry I'd have is that some of these cost cutting measures will be vital down the line, put in place by knowledgeable designers. But, you'd hope he doesn't have ultimate control over all of these decisions; some engineers and long-term strategists have a voice (that's listened to).

  12. #587
    Thailand Expat
    Takeovers's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    Today @ 11:12 AM
    Location
    Berlin Germany
    Posts
    7,056
    Quote Originally Posted by helge View Post
    And then comes the human factor, real Astronauts, and his philosophy will meet some opposition
    For the end product he is extremely cautious, especially with humans involved. There was an explosion of the Dragon capsule on a ground test that found a previously unknown hazard. That test was not required or paid for by NASA. NASA had okayed that design already, when SpaceX found the flaw. The tested situation would very likely never have occured in real flights so would never have been detected, never have caused casualties. They did the test anyway out of an abundance of caution.

    About Starship HLS, the vehicle that will land on the Moon. NASA contracted a demo mission without crew ahead of the first crew landing. For whatever reason NASA did not contract for that test vehicle to relaunch after landing on the Moon. SpaceX added that requirement on their own expense because they think without relaunch the test is not sufficient.

    Edit: SpaceX has a record of over 200 Falcon 9 launches and booster landings without a mission loss for a reason.

  13. #588
    Thailand Expat Texpat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    In your head
    Posts
    13,058
    The Luddite haters and their inferior dna will be left on planet Earth to rot and disappear.
    Carrion.

  14. #589
    Thailand Expat
    Takeovers's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    Today @ 11:12 AM
    Location
    Berlin Germany
    Posts
    7,056
    Quote Originally Posted by Texpat View Post
    The Luddite haters and their inferior dna will be left on planet Earth to rot and disappear.
    Or use more mellow wording.

    "The meek will inherit the Earth"

  15. #590
    Thailand Expat
    Takeovers's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    Today @ 11:12 AM
    Location
    Berlin Germany
    Posts
    7,056
    Yesterday was a static fire of the next Starship. Launch hopefully soon. SpaceX is pressing hard for an increased launch cadence. But they need to fix the problems with flight 3. SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell said they want to land both the Booster and the orbital Starship this year. Very agressive goal, I have some doubt. Think, at least Starship successful landing will slip into 2025.

    YouTube video with many repeats of the six engine static fire. First the 3 sea level engines fire, then the vac engines join in. The vac engines do have some preparation done to be able to fire at sea level. Only possible with full throttle, lower thrust setting would destroy them in the dense atmosphere.


Page 24 of 24 FirstFirst ... 14161718192021222324

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 2 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 2 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •