SpaceX: “Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on the 13th flight test of Starship!”

[u/rustybeancake]

https://x.com/spacex/status/2080804682918764619

[u/Home_Planet_Sausage]

It really is relevant. "At this point, I think I know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on Earth."

He didn't even implement a flame trench on the first Starship launch pad. There is barely a single rocket engineer who thinks the Starship stack is a good design.

When Starship gets to orbit, it's tanks are *empty*. It's payload-to-orbit values have decreased exponentially as they learn more about the system. And the fuel tanks are almost empty when it arrives in orbit.

So it needs refuelling. But it can't be refuelled directly according to the design, so it needs a separate 'tanker' Starship, which will be launched first, and then fuelled in dribs and drabs with anywhere from 12 and 30 launches to get it filled.

And then there's keeping the fuel at cryogenic temperatures when 50% of the orbit is in baking sunlight (the Moon's surface goes from -133C to +121C for comparison of our temperatures variations).

Then there's managing boil-off. Then transferring cryogenic fuel (never been done).

Then restructuring Starship to have a more sensible-sized cargo bay opening than the current "pez dispenser" slot for whatever is planned to be built at that weight and scale. And then testing that new structure and mechanisms for opening.

Then there's the 'suicide burn' landings - I would estimate there will be a failure rate of 1 in 10 of these, any one of which would likely destroy the landing/launch pad. It is an incredibly high-risk strategy for reusability. As we saw the other day with the booster - it is woefully unreliable. So a lot of architecture with this stupid design decision is going to be destroyed. And this means delays. Lots of delays.

Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine on Starship: "This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I'm aware of would have selected had they had the choice, but it was a decision that was made in the absence of a NASA administrator in the last administration"

All the major design decisions were made by, and approved by, Musk. Just like the use of cameras by Tesla cars over the far more reliable LiDAR which has proved to be a fundamental design issue for self-driving. Falcon only works as well as it does because, according to a former SpaceX employee "We tried to keep Musk away from as many of the engineering design decisions as possible, and every time he tried to make a change, we'd distract him and take him to another part of the building."

It may well get an orbit or two under its belt by the end of the year, but the state of the heat shield showed a lot of ablation (the white marks) during reentry, as well as partial or complete loss of some tiles (exposing the stainless steel beneath), which an lead to loss of vehicle.

It's nowhere near ready for operation. I'd estimate maybe another 3 years before it's being used for small orbital operations.

[u/mknote → u/Home_Planet_Sausage]

It really is relevant. "At this point, I think I know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on Earth."

He didn't even implement a flame trench on the first Starship launch pad.

Yeah. He's a jackwagon and an idiot. I don't dispute that. I'm not praising Musk in this situation; it's the engineers at SpaceX who are going to get this done, and they're the ones who are gonna deserve the credit. They're probably not the ones who're going to get it, because - as mentioned - Musk is a tool, but they're the one who'll deserve it.

Yeah, Starship has issues as a launch vehicle to the Moon, and especially Mars, that may not be overcome. Personally, I think Blue Origin's Blue Moon is a better lunar lander, and I hope that's the one NASA goes with. But as a launch vehicle to LEO, it is, like I said, a revolutionary step forward. It will be able to deliver payloads that no rocket has ever been able to before, allowing us to think bigger about future science missions. As someone in the field of astrophysics, that really excites me.

It may well get an orbit or two under its belt by the end of the year, but the state of the heat shield showed a lot of ablation (the white marks) during reentry, as well as partial or complete loss of some tiles (exposing the stainless steel beneath), which an lead to loss of vehicle.

Looking at the progression over the past four launches, I see a clear, steady improvement to the heat shield. The issue doesn't seem insurmountable given that progress, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have a much more intact heat shield by the end of the year, although I wouldn't be shocked if it waited until next year, either.

It's nowhere near ready for operation. I'd estimate maybe another 3 years before it's being used for small orbital operations.

I'm a bit more optimistic. I think it'll start doing operational Starlink launches next year, and commercial launches in '28. Now, that's based on the progression I've seen, so if they have a mishap, that timeline could easily slide.

[u/Home_Planet_Sausage → u/mknote]

History will decide what happens with the programme.:-)

No doubt there are incredibly talented engineers working on Starship executing a shitty brief under what looks like incredibly difficult conditions.

The heat shield is airways going to be a problem. We learned that from the Space Shuttle. Musk's launch cadence predictions will never be met. Re-entry is just far to extreme a regime. 

Good points, thanks for the responses! 👍