NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos
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Have to say, NASA and Americans really have a lot of faith in Starship fulfilling all of it's promises. It's insane, people are acting like it's already launching daily and bringing launch costs to $100/kg and fully reusable. Starship hasn't even made orbit yet. Yeah Elon Musk and SpaceX has worked miracles with the Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy but SpaceX is famous for it's delays and false promises.
The Falcon 9 took almost 10 years to be human rated and took 3 years from it's first landing to be heavily reused. The Falcon heavy is orders of magnitude less complex then Starship and still took 5 years to develop. It's entirely possible that Starship takes another few years just to make orbit and a decade to figure out reuse. Or that the 2nd stage reuse is just near impossible, it's not like NASA was struggling with that problem for decades already before giving up.
You have American spaceflights fans calling for the cancellation of the SLS and New Glenn, as if Starship is already there to replace the SLS. I have seen some insane shit from this kind of SpaceX fanboys, like comments on how the recent Mars sample return troubles are no big deal and how the entire program should be cancelled anyway because in the 2030s, you will have dozens of Starships flying to Mars and back that can return tons of material to earth. How more then a dozen flights for a single lunar landing is no big deal because Starship can do multiple launches a day and the costs is so low due to it being fully resauble.
But it's not just random nerds on the internet. Actual NASA heads and other aerospace CEOs are very much sucked into this delusional fantasy. It's clear that when NASA selected SpaceX for the HLS, they didn't do their homework and figure out just how complex a Starship HLS was going to be and how long it's gonna take for Starship to be ready for a lunar landing. You can clearly see the backlash and panic as NASA and other American politicians slowly did the math and realise that Starship was going to be the main delay for Artemis 3 and how China has a very good shot of landing before America did. Like how did NASA not do the math and figure out that Starship will need something like 15 refueling flights before a lunar landing?
You also have satellite and aerospace companies that are starting to design payloads that only Starship can carry. Oh and people coping about how Starship is better then the Apollo mission that China is doing, because Starship is more sustainable for lunar missions in the long run. As if needing 15 launches and landings for every single mission and a SLS launch to boot is better.
I do think that Starship will eventually fly and fulfill many of it's promises, but it will probably take a lot longer then most people expect. Just making orbit is just the first step in a long development roadmap. And the 2nd stage reuse may never work out, tiles didn't work for the space shuttle and I don't see why it's going to magically work for Starship. Of course having upscaled super heavy Faclon 9 is still extremely impressive and a potent rocket. But I don't think that it's going to be the rocket that Elon Musk has pitched it to be. At least not within this decade.
The Falcon 9 took almost 10 years to be human rated and took 3 years from it's first landing to be heavily reused. The Falcon heavy is orders of magnitude less complex then Starship and still took 5 years to develop. It's entirely possible that Starship takes another few years just to make orbit and a decade to figure out reuse. Or that the 2nd stage reuse is just near impossible, it's not like NASA was struggling with that problem for decades already before giving up.
You have American spaceflights fans calling for the cancellation of the SLS and New Glenn, as if Starship is already there to replace the SLS. I have seen some insane shit from this kind of SpaceX fanboys, like comments on how the recent Mars sample return troubles are no big deal and how the entire program should be cancelled anyway because in the 2030s, you will have dozens of Starships flying to Mars and back that can return tons of material to earth. How more then a dozen flights for a single lunar landing is no big deal because Starship can do multiple launches a day and the costs is so low due to it being fully resauble.
But it's not just random nerds on the internet. Actual NASA heads and other aerospace CEOs are very much sucked into this delusional fantasy. It's clear that when NASA selected SpaceX for the HLS, they didn't do their homework and figure out just how complex a Starship HLS was going to be and how long it's gonna take for Starship to be ready for a lunar landing. You can clearly see the backlash and panic as NASA and other American politicians slowly did the math and realise that Starship was going to be the main delay for Artemis 3 and how China has a very good shot of landing before America did. Like how did NASA not do the math and figure out that Starship will need something like 15 refueling flights before a lunar landing?
You also have satellite and aerospace companies that are starting to design payloads that only Starship can carry. Oh and people coping about how Starship is better then the Apollo mission that China is doing, because Starship is more sustainable for lunar missions in the long run. As if needing 15 launches and landings for every single mission and a SLS launch to boot is better.
I do think that Starship will eventually fly and fulfill many of it's promises, but it will probably take a lot longer then most people expect. Just making orbit is just the first step in a long development roadmap. And the 2nd stage reuse may never work out, tiles didn't work for the space shuttle and I don't see why it's going to magically work for Starship. Of course having upscaled super heavy Faclon 9 is still extremely impressive and a potent rocket. But I don't think that it's going to be the rocket that Elon Musk has pitched it to be. At least not within this decade.
This is a common phenomenon in group animals such as human, it is called "group pressure". When there is a hype, logic and reasoning gives way to trend. Stupidity suppress intelligence. That is why marketing tricks and propaganda works. This is more prominent in a western democracy. A "visionary" says something, the uneducated mobs take the words as bible, they feel enlighted and "I know". Anyone voicing doubt would be abused or ignored as a party pooper. Once the heat dies down, nobody is willing to acknowledge their stupidity, so the truth would remained ignored. I am sure NASA engineers have their doubt and they tell NASA boss, but when the boss is facing congressmen and mass media (both are stupid), saying anything against the trend would be like a party pooper at least, or at worst coverring their lack of competence and may loose their job. Example is when NASA's moon landing was forced to be in 2024 from 2028 by Trump, it is perfect example of politics defeat reasoning. Yes, NASA made lots mistakes and delays, but often their mistakes are caused by political pressures and swing of minds of the uneducated congressmen.
If one had experience in military march, one would know the effect, people just walk faster and faster subconsiously trying to keep up with others.
The only solution is not to give the general public chances to voice their opinion on and influence subjects or policies of such matters. That's how China works.
That's solvable eventually. The Merlin engines have gotten very very good, there's no reason why Raptor can't eventually get to be that reliable. And reusing rockets means that a large number of medium thrust engines is preferable to a small number of very high thrust engines. Modern sensors and computer controls are nothing like they were 50 years ago after all.
The real issue is the solving the 2nd stage reuse and heat tiles. Not that much of an issue with LEO starlink launches, a 1st stage reusable Starship will still work wonders at bringing the costs down. But if you need 15 Starship launches for one crewed lunar landing, you better have a fully reusable 2 stage rocket.
Oh and the time. The way people talk about it, you would think Lunar Starship HLS is already in orbit and just waiting for SLS and Orion capsule. But I wouldn't be surprised if Artemis 3 got delayed to early 2030s just because of Starship. Not that much of an issue, other then the PR disaster of trying to hype up a Space race to the moon and having all this comments on how America can totally beat China but instead gets delayed and delayed until China lands first. Very much a own goal considering that America is the one that's clearly trying to start the "Space race" with the comments that they are making, while China is just progressing at her own pace.