SpaceX just made every rocket on the planet obsolete: Space Fund founder

YouTube ^ | October 15, 2024 | Yahoo Finance

[SunkenCiv]

SpaceX successfully landed its Starship rocket in what Elon Musk calls one of the company's most important launches. SpaceFund founder Rick Tumlinson joins Josh Lipton on Asking for a Trend to talk about what the landing means for SpaceX and the space exploration industry. The venture capital fund focused on space exploration is invested in SpaceX. "What we're witnessing here [is the] combination of the railroads, the steamships, airplanes, all in one. Like 100 years from now, people are going to look back at this period of time as sort of when humanity breaks out into space, Tumlinson says, adding the next steps for SpaceX is "to do a bunch more flights".

SpaceX just made every rocket on the planet obsolete: Space Fund founder | 5:05
Yahoo Finance | 1.27M subscribers | 22,416 views | October 15, 2024

[11th_VA]

Lol !!! Destination Moon 1950

[GenXPolymath]

The Chinese are copying his Starship nearly bolt for bolt even the tower catching thing. Reusable rockets fundamentally changes the planet. It’s only a few hundred thousand in liquid oxygen and liquid methane. When that boosts two hundred tonnes to orbit every other rocket system is obsolete in cost and function.

He could next month make a super sized Falcon 9 already the most successful rocket ever created. Since they caught and can reuse Superheavy that is now an option to do a bigass falcon style two stage rocket. Forget the heat shields and flaps and just weld up tanks, the RCS system and huge fiberglass fairings with 6 raptor already cheap enough to throwaway. You get 150+ tonnes to LEO. The existing falcon 9 second stage is the world’s best kick stage on mass ratio it’s 3900lbs while holding 200,000+ lbs of fuel no other st
Age on earth has those numbers not even Centaur with balloon tanks. They could throw a fully fueled second stage on top of the 6 raptor stage with 25 tonnes of payload on top of that. That falcon based kick stage could then throw that 25 tonnes to solar escape velocity as in any destination in the sol system no other rocket on earth could do that. A first stage reusable Superheavy plus disposable second and kick stage is a beast of rocket and they could do that next month if they choose too. Starship already reached orbital velocity its stable if there was no need for recovery just dump fairings and let the kick stage and payload fly at apogee while the disposable starship stage reenters down range. All the pieces of that system have been proven one test flight to test the fairing dump and kick stage separation. You lose 6 raptor and one Merlin in that case plus cheap steel and aluminum tanks.

The falcon already keeps the first stage and tosses the second. Merlin is so cheap they just threw 27 of them away for the ESA and made a profit charging one fourth what anyone else would have for boosting Europa Clipper, hint there were only two other rockets with the payload to do it. Three if Delta heavy still flew at 600 million vs 150 million for a falcon heavy. SLS could have done it for a billion, the ESA has Ariane 6 well over 400 million and not enough throw weight to do that mission. Vulcan Centuar in it’s largest config could barely do it and yeah no way no how for $150 million try 500 or more. Starship is being targeted at $10 million each for 150 tonnes of payload no one can touch that. Raptor 3 has more thrust than RS25 is lighter by a good amount and costs $1 million or less each vs 140 million each for a RS25 new as per the govt contract. Remember SLS throws four to six RS25 away every launch. So yeah Starship makes every other system obsolete in cost and function people who think otherwise are going to eat hella amounts of crow.

[Openurmind]

Cool stats... Thank you.

[GenXPolymath]

Up until recently there was no need for hundreds of tonnes of payload to orbit. The era of big space stations as a cold war dick measuring contest ended. Starlink changed the game, now you see the huge implications of having high-speed real-time global data coms for drones and the military. Plus cat videos in the outback. Now that direct to cell is proven those Starlink birds need to be twice as big 2000kg each and there is 12,000 planned with upwards of 40,000 total just for Starlink V2/3 the Chinese are also putting up a virtually identical system to Starlink with 12,000 to 30,000 using the Long March 9 a nearly bolt for bolt copy of Starship liquid methane and tower catching system too. then Amazon and the ESA also plan mega systems too. There is a trillion dollar market for heavy lift and SpaceX has the lead by at least 5 years. China already stole the idea and size/scale of Starship but are playing catch up with engine tech they prolly steal Raptor 3 plans too with honey pot spies inside Starbase would be my guess. Going to Mars is Elons dream heavy lift is the market for global data and thus military dominance. Drones with datalinks and AI are the future of warfare and AI robot soldiers too those cute hominid robots could just as easily pack a M4 or M240 vs a broom or a mop or a tray of drinks. Those need datalinks too even with hunt and kill AI operating systems. There was a YouTube guy who used some already available software and a drone to send it into autokill mode, first mode was track and find any human from above then kamikaze dive into them once unleashed it did just that it was programmed to swerve off at the last seconds so it repeatedly did kamikaze dives at everyone outside. The second mode was targeted at a single person he selected one person and locked the AI onto that person’s spectral signature and the drone then tracked them as they moved and tired to get away then on command it kamikaze dive onto that single target. The last mode was assassin mode he showed the AI an image of a face the drone then went hunting for that facial match it would capture an image of the faces in the scene compare every one to its target list and when it found a match it did it’s kamikaze thing shockingly effective. It only takes 20 grams or so of military grade rdx to take someone’s head off. Having a drone that can carry a kilo with disposable mini grenades means multiple kills per drone before its final dive into the last target. Dodging a hundred plus mph drone that’s locked onto your image is not going to be easy less so if it drops or fires a projectile at you from a distance at supersonic speed think shotgun sized shell throwing a aluminium slug with 30g of RDX at you at 800fps a 4 inch barrel could do that add in a revolver type chamber with 6-8 rounds hang that under said assassin drone and 9 people are having bad days. You can make the launcher recoilless with that set up too have the rounds vent gas to the rear like a mini bazooka revolver. There is also video from Russia of course where a guy attached a Glock 9mm to a powered swivel under a drop and a servo for the trigger he was flying around popping balloons and milk jugs with that set up. Think of a autokill drone with a G19 and 33 round mag strapped under it shooting at the faces in it’s kill folder from 100 feet up you get the idea how wars are going to be fought from now on.

[PIF]

Musk’s next step should be a private space platform for rocket assembly in space
—

No. Musk’s next step is to land the StarShip on a pad, then do an in-orbit refueling. The current version of Starship can only lift 50 tons to LEO.

[dljordan]

They do don’t they.

[SunkenCiv]

Uh, thanks?

[SunkenCiv]

Von Braun's plan was to use 12 Saturn V launches to put all the components and fuel into orbit, assemble ONE Mars mission, and send it. It would have been pretty cost effective, because the entire Apollo program ran about $20 billion back then, and the included all the R&D needed for the Mars launches, plus 13 Saturn V launches (that includes the uncrewed and the later Skylab launch).

My view is, the colonization would work better if the craft that cycle back and forth don't have to land on either Earth (because there's no one aboard) or Mars (because a habitat module would be needed anyway, and would descend to Mars with colonists aboard). Due to the relative positions of the two planets, most flights would be more or less simultaneous, with the "empties" returning in whatever length of time it takes (no life support would be needed).

The other way, and probably the second way after initial colonization, would be to have an infrastructure to support refueling in orbit, plus one or more shuttles to pick up the colonists from Martian orbit. That's probably a necessity, since they'd be arriving in large groups.

I'd guess that the apparently simpler method of using one ship to do the whole job (launch, cross to Mars, land, get refueled on the surface, return to Earth, reenter) looks better up front because it'll be easier to do maintenance and turnaround on the surfaces of the two planets.

As pif has pointed out in the past, most of the launches from Earth will be done just to lug up fuel. Having a cycling shuttle approach would merely require a little more fuel to be parked up there, for the return trip. The nice part of that is, during the years when the planets aren't in the proper position, launches can be all about putting up fuel stocks.

[SunkenCiv]

Your ass will *never* be obsolete, my friend. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Maybe, but it's a long way from a billion to a trillion. Not sure how old everyone is, but when I was a kid, there were just two billionaires, J. Paul Getty and (kind of remarkably) Howard Hughes. Then, in the 1990s, I remember some posh magazine that had a piece titled something like, "Forget billionaire -- the club now starts at $50 billion".

And seconding, Musk is always entertaining, even when he's shooting off his mouth as he was with his "pedo guy" comment.

Despite his wacko bigotry, Henry Ford was the most significant person in history so far -- he didn't invent industrialism, or even the assembly line (he saw the Armour 'disassembly line' and had a light bulb moment), but he not only metamorphosed manufacturing and brought down prices to broaden adoption, he literally transformed transportation, which led to our taken-for-granted modern road networks (worldwide; I grew up on a washboard gravel road in a home with a gravel driveway). He also mechanized agriculture (the buildout goes on, but that's also worldwide), and Ford was an early aircraft manufacturers.

We're witnessing another transformation -- reusability of spacecraft, electric vehicles (the main reason there's knee-jerk reactions against him), Starlink -- and once Musk's first human colony is on Mars, he'll be the new number one. :^)

Tesla's main contribution was his invention of the three types of AC motors, which altered manufacturing as well as home appliances -- but he was a also a real nutjob. I'd guess that he also had what we used to call Asperger's syndrome (before it was wiped from the DSM). The Margaret Cheney bio of him ("Tesla: Man Out of Time") is great, btw. Tesla also demostrated and patented what we now call radio, eventually winning a pyrrhic court victory over Marconi. He invented fluorescent lighting, using it in his lab (the one that eventually burned down) but considered it not worth patenting. He was one of the prediscovery discoverers of X-Rays (he took an X-Ray of Mark Twain, if memory serves). Despite all that, his bust would have to remain in a niche in the corridor. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

They look like the V2, which was the only scary rocket (and the only one that had been made by the 1000s) anyone had seen up to that time. The shape of the V2 was the same as the standard German rifle bullet, thanks to the study of aerodynamics. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

/bingo

[SunkenCiv]

That last comment he made was a CYA, IMHO. He does investing, and telegraphing one’s own politics is not a great idea.

[StAnDeliver]

"SpaceX just made every rocket on the planet obsolete...potential competitive risk to musk at this point in either...?"

And therein lies the danger -- if you think the other companies who have billions of dollars exposed to space and spacecraft aren't now going to resort to chicanery to destroy SpaceX, get a history book.

[PIF]

Having a cycling shuttle approach would merely require a little more fuel to be parked up there, for the return trip.

—
Up There. All along the route to Mars, with no guarantee that they will not be punctured meanwhile. One punctured fuel depot will make a very bad day for travelers. There is also the problem that the longer a fuel depot is in space, the more fuel that will leak, to a point of vanishing returns.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[cgbg]

Space exploration is off the charts dangerous.

It reminds me of the early days of European exploration and colonization.

If anyone is thinking of volunteering—you have been warned.

[PIF]

Best idea I’ve seen is to use one or more Bigalow 330’s with 50 aboard each, powered by ion thrusters. Starship would be fine for cargo, if it was made of composite instead of stainless - no refueling.

[SunkenCiv]

Oh no, leaky tanks, they’ll probably forget to put sensors aboard ‘em.

Punctures are going to be a risk irrespective of what approach is used or who builds it.

[PIF]

Only on Earth made ships. Very primitive. I’ll wait until the use fields to build the ship volume and the AI running the ship is actually sentient.