OT: SpaceX plans to launch Starship on Monday morning
Your political opinion of Elon Musk doesn't matter, so leave that at home...
SpaceX is finally ready to launch the largest, and most powerful, rocket ever built. The launch is planned for Monday morning, with the launch window opening at 5AM EST for 3 hours. The Super Heavy booster has 33 engines that produce a collective 17.1M lbs of thrust. For comparison, the SLS booster that recently sent the Orion capsule around the moon produces 8.8M lbs of thrust. The Starship second stage can host ~150T of cargo on the strength of SH's engines, while SLS can loft 90T.
This is its maiden flight, and the success goals are simple - clear the tower without destroying the launch complex! If that happens, getting through MaxQ will be the next goal, and then a successful separation of SH and Starship. After that, SpaceX will try a controlled descent and 'landing' of the booster in the Gulf of Mexico, near the launch site. The Starship vehicle is hoping to reach orbital velocity (~17.5K mph) before re-entering and crashing into the Pacific ~200 miles north of Hawaii. It'll be interesting to see if Starship can re-enter without burning up, should it get that far.
Success of this machine will bring a revolution to space flight. It's thought that SpaceX has spent ~$5B on the development of SH/SS to this point, over ~7-10 years. The entire thing is designed from the ground up to be fully reusable, and is hoped to fly several times a day in the future. It is also the moon lander that NASA will use to land people back on the moon, and is the first step of Mars lander that Musk hopes to colonize Mars with.
Contrast all that to NASA's reuse of Shuttle technology to build SLS. It took NASA over 20 years, and ~$23B to adapt 1960's Shuttle technology into a new booster that gets dropped in the ocean because its design is ~60 years old. SLS will also cost ~2B/launch - ONE launch will cost $2B!!! And you just throw it into the ocean!
Link? Link...
In terms of SpaceX, that gov't sourced revenue is due to contracts SpaceX earned on the strength of its products and services. A subsidy is not the same as a contract for goods and services earned competitively against other companies.
Oil companies are - today - making Billions of $$$ in profit each quarter. Yes, profit - not revenue. And they are almost totally subsidized for the research they put into finding new oil reserves.
SpaceX received plenty of development money from the government before they ever had a product or service. I worked for the organization that provided a large chunk of this funding.
While this funding was typically structured as a "contract" which allowed them to earn a profit, most people would rightfully view it as a grant to develop technology.
No doubt... Any large endeavor the gov't does is funded this way, and has been since WWII.
Do you have any objective data on this or are you just talking out of your ass?
FACT: SpaceX can launch 13 Falcon Heavy missions for the same cost of 1 SLS launch.
Or are you implying because Musk has revenue from the federal government as client, that he should launch those missions for free? How progressive of you!
The mental gymnastics you all go through to justify shitting on the guy rather than admitting what SpaceX does is brilliant -- AND saves the taxpayer a considerable amount of money vis-a-vis the defense industrial complex, must be exhausting for you all!
April 15th, 2023 at 11:10 AM ^
Musk has said he thinks it might be delayed three days so it may happen later in the week.
Pretty exciting!
April 15th, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
Yeah, something inside the tower fell last night. Speculation is that the elevator somehow shorted and fell from the top all the way down. There is video/audio of the event. Doesn't seem to have damaged the rocket, but the whole thing - tower and rocket - will have to be checked out. So I'm not surprised there might be a delay.
Video...
April 15th, 2023 at 12:26 PM ^
The problem appears to be the guy in charge of the elevator.
EDIT: On a serious note... that sounds rather casual to just say something shorted and the elevator fell. That's a pretty serious quality/safety problem.
"...that sounds rather casual to just say something shorted and the elevator fell."
Sure it does, but I have no details and that is stated as speculation in my post. What level of seriousness could I use to appease you?
I thought phrasing it that way sounded better than saying you are talking out of your rear end if you think such an event would be a minor delay. Accidents in a launch complex are a big deal.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:14 AM ^
It's cool that this country is seemingly reinvesting into space travel and SpaceX does seem to have some new innovations in their design. But I would caution that believing anything Musk says about cost, especially as it pertains to something as complex as space ship development. I'm sure it's cheaper to build from the ground up than retrofit existing technology but I've seen estimates from him stating the range between $2B and $10B, which is already a pretty wide range and likely doesn't include a lot of hidden costs/tax breaks that might muddle the picture especially when compared to a fully public organization like NASA.
Anyway, hopefully it all goes well.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
As much as I admire what Musk has done with some of his companies, taking any timeline or cost quotes from that guy at face value would prove only gullibility.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:32 AM ^
50% chance of exploding on launch? I might just have to watch this live.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:45 AM ^
SpaceX rockets don’t explode… they do occasionally experience “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
Also known as "an entropy event"
April 15th, 2023 at 11:35 AM ^
SpaceX plans to launch Starship
No, don't! I liked We Built This City.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:59 AM ^
I appreciate the callback, but that song is terrible lol.
Honestly, the only good thing about that iteration of Starship was Grace Slick. Her voice alone could probably power that spaceship to Mars...
April 15th, 2023 at 11:55 AM ^
The guidance system should be good... unless there are any parked cars along the way.
This made me laugh!
April 15th, 2023 at 12:13 PM ^
Well. This thread went off the rails fast.
yes, unfortunately.
So many people of all political persuasions that are just collections of marketing hits designed to provoke certain responses in lieu of actual thinking.
Agreed. These days, politics is a new dangerous religion. Overly dogmatic, filled with small-minded sanctimonious lemmings.
April 15th, 2023 at 12:32 PM ^
Why though? What's the point of all this?
(Other than paving a way for billionaires to colonize Mars after destroying Earth).
April 15th, 2023 at 12:59 PM ^
Now, now, comrade.
Careful RGard. If this thing blows up, they are going to suggest sending you up instead of humans. I'd lay low for a while.
April 15th, 2023 at 10:53 PM ^
RGard, MeanJoe7, and the poster with the Curious George avatar could well be the future of the space program.
April 15th, 2023 at 12:49 PM ^
Musk’s reign at Twitter has been so incompetent — paying $44B for something even he acknowledges is worth half that at this point — it’s stunning to me that SpaceX actually even works
It's mind numbing how much Elon Musk accomplishes.
I'm a really big fan of Burt Rutan. But Elon Musk has gone way beyond him. Though what Burt Rutan has accomplished is awesome too.
For those of you that haven't heard of Burt Rutan (probably all but a few of you), he is (or was?) teamed with Richard Branson to build Virgin Galactic. This is a big step in their work:
I got to hear the story of the Voyager flight from Dick Rutan himself a few years ago. Jeana Yeager is probably not on his Christmas card list, to put it lightly.
I’m not sure what I think of him as a person, but he’s a visionary and far and away one of the most influential men on the planet. Even before he bought Twitter that was still the case. And honestly, you don’t get to where he is in life without needing to have some semblance of an ego.
I applaud any and all efforts to get us back into space. It’s a shame and absolute catastrophe that manned space travel has essentially been shelved for decades aside from trips to the ISS.
The way I see it, this planet is doomed eventually. Might as well start making preparations for whatever humanity’s next stop might be.
I still am in disbelief that the shuttle program was discontinued. If you would have told me that 20 some years after Columbia first flew that the US would be dependent on Russia to send a human to space I would have laughed in your face.
But if the shuttle was flying today, would SpaceX exist?
Obviously the future is space. Even if you would discount humans having any large presence off the planet (which I think is a given, not science fiction), we still need resources, and our solar system is chock full of them.
Probably the private sector does not have to purchase the million dollar hammer that the government purchases as a reason why costs are so much lower.
True that those ridiculous rules/regulations/standards have cost US taxpayers! But you understand that all that is a result of corporate lobbyists and defense contractors who paid off other folks to write the rules in a way so the government would have to pay those same corporations a million dollars for a hammer?
Cool. But the dis on NASA is unnecessary. There are differences between how NASA is run and their accountability as opposed to what Elon is doing.
We will see how this all works out. Will be fun whether it succeeds or fails.
I just don’t understand the reasoning for wanting to colonize Mars. It sounds absolutely stupid to me. If Mars has been around for millions of years and yet shows no signs of any kind of life, why would we think it’s a good idea to live there? Meanwhile on earth, there’s thousands of different species of living organisms covering the globe.
Eventually Humans will destroy the earth. Either by slow climate change or quick nuclear holocaust.
Might be true, but we aren't getting to Mars and terraforming it quickly enough to matter anyway.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:02 PM ^
Mars lacks a liquid core, which means it lacks a magnetic shield to protect the surface from solar radiation. You can't terraform that. Plus gravitational forces are lower which would likely have negative effects on human physiology over time. The Mars colony is a pipe dream that mostly allows our billionaire friends to continue on with the highly profitable business of wrecking this planet.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:41 PM ^
The best place for a space colony would be in space. You could build large structures on the moon and with low gravity, it would be easier to get them in some kind of stable orbit.
Also no magnetic field means the atmosphere isn't protected from being stripped away by the solar wind. So in a hypothetical terraforming future, how are you going to produce enough O2 to offset the loss?
Haven’t you heard. Martians left behind enough Tribidian to completely terraform the Mars surface. If it wasn’t for that evil politician, Cohaagan, Mars would be free!
April 16th, 2023 at 12:05 AM ^
It is human nature to explore and push boundaries of the possible. Why Mars? Because nobody has made it there yet, and it is realm of the possible to make it there. So it is an obligation to our human nature to land on Mars and continue pushing our limits of possible.
I hope the test goes well, because I'm all on in returning to the Moon and finding a way to build a permanent moon base. That's the gateway to Mars. The Gemini and Apollo missions I watched as a kid are what inspired me to get a computer engineering degree at Michigan. We need more engineers, so I hope this inspires another generation, too.
Your tax dollars at work!
The numerous, bold claims are exciting, and it will be interesting to see how many of them actually come to fruition
Light 'er up!! Should be fun to watch no matter what happens.
OP: Why is this posted on a Michigan sports blog? Like seriously. It pertains to neither Michigan nor sports. And it's not a big news flash. What makes you think this is appropriate in this space?
I've gotten on the OP about a number of things in this post. But, a lot of people have reported space "firsts" that have been pretty well received and of interest to the community. Especially in the off season, it seems OK.
As Maiz said, this isn't the first space related post here and they've all been well received. It's also clearly marked OT, and titles appropriately. It goes without saying, but I'll say it - don't read it if you don't like the topic since it's titled "OT...".
Why did I think it's appropriate to post? Because there are a lot of space fans here, and the largest rocket ever built will be launched on its maiden flight.
April 15th, 2023 at 10:40 PM ^
Also since U-M has Aerospace Engineering, it is relevant.
April 15th, 2023 at 11:44 PM ^
It's the OT season, and a lot of us our scientists and engineers, so we find it interesting.