Starship and a Human city on Mars

[Stive Pesley]

12 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Elon was adamant that their spacesuits should be really cool,

Well, of course - you want to look cool when you die a horrible death because some deranged billionaire didn't want to listen to the science that says a human colony on Mars was an impossible fantasy

 

[Carl Sagan]

Forgot to note that SpaceX needed to replace one of the large titanium grid fins on the SuperHeavy booster, so today's test flight has moved back a day until noon tomorrow. When the launch window is only 20 minutes, instead of the 2 hours it would have been this afternoon.

There'll be an official live stream on Twitter (not great quality) and on the SpaceX website, with lots of great unofficial streams and commentary from the likes of NASA SpaceFlight on YouTube.

[Eddie]

3 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Well, of course - you want to look cool when you die a horrible death because some deranged billionaire didn't want to listen to the science that says a human colony on Mars was an impossible fantasy

 

At a fraction above absolute zero, coolness will not be an issue.

[Carl Sagan]

6 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Forgot to note that SpaceX needed to replace one of the large titanium grid fins on the SuperHeavy booster, so today's test flight has moved back a day until noon tomorrow. When the launch window is only 20 minutes, instead of the 2 hours it would have been this afternoon.

There'll be an official live stream on Twitter (not great quality) and on the SpaceX website, with lots of great unofficial streams and commentary from the likes of NASA SpaceFlight on YouTube.

A schoolboy error as I was thinking of the wrong timezones. If any of you are setting your alerts for this (and you should - it will be amazing) the window is open for 20 minutes from 1pm tomorrow. Here's a picture from today, showing the view of the launch site at that time in the morning. It should be beautiful and spectacular.

 

[maxjam]

Exciting stuff, everything seemed to go well 🙂

 

 

[AndyinLiverpool]

23 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Exciting stuff, everything seemed to go well 🙂

 

 

lovely. Though I could do without the whooping and hollering.

[ketteringram]

29 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Exciting stuff, everything seemed to go well 🙂

 

 

Though not for very long 🤔

[Stive Pesley]

The bottom bit exploded when it wasn't meant to and the top bit has disappeared without a trace 

Unsurprisingly serial moron Elon and his dickhard fanbois are describing it as a great success 😂

[Comrade 86]

23 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

The bottom bit exploded when it wasn't meant to and the top bit has disappeared without a trace 

Unsurprisingly serial moron Elon and his dickhard fanbois are describing it as a great success 😂

Thoughts and prayers are with the sperm whales

[Carl Sagan]

Fabulous test. First time around, as well as the pad disintegrating, many of the Raptor engines on the SuperHeavy booster failed, both elements combining to mean the trajectory was far from "nominal". And then the two parts failed to separate.

This time the pad remained intact, all 33 booster Raptors fired magnificently for the entire duration, and then the two ships separated.

A shame the SuperHeavy booster experienced its rapid unscheduled disassembly soon after, but it was beautiful to see the Starship fly off into the sunrise, and on into space. Its own Raptor engines (3 sea level in the centre and 3 vacuum around the outside) burned for a further 6 minutes, propelling it to 20,000 kmh and a height of 150km (when the official boundary of space is 100km). What a result!

So they don't put anyone at risk, both vehicles are armed with explosives so they can be blown up in case anything goes wrong (the flight termination system or FTS). It seems that just before Starship's engines shut down to allow it to coast to over Hawaii before reentry, something triggered the FTS. Oh well. But the key objectives of this flight test were achieved and the great thing is, with the launchpad fine and licences in place, they have lots more test rockets already built and nearly ready to go. I'd expect test flight 3 in a couple of months and the cadence to really start ratcheting up.

You have to love Twitter's AI, Grok, which has given a hilarious summary in almost real-time (another powerful technology):

 

[maxjam]

1 hour ago, Carl Sagan said:

Fabulous test. First time around, as well as the pad disintegrating, many of the Raptor engines on the SuperHeavy booster failed, both elements combining to mean the trajectory was far from "nominal". And then the two parts failed to separate.

This time the pad remained intact, all 33 booster Raptors fired magnificently for the entire duration, and then the two ships separated.

A shame the SuperHeavy booster experienced its rapid unscheduled disassembly soon after, but it was beautiful to see the Starship fly off into the sunrise, and on into space. Its own Raptor engines (3 sea level in the centre and 3 vacuum around the outside) burned for a further 6 minutes, propelling it to 20,000 kmh and a height of 150km (when the official boundary of space is 100km). What a result!

So they don't put anyone at risk, both vehicles are armed with explosives so they can be blown up in case anything goes wrong (the flight termination system or FTS). It seems that just before Starship's engines shut down to allow it to coast to over Hawaii before reentry, something triggered the FTS. Oh well. But the key objectives of this flight test were achieved and the great thing is, with the launchpad fine and licences in place, they have lots more test rockets already built and nearly ready to go. I'd expect test flight 3 in a couple of months and the cadence to really start ratcheting up.

You have to love Twitter's AI, Grok, which has given a hilarious summary in almost real-time (another powerful technology):

 

Yep, another 'good day at the office'.

And even when things go a bit awry, it still looks spectacular!

 

[maxjam]

Witnessing a launch in person is on my bucket list.

 

[Ram-Alf]

An explanation please.

I've read the reason for SpaceX was/is to reduce cost and eventually take man/woman to Mars...is this correct, Also I understand the reason for 1,2, 3 or more test flights, Is there anyone out there that would put their lives at risk knowing that you're dicing with death 🤷‍♂️

[maxjam]

10 minutes ago, The Last Post said:

An explanation please.

I've read the reason for SpaceX was/is to reduce cost and eventually take man/woman to Mars...is this correct, Also I understand the reason for 1,2, 3 or more test flights, Is there anyone out there that would put their lives at risk knowing that you're dicing with death 🤷‍♂️

Well there are about 20k highly qualified Americans desperate for the opportunity.

https://www.nasa.gov/general/astronaut-requirements/

I'd guess the ESA and SpaceX have similar requirements.

For me it boils down to exploration, discovery and human advancement.  Why else did people sail over the horizon all those years ago?

[Carl Sagan]

9 minutes ago, The Last Post said:

An explanation please.

I've read the reason for SpaceX was/is to reduce cost and eventually take man/woman to Mars...is this correct, Also I understand the reason for 1,2, 3 or more test flights, Is there anyone out there that would put their lives at risk knowing that you're dicing with death 🤷‍♂️

Yes you're right. To look at the costs, over the last decade two massive rockets have made it to the launchpad. One is the US Government's Space Launch System or SLS. The idea was this would be cheap because it would reuse Space Shuttle engines. It's basically an updated Saturn V, yet the development costs have so far been $50 billion, and to build and launch a single rocket to send 4 humans into space, will cost at least $4 billion every single launch, after which the bits of the rocket crash into the sea. Boeing can only build about one a year.

By contrast, Starship is designed to be the first entirely reusable rocket, also with a massive payload capacity. SpaceX has entirely privately funded its development, to the tune of around $10 billion so far. However, the actual construction costs of a Starship will only be about $5 million, and because it's completely reusable, the main launch costs are just the fuel which is about $50,000. So, already you can see it will be thousands of times cheaper. But there's more. It's lift capacity is far greater than SLS, in terms of cargo and/or humans. Instead of SLS's 4 astronauts, Starship has been designed to take 100 people at a time into space. So the cost per person is massively less. The site in Texas where they're being built is hoped to eventually roll out one Starship every week, building up a fleet of ships. Then, when the Mars launch window opens (every 26 months it's the optimal time), all these can fly to Mars together. And the ships can fly back from Mars to help bring the next batch of settlers in the next window.

However, as you say, who would want to fly such a thing when we've seen it blow up? There will not be tens, but rather hundreds/thousands of uncrewed flight tests before it's considered safe for Humans to be on board. But how could SpaceX afford so many test flights? That's the genius of the Starlink program. Instead of launching empty test vehicles, SpaceX will fill them with its Starlink satellites to create (and be able to charge for) internet access across the world, including for the 3 billion Humans currently unconnected. The revenues help fund the Starship program (as well as satellite launches on SpaceX's other smaller rockets). Also, once Humans are on Mars, the Starlink technology will give them internet access anywhere on the red planet. It's a brilliantly integrated plan.

[Carl Sagan]

On 17/11/2023 at 10:52, Stive Pesley said:

Well, of course - you want to look cool when you die a horrible death because some deranged billionaire didn't want to listen to the science that says a human colony on Mars was an impossible fantasy

[TigerTedd]

3 hours ago, maxjam said:

Witnessing a launch in person is on my bucket list.

 

I don’t mean to show off but… ✅ 

[maxjam]

39 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

I don’t mean to show off but… ✅ 

Good, I'm happy for you 😛 

[ketteringram]

How many times in a row, would this have to launch successfully, before you start thinking about putting a few people in it 🤔

[Carl Sagan]

47 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

How many times in a row, would this have to launch successfully, before you start thinking about putting a few people in it 🤔

I'd guess somewhere between 500-1000 for test pilots. It has been designed to, ultimately, launch several times a day, so these numbers are not unreasonable. SpaceX plans to transition all its launches to Starship because it's so cheap and has hundreds of times more capacity per launch. This year SpaceX will have about 90 launches of its Falcon9 and plans to ratchet up next year.

But, an interesting element of your question is that Starship (the upper stage) is the Moon-landing system for America to go back to the Moon, officially in 2025 but it will be 2026 or 2027. For that mission, astronauts have to launch in the Orion capsule atop the $4bn Space Launch System (but which has an astronaut escape system if something goes wrong in the launch) and then, once orbiting the Moon, they will dock with Starship which will taken them down to the lunar surface. Then Starship will launch off the Moon, dock with the Orion capsule that will then take the astronauts back to Earth. So Humans will fly in it relatively soon, but they won't launch it it. Once it's proven safe, astronauts will simply fly straight to the Moon in it (refuelling in Earth orbit), cutting the cost of the flight by a factor of about a thousand.