Y’all gotta stop listening to Elon Musk without the world’s largest block of salt.
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I think he needed a new talking point. I don’t think most people believe he will have Starship preparing a base on Mars in 2022 anymore.
Starship hasn’t even achieved orbital speed yet, and that was despite trying without a payload.
Elon musk is high on drugs and himself, and has completely lost it.They cut off the engines a couple of seconds before reaching orbital speed for safety. Until they prove they can control the ship on orbit they can’t risk having a 16 floor tall 125 ton steel tower coming down in a random location. This is unrelated to any of Elon’s shenanigans.
There is nobody who knows even the slightest bit about space flight that doubts Starship can reach orbit.
SpaceX has many things to get done to make Starship the fully reusable rocket they want it to be, but picking orbital speed is just about the weakest argument against it.
Ah OK, I just heard they didn’t, and thought it was because they couldn’t.
Still considering he claimed they’d be to Mars 2 years ago, and have manned flights to Mars this year, it’s obvious he hasn’t got a very solid plan for how or when to actually do it.
The how is pretty solid, SpaceX has a very strong track record. The uncertainty is mostly in the when.
It is unfortunate that Elon’s state of mind has become more questionable. But SpaceX is a whole lot more than Elon and they have achieved remarkable things. Just take the Elon presentations with a boat load of salt (mostly concerning the timing) and enjoy the spectacle that SpaceX delivers. It is just ridiculous what they are aiming for and so far they seem to be able to deliver … eventually.
so far they seem to be able to deliver
Not as far as I know, what was it? SpaceX would make space travel 1000 times cheaper! Some ridiculous shit like that, and we’d soon have tourism on Mars. You have to be on freaking mushrooms to take anything about SpaceX seriously. Somehow they got a NASA contract, and I think they are beginning to regret that.
You left out a part in that quote, “eventually”. SpaceX have delivered on every NASA contract milestone, most (well) on time even which is unheard of in the space industry. SpaceX have fulfilled their first contract for delivering
cargohumans to the ISS and is now on their second contract while Boeing is yet to deliver a singleouncehuman to the ISS for their first contract that they got before SpaceX got their first. SpaceX delivers, and for a good price as well. SpaceX have never claimed they would make space ‘travel’ 1000x cheaper. Their goal is to make it 1000x times cheaper to lift mass to orbit. Eventually. This is the whole reason for the Starship project. They have made it 5-10x cheaper with Falcon and a working version of the current incarnation of Starship could be 50-100x cheaper. Still a ways to go, but can’t say they aren’t delivering. Nobody else comes close. Which is why SpaceX (the company) will be shooting 90% of all mass to orbit worldwide this year. China (the country) will do about 6%. All other companies and countries together will do the remainder. Why? Mostly because they are by far the cheapest and partly because they are the only ones who can launch so often. Turns out landing a rocket and using it again was a pretty decent idea.SpaceX have never claimed we would have tourism to Mars soon. Even Elon has not claimed that. At best they would claim it is not outside the realm of possibility within the next few decades.
The accomplishments of SpaceX are undisputed. Which makes it a shame to have such a negative opinion based on so little information in my view. I get a lot of joy from ignoring Elon and focussing on the progress of the company. They do remarkable things. As do others in the space industry and I enjoy following their progress as well.
They have made it 5-10x cheaper with Falcon
Impressive if true, but have they really? I’d like to see a reliable source on that. That doesn’t compare to the most expensive previously existing option, which may have been the shuttle.
If you are really interested there are many channels on YT that cover SpaceX and/or space flight in general. The Everyday Astronaut has amazing deep dives on the technical aspects of space flight which are meant to be very accessible for a general audience. Note that he has interviewed Elon extensively several times and seems to be in good standing with him, so that might put you off. Scott Manly has a very informative channels as well and as far as I know he is not chummy with Elon. For very technical depth you could visit the forums on the website of nasaspaceflight (nothing to do with NASA, they are a groups of space enthusiasts who cover all things space). There is a ton of info and discussion there, but accessible would not be the right term to describe it.
For a bit more bite sized insight I can highly recommend Marcus House on YT. He makes a weekly 20 min video of everything new in space that week. It is surprising how much there is to cover every week.
If you have any interest in engineering and/or space at all, I cannot recommend enough to follow the progress of the Starship program in any way that suits you. The ambitions seem like pure insanity, the thing is so bloody big that every detail and number about it is just ridiculous, yet they are absolutely convinced they can get it to work. And they work on it mostly right out in the open in the middle of bloody Nowhere, Texas, so we get an amount of insight unparalleled in the history of the space industry. So even if you’re out to see them fail, it is still a lot of fun to follow, because they fail a lot and we get to see it all. Next test flight is likely to be next month. They build a full stack in about 6-8 weeks now, including all 39 required engines, so expect several more launches this year and maybe close to one a month next year. These are all test flights where they learn from failures in one flight, come up with solutions and try again in the next flight. Who knows if they will succeed, but it sure is a lot of fun watching them try. Watching 3600 tons of propellant being burned by the most powerful machine humans have ever built (by far) in about 160 seconds is a guarantee for excitement, even if they fail.
Eh, just add another empty promise and/or lie to the list, folks
This may be a better fit in [email protected] instead IMO
Going to Mars hasn’t been intangible since the 90s. The only thing holding it back is the cost. NASA could absolutely go if they had a $200B budget… mostly because they don’t spend their money wisely and waste shitloads on contracts with Boeing. They SHOULD be able to go to Mars with a $50B/year budget (current budget is in the $25B range), but government contracts are horrific.
A private company should be able to do it with $100B total price. But who wants to spend all that money?
I see. He wants to rule at least one planet.
