Starship's Sixth Flight Test
285 points by hnburnsy 13 hours ago | 339 comments
  • lupusreal 12 hours ago |
    Note that there will not be an official livestream on Youtube. Every time there are some people who fall for scammers pretending to be one and end up listening to an AI impersonation of Elon Musk try to sell them cryptocoins, missing the real launch.

    If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.

    • djd3 12 hours ago |
      The Everyday Astronaut was ahead of the SpaceX curated one for Flight 5. It had the weird effect of showing the outcome before the sound of the cheering crowd going crazy when the booster got caught by the chopsticks (which was also audible in the same stream).
      • gridspy 11 hours ago |
        Each streamer adds a delay to their stream. This means that any stream forwarded to you by another streamer is going to be delayed.

        The delay was between SpaceX recording and uploading an event and Everyday astronaut decoding it at their mixing desk. Their own feeds from their cameras and microphones had less delay than the SpaceX stream did. Everyday astronaut then had another delay between when they encoded this result and you saw it.

        If you had opened up the SpaceX stream directly you would have found it was ahead of the stream shown inside Everyday Astronaut.

        BTW I was also watching EA's stream.

        • wmf 11 hours ago |
          EA and NSF have their own cameras so they aren't just republishing SpaceX's Twitter stream. But things definitely get out of sync when there are multiple layers of streaming.
          • abulman 10 hours ago |
            Some of the views their cameras get are fantastic - and the tracking on the last flight test would quite possibly make NASA envious. Cameras on the beach and also just next to StarHopper are in harms way too, they've lost a couple of them. I'm not sure what the cost of repair was after a chunk of concrete from what used to be the pad took out the back of a car!
        • djd3 10 hours ago |
          Thank you for the clarification. It's delays all the way down. :)

          I was cycling between the "official" stream and EA to try and catch the most-live and I found EA was a couple seconds ahead.

    • hayd 12 hours ago |
      It's ironic given pre-acquisition under every Elon Musk tweet the top replies were always crypto scammers. Hopefully this time YouTube fix the impersonation stream but it was up for a long time during/after the last launch.
      • tiahura 12 hours ago |
        I assumed a large portion of YouTube/ Google management had been in a plane crash as that seemed the only plausible explanation for it to stay up as long and have as many viewers as it did. It really was stunning.
        • lysace 11 hours ago |
          Nah, they are just ignoring the damaging effects on individuals and cashing in the ad money.
    • tslocum 12 hours ago |
      Considering how long those videos have been allowed on YouTube, you have to wonder...

      https://mashable.com/article/fake-elon-musk-crypto-scam-yout...

      • lysace 12 hours ago |
        > Nearly four years ago, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak actually sued YouTube over Bitcoin scam livestreams that were using his likeness. So, this has clearly been going on for quite a while now. And, unfortunately, it looks like these fake YouTube livestream schemes are going to continue on, at least for the foreseeable future.

        I recently reported a bunch of the SpaceX ones that were running for long time. Nothing happened. I think Google/Alphabet is just happy with the extra ad views.

        This aspect needs regulation.

        • abulman 10 hours ago |
          I'll often spend a little time while watching the flight-tests (usually with Tim Dodd / EverydayAstronaut) just doing a search on YouTube for 'spacex live' and usually report 15-20 each time. They are very easy to spot when you've seen a few of them. I'll usually get a report of a few being shut down later in the day, and more over the next couple of days.

          But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automatically - it's frustrating they (and other scams) get to stay online so long.

          • lysace 10 hours ago |
            Perhaps your account has more Youtube XP.

            > But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automatically - it's frustrating they (and other scams) get to stay online so long.

            It's the Google way. It's impossible until it suddenly isn't.

            Break up this monster company and regulate the resulting companies until they behave.

        • mnau 9 hours ago |
          How about RICO act? Youtube is clearly and knowingly profiting from a criminal activity.
    • schappim 11 hours ago |
      Suddenly, all those crypto-scam videos seem plausible now that Elon Musk pledged to give away $1 million daily to individuals who sign his political action committee’s petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.
    • mulmen 7 hours ago |
      > If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.

      It amazes me that NASA Space Flight managed to rip off the names of both the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Their coverage is good but that name is really misleading.

  • anticrymactic 12 hours ago |
    Last times catch was incredible, anything groundbreaking being attempted this time?
    • bryanlarsen 12 hours ago |
      They're working off the same license they used for test 5, so they basically have to exactly the same thing they did for test 5. They did manage to add this:

      "An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions."

      • modeless 12 hours ago |
        I think that's the last thing they need to do before they can actually launch satellites. I'm surprised there was no attempt on the last launch. Glad to see it this time. The improved Starlink constellation that Starship will enable is going to be awesome.
        • cryptonector 10 hours ago |
          That and flap sturdiness, if they want to be able to re-enter over land so they can catch the ship.
          • modeless 10 hours ago |
            It's not required for launching satellites. But yeah, they need to figure out the heat shield for the flap hinges before they can recover the ship.
            • cwillu 7 hours ago |
              The next block of starship has an altered geometry/location of the flaps for that reason; it's more or less a solved problem, but not worth scrapping the older ones they've already built. Iirc, the launch after this one will be SN7, which is block 2 with the new geometry.
              • jltsiren 6 hours ago |
                It's not a solved problem. Surviving the re-entry in a condition that makes reuse economical was always the biggest challenge for the Starship. It's far from certain that they can achieve it without a fundamental change in the concept.

                The feasibility of building big rockets was already demonstrated a long time ago. Given the reliability of the Falcon 9, it looked plausible that a big rocket could work with many engines. And SpaceX had already shown that they can reuse boosters economically. But reusing orbital spacecraft – the entire upper stage with engines, fuel tanks, and whatever – without expensive and time-consuming refits is something nobody has done before.

                • Dylan16807 5 hours ago |
                  They're saying that one specific part burning off is a solved problem, not the entire reuse process.
                  • cryptonector an hour ago |
                    If that part burning off is a solve problem then returning the orbital ship to the launchpad is too given that they are able to gently put it down on the sea, and that they are able to gently catch the booster. This part is basically the only problem left that is ship-specific. However for reuse (or rapid reuse) they might need to rethink heat shielding to reduce refurbishment time and cost.
        • mnau 9 hours ago |
          I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting.

          SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)

          • cwillu 7 hours ago |
            The next block of starship has altered flap geometry that should largely fix that.
          • laverya 7 hours ago |
            I think they can probably do both at once - heatshield testing and pez dispenser testing shouldn't interfere with each other, so might as well use whatever spare upmass you have!

            Yeah you might lose the payload, but SpaceX has the cheapest satellites in the business from what I understand.

          • 93po 3 hours ago |
            i hope the next dummy payload is a giant 2 story tall anime figurine, knowing musk it's not out of the question
      • cryptonector 10 hours ago |
        And they need to demo that the flaps hold up through re-entry with nominal, minimal damage, otherwise a permit for a plan involving re-entry over land (which is needed to catch the ship) would obviously not issue.
        • bryanlarsen 10 hours ago |
          They've addressed that in Block 2. Test 6 still flies block 1, so we won't see any substantive improvements on that until test 7.
      • scotty79 9 hours ago |
        That's cool PR move. If they managed to light one then it's great success. If they don't people will think they just got unlucky. But if they tried to light all and only one would work or none, or one would work but some other blew up whole rocket it would look terrible. That last eventuality is something they want to prevent by trying to light just one.
    • sebzim4500 12 hours ago |
      It's not groundbreaking but it's important. They are demonstrating in orbit relight capability of the raptor engines. This is an absolute requirement before they can put it fully into orbit because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic.
      • lysace 12 hours ago |
        > because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic

        Why? Remote detonation wouldn't work in that case?

        • perihelions 12 hours ago |
          Remote termination is something they can do in the early boost phase, when there is a defined hazard zone over a depopulated patch of ocean. It doesn't cause the rocket to disappear; its effect is to disable the engines, end uncontrolled acceleration, and break the booster apart into small pieces—all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris.

          If you did this to a Starship in orbit, you'd likely have large chunks of steel reentering and reaching the ground intact.

          • lysace 11 hours ago |
            If I understand you correctly: So you'd have to do it over unpopulated/depopulated areas, which is impossible to guarantee when you are zooming around the globe at very high speeds. Thanks for explaining.
          • mcswell 8 hours ago |
            "...all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris..." After it's been flying in orbit for awhile, where it could in theory hit something else.

            As you say, the other part of it--and probably more important--is that if it's turned into orbiting pieces, there's no control over where it lands. Some of it could easily land on the ground rather than the ocean, who knows where. That of course has happened with other satellites and their final stage rockets in the past (notably by the Chinese), but Starship is bigger, and therefore the pieces that hit the ground could be bigger. By launching it sub-orbital for now, and turning off the engines so it lands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the risks of both orbital debris and unknown ground landing points are avoided.

        • jpk 12 hours ago |
          If the object is already in orbit, the debris from an FTS activation would also mostly be left in orbit, which isn't great. They really need to demonstrate the ability to de-orbit the vehicle before putting into orbit.
        • valine 12 hours ago |
          Detonating something in orbit could trigger Kessler's Syndrome.
          • JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago |
            > Detonating something in orbit could trigger Kessler's Syndrome

            Unlikely in general, no at LEO and definitely not at the suborbital velocities IFT-6 contemplates.

            • valine 12 hours ago |
              LEO is the exact place you need to be careful. Higher orbits have more space and have fewer satellites overall so it's less of a concern.

              Obviously not a problem for IFT6 since it's sub-orbital, but the original comment was about why we need a deorbit burn rather than just triggering the flight abort system.

              • pantalaimon 11 hours ago |
                but lower orbits also decay quickly.

                If you have debris in geostationary orbit, it will stay there basically forever whereas in low earth orbit it will burn up within a few years at worst.

              • JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago |
                > LEO is the exact place you need to be careful. Higher orbits have more space and have fewer satellites overall so it's less of a concern

                No. In LEO orbits degrade in single-digit years at most. There is no known solution for rendering an orbit in LEO inaccessible with a Kessler cascade—the best you can do is blind an area with repeated ASAT fire.

                In higher orbits debris last longer. That makes cascades possible, though again it only denies a limited area and requires almost active effort.

              • gridspy 11 hours ago |
                At least in LEO you need to keep expending DeltaV to keep stuff in orbit. Trace atmosphere slows everything down and would eventually clean LEO at 500km of relevant junk in about 25 years depending on altitude.

                https://space.stackexchange.com/a/55995

            • kibwen 12 hours ago |
              Even at suborbital velocities, putting debris into the path of an existing satellite that is traveling at orbital velocity is enough to trigger a cascade.
              • JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago |
                Collision, yes, cascade no.
                • kibwen 10 hours ago |
                  No. An object in orbit colliding with anything threatens to create debris in orbit. Debris in orbit collides with other objects in orbit, creating debris in orbit. That's a cascade.
                  • JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago |
                    No. Orbital mechanically, no.

                    > Debris in orbit collides with other objects in orbit, creating debris in orbit. That's a cascade

                    For the same reason not every nucleus that fractures on neutron bombardment sustains chain reactions not every orbital configuration supports a Kessler cascade. In LEO, it’s virtually impossible: you get a nuisance, not SOL.

                    Note that Kessler posited his syndrome before we could computationally verify it. We can now. It’s not a real threat in the long term, and is more of an insurance question than existential issue for spaceflight in the medium term. It’s pertinent in the very short term, militarily, which is partly how we know it’s very difficult to trigger across even limited orbits.

              • Dylan16807 5 hours ago |
                The chance anything hits fragments within the next hour or two is not very high.
        • inglor_cz 12 hours ago |
          It would work, all too well. Especially if the speed was just slightly suborbital. Rain of steel over a random spot (or, rather, a trace) on the Earth's surface. You may be lucky and that trace might cross a desolate ocean; or you may not be lucky, and some Asian megalopolis with 25 million people may be below.
        • stetrain 12 hours ago |
          Generally that isn't done for a vehicle in orbit, since the distribution of debris in orbits used by other spacecraft would be significant.

          A Starship second stage stranded in orbit would be a problem because detonation would cause a bunch of orbital debris, but simply waiting for natural re-entry would result in an unpredictable landing location that could result in large debris reaching populated areas.

          Reliable, controlled re-entry to a targeted location is very important for Starship to be an operational launch system.

        • cryptonector 10 hours ago |
          Detonation in orbit would cause garbage in orbit that could destroy many satellites. It is absolutely not permitted.
          • lysace 8 hours ago |
            That makes a lot of sense.
  • waltbosz 12 hours ago |
    > the 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT

    Is that correct? They're launching in the afternoon this time?

    • Always42 12 hours ago |
      They call out later launch on the page linked
    • sbuttgereit 12 hours ago |
      "Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations."

      From the linked article.

    • rkagerer 12 hours ago |
      Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
    • Nekhrimah 12 hours ago |
      It's explained further down the page that this launch time will facilitate the Indian Ocean landing in sunlight, for improved visual capture of that.
    • umeshunni 11 hours ago |
      For anyone else who was confused and thought this was happening today. It's actually in 12 days:

      The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18.

      The 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT

  • modeless 12 hours ago |
    SpaceX just posted this video of the last test. It's one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64

    • paul7986 12 hours ago |
      Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.
      • modeless 12 hours ago |
        Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day.

        Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

        • nexus6 12 hours ago |
          Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?
          • stetrain 12 hours ago |
            If we want to establish long term bases on the Moon or Mars then yes, you need not only to send crew and habitation modules but ongoing supplies and equipment.

            Other use cases include launching and maintaining satellite constellations (Starling / Starshield), and launching singular large payloads like space telescopes.

            Even for smaller payloads, having both the first and second stages be reusable will reduce launch costs.

          • soperj 12 hours ago |
            If satellites don't have to worry as much about weight constraints they can be made cheaper and quicker. Space missions can become more routine.
          • modeless 12 hours ago |
            SpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time.

            In the near term the biggest reason to do multiple launches in a day will be orbital refueling. This is required for sending much, much larger payloads to the Moon and Mars. It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit, and obviously doing that as quickly as possible will be beneficial. NASA has already committed to this plan for Artemis.

            • dmurray 10 hours ago |
              > It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit

              Require, or just make comfortable? Saturn V had the lift capacity of "only" a couple of Falcon Heavies, but was enough to carry astronauts, a car, a lunar lander with enough fuel to take off, and a command module.

              • modeless 9 hours ago |
                We're not trying to do Apollo again. That would be easier, but we want to build a base this time. For that we need to send a lot more mass and it needs a lot more fuel.
              • fernandopj 9 hours ago |
                Require. I answered that in this same subtopic.
              • thinkcontext 8 hours ago |
                It's necessary because the Starship upper stage is so heavy. With a non reusable upper stage Starship's capacity would be enormous.
                • SAI_Peregrinus 4 hours ago |
                  Also because of the Lunar Gateway part of the plan. That pretty much just serves to waste fuel and funnel taxpayer money to the companies funding several congressmembers' election campaigns.
          • inglor_cz 12 hours ago |
            Needs tend to develop once the means are there.

            200 years ago, there was no need to use electricity. 100 years ago, there was no need to use a programming language. 30 years ago, there was no need for gigabit wireless Internet.

            • JacobThreeThree 10 hours ago |
              Nobody will ever need more than 640k of RAM.
            • TeMPOraL 10 hours ago |
              Or perhaps earlier and closer to the heart of USA's citizens, 300 years ago, there was no need for rail lines and trains.
            • Animats 9 hours ago |
              > Needs tend to develop once the means are there.

              Counterexample: space stations. We've had small manned space stations for decades now, but no real application for them. They're national prestige items only.

              • pixl97 6 hours ago |
                Because launch cost is expensive. There are a lot of interesting things we can develop in zero gravity if the cost per pound was cheap.
          • edm0nd 11 hours ago |
            Yes, obviously.

            It takes a heavy launch rocket to launch heavier things into space or missions, refueling, and to goto other planets.

          • fernandopj 11 hours ago |
            It's a mandate for the next Artemis Mission. [1]

            The HLS (Spaceship) will need many refuels at orbit in order to get to the Moon and back. That means at least a dozen of fully-loaded Heavy launches to LEO just so each one of them can load a bit of fuel into HLS. The fuel in orbit can't sit idle for too long, or it deteriorates; I haven't found a limit on days for that, but a week-long launch window is considered a dealbreaker, we're talking a dozen Heavy launches in a week.

            It's either a short launch window, or at least 6 Starships built and launched twice in ~10 days. Don't count out on SpaceX building 12 Heavy Starships just for that Artemis mission.

            [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III

          • dwaltrip 9 hours ago |
            Yes, to do anything at all in the rest of the universe.

            We are insatiably curious explorers. The cosmos calls to us. Many are willing to do anything they can to answer that call.

        • eunoia 12 hours ago |
          > go again the same day.

          That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.

          • modeless 12 hours ago |
            It's a good question. The hurdle to clear for same-day reuse will be the heat shield. SpaceX hasn't yet demonstrated that Starship can reenter the atmosphere and remain fully intact. Doing it while sustaining near zero wear on the heat shield will be even harder. But I think it is not impossible, and I don't know of any other obvious blockers for same day reuse.
            • YetAnotherNick 11 hours ago |
              Even if they can reuse the booster, it would be huge.
            • soperj 11 hours ago |
              They'll likely reuse the booster on the same day well before the starship portion. No heat shield on the booster. Some starships will likely stay in space for a long time before returning.
              • thinkcontext 9 hours ago |
                Musk has said they're aiming for hundreds of reuses for the booster and dozens for the ship.
            • BurningFrog 11 hours ago |
              It's certainly looked fully intact when reaching ground.

              When they manage to do the intended landing it should be pretty unharmed, but I'm sure it will take a while before same-day reuse is attempted.

              • modeless 11 hours ago |
                One of the flaps burned through again. Not as bad as the first time. The hinge area seems like the hardest challenge.
                • dylan604 10 hours ago |
                  Is this a bit of over engineering? How much is drag reduced during liftoff by having the flaps folded?
                  • modeless 10 hours ago |
                    The reason the flaps move is to provide attitude and speed control during reentry. Like a skydiver spreading their arms and legs.
                    • dylan604 9 hours ago |
                      oh, you mean like actual flaps of pretty much any aircraft. doh! i was thinking it was like the folding of the wings for planes on an aircraft carrier. sometimes my brain, boy, i don't know
                • bryanlarsen 10 hours ago |
                  It was a flap hinge that burnt through, not the flap. They have a solution for block 2 which we'll likely see in test 7 -- move the flap slightly further back so that the hinge isn't in direct flow.
            • WalterBright 9 hours ago |
              Zero wear is not necessary. The tiles can be thicker than the minimum, and be reusable until they wear down to the minimum. Like the brake pads on your car.
          • soperj 12 hours ago |
            With the Falcon 9 they're already at over 100 launches this year. It's multiple rockets, but the turn around is pretty quick and getting quicker every year. They're designing starship from the start with same day turnaround in mind. I wouldn't bet against it I guess.
          • ceejayoz 12 hours ago |
            Some of SpaceX's first stages are getting close to the individual Shuttles' launch counts, with substantially less turnaround time and cost than Shuttle ever had.

            Starship has work to do, but it's hard to argue they're not at least on the right path.

            • cwillu 8 hours ago |
              Also, less cost in life.
          • fragmede 11 hours ago |
            The previous flight was October 13, 2024, so while I can't speak to every day, one month turnaround is a reality.
            • soperj 11 hours ago |
              It's a completely different booster and ship that's flying.
              • ceejayoz 11 hours ago |
                And both are already outdated - flight seven (Ship 33) introduces a new generation of hardware. They're moving fast with these.
          • gridspy 11 hours ago |
            The shuttle boosters required rebuilding / refueling (which is solid rocket goop) and the fuel tank was completely lost and required rebuilding. The head shield tiles were extremely fragile on the shuttle.

            It was never a fully reusable design, just more reusable than before.

            SpaceX plans to have no parts that are lost each flight and is working to make the tiles mostly standardized and less sensitive to faults.

            • trompetenaccoun 11 hours ago |
              Are they going to replace all the tiles before it can relaunch? And what about the engine nozzles? They must be taking quite the beating.

              No doubt SpaceX has very smart people working on this and I'm not an expert in material science, but I just find it hard to believe that same day turnaround could be possible. If true, that would really make us a confirmed space faring civilization. We could actually start colonizing Mars.

              • JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago |
                > what about the engine nozzles?

                Falcon 9 has reflown in just over 4 hours [1]. (EDIT: Operational turnaround. Nozzles have been turned around allegedly without refurb in 3 weeks.)

                [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_...

              • dr_orpheus 10 hours ago |
                For context on JumpCrisscross's comment in this thread: the 4 hours is between two separate launches on two separate rockets. This is absolutely not refurbishing and launching the same rocket 4 hours apart.

                Seems like the actual record for turning around the same booster is 21 days, which is still quite impressive.

                https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnar...

              • wongarsu 10 hours ago |
                The heat tiles are reusable, just like the Shuttle's. They are basically just a material that insulates very well, instead of a traditional ablative heat shield that burns away. With the space shuttle they ended up spending a lot of time inspecting each tile for damage and replacing cracked tiles. SpaceX has a modern iteration of the same material, hopefully with fewer cracks.

                Other factors that work in SpaceX's favor are 1) that most launches will be unmanned, meaning they can take bigger risks than the Space Shuttle program; 2) that the steel body of Starship can handle higher temperatures than the Space Shuttle's aluminum, so a compromised heat shield is more tolerable; 3) for now they have a secondary ablative heat shield below the tiles (that does have to be replaced when it gets used, but that should only happen when tiles fall off)

          • LorenDB 11 hours ago |
            For the Super Heavy booster, SpaceX is targeting a <1hr turnaround time. For the ship, it gets a bit more complex. Ships have to make complete orbits before returning, and generally they have to be loaded with cargo as well. Tanker Starships for lunar/Mars missions will probably have pretty quick turnaround given that fuel can be loaded on the pad; other ships will have significantly longer turnarounds.
        • 7e 10 hours ago |
          I think the economics of space are are much more likely to be transformed by something like https://www.longshotspace.com/. Rockets are complex, still costly, and polluting.
          • modeless 10 hours ago |
            The problem with space guns is you can't just yeet rocks into orbit. Any orbit that starts at the surface returns to the surface. So you still need a disposable rocket and avionics and fuel in every payload to change the orbit once out of the atmosphere. Only now the rocket needs to survive being literally shot out of a gun and then traveling at orbital velocity in atmosphere. That puts a pretty high floor on the cost per shot.
            • gridspy 10 hours ago |
              Plus, your payload needs to be gun compatible. Not gonna put people in there.
              • WalterBright 9 hours ago |
                Well, in WW2 we did manage to put working radar in artillery shells.
              • 7e 9 hours ago |
                Space is for robots.
                • gridspy 8 hours ago |
                  While mass to orbit costs as much as it does now, sure. However later on it's gonna be great to have humans closer to the working robots to reduce the round-trip latency. They could also perform tasks robots are not suited for.

                  Consider operators living on Mars and operating drones near their habitat each day. It would be like modern day drone operators and robot assisted surgery. Like remote operators of mega-trucks today.

                  Those robots could interact with the operators - driving into a "garage" that can be pressurized for maintenance, upgrades or science.

                  StarShip promises to reduce the cost of mass to orbit, making larger and more complex scientific, industrial and habitat options feasible.

            • dr_orpheus 9 hours ago |
              If you want to look at someone that is further along on a concept like this you can look at SpinLaunch. Exactly what it sounds like with a gigantic centrifuge to spin and throw things really fast. But they are still throwing a small two-stage rocket.

              https://www.spinlaunch.com/orbital

            • 7e 9 hours ago |
              I think a reusable orbital tug which rendezvous with payloads is the play here. The tug would refuel from some of the gun-launched payloads.
        • irthomasthomas 10 hours ago |
          He's already spent the $3bn funding that was supposed to deliver the rocket to the moon and back.
          • vojtapol 9 hours ago |
            That's just straight up not true. The $3bn were never meant to fund the entire project in the way you imply.
      • tedsanders 12 hours ago |
        If you go to space, 90% of the cost is the rocket (depending on your accounting). If rockets can be made reusable, then you can drop costs by 90%, to first order. Cheaper rockets means cheaper satellites for internet and sensors and stuff.
        • gridspy 11 hours ago |
          Also, as mass to orbit gets cheaper you can build your payload more cheaply. Many compromises in complexity and material cost are made to minimize payload mass - we'll be able to launch cheap and heavy satellites and probes into orbit instead.
          • WalterBright 9 hours ago |
            Cheaper rockets also mean cheaper payload in that the payloads don't have to be engineered to such high standards of reliability.
        • dylan604 10 hours ago |
          >(depending on your accounting).

          some of the best weasel words ever laid to print. Enron accounting vs PWC vs your mom using Quickbooks for her side hustle type of depending?

      • inglor_cz 12 hours ago |
        Rockets that are easily reusable make spaceflight a lot more logistically feasible, which should translate to a massive drop in costs.

        We are going to see massively increased space activity of all sorts. It is almost impossible to predict all consequences thereof.

      • soperj 12 hours ago |
        Price decreases significantly when you can reuse. This rocket is the same size as the ones that brought the Apollo missions to the moon, but will cost significantly less because they don't have to build one every time they launch it.
      • stetrain 12 hours ago |
        It's a rocket in the same ballpark as the Saturn V but where the two stages can both be recovered and re-used.

        SpaceX has demonstrated being able to fly the same rocket stage dozens of times with minimal refurbishment with their Falcon 9 family of rockets, but they still have to build and discard the second stage of the Falcon 9 for each launch.

        Starship scales that up in magnitude and adds second-stage reusability.

      • politician 11 hours ago |
        Consider ocean-going freight transportation: the container ships and the containers, the port facilities and the cranes. Now imagine that you were able to witness the very first round-trip sailing of such a container ship between two newly constructed still-experimental-and-heretofore-unproven ports.

        That'd be pretty cool right? The dawn of a new era in global trade.

        This is that, for space. (Booster as container ship, Orbital vehicle as container, launch tower as literal crane, launch complex as port)

        • tialaramex 9 hours ago |
          No. The ports were just expanding on an existing idea. I live in a port city, a thousand years ago middle ages people with much smaller boats used this same area to travel much shorter distances with fewer goods, today it has those cranes and a railway and moves inter-modal containers which have travelled from across the world, but it's just the same idea.

          Why is there a port here? Because of the unusual tidal pattern? Deep water? No. People. The other reasons are reasons to put the port here maybe in particular rather than a few miles in either direction, but the people are why there's a port. In 1024 there were thousands of people, today perhaps closer to half a million depending on how you count.

          There are no people on Luna, and no people on Mars. Visiting these barren rocks is like going up Everest.

          This damp rock is where our species was born and it's where it will die. It's not much, but its ours, and there's nothing like it within any plausible travel distance.

      • MostlyStable 11 hours ago |
        This article [0] is a pretty good explainer for why Starship is such a big deal

        [0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...

        • cylinder714 10 hours ago |
          Brilliant article, and I neglected to bookmark it earlier, thank you.
        • Animats 9 hours ago |
          That's very good. And it's from 2021. Since then:

          - Starship is actually launching now

          - Boeing's reputation and credibility are in tatters

          - Trump won with heavy support from Musk.

          Expect a new head of NASA who is pro-Musk, and a cancellation of the Senate Launch System.

          On the other hand, it's not clear what a Moon base is good for. The ISS isn't very useful.

        • WalterBright 8 hours ago |
          > We need a team of economists to rederive the relative elasticities of various design choices and boil them down to a new set of design heuristics for space system production oriented towards maximizing volume of production.

          Great article, but that's not what economists do. It's more what cost accountants do.

        • pfdietz 6 hours ago |
          > Starship is designed to be able to launch bulk cargo into LEO in >100 T chunks for <$10m per launch,

          So, for the cost of a single SLS launch ($4B), Starship would be able to put the mass of the battleship USS Texas into orbit.

          If the cost is reduced to $1M/launch, it could put the mass of four Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers into orbit.

      • Ductapemaster 11 hours ago |
        This is a great resource for why Starship is groundbreaking. So much so, it’s not even really comprehensive to the existing space-industrial complex.

        https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...

      • hadlock 11 hours ago |
        The big thing is that it dramatically reduces the cost of shipping things into space. Previously it was difficult to ship anything much larger than a compact car in to orbit. Now you can ship half of a basketball court into orbit, including all the vertical space.

        Until very very recently the roughly bus sized ISS modules were the largest habitable spaces we could ship to orbit (although Skylab in the 70s were basically repurposed Saturn V fuel tanks and also big) so now it's possible/probable we can ship 20 people to space, and have moderately comfortable accommodations for them.

        We can also ship mining equipment and substancially more supplies to the moon. Or mars. We went from using pack goats to 18 wheelers to ship stuff in space. The pack goat can ship a handful of hand made silk scarves and Faberge eggs over the Himalayas, but the 18 wheeler can deliver everything from socks and tshirts to cell phones and big screen tvs and trucks and lawn mowers. This really opens up space to more than the highest, most bleeding edge science and we might actually see more than 100 humans in space at the same time, in our lifetimes.

        • taneq 10 hours ago |
          Literally anything but the metric system, huh? ;)
          • TeMPOraL 9 hours ago |
            I applaud GP's effort at also avoiding shipping cliches like Olympic-size swimming pools.
            • hadlock 9 hours ago |
              Well, basketball courts have a ~12m diameter 3-point line, and the inside of a starship is ~9m. Swimming pools are mostly rectangular from the outside observer's perspective.
      • adamm255 11 hours ago |
        I’m with you. As landing the thing means nothing if you can’t get payloads to the destination. To get this thing to the moon would need like 20 refuelling flights to meet it on the way.
        • dylan604 10 hours ago |
          this just reads as very strange. "meet it on the way"? it's not like they can place these in an orbit that they can just pull up and stop to refuel like a highway gas station. the refueling "pod" would need to be moving at the same speed as the ship.
        • cwillu 8 hours ago |
          Hence the plan to have ten or so launches to refuel the top stage while it's still in orbit, a place that notably _is_ halfway to the moon's surface + the return trip to the earth.

          https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_sy...

      • llboston 10 hours ago |
        Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn’t cost $500, but only $5, unbelievable, right? This is exactly what Starship will do to space travel. Many things we see in sci-fi, like lunar and Martian cities or orbital cruise ships, could soon become reality.

        Personally, I can’t wait to see a massive, kilometer-wide telescope in space or nestled in a crater on the Moon. We might finally figure out dark matter, dark energy, anti-gravity.

        • deanCommie 10 hours ago |
          See this is the kind of thing that's not helpful.

          It's just an outlandish overly optimistic mishmash of different concepts.

          Let's start with your analogy:

          > Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn’t cost $500, but only $5, unbelievable, right?

          If you mean to use this to explain that what today costs X will in the future cost 0.01X, you're probably right.

          But a more accurate analogy is "Imagine if a round-trip flight from the US to Europe didn't cost $50,000,000, but only $500,000, unbelievable, right?"

          Same ratios, but deeply different implications.

          Today, the idea of setting up a continuously settled Mars colony - hell even a Moon colony - is unfeasibly expensive. It's ACHIEVABLE - we have the technology and the money - but it would cost an intolerable percentage of the GDP of the world to accomplish.

          A 100x reduction in costs means that it becomes a fundable endeavour that countries like the US could still justify.

          We're still talking about generations - maybe a century - away from someone being able to just pop over to Mars for a summer vacation, the way that a college student could to do today with an intercontinental flight.

          > Many things we see in sci-fi, like lunar and Martian cities or orbital cruise ships, could soon become reality.

          For a very generous definition of soon and for a highly implausible definition of what a "cruise ship" is - it'll never be as accessible to the average person as earth cruise ships. Not as long as you keep using rockets.

          Regardless of reusability, there are realities of fixed FOSSIL FUEL costs associated with getting into gravity. They're not cheap, and they're not frivolous. If you want to be able get things into orbit as cheap as you're suggesting, you need to start investing in a space elevator, which noone is right now.

          > Personally, I can’t wait to see a massive, kilometer-wide telescope in space

          Cool, yeah, that's true, that becomes more available.

          > or nestled in a crater on the Moon.

          ..why?

          > We might finally figure out dark matter, dark energy, anti-gravity.

          And the final cherry on the cake. Humanity becoming inter-planetary is important on a macro scale. And trying to go further and further into space will INCENTIVISE research into these concepts.

          But in no way does getting to orbit cheaper make it easier to figure out any of these concepts. There's nothing we can do from Mars or on the way to Mars in terms of this science that we can't do from Earth.

          • TeMPOraL 9 hours ago |
            > A 100x reduction in costs means that it becomes a fundable endeavour that countries like the US could still justify.

            Don't forget the dynamics. Costs of all such projects drop further when early steps become affordable. Like, with 100x reduction on the sticker price, US might feel Mars colony is still too expensive a project, but 100x reduction on trying out some adjacent space tech may just be in range of NASA budget or some private interest. Steps get made, iterated on, making next steps cheaper and more likely to happen. Derisking compounds.

            I do agree it'd still be a decades long project at least (with a settlement established early on; it's the tail end that will drag on).

            >> or nestled in a crater on the Moon.

            >..why?

            Having some gravity and hard surface to build on simplifies engineering challenges, particularly on large scales, as in free space, tension becomes a big issue. And, perhaps more importantly, the Moon would shield the telescope from all the electromagnetic noise produced on Earth, and also by the Sun.

            • SAI_Peregrinus 4 hours ago |
              Shielding from the sun only happens when it's dark on that side of the moon. So half the month, effectively. But shielding from Earth can be constant, thanks to tidal locking. Particularly nice for really big radio telescopes.
          • Dylan16807 6 hours ago |
            > Regardless of reusability, there are realities of fixed FOSSIL FUEL costs associated with getting into gravity. They're not cheap, and they're not frivolous.

            I hope you don't mean hydrogen and methane. Those are downright easy to make without fossil fuels. And kerosene isn't all that hard.

      • shirro 8 hours ago |
        Honestly of very little significance to the typical individual. It isn't going to pay my bills or provide for my kids. It does nothing for people suffering war and genocide. Nothing for poverty, access to health care and education. Nothing for the biggest threats facing our civilization.

        It is still a remarkable technical achievement and I think the people who have designed and built these systems deserve some celebration for their accomplishments. It has the potential to lower costs and increase the capacity for greater commercialization, militarization and exploration of space.

        I think the extent you see that as something positive is subject to your faith in humanity. I tend to think technologies connection to social progress is a three steps forward, two steps back sort of thing. We have certainly made gains in my lifetime but we could have gone a lot further.

        • WalterBright 8 hours ago |
          Your posts reminds me of the building of the first transcontinental railroad. It had many fits and starts, and people thought it would take decades to pay off.

          But just as soon as it was completed, it changed everything overnight.

          This is what Musk is doing.

          • shirro 5 hours ago |
            SpaceX are not building a transcontinental railroad. I think that is a false equivalence.

            An operational Starship should be very impactful on space exploration but it won't be shipping cattle back from Mars. There is a difficult to discern line between reality and bullshit that Musk likes to blur. The "vision" stuff is there to hype up the troops and investors. You don't need to swallow it to appreciate the technology. It isn't narrow minded to reject stuff that just doesn't add up. The scales, time, distance, energy, investment involved in space colonization are incomparable to settling the USA. The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.

            • WalterBright 5 hours ago |
              SpaceX is building a railroad to the solar system. It will change everything, and quickly.

              > The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.

              That's what people thought before the railroad was completed.

              See "Nothing Like It In the World" by Stephen Ambrose:

              https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1...

          • mhh__ 5 hours ago |
            The payload is so big it will be a pretty dramatic phase transition for almost everything space related, assuming theres not some horrible flaw hidden away somewhere.

            Quite bizarre how some people genuinely think he's just some guy who allocates capital. Or rich dad or whatever. I guess his dad was probably rich but that's clearly not enough.

    • guld 11 hours ago |
      For those of you who like dubstep, start the following video first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2eBMuL0C2o then 3 seconds later start to watch the (muted) SpaceX video from OP's post and thank me later. ;-)

      Especially the catch is awesome!

      • lasc4r 11 hours ago |
        I think it's a cool achievement, but for some perspective NASA first did a vertical rocket ship landing without chopsticks decades ago.

        And the whole point of this thing was to do that on the moon, which is never going to happen at this rate.

        • dylan604 11 hours ago |
          Is the whole point of this thing to land the first stage on the moon, or just the Starship? My understanding is that it's just Starship, and the first stage will always return to Earth. I think one of us has a very confused understanding of the whole point of the thing.
        • adamm255 11 hours ago |
          NASA Landed on the moon in the 60s with an abacus. SpaceX can’t get out of low Earth orbit.
          • ranger207 10 hours ago |
            Didn't SpaceX launch Europa Clipper to Jupiter a few weeks ago?
            • bandyaboot 10 hours ago |
              They also flung a Tesla Roadster off into a wayward journey around the Sun. Not nearly as impressive I know, but significantly more amusing.
              • tim333 8 hours ago |
                Yup. Passed by Mars in Oct 2020 which is definitely outside low earth orbit.
            • shirro 9 hours ago |
              Clipper is a massive payload for a planetary science mission as well. SLS was the only other operational US vehicle with the payload capacity.
          • zwily 10 hours ago |
            Do you really believe that they “can’t” get out of low earth orbit, as opposed to “haven’t yet”??
          • gridspy 9 hours ago |
            I think it's a really responsible decision by SpaceX to not put their StarShip stage into a full orbit until they have demonstrated the ability to get it back out of orbit.

            They should be applauded for this, along with their iterative approach.

            Note that this next test will demonstrate re-light of the engine in space at micro-gravity. This is the demonstration needed prior to putting the StarShip in orbit. We'll probably see a full orbital test for the flight after this one.

            They could have easily put previous tests into orbit - it's a fairly minor change to their existing regime and they have plenty of fuel to use.

        • daedalus_j 10 hours ago |
          They did? I've not heard of that, and a cursory search isn't finding anything. Got any more info on this, which rocket, etc? I'd love to learn about that.
        • joshmarlow 10 hours ago |
          And in 2002 a neuroscientist hooked a camera to a blind man's brain and he could see well enough to drive a car around an empty parking lot without running into things. And yet there are still many blind people.

          Doing something cool once doesn't impact civilization. Doing it affordably at scale does. If Space X can do the chopstick landing reliably and integrate it into their operations, then that will be impactful - and change civilization.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Dobelle

        • carabiner 8 hours ago |
          Just makes it more humiliating for SpaceX competitors. ESA, China, ULA all playing catchup to NASA tech from decades ago. Why didn't they commercialize it?

          Did Apple invent the touchscreen or the cell phone or high dpi displays?

      • kak9 11 hours ago |
        this was great. i hope someone just recuts video with exactly this soundtrack
      • TeMPOraL 10 hours ago |
        Nice, how did you find a music clip with such a good match across the whole video? Or are you saying you know that SpaceX media people were using that as test music when cutting theirs?
      • teractiveodular 9 hours ago |
        OK, that's downright creepy. Especially that the singing starts with the lyrics "holding on" at the exact moment the booster is caught by the chopsticks.
      • halz 8 hours ago |
        Another rough take with some orchestra music from Stellaris, of all things. Start the SpaceX video and 'Towards Utopia' at around the 2:21 mark https://youtu.be/887f76RXvdE?t=141
    • hackitup7 11 hours ago |
      I find the experience of watching these SpaceX videos very emotional. There's something really inspiring both from an "exploring the universe" perspective and also just from the human side of all of the effort that went into them.

      The first video that really got to me was when they landed multiple boosters. This one as well, especially seeing the rocket take off with every booster firing when compared with the first Starship launch when you could see that some failed to light. It's like watching your child take their first steps, and then seeing them win an Olympic medal for running. Just incredible stuff.

      • thelastparadise 10 hours ago |
        This kind of thing is why I got into engineering in the first place.

        There's so much more to it than money.

    • neverrroot 9 hours ago |
      Amazing what one stubborn person can put into motion
  • unaut 12 hours ago |
    Seriously, who cares! There are far more interesting stuff in space exploration than this flight tests of a giant boiler that's been going on for years now.
    • hersko 12 hours ago |
      You must be joking
      • shkkmo 11 hours ago |
        I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered.

        One example off the top of my head:

        https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of...

        • rbanffy 11 hours ago |
          Starship is an enabling technology. We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.
          • shkkmo 9 hours ago |
            Which is why I find it exciting and am stoked every time I see progress made.

            Howevever, it's hard to view an announcement of the next launch with some minor additions to the experimental flight, as the most exciting space news today. Future launches, once they get the license updated, will he more exciting.

          • righthand 9 hours ago |
            Please list them because right now it is a hugely costly project that has shown no significant capital advancement for society beyond propping up Elon Musk and a “someday the average man will walk on the moon” dream. If anything of capital gain comes from it, it will never actually benefit the financial bottom line of the middle and lower class.
            • shkkmo 9 hours ago |
              Space based technology has massive impact on every day life. From GPS to weather prediction to communications, space infrastructure is critical to modern life.

              Launch costs significantly reduce what we can build in space and what research we co do there. Decreasing launch costs makes our research funding more effective and reduces the capital costs and projected profit margins needed to build space based infrastructure.

              SpaceX has already enabled significant economic growth and innovation with the launch cost reductions brought by the various falcon rockets and their reusability.

              If Starship can accomplish it's reusability goals, an ever greater reduction of launch costs is possible. This would jump start an even bigger space industry boom than the one we are in today.

              • righthand 8 hours ago |
                None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.

                The rest of your statement only indicates that Starship is indeed a fat pig when it comes to budget. This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.

                Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.

                • shkkmo 8 hours ago |
                  > None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.

                  Lower launch costs are a force multiplier for all of those technologies and more.

                  > This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.

                  It sounds like your issue is more with capitalism than space...

                  But lower launch costs decrease the capital needed to particpate is space, so you point still doesn't make sense.

                  > Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.

                  Everyone is already better off because of the soace dream. You don't seem to actually want an answer to your question.

                  • righthand 7 hours ago |
                    Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.

                    Please give me the benefit of the doubt and help me understand what lower launch costs help with the average american today. I am asking an honest question to a different poster who originally indicated that the benefits were easily imaginable.

                    > We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.

                    I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS and weather systems that decades of other fields that use those technologies couldn’t improve on already. What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?

                    I can see the blind Marvel-movie-like fandom of “but it’s science” and “its our destiny” and “imagine all the wonderful things but don’t let me tell you ;)” but I do not see the actual details of what this will enable besides allowing Musk et al to hollow out planets for mining operations for their own gain.

                    Why would I want to answer my own question when I don’t understand what the original poster was suggesting?

                    You seem at a loss for these easily imaginable ideas.

                    • laverya 7 hours ago |
                      > Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.

                      Cheaper launch means more weather satellites covering more spectrum from more angles than otherwise.

                      > What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?

                      Everything is dependent on cost. If we had a medicine that gave an extra 10 years of healthy life to everyone but cost $100,000,000 per person, it would be utterly infeasible to give to the masses. If it cost $100,000 - now that's an easy decision.

                      If something is cheap you can do more of it.

                      > I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS

                      GPS satellites are incredibly expensive because they need to be light enough to fit in existing heavy lift launchers and reliable enough to last for 20+ years. Cheaper, heavier, more frequent launch means you can dramatically reduce the cost per satellite in a constellation, and thus send up more. Having more GPS satellites reduces time to first fix, improves coverage in adverse environments (cities in particular) and improves accuracy.

                      • righthand 6 hours ago |
                        Okay, now you want to put more satellites in the sky, for weather and gps.

                        Is there some evidence that what we have now is not enough or wouldn’t ever be replaced? I cannot find anything online about that.

                        So I still do not see how this will necessarily improve my daily life as the weather information I have now is already good.

                        • shkkmo an hour ago |
                          Weather prediction isn't just about "should I have a picnic today". Accurate weater information is important for innumerable economic activites, from farming to shipping to contruction to power generation planning. Providing better forecasts would allow us to save lives and money in these industries and this will reduce the costs you pay for goods. It might even save the life of someone you love.

                          There are 3 new GPS satellites being launched by the US in 2025. Satellites do regularly need to be replaced; fuel runs out, batteries die or there os damage or failure. We also are developing newer and better satellites.

                          Satellite based internet is currently going through a revolution that is bringing internet access and economic opportunity to isolated small communities all over the world. This is a great example of new deployment that simply wasn't economically feasible with pre-SpaceX launch prices. This technology has so many potential positive impacts that it alone should justify reusable rockets. This is another application that could save the life of someone you love (better acess to emergency services in remote locations or deadzones).

                          Another incredibly valuable satellite industry is satelite based imaging. Timely, high precision satellite imagery is currently very expensive. Significant drops in the price would enable a unimaginable plethora of usec ases. Better wildfire monitoring, more efficient farming and ranching, search and rescue, etc.

                          On top of all this, starship development is actually comparatively cheap compared to how valuable space is. Losing GPS would cost the US alone 1 billion dollars a day which is why the US is planning on spending 2 billion building a backup. Starship RnD costs are estimated to somewhere near 10 billion total spread out over a decade or two.

                          For further comparison, I'll also note that the 2024 US presidential election cost us more 50% more than that. The entire space industry is worth about as much as the entire semiconductors industry (~600 billion) and McKinsie estimated that to triple in the next 10 years.

                          Finally, I'll say that what I've listed is the merest drop in the bucket compared to the uses we haven't figured out yet because space launch was so expensive.

                          An second order of magnitude drop in launch costs on top of the ond SpaceX has already delivered would be a big boost the the global economy in many ways, including some that are hard to predict on advance. If SpaceX can deliver a third order of magnitude drop beyond that (which has been claimed as possible with Starship) then the results would be staggering, completely transforming how we view and use space economically and enabling completely new types of space exploration missions.

                          The biggest problem right now is that nobody else is keeping up with SpaceX. We need more companies doing the same thing SpaceX is.

      • unaut 9 hours ago |
        Nope, not joking at all.
  • montagg 11 hours ago |
    I'm just going to choose peace today and say: the SpaceX engineers who've been at this forever and have shown that crazy stuff is actually possible are seriously amazing humans, and I do hope they are successful.
    • trompetenaccoun 11 hours ago |
      >I'm just going to choose peace today

      As an alternative to what? I don't understand how the first part of the comment is connected to the rest.

      • steve_adams_86 11 hours ago |
        I think they’re trying to maintain focus on the engineering rather than the politics surrounding Musk at the moment.
        • trompetenaccoun 11 hours ago |
          The news is about SpaceX sharing the launch date for the 6th Starship test flight. Musk is not even mentioned in the announcement.
          • seanw444 11 hours ago |
            Yet people cannot help themselves.
          • jjk166 10 hours ago |
            Musk owns, runs, and is the public face of SpaceX, he is automatically germane to any discussion of it.
      • renewiltord 11 hours ago |
        It is traditional to summon an Elon Musk Flamewar by implying even vaguely that he is successful. Elon Musk’s support for a candidate may have been pivotal in that candidate’s win today. This sort of thing is like bathing in gasoline next to a forest fire.
      • Geee 11 hours ago |
        He choose not to mention the top 20 Diablo IV player.
  • jimnotgym 11 hours ago |
    I imagine SpaceX is on for some pretty juicy government contracts now!
    • mjamesaustin 11 hours ago |
      Yes, considering they're achieving far better results at much lower cost than the SLS and other launch providers.
      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 10 hours ago |
        That remains to be seen. It ain't finished yet!
        • indoordin0saur 9 hours ago |
          They're already the best and cheapest launch provider with Falcon 9.
          • 2OEH8eoCRo0 9 hours ago |
            Falcon 9 and SLS are not in the same class.
    • starik36 11 hours ago |
      They already have lion's share of NASA and Space Force govt contracts.

      Cargo runs to ISS, bringing astronauts to and from ISS, NROL missions, scientific missions (like Europa Clipper recently).

      • jimnotgym 10 hours ago |
        Sure they do, but the government could choose to spend more or less on space, couldn't they?
    • rdtsc 11 hours ago |
      Shouldn't they be? Boeing, Lockheed and Blue Origin are welcome to compete and do just as well.
    • indoordin0saur 9 hours ago |
      You mean after the Boeing debacle?
  • bnastic 11 hours ago |
    Thread devolved into petty politics quicker than expected.
    • oittaa 11 hours ago |
      I tried to search faq how to block people but couldn't find any info. How do I do that?

      If it's not possible, I'm pretty sure this site is breaking the EU social media laws.

      • mise_en_place 11 hours ago |
        HN is a pretty high trust site, I'd hope the community is still mature enough to self-moderate. Then again I was here when Terry would post his (admittedly) entertaining rants, the epic Michael O'Church essays, and flamewars between idlewords and pg. Maybe it always allowed for a little bit of funposting, in moderation.
      • shkkmo 11 hours ago |
        Which EU laws do you think mandate a 'block' feaure on HN?
      • akvadrako 11 hours ago |
        The site doesn't need to follow the laws of every country on earth. If they had paid advertisers from EU it would be different.
      • AnonMO 10 hours ago |
        A brilliant idea some startup accelerator in the EU can create a platform that conforms to EU laws. It can't be that hard, given that the UI hasn't changed much in a decade or more. I can already see it "Hacker news, but hosted in the EU with Swiss privacy and is GDPR compliant".
      • tantalor 10 hours ago |
        That rule doesn't exist.
      • JacobThreeThree 10 hours ago |
        There's no "block user" requirement in the EU DSA.
      • dpifke 9 hours ago |
        I use uBlock Origin cosmetic filters for blocking trolls on here. Something like:

          news.ycombinator.com##:matches-path(/^/item\?id=/) tr a.hnuser:has-text(/^dpifke$/):upward(tr)
  • chairmanwow1 11 hours ago |
    Well, I started planning a road trip down Austin as soon as I saw this post. Crew of friends is coming together to watch! Thanks for posting. I'm so excited to witness this in person.
  • mise_en_place 11 hours ago |
    Does anyone know how to witness these launch events live? Is it open to the public or only SpaceX employees + friends & family?
    • ganyu 11 hours ago |
      I believe they clear out the launch site within a few kilometres so nobody gets hit by random concrete debris or just melt away, literally. The control centre is probably invitational.

      But you can freely watch them live on Twitter. Just follow the official @SpaceX account.

    • llboston 10 hours ago |
      Yes it's open to everyone. South Padre Island would be your best bet.
      • cryptonector 10 hours ago |
        So is the Gulf, except in the areas closed by the notam.
    • rigrassm 10 hours ago |
      Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is the best public spot you can watch from (IIRC it's 3 or 4 miles from the launch pad) and it's an amazing experience, highly recommended to anyone who's able to make it out.
  • adamm255 10 hours ago |
    Can someone give me sources for how to debunk this? https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw

    For me, it’s compelling but I’m no expert. Anyone got any background that can prove this guy is wrong?

    • ThrowawayTestr 10 hours ago |
      TF has had terminal Musk derangement syndrome for a while now. You can safely ignore him.
    • cryptonector 10 hours ago |
      TF seems to have an axe to grind with all things Musk.
      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 10 hours ago |
        What did he say that was wrong?
    • JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago |
      I’ve liked some of his other videos and made it in twenty minutes. He has three arguments: SpaceX is late and over budget on HLS, booster recapture is the easiest part of Starship’s technical risks and Starship is bad value for money.

      On the first two he’s right. Starship was, per SpaceX’s proposal to NASA, supposed to be almost ready by now. It’s not. But neither is any other leg of Artemis, and there is no unforgivable delay in the timeline. (To the degree there are stupid delays, it’s because the FAA was playing water cop.)

      Recapture is the easiest technical challenge of the programme. Partly because SpaceX already demonstrated most of the tech with Falcon 9. Partly because in-orbit refuelling is unprecedented. The lunar lander was one of the easiest parts of the Apollo programme, by similar measure—that doesn’t make it unimpressive.

      The last—bad bang for the buck—is a value judgement. Do we want a heavy lift booster or more Mars rovers? If we want sustainable access to space, we need cheaper launch. If one doesn’t care about that, rovers are better spend, but at that point I can start arguing for feeding the hungry with those bucks.

      I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s price came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense to capture the delta as profit, in part to fund things like Starship. (There is also no inflation adjustment.)

      In summary, the technical criticisms are accurate but out of context. The value judgement is subjective. If you don’t value cheap, frequent space launch of course Starship won’t make sense for any amount of money.

      EDIT: Kept watching. The energy math on second-stage reëntry is okay as a first estimate. But we don’t have final numbers for anything. And there are a lot of unknowns, e.g. final dry weight, how much energy the heat tiles can store and dissipate, if transpiration cooling could work, how plasma could dissipate energy, whether compression heat could be redirected away from the craft, whether firing mid-descent could reduce heat, et cetera. We certainly don’t have enough data to reject it ex ante. And the second stage being unreadable doesn’t tank Starship, though it probably does Artemis.

      • nulld3v 9 hours ago |
        > I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s pricing came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (relative to mass; PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense for them to capture the delta as profit versus cut prices for the sake of it. (There is also no inflation adjusting done.)

        Exactly, this is such an egregious claim that it proves there is no way this guy is arguing in good faith.

        He says SpaceX only saves a tiny bit of money due to reuse because the retail price for F9 expendable is only a bit more than F9 reuseable.

        That's like saying because the Big Mac costs $6.29 and the Big Mac combo costs $11.69, then therefore the drink and fries must cost McD's $5.40 to make. Just ridiculous.

        • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5 hours ago |
          Musk expressed outrage that the Russians are massively overcharging the US so he went on to massively overcharge the US.
    • larkost 10 hours ago |
      I think he is probably right, if you think of Starship has a government-paid program to produce a moon lander. The Starship program has blown though the NASA money to produce the basic version (but not yet the additional money agreed for a more advanced design), but has yet to deliver on any of their contracted goals.

      So by its own contract, it is just about to be over-budget, behind schedule, and thus a failed project. You can argue about the pandemic blowing their timing, but the fact remain.

      But SpaceX is not treating the Starship as solely a moon landing project. They are using NASA's money presumably alongside other SpaceX and Starlink monies to produce a workhorse for a number of projects alongside the moon lander part. In the closer-term it will become the launch vehicle for Starlink (the next-gen of which is too big to be launched on other vehicles), and in the (very) long-term as a vehicle to Mars.

      So SpaceX probably sees the Starship project as behind schedule (par for the course, both for space projects, and for Elon Musk), but not out-of-budget. Whether their customer, NASA, agrees with this outlook is something you would have to ask them.

      So I think that the video's points are true, but lack some context.

      • floating-io 9 hours ago |
        You're ignoring that this is a fixed-price contract. It will never be over-budget from NASA's perspective.

        Also, for a project like HLS, you don't fail until you stop trying (or get someone killed, but SpaceX has been pretty good at not killing astronauts).

    • pomtato an hour ago |
      With all due respect, that's one of the most misguided(i wanna say retarded but.. HN) takes I've seen in a while. How could he even compare the SLS (which costs per launch about as much as it took to develop the entire reusable Starship system) to Starship?

      The guy is just blinded by his hatred for Elon to even acknowledge one of the historical achievements SpaceX engineers worked their asses off for.

  • WalterBright 9 hours ago |
    Science fiction becomes reality!

    Love the diamonds in the exhaust!

  • 486sx33 7 hours ago |
    Completely amazing.
  • jmward01 5 hours ago |
    I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the gatekeeper?'