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TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
foxmulder said:
On another note,

SpaceX launched another 60 Starlink satellites to reach ~480 satellites in orbit. It has more than any country. And their first and for the short term primary user is of course: USAF ;) Elon, the immigrant, knows how to play the game. :D He is the best thing happened US for the last 2-3 decades.
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First congrats to Elon for that, but now to take it apart.
SPACEX wouldn’t exist without supplying a service to a buyer that buyer is not Just the DOD but also NASA. The same rocket that took two astronauts to the ISS last week launched starlink. The DOD pays SPACEX to launch for him and he uses the capital from that to launch Starlink.
Next do you think Elon would be able to do that back in South Africa? Not likely. He made his money in the US launched his companies in the US. You also have Jeff Bezos Blue Origin working on its own Rocket system. That should tell you along with all the other Private Space Flight options in the US that Mr. Musk may have been one of the best things to happen to the US but then again The US was the Best thing that’s happened to Elon Musk.
 
S

subotai1

Junior Member
Registered Member
TerraN_EmpirE said:
First congrats to Elon for that, but now to take it apart.
SPACEX wouldn’t exist without supplying a service to a buyer that buyer is not Just the DOD but also NASA. The same rocket that took two astronauts to the ISS last week launched starlink. The DOD pays SPACEX to launch for him and he uses the capital from that to launch Starlink.
Next do you think Elon would be able to do that back in South Africa? Not likely. He made his money in the US launched his companies in the US. You also have Jeff Bezos Blue Origin working on its own Rocket system. That should tell you along with all the other Private Space Flight options in the US that Mr. Musk may have been one of the best things to happen to the US but then again The US was the Best thing that’s happened to Elon Musk.
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Right Person, Right Place, Right Time, Right Idea = the story of every successful business and product.
 
vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
TerraN_EmpirE said:
First congrats to Elon for that, but now to take it apart.
SPACEX wouldn’t exist without supplying a service to a buyer that buyer is not Just the DOD but also NASA. The same rocket that took two astronauts to the ISS last week launched starlink. The DOD pays SPACEX to launch for him and he uses the capital from that to launch Starlink.
Next do you think Elon would be able to do that back in South Africa? Not likely. He made his money in the US launched his companies in the US. You also have Jeff Bezos Blue Origin working on its own Rocket system. That should tell you along with all the other Private Space Flight options in the US that Mr. Musk may have been one of the best things to happen to the US but then again The US was the Best thing that’s happened to Elon Musk.
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Also congratulations on Elon's remarkable accomplishment!!

In my opinion, we are exaggerating the achievement of a private company. Launching a rocket with people in it has been a mature technology since 1960's. What SPACEX did was to make it cheap enough for a private company to afford it.

A huge difference between government-funded projects and private projects is innovation. A government usually funds a large proportion of highly risky ideas, vast majority of which won't work at all. So billions of $$$ down the drain. However, the few projects that end up working will revolutionize the whole world, like time travel (maybe...), etc. This is precisely why powerful / wealthy countries with deep pockets usually own the most advanced technologies. These governments have enough money to gamble that they will get that 0.001% of chances of getting that revolutionary idea to work, while throwing away 99.999% of the cash. This is the cost of innovation.

Private companies can never afford this kind of gamble. Their goal is to make profit. That's why people form companies, to make money. If you tell your investors "please give me all your life's savings. I will spend it all on something that almost certainly won't work. Even if it works, it might take me 100-200 years. But, it will be a good investment for you!" Guess who will invest? I won't! So almost all projects by private companies are based on mature ideas. you want to assure your investors that it's a sure winner. This is exactly what SPACEX has been doing. They made the launching more efficient, using a mature technology developed by NASA decades ago.
 
eprash

eprash

Junior Member
Registered Member
vesicles said:
Also congratulations on Elon's remarkable accomplishment!!

In my opinion, we are exaggerating the achievement of a private company. Launching a rocket with people in it has been a mature technology since 1960's. What SPACEX did was to make it cheap enough for a private company to afford it.

A huge difference between government-funded projects and private projects is innovation. A government usually funds a large proportion of highly risky ideas, vast majority of which won't work at all. So billions of $$$ down the drain. However, the few projects that end up working will revolutionize the whole world, like time travel (maybe...), etc. This is precisely why powerful / wealthy countries with deep pockets usually own the most advanced technologies. These governments have enough money to gamble that they will get that 0.001% of chances of getting that revolutionary idea to work, while throwing away 99.999% of the cash. This is the cost of innovation.

Private companies can never afford this kind of gamble. Their goal is to make profit. That's why people form companies, to make money. If you tell your investors "please give me all your life's savings. I will spend it all on something that almost certainly won't work. Even if it works, it might take me 100-200 years. But, it will be a good investment for you!" Guess who will invest? I won't! So almost all projects by private companies are based on mature ideas. you want to assure your investors that it's a sure winner. This is exactly what SPACEX has been doing. They made the launching more efficient, using a mature technology developed by NASA decades ago.
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Starship 150M hop test tomorrow (Aug 2)
7.00AM - 11.00 AM CDT
 
siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
The Starship design will be a major breakthrough for space travel if it is successful. It is basically a sci fi spaceship as envisioned during the 50s and could possibly make interplanetary travels a reality. At a minimum it will allow delivery of enormous mass to orbit.
 
eprash

eprash

Junior Member
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
The Starship design will be a major breakthrough for space travel if it is successful. It is basically a sci fi spaceship as envisioned during the 50s and could possibly make interplanetary travels a reality. At a minimum it will allow delivery of enormous mass to orbit.
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Agreed, The performance difference is exponential too bad the diameter got capped at 9m, Damn the SLS lobbying
 
Dante80

Dante80

Junior Member
Registered Member
I've been watching SpaceX since the start really (big aerospace history buff/fan). I don't think the diameter is going to be a detriment if this thing really comes to life. The combination of fast turnaround, methalox FFSC engine propulsion and total re-usability is going to be a game changer for the whole industry. If one - correctly imo - posits that the Falcon architecture had a real and quantifiable disruptive influence on the market...then Starship is going to be an earthquake to anything and everything before it.

While I'm tentatively positive about this happening, "Elon time" is also a real thing. So don't expect this as soon as currently projected by SpaceX - or speculated given the latest hop.
 
eprash

eprash

Junior Member
Registered Member
Dante80 said:
I've been watching SpaceX since the start really (big aerospace history buff/fan). I don't think the diameter is going to be a detriment if this thing really comes to life. The combination of fast turnaround, methalox FFSC engine propulsion and total re-usability is going to be a game changer for the whole industry. If one - correctly imo - posits that the Falcon architecture had a real and quantifiable disruptive influence on the market...then Starship is going to be an earthquake to anything and everything before it.

While I'm tentatively positive about this happening, "Elon time" is also a real thing. So don't expect this as soon as currently projected by SpaceX - or speculated given the latest hop.
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It's a shame that Washington axed the original ITS eventhough Elon and his team proved they can deliver beyond a doubt, Let's see what the Chinese private firms will bring to the table interesting times ahead for sure
 
TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
j17wang said:
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Failure.
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No not failure. Destructive engineering.
The Rocket in question is part of a line of Space X rockets that have been built and destroyed one after another on the companies dime. This was SN11 they are already planning this series through to SN20 with a major design change around SN15. That’s not even talking about the booster stage tests which would be BN1 was built but scrapped for BN2 set for this coming month.
This differs from the government engineering model which is to test everything for decades and launch it as bits and pieces on the tax payers dime. SpaceX is doing these at it’s own facility. Testing to the point of destruction so as that down the road they can offer a product that has all the issues ironed out. Since 2018 they started work on this hardware launching something every 4 months since 2019.
 
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