The Incredible SpaceX Starship and a New Golden Age in Space

jvett77

jvett77

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The successful powered landing of SpaceX's Starship SN15 on May 5 is a huge leap forward in space exploration. It must be sci-fi. Huge rockets landing softly on earth. Elon Musk has done it all in less than 10 years. He has developed a single reusable launch system capable of lunar and Mars landings and returns, and hypersonic earth travel.

Reviewing the launch and powered landing: 1 minute


The shiny stainless steel Starship itself stands 160 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter. It is being designed as a long‑duration cargo and passenger‑carrying spacecraft. As a second stage, it will sit atop the 220-foot SpaceX Super Heavy booster with 16 million pounds of thrust supplied by 37 Raptor engines, and be capable of sending 200+ ton payloads including cabins for 100 people to the Moon and Mars. Short videos below discuss the interior of Starship, a brief overview of its development and test flights, and long term plans out to the end of this decade.

The success of these plans obviously depend on our ability to the solve the problem of the adverse effect of two-year space flights, e.g., brain swelling, cardiovascular impact, and loss of bone mass.

Starship on the Moon_______________Starship on Mars
Starship_HLS_Moon_landing.jpg SpaceX Starship on Mars by Dale Rutherford.jpg

Inside Starship. 5 minutes


Development and Plans 2019 - 2029. 12 minutes
 
I hope to see it. I'll be in my 70s. Can't wait!
 
I need to find out if I can get my copy of Space Oddity on the flight and have it certified.
 
HammerDown said:
What a monumental waste of money.
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Why, yes. But, it’s been less of a monumental waste since opening the development and execution to private industry.
 
jvett77 said:
The successful powered landing of SpaceX's Starship SN15 on May 5 is a huge leap forward in space exploration. It must be sci-fi. Huge rockets landing softly on earth. Elon Musk has done it all in less than 10 years. He has developed a single reusable launch system capable of lunar and Mars landings and returns, and hypersonic earth travel.

Reviewing the launch and powered landing: 1 minute


The shiny stainless steel Starship itself stands 160 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter. It is being designed as a long‑duration cargo and passenger‑carrying spacecraft. As a second stage, it will sit atop the 220-foot SpaceX Super Heavy booster with 16 million pounds of thrust supplied by 37 Raptor engines, and be capable of sending 200+ ton payloads including cabins for 100 people to the Moon and Mars. Short videos below discuss the interior of Starship, a brief overview of its development and test flights, and long term plans out to the end of this decade.

The success of these plans obviously depend on our ability to the solve the problem of the adverse effect of two-year space flights, e.g., brain swelling, cardiovascular impact, and loss of bone mass.

Starship on the Moon_______________Starship on Mars
View attachment 29623 View attachment 29624

Inside Starship. 5 minutes


Development and Plans 2019 - 2029. 12 minutes
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The successful test earlier this month was indeed a huge step. But, there are many more of them to go. It was successful, but not perfect and man rated yet. I don’t say that to be a dissenter....just realistic.

I still feel like the Moon by 2024 and Mars a few years later is going to fall back....maybe 5-8 years, and that’s fine. It’s all about doing it right.

Elon is going to push the engineering well, but it’s ultimately NASA who man rates...and I feel there will be friction at this step soon enough.

They finally landed one successfully, but the methane fire they had to put out after landing it is just one example of such a hurdle left to go.
 
Orlando_Eagles said:
The successful test earlier this month was indeed a huge step. But, there are many more of them to go. It was successful, but not perfect and man rated yet. I don’t say that to be a dissenter....just realistic.

I still feel like the Moon by 2024 and Mars a few years later is going to fall back....maybe 5-8 years, and that’s fine. It’s all about doing it right.

Elon is going to push the engineering well, but it’s ultimately NASA who man rates...and I feel there will be friction at this step soon enough.

They finally landed one successfully, but the methane fire they had to put out after landing it is just one example of such a hurdle left to go.
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I agree. The schedule is just a little skewed toward success. The technology is brilliant but mostly not yet proven reliable and that will take some years.

More important, they're still investigating the harmful effects of the long duration flights of astronauts Scott Kelly, 340 days, and Christina Koch, 328 days, and of course the Russians, e.g., Valeri Polyakov, who spent nearly 438 days on the Mir space station.

For every month in space, astronauts’ weight-bearing bones become roughly 1% less dense if they don’t take precautions to counter this loss. Preliminary findings suggest that spaceflight mission duration may contribute to worsened ocular structural changes, such as swelling of the optic nerve head tissues.

The changes in Scott's genes were consistent with spending a long time in space, such as changes to his immune response (which got more active) and bone activity. Those changes, however, mostly returned to normal within six months of the spaceflight's end. Kelly said he felt 100% better after about eight months back at home.

Some changes in Scott's body have not returned to normal after three years on the ground, including DNA damage from radiation exposure, and some long-term fluid shifts that have altered his vision (the latter of which has happened to other astronauts, too).

But the Mars missions will require 18 months in space at microgravity levels and 40% earth gravity on Mars for nearly a year. Even a 2030 target seems a little ambitious. Then again, reusable rockets suddenly became reality in a short time and who knows, new techniques for healthy living in space may surprise us in the coming years.
 
For 50 years we marveled at a rocket taking-off. Now, we marvel at a rocket landing again. BFD, it's ancient and boring tech.

Enough secrecy. Drag out the mercury vortex anti-gravity engines and let's get flying around. Even an ionic wind kite is more interesting than a controlled bomb blast.
 
JuiceTheGator said:
For 50 years we marveled at a rocket taking-off. Now, we marvel at a rocket landing again. BFD, it's ancient and boring tech.

Enough secrecy. Drag out the mercury vortex anti-gravity engines and let's get flying around. Even an ionic wind kite is more interesting than a controlled bomb blast.
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A lot of this stuff is perfectly plausible but mostly impractical like ion propulsion which requires heating plasma to the temperatures approaching that of the sun further requiring several huge nuclear reactors on a rocket to accomplish that. Some actually believe that such achievements have been accomplished but are being kept under wraps by our government for "classified" reasons. It would all be out in the open already since it would be impossible to keep such secrets even for a decade or more.

Getting SpaceX's boosters to achieve controlled powered landings is currently the most significant advancement in space technology.
 
JuiceTheGator said:
For 50 years we marveled at a rocket taking-off. Now, we marvel at a rocket landing again. BFD, it's ancient and boring tech.

Enough secrecy. Drag out the mercury vortex anti-gravity engines and let's get flying around. Even an ionic wind kite is more interesting than a controlled bomb blast.
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How far along you think China is on their space elevator?
 
jvett77 said:
A lot of this stuff is perfectly plausible but mostly impractical like ion propulsion which requires heating plasma to the temperatures approaching that of the sun further requiring several huge nuclear reactors on a rocket to accomplish that. Some actually believe that such achievements have been accomplished but are being kept under wraps by our government for "classified" reasons. It would all be out in the open already since it would be impossible to keep such secrets even for a decade or more.

Getting SpaceX's boosters to achieve controlled powered landings is currently the most significant advancement in space technology.
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Our military is already flying ionic wind craft silently around at night. You're all confused about simple things. People make them in the back yard all the time.


 
JuiceTheGator said:
Our military is already flying ionic wind craft silently around at night. You're all confused about simple things. People make them in the back yard all the time.


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That second video is cool, I'll look more into it. The first video, not sure what's going on but you can clearly see the string attached to the device.
 
MarkOU said:
That second video is cool, I'll look more into it. The first video, not sure what's going on but you can clearly see the string attached to the device.
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Yeah, that's a wire. To create an ionic wind to create uplift, you need electricity. Some dipshit at home needs to run a little wire to it....but Darpa doesn't!
 
Just got the first double sonic boom from a SpaceX launch. Think it was the polar orbit trajectory this one took this time. Haven’t heard that since the shuttle last landed here.
 
Orlando_Eagles said:
Just got the first double sonic boom from a SpaceX launch. Think it was the polar orbit trajectory this one took this time. Haven’t heard that since the shuttle last landed here.
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You've got to see the Falcon 9 launch and the bulls eye booster landing, 24 minutes after launch from Cape Canaveral. Spectacular. This must be science fiction. Video also shows deployment of 88 satellites. More revenue for SpaceX.

I have no doubt that we'll be seeing similar Falcon Heavy and Starship landings in a few years.

SpaceX
 
jvett77 said:
You've got to see the Falcon 9 launch and the bulls eye booster landing, 24 minutes after launch from Cape Canaveral. Spectacular. This must be science fiction. Video also shows deployment of 88 satellites. More revenue for SpaceX.

I have no doubt that we'll be seeing similar Falcon Heavy and Starship landings in a few years.

SpaceX
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24 minutes…..that feels a little longer than usual. Must be the polar orbit they sent this one to. Came off and went south quick, over Cuba…..booster came back from that way. Might be why I heard this one.
 
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