NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos
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For sure! I'd also add that Starlink is also a big part of their success, but of course you really cannot do Starlink without Falcon.
I think Starship as a LEO Super Heavy lift vehicle could work (if that makes commercial sense), but the whole human rated, propellant transfer moon, mars and other Solar System flyby missions requires so much unproven technology that it would be unbelievable for them to pull that off.
EDIT: I also wonder how much money they have? From what I understand they are profitable even with all of the Starship development, but we really have no insight into their financial position.
The DoD and NASA keep doling out money.
DoD funded a Raptor powered upper stage for Falcon 9 Heavy. Instead SpaceX uses money for the Raptor in Starship and the upper stage never happened. SpaceX kept the money.
Now you see the same with NASA and the Lunar version of Starship.
Long term manned space exploration of the Moon and Mars would be better done with nuclear or solar thermal upper stages. This Starship rocket is just a 1950s design on steroids. With 1960s engine technology and 1990s guidance.
Nuclear or solar would vastly decrease the size and mass of the upper stage for such manned missions. The first stage needs to be 10x bigger than the upper stage. Because Elon insists on chemical propulsion he gets that giant turd called Starship.
Falcon 9 is already an ideal rocket for Earth orbit launch. Only thing it lacks is a bigger upper stage.
Starship is unnecessary even to launch Starlink. Falcon 9 can do it with further reduced turn around time and more launch pads.
DoD funded a Raptor powered upper stage for Falcon 9 Heavy. Instead SpaceX uses money for the Raptor in Starship and the upper stage never happened. SpaceX kept the money.
Now you see the same with NASA and the Lunar version of Starship.
Long term manned space exploration of the Moon and Mars would be better done with nuclear or solar thermal upper stages. This Starship rocket is just a 1950s design on steroids. With 1960s engine technology and 1990s guidance.
Nuclear or solar would vastly decrease the size and mass of the upper stage for such manned missions. The first stage needs to be 10x bigger than the upper stage. Because Elon insists on chemical propulsion he gets that giant turd called Starship.
Falcon 9 is already an ideal rocket for Earth orbit launch. Only thing it lacks is a bigger upper stage.
Starship is unnecessary even to launch Starlink. Falcon 9 can do it with further reduced turn around time and more launch pads.
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Dont worry, just wait a few more years(2 to 3 at most looking at the speed they are moving) once startship is fully operational it will put those few remaining peoole who are still reluctant to recognise spaceX sucess to shame yet again. Lol If i wanted to count the amount of times i have heard people doubting SpaceX ambitions and projects only to end up speechless once spaceX proves them wrong once again then i will be a billionaire today. Lol Spacex has proven almost eveeyone wrong time and time again , yet people are still doubting them(though a minority of people today unlike before when it was almost everyone who was sceptical and even making fun of them. Lol ). Im afraid once starship is operational, spacex competitors won't even have any chance anymore, the company alone is projected to corner 96 to 99% of world payload launch when starship is operational. Which is crazy. Lol
One thing ive learned from SpaceX is to never bet anything against these guys. At the moment once they get into something they do it better than anyone, including the old dinosaurs like Boeing/Lockheed ULA who have proven to be less effective as space despite their long history and experience .
However, i can also understand those who are still sceptical about starship. Afterall, when you are doing something groundbreaking which no other has done before, some humans will be unsure and reluctant to embrace your ambition/project. Afterall, its only normal for ua humans to just follow what has already been peoven and done before and minimose our risks. Only a few people in the world usualy pioneer new paths which others havent attempted. Afterall, the risks are quite high and not even i myself will be willing to take such a risk to be honest. Lol most humans would have been contented with falcon 9 and falcon heavy since they already proven ans operational and already dominate the world by far. But Elon is different he is not satisfied with what he has achieved yet, he has his sights even further and the dude is not afraid to take risks, in fact he thrives on it. That's something only a few select people have in them.
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I bet against Red Dragon, Falcon Heavy, 24 hour turn around for F9, reuse F9 upper stage and the net, but I guess everyone forgot about them, including SpaceX lol
I also bet against Starship V1 (there was no V1 suffix then) being able to reach orbit after seeing velocity altitude graph, I then bet against V2 being able to reach orbit, now v3 is the old v2 lol
Sometimes you just need to know physics to make predictions, physics like rocket equation
Falcon Heavy is still in use... just not in high demand. I also think it has been successful in terms of flights so I don't think Falcon Heavy has been a failure.
EDIT: They have 19 Falcon Heavy launches booked between now and 2030. So that definitely is not a failure.
Its not in high demand by SpaceX itself and has not managed to launch a single payload larger than 6 tons
Maybe, just maybe, without cross feed (which I also bet against) and reusing the same upper stage as F9 means massive g spike on staging well above structural limits, or massive gravity loss if throttling down. Sometimes you just need some understanding of engineering to know the whole idea was dumb from the begining
I may be wrong here, but I remember Jupiter 3 being a lot larger than 6 tons - more than 9 tons to be exact, the largest commsat ever built, by far. And FH lobbed that to GTO.
Promise that you will stay on this forum by 2028, we will revisit this subject.
I am always against betting, gambling and making "confident" predictions without base, but I am always interested in verifying the outcome.6 or 9 does not make any difference really. FH's claimed GTO payload is 26.7t at 27 degrees.
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