SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]

https://fin.plaid.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-o...

Its easy to call them luxury cars now, in hindsight, now that Elon Musk started the tech revolution that brought us full electric cars and a disrupted auto industry.

That's not to point out that "a payment processing website" made the lives of millions of people easier, as will global wireless high speed internet and cheap, civilian access to space.

I think you have an axe to grind, and it is clouding your ability to think rationally. There's a rule on this site that you're supposed to add to the discussion. I kindly request that you follow it.

These traits (some might say virtues) are limitations on what I can accomplish. People without these limitations are often perceived as assholes, but with the right combination of other traits/virtues, they can really do great things.

That's how I see it anyway. I'm not making excuses for myself, and I still intend to do something great, but I don't have expectations of changing the world or being the greatest.

“A military team is working with SpaceX to flesh out the prospect of shipping routes that pass through space, the head of U.S. Transportation Command said Oct. 7.”

“That group could demonstrate as early as 2021 whether quickly sending cargo around the globe via space is feasible, Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons said.”

“Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour,” Lyons said at a National Defense Transportation Association event. “Think about that speed associated with the movement of transportation of cargo and people. There is a lot of potential here.”

https://www.airforcemag.com/dod-spacex-may-soon-prove-the-mi...

Or you might even just start by launching 20 tons of coffee beans, roasting them in orbit and selling them as "Space Coffee" - it migh still be worth it with the per launch costs they have mentioned.

Actually aside from the first couple of Starlink test units, it has been the other way around. SpaceX launches dedicated Starlink missions on a regular cadence using previously flown boosters, and offsets the cost somewhat by offering rideshare opportunities. There will be 60 Starlink satellites per launch, but sometimes less if they find a rideshare.

Rockets that size cannot be launched anywhere near populated areas, so they'd have to launch from off-shore platforms; outside of Australia, USA and Russia there are no worthwhile destinations that can safely host on-shore rocket launch complexes for that class of rocket.

This poses quite complex logistical challenges that enthusiasts just love to handwave away. But there's even more to it: airspace needs to be closed on both launch and target sites.

Weather will lead to scrubbed flights as rockets have much tighter weather parameters than aeroplanes and are incapable of changing routes mid flight or divert to alternate airfields.

The most ridiculous part, however, is passenger logistics: every astronaut/cosmonaut/taikonaut wears pressure suits during ascend, since otherwise there's no way to breathe in case of a loss of cabin pressure once you're above 20km. Oxygen masks just won't do anymore at such heights. This means passengers would need to wear and familiarise themselves with pressure suits, unless SpaceX can convince the FAA somehow that even fewer failure modes can be mitigated while still being safe for passengers...

Getting onto the rocket is another point that's far from trivial - one doesn't simply walk into Starship and pick a seat. The seats wouldn't be upright, so passengers would need to climb into them and be secured by personell. Not to mention the elevator ride and the long wait during fuelling (remember: SpaceX are the only ones who do "dry-loading", that is they only start fuelling once the passengers are on board).

So your 30 minute short trip from LA to Paris would in reality consist of a 1 hour drive to the port, followed by 1 hour check-in and a 1 hour boat ride to the off-shore launch facilities. Next you'd have at least 1 hour of boarding procedures (limited elevator space, pressure suit fitting, seating) followed by fuelling (maybe another hour?). So after about 5 hours or so you are finally clear for launch and arrive somewhere off the coast of France 30 minutes later. From there it's another hour for unloading, an hour to get to the coast and another two hours from the coast to Paris.

In total, best-case scenario travel time would be about 9½h - better than the 16h via plane (12h flight + 4h getting to-/from airport plus boarding time), but a far cry from Shotwell's "business meeting in Abu Dhabi in the morning and back in Vancouver for dinner".

The off-shore launch platform idea isn't mine, by the way - the concept was brought forward by SpaceX themselves and presented by Glenn Shotwell who said "the longest part of the ride is be the boat out and back" [1].

I'm highly sceptical of the idea - not because I think it's impossible, which it isn't - but because the logistics, regulatory conditions, and economics behind it just don't make sense. I could be wrong, of course, and stranger things happened, but realistically, the odds are very much against this ever going to happen[+].

[+] using Starship/Super Heavy as envisioned and developed today

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dar8P3r7GYA&feature=youtu.be...

Not sure how you think SpaceX could cause more damage than doing nothing. They are the only group for the last two decades, besides Blue Origin, that is trying to advance the technology of heavy lift rockets past what we had with the Saturn V. Just imagine what $30/kg to orbit instead of $10000/kg will open up. They have are half way there with booster recovery and now just need the size of StarShip and the recoverable second stage.

If a company is creating revolutionary technology, why is it an awful company? Under what metrics are you judging it by? Lots of people get "burned out" working at SpaceX, but others also thrive in the environment.

The thing is there are many folks out there that were the nay-sayers and were completely wrong but also many that were completely correct. They are typically not remembered. It is one thing to make bold claims, it is another to out right deny the realities of the universe because they get in the way of a vision.

My personal opinion is that access to the global internet is important enough to justify the light pollution in the night sky. But I understand that not everyone thinks so, and regardless, steps to limit the constellations' impact are important to take.

In the month that Arecibo collapsed I think it's potentially worth pointing out that astronomers aren't exactly suffering from an abundance of money.

a) Even in the outbacks of Australia people still have access to the internet via satellite services. In fact very few places in the world, if any, have access to no internet at all rather it's just slow and expensive e.g. Iridium.

b) Starlink needs ground stations to work which means it isn't going to be usable in totally rural areas. And even then it will be interesting to see how it competes with fixed wireless e.g. microwave.

Tim Berners-Lee not only actually did it but also helped guide it through standardization and other things like that.