Starship’s whole point is for Musk to colonize Mars. Everything else is just trying to pay for that. And launching Starlinks is one of the main planned non-Mars uses of Starship.
This is probably an interesting article on Medium, if you can read the whole thing:
Still Starlink but not the tens of thousands interchangeable sort that are “risk-tolerant” payloads. Not the sort of thing that a 10% failure rate is just make 10% more. And the not Starlink business is I would guess not thrilled to accept that loss rate risk on their biggest payloads.
Trial and error is fine, but no one likes losing money, especially uber rich companies. My question is how much of these failures are reimbursable within the government/Space X contracts?
I don’t understand the question. Are you under the impression that people are paying to put their payload on Starship?
These are tests. You don’t put a paying customer’s payload on a test ship that isn’t even meant to reach a full orbit. There’s absolutely nothing to reimburse.
Falcon has a 99.8% success rate. Once Starship is actually in service, I’d expect similar results.
How many launches in a row without a problem from here, with its present test phase performance of multiple failures, would be convincing to potential customers that are not Starlink that such is the success rate going forward?
For the huge payload highly valuable critical to the company survival, existential, launch, is even a one out of five hundred chance of destruction the bet you would want to chance?
Depends. Are those customers so uninformed that they’re looking at tests that were never intended to make it into orbit and saying “Wow, I can’t believe that catastrophic failure?” Because I doubt there are very many decision making people in the space business who are that ignorant.
Or are they educated enough to understand the difference between a real launch and a test? In that case, Starship had a track record of 0 successes and 0 attempts, and judgement should be reserved until Starship models meant to reach orbit with a real payload have actually been built.
Not an answer.
I highly doubt they are stupid enough to ignore that the ones that have taken off have exploded.
So how many successful test flights (or others going first) will be enough for them?
Sure. And they should also consider the fact that the guy micromanaging the whole business is an unpredictable eccentric moron whose actual knowledge is far less than what he thinks it is. The main reason SpaceX has been as successful as it is is that it’s been relatively well managed by others while Elmo has devoted himself to destroying other businesses like Twitter, and recently, the US federal civil service.
Which is one of several reasons I’ll never buy a Tesla. I wouldn’t buy one as a matter of principle anyway, but the fact that it’s under the constant command and control of Elmo’s HQ is absolutely a deal-breaker for me.
FWIW, I am reassured as an engineer that they’re not making the exact same mistake twice.
If you want to ignore the fact that all of the starships that exploded so far were meant to explode, then you can do so.
I would guess paying customer payloads are a long way off. The payload volume seems to be designed specifically for Starlink deployment. While I’m sure it has been thought about, I doubt any work has been done on a more general payload deployment setup.
My prediction is the first paying external customer payload in 2027 and 18 more test flights between then and now.
Yup. They meant to do that!
Mars will not be colonized in Musk’s lifetime (even assuming he doesn’t die of a drug overdose soon) or the lifetimes of his grandchildren or their grandchildren. There is a tiny chance an astronaut might step foot on it in Musk’s lifetime but it’s a tiny one indeed. That’s not “Colonizing.”
Is Musk really delusional enough to think Mars will have a colony anytime soon? I don’t know.
…are you seriously making the claim that anyone at SpaceX thought these models of Starship were going to make orbit without exploding?
Orbit was not the plan. And exploding was not the plan. The plan -
Plans called for Starship to complete its experimental flight of less than 90 minutes with a controlled descent and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
It was also supposed to release dummy satellites.
I’m pretty sure that the answer to almost any question that begins “is Musk delusional enough … ?” is “yes”. He seems to have, at best, only a tenuous grasp on reality. Whether it’s drugs or something else I can’t say, but he’s not entirely there.
As for “colonizing” Mars, it’s hard to imagine anything simultaneously so completely pointless and so outrageously expensive if attempted. The real Mars is not the Mars of comic books and old science fiction. It’s relentlessly hostile in every respect. The atmosphere is not only far too thin to breathe, it contains virtually no oxygen, but if compressed to normal atmospheric pressure, does contain enough carbon dioxide to suffocate you and enough carbon monoxide to poison you. The whole place is lifeless, toxic, and bitterly cold. There’s useful knowledge to be gained there, mostly through the use of unmanned robotics, but it really makes no sense for any human to go there, let alone a whole “colony”.
The next generation, or Block 3, of Starship is going to pave the way for SpaceX to go to Mars, and during this presentation, Elon Musk laid out SpaceX’s plan to get there.
In the 2026 transfer window, SpaceX wants to send at least five ships with around 10 tons of payload capacity to Mars. These will be Ships that are likely partially refueled and are intended to prove it can reach Mars to gather data and learn what it will take to actually get to Mars using Starship. These early attempts are entirely based on whether teams can get on-orbit refueling to work right away.
In the 2028-2029 transfer window, SpaceX intends to utilize the lessons learned from previous attempts and send equipment using at least 20 Ships with a payload capacity of 75 tons. This involves preparing the landing areas, dispatching equipment for personnel, and verifying the viability of the landing area. SpaceX could have up to five launch pads, as well as two Gigabays and two full starfactories, in operation.
Then comes the 2030-2031 transfer window, where SpaceX intends to start sending humans to Mars. In this window, SpaceX wants 100 landers with 150 tons per ship to deliver, people, equipment for road and pad construction, habitat construction, and to increase the available power and storage capacity of what would be a Mars colony at this point.
Finally, the 2033 transfer window is where SpaceX’s goals get lofty. 500 ships, each carrying 300 tons, would be used to transport everything necessary to make Mars a self-sustaining colony that would be somewhat independent from Earth. This includes utilizing Starlink for Global Mars communications, establishing a Global Mars network for travel and resource mining, allowing resources to be extracted directly from Mars rather than being transported from Earth.
In one of the several “musk is wacky” threads there was a cite to an article / blog post written by a guy who has known musk for years and was a near-peer / friend of musk’s back in the mere hundreds of millions of dollars net worth days. IOW a guy who was in a position to know the true thoughts of the pre-drug musk. If I could remember the author’s name I could readily search up the citing post & following commentary by us all. Alas I cannot.
As I recall his thoughts about musk and Mars…
The Mars colony thing was always a ruse for the rubes. A glittering target to generate enthusiasm. The real goal is heavy lift to earth orbital space. Not for colonization, but for industrialization.
Back to my thoughts, not his:
Maybe as musk has gotten a) older and b) crazier / druggier he’s decided he wants to go to Mars. Not to live, but to die, or at least be interred. To be the first man on Mars. So the new driving focus is being able to reliably deliver a couple thousand kg payload to a soft landing on Mars. Which will be his tomb.
If this is true, at least of pre-meltdown Elon, than that would make a lot of sense.
It’s also possible that Elon himself is exactly as crazy as he appears and in fact always has been; in which case it’s possible that Elon is just one of the rubes being rused. It would explain why serious professionals and engineers - like the ones who have built the very impressive rockets SpaceX makes, and the supply and production lines that leave every other company in the dust - would hitch their wagon to SpaceX.
No matter what his fantasies that is the business case. He is willing to literally burn through a ton of money in hopes of being first and dominant mover in that segment.
And his company still has a head start despite its major stumbles.
That said never underestimate a vindictive Trump and the power of fragile egos. Musk’s buddy Issacman was all set to be head of NASA. No more. Contracts with all Musk is associated with, under review. May get DOGEd. Whoever comes in may prioritize not depending on Space X over best price. Boondoggle or not, SLS may rise in support again, and other companies encouraged to get their options ready ASAP.
Or not.