The next Starship flight is a key precursor for more ambitious missions to come.
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SpaceX’s Starbase is coming alive again after a lull in Starship testing
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I really thought Starship version 2 would accomplish more - I wonder if the switch to 3 was driven by the engines being ready.
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I used to care....
Now that this is another program destined to go nowhere (now that spaceX has to carry the huge money losers in xai and x), it's hard to be excited.
Its amazing to do so much brand damage to so many good companies, all to avoid admitting that you were an idiot to post a public crazy bid for worthless Twitter.
Sigh
Now that this is another program destined to go nowhere (now that spaceX has to carry the huge money losers in xai and x), it's hard to be excited.
Its amazing to do so much brand damage to so many good companies, all to avoid admitting that you were an idiot to post a public crazy bid for worthless Twitter.
Sigh
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I recently had the displeasure of listening to a two-hour Elon interview and it's pretty clear that Elon no longer loves Martian colonization (the more cynical would say that he never did). Making humanity interplanetary is now only a secondary goal. Elon's primary goal is now to worship the Omnissiah.
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The engines were ready, and the tooling too. They revamped their production line for V3.
I'm sure even SpaceX expected more out of V2. The repeated RUDs were a big blow. But since V3 is ready, it is time to move on. I don't think V3 is ready significantly earlier than expected, rather V2 lost most of its window to RUDs.
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Tax funded explosions? Come on man, everyone is a super critic of the SLS but why do you want to see it blow up??
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Yep, its a CSAM generating/far right wing platforming company that happens to make rockets.
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Also, Blue Origin is finally doing exciting things with New Glenn, so SpaceX has competition for space enthusiasts.
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Yeah he never did. It was just a way to get thousands of SpaceX employees who believed him to pour their life energy into the company. They worked 50, 60, 70 hour weeks for a decade. They did it with unbelievable stress and harsh deadlines. It impacted their social lives, their families, likely in some cases their health.
They did it because they genuinely believed they were going to make mankind a multiplanetary species. That someday the name of the first person to land on another planet would be alongside Neil Armstrong and they could say "I DID THAT. I was part of it. I made it happen" Instead they just made Elon Musk a half trillion dollars richer.
Now after a decade of "Occupy Mars" it is just kidding not Mars we are going to build a city on the moon. Spoiler: SpaceX will not build a city on the moon. SpaceX will complete whatever NASA contracts it has but that doesn't involve a city on the moon. In 10-15 years when the city on the moon hype is dying it will be something else like maybe mega stations in orbit or asteroid mining. Meanwhile Elon will have a $3T and growing net worth.
He fooled me too for the first five years, the next five I was skeptical but still hoping something good would come of it. Maybe he ego would force him to accomplish something towards Mars habitation (although not a colony) if for the wrong reasons. The con is very obvious now. The pivot to the moon is because BO likely will be doing interesting things and Elon might lose some of his genius hardworking serfs. Hard to keep the hype for Mars alive doing nothing year after year especially if BO is doing cool things on the moon. His sefs might jump ship, the valuation of his company might be based on real data and not hype. <gasp>
All that being said though I hope SpaceX is successful on Starship because we need a reusable heavy lift launch vehicle (ideally two) to do anything interesting BEO.
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There are no taxpayer funds involved. Profits from other taxpayer funded programs, sure, but this is essentially privately funded.
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Cool! Now compare the costs.
Totally different development and funding approach. Not to mention resusability.
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Yeah, but it's a company with a provenance that includes Bezos. It's REALLY hard to get excited when most of these companies are just participants in a billionaire dick measuring contest.
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Does it really matter? They make giant metal things that fly into the sky! It's cool!!
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At least they're spending their money and it's being used to build something for general use. Billionaires hoarding their money or only building super yachts is much worse for the economy and people in general.
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I still kind of want the Starship program to succeed.
After the xAI merger, I'm fantasizing about a world in which the technology program is a wild success, but the company itself buckles as the giant house of cards that it now has to support tumbles down, and in the aftermath, SpaceX is spun back out, sans-Elon (and his board of sniveling hangers-on).
After the xAI merger, I'm fantasizing about a world in which the technology program is a wild success, but the company itself buckles as the giant house of cards that it now has to support tumbles down, and in the aftermath, SpaceX is spun back out, sans-Elon (and his board of sniveling hangers-on).
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Best bullet dodged for me was when I turned down a job offer while they were still launching from Kwaj.
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Do you seriously believe he did not want to say "I DID THAT. I lead it, I funded it. I made it happen"? That his ego would be satisfied by being a cost cutter that launched satellites cheaper than Delta/Atlas and crew cheaper than the Shuttle? If there's anyone who'd want to rub shoulders with Neil Armstrong it's Elon Musk.
I think it's Elon time catching up to Elon, he founded SpaceX back in 2002 when he was 30. Today he's 54 and the average American male (yes, I know he's from South Africa) has 26 years left to live. With launch windows to Mars every 26 months that's 12 launch windows left and it looks like they'll miss Q4 2026 entirely and in 2028/2029 they'll probably be busy launching HLS.
Even he can't make those numbers work, as we can see from the Starship tests rocket science is still hard and waiting years between iterations is time Musk does not have. So he's flipped the pitch to the Moon, because even though the plans for a self-sustaining city is still bonkers at least you can launch to the Moon practically any time so handwave colony on the Moon.
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No
His ego will be satisfied by being the world's first trillionaire. No Mars city needed for that. First is also absolute. No matter how many pro-fascism trillionaires follow in his footsteps he will be the first.
It isn't a "plan" it is a lie. There will be no moon city self sufficient or otherwise. They won't even try to do that. They just traded a lie about a city on Mars they won't do for a lie about a city on the moon they won't do. Even you seem to accept that with the "bonkers". It isn't bonkers in the sense they will earnestly try and fail because it is so ambitious it is just a lie. What is cheaper than trying to build a city on the moon? Lying about a city on the moon.
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I'm not making any predictions about V3, myself. Nor comments about Musk's "visions" (whether ketamine-fueled or not).
There's still a LONG way to go to getting a V3 into the air. And potentially an even longer way to get it into space. Time will tell.
Rocket science is hard. And while I really have no shits to give at this point about Musk or SpaceX (because someone else will do the same things he's doing sooner or later minus the egregious financial stupidity, OR the end of civilization will render it all moot), a good fireworks show is always appreciated at least as much as a good outcome.
I'm going with Zombieland's Rule #32: Enjoy the little things. We are in a political apocalyptic wasteland with thousands of people falling ill and scores of people dying from diseases that we once largely eradicated through science and technology. Tens of thousands more are dying becuase science was rejected by people in desperate need of experiencing the most painful results of their ideology. Science is under direct attack by religious fuckwits and psychopaths. The amount of time Human civilization has left can probably be practically measured in weeks (lots of them, but still a lot fewer of them than there could have been if we spayed and neutered the unfit at birth).
So me getting my balls in a bunch about another waste of biological material's vision going to shit isn't going to make me happy, or sad. IMHO, the SUCCESSFUL colonization of Mars was ALWAYS so far beyond our current capability I just laughed and shrugged every time I heard that as a goal.
Dreamers gotta dream, but science wins every time.
So, Rule 32. Enjoy the little things. Just give me a good show. If there's not a fucking thing I can do about the state of the world today that isn't hopelessly delusional (and there isn't), at least I can try to enjoy as much of the ride humanity has left before I leave this mortal coil and all concerns behind.
I'm going to Major T. J. "King" Kong the fuck out of what's left of my lifetime. If that means consecutive RUD's, I'll cheer. If it means consecutive success, I'll cheer. Whatever the outcome as long as I enjoyed the show, I'll cheer.
Beats the fuck out of getting all depressed about shit...
There's still a LONG way to go to getting a V3 into the air. And potentially an even longer way to get it into space. Time will tell.
Rocket science is hard. And while I really have no shits to give at this point about Musk or SpaceX (because someone else will do the same things he's doing sooner or later minus the egregious financial stupidity, OR the end of civilization will render it all moot), a good fireworks show is always appreciated at least as much as a good outcome.
I'm going with Zombieland's Rule #32: Enjoy the little things. We are in a political apocalyptic wasteland with thousands of people falling ill and scores of people dying from diseases that we once largely eradicated through science and technology. Tens of thousands more are dying becuase science was rejected by people in desperate need of experiencing the most painful results of their ideology. Science is under direct attack by religious fuckwits and psychopaths. The amount of time Human civilization has left can probably be practically measured in weeks (lots of them, but still a lot fewer of them than there could have been if we spayed and neutered the unfit at birth).
So me getting my balls in a bunch about another waste of biological material's vision going to shit isn't going to make me happy, or sad. IMHO, the SUCCESSFUL colonization of Mars was ALWAYS so far beyond our current capability I just laughed and shrugged every time I heard that as a goal.
Dreamers gotta dream, but science wins every time.
So, Rule 32. Enjoy the little things. Just give me a good show. If there's not a fucking thing I can do about the state of the world today that isn't hopelessly delusional (and there isn't), at least I can try to enjoy as much of the ride humanity has left before I leave this mortal coil and all concerns behind.
I'm going to Major T. J. "King" Kong the fuck out of what's left of my lifetime. If that means consecutive RUD's, I'll cheer. If it means consecutive success, I'll cheer. Whatever the outcome as long as I enjoyed the show, I'll cheer.
Beats the fuck out of getting all depressed about shit...
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Elon Musk usually does not change his mind based on facts. Moreso based on whatever dumb tweet or meme he just read.
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Now that SpaceX is being merged with xAI and X we can no longer seperate SpaceX from Musk's meddling with US politics and his toxic spreading of hate on twitter.
I want SpaceX to fail and go bankrupt because I do not want Musk to be the first to gain fully reusable rockets. I hope China beats him to it.
I want SpaceX to fail and go bankrupt because I do not want Musk to be the first to gain fully reusable rockets. I hope China beats him to it.
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It's not only taxpayer funded but there's billions from HLS contracts that's already been paid out to SpaceX, so there's taxpayer money pretty directly involved.
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To the extent it matters, Bezos has (publicly) had the goal of moving manufacturing to space to preserve the Earth since the early 80s, when he was still a teenager. He’s obviously become less pure since then, but I don’t know that his goal has changed. So for him, it’s unlikely to be just a contest against Musk.
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The cynicism in this thread is really something else. Most people here are so eager to see the brand fail that they’re completely ignoring the actual engineering happening right in front of us.
The "taxpayer funded" talking point is factually stuck in the past. NASA contracts make up maybe 5% of SpaceX's revenue this year. The vast majority of their funding comes from Starlink and commercial launches. Those "explosions" are being paid for by their own $8 billion in annual profit, not our taxes. If you want to talk about taxpayer waste, look at the SLS. It costs $4 billion per launch and only flies once every few years. That's equivalent to $25 from every tax payer for each SLS launch.
As for the Saturn comparisons, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of modern aerospace. Saturn was a one-shot, hand-built government trophy. Starship is a mass-producible freight system. The Raptor V3 is hitting double the thrust of the original at a fraction of the cost. You don't get that kind of evolution by being "perfect" every time, you get it by testing to failure and iterating.
The focus on the Moon isn't a "scam" or a pivot, it’s a literal contractual obligation for Artemis. Beyond the legal side, it makes perfect sense. You can iterate on the Moon every couple of weeks, whereas Mars launch windows only open every 26 months.
SpaceX is valued at $1.5 trillion and is prepping for a massive IPO. They’re launching more mass into orbit than the rest of the world combined. Whatever people feel about the xAI merger or the CEO’s politics, the actual company is a decade ahead of everyone else.
But the most telling part of this discussion is seeing a comment cheering on "another taxpayer funded explosion" getting 14 upvotes. In a community that’s supposed to be progressive and "pro-science" rewarding a claim that is not only factually dead wrong, but just pretty disgusting in general, just because it fits a political narrative is the definition of an echo chamber. You aren't rooting against waste, you're just rooting against progress because you don't like the guy behind it.
The "taxpayer funded" talking point is factually stuck in the past. NASA contracts make up maybe 5% of SpaceX's revenue this year. The vast majority of their funding comes from Starlink and commercial launches. Those "explosions" are being paid for by their own $8 billion in annual profit, not our taxes. If you want to talk about taxpayer waste, look at the SLS. It costs $4 billion per launch and only flies once every few years. That's equivalent to $25 from every tax payer for each SLS launch.
As for the Saturn comparisons, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of modern aerospace. Saturn was a one-shot, hand-built government trophy. Starship is a mass-producible freight system. The Raptor V3 is hitting double the thrust of the original at a fraction of the cost. You don't get that kind of evolution by being "perfect" every time, you get it by testing to failure and iterating.
The focus on the Moon isn't a "scam" or a pivot, it’s a literal contractual obligation for Artemis. Beyond the legal side, it makes perfect sense. You can iterate on the Moon every couple of weeks, whereas Mars launch windows only open every 26 months.
SpaceX is valued at $1.5 trillion and is prepping for a massive IPO. They’re launching more mass into orbit than the rest of the world combined. Whatever people feel about the xAI merger or the CEO’s politics, the actual company is a decade ahead of everyone else.
But the most telling part of this discussion is seeing a comment cheering on "another taxpayer funded explosion" getting 14 upvotes. In a community that’s supposed to be progressive and "pro-science" rewarding a claim that is not only factually dead wrong, but just pretty disgusting in general, just because it fits a political narrative is the definition of an echo chamber. You aren't rooting against waste, you're just rooting against progress because you don't like the guy behind it.
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This is your regular reminder that the spacing between Mars transit windows has been known literally for centuries (since Lagrange in the late 18th century, and arguably since Kepler); it’s not some deep bit of arcana that SpaceX scientists successfully measured for the first time last week.
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I would add that the moon has been the goal of NASA since 2017. SpaceX has been under contract with NASA to develop the HLS since 2020. None of this was discovered by SpaceX this week.
Completing paid contracts for NASA on the moon don't require <checks notes> changing SpaceX's imaginary plans for a city on Mars with SpaceX's imaginary plans for a city on the moon.
If the moon is indeed SpaceX goal well they have been building the wrong rocket for 10 years now. Starship is a highly optimized rocket for Mars colonization. It is a turd of a rocket for lunar transport. Despite being poorly suited, using a modified version for Artemis HLS made sense when Mars was the primary goal and SpaceX might do the rare mission for NASA but nothing more on the moon. If SpaceX is going to have large scale plans for the moon like a <snicker> self sufficient growing city on the moon then Starship is all wrong.
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Waiting anxiously on stoke space. Love the attitude of those guys...
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Starship is perfect for crewed lunar landings with its huge 100t (metric ton) payload capability to the lunar surface. No atmospheric effects, just a purely propulsive landing. NASA demonstrated this successfully six times more than 57 years ago using ancient 1960s Apollo technology. And, yes, SpaceX knows how to design the legs of a Starship lunar lander so it won't topple over. Don't worry about that. It's simple engineering.
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No it isn't. Methalox is a turd if you want to make fuel on the moon. If you don't then HLS has all the wrong mass fractions. It is why it takes a staggering 10 to 20 tanker launches to send a single HLS to the moon and back. NASA is now say more like 16 to 20. If Starship doesn't meet its optimistic payload to LEO numbers NASA says as a contigency it may require 20 to 40 tanker launches per HLS. In comparison depending on the transfer window a launch to Mars requires 6 to 8.
I mean it works in a square peg into a round hole kinda way. It is using a Mars spacecraft for a few NASA missions because it is cheaper than building a lunar architecture from the ground up. It is inefficient but who cares if it is only a missions for NASA every 2-3 years.
If Mars isn't the primary goal then it makes no damn sense. Without fueling on the moon and due to no aerobraking you would want a lander with smaller tanks and a seperate transport/tug vehicle to reduce propellant mass requirements and not require 16-20 launches of fuel for every landing. Using a tug/transporter is effectively gaining additional staging which reduces propellant mass fractions. If you want to evolve from bring fuel to making fuel eventually you really want hydrolox.
Of course if "cities on the moon" is pure bullshit then it doesn't really matter. Charge $2.8B a mission to NASA and brute force it. Saying "Starship is perfect for crewed lunar landings" is pure retcon. We have always been at war with EastAsia.
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My concern is the dignity of the human person - not abstract "humanity", not "the light of consciousness", and certainly not some glorious future of AI spreading across the universe.
Musk has caused harm to that, and I would rather see a thousand years of no launches whatsoever than see him rule the Moon as some ninth-rate industrialist tyrant. If that makes me "rooting against progress", so be it; I'll take dignity and compassion over technological/scientific "progress" any day of the week.
Even if I believed in the necessity of lunar colonization, which I don't, I wouldn't consider Musk to be a man who has the moral temper to do it. If anything, if one considers that effort to be of the greatest importance, one should be especially concerned about the effort being led by a serious person of the utmost personal virtue.
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Ehhh, even here...
Jerry, just remember. It's not a lie... if you believe it.
It's all been bullshit from the get-go. Credit to those who were willing to say so at the time. It was easier to keep your mouth shut and go about your business, even when it was obvious. Guilty as charged, personally.
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One of the big selling points of Starship as an architecture for sustainable deep-space presence is the ability to manufacture suitable fuel not on Earth. Methalox makes sense for Mars in that perspective. Not easy engineering, but at least the chemistry of the Sabatier reaction is well known and either you bring the hydrogen with you or you prospect for water on Mars. Doable, at least on paper.
However, that gets you nowhere in terms of refueling on Luna. For that, you want hydrogen engines, refueled by electrolyzing whatever water you can scrape up from shadowed craters and the like. Starship is ...not that. Blue Origin's proposed approach, where their landers and Earth-Moon tug/tanker are both hydrolox, is a much better fit for sustainable lunar presence.
That's not to say that Starship is useless or a waste of money or anything like that. Certainly, it promises to be an absolute monster for delivering big constellations to LEO. Refueling in LEO gets you one-and-done missions to the Moon. Sometime in the indefinite future, it might get a Mars return mission. But don't pretend that it's optimized for refueling on the Moon.
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Yeah, I 100 percent hear what you’re saying. And I agree too - Ars threads when it comes to SpaceX and Musk have turned into literal hate fests, where it’s unacceptable and basically considered ‘a personal attack’ to be supportive of SpaceX, Musk, or to push back against asinine statements made by some people. I better watch what I say beyond that though - but let’s just say you’ve been warned by someone who largely agrees with you.
In the last article I commented on people were being down voted to oblivion and even being kicked out of the threads for being level headed about Musk/SpaceX/the moon shift.
As for the moon shift, it makes sense beyond just the iteration time - even just a couple years ago the seriousness of the nation-state actors about going to the moon and staying was pretty easy to dismiss. Beyond a small paltry collection of NASA missions and stuff like that, there was basically no reason to go to the moon (economically). But interest in the moon (or at least a place in space to do stuff) for various applications is growing now, and the economics of supporting that is becoming more attractive. If this was the early 1800s and Musk was ramping up to build a big city in western North America, it really wouldn’t matter much where he went - if he said ‘this area over near the Pacific ocean with mild weather and large forested mountains nearby seems perfect,’ who really would be able to say that was a good choice or a bad choice - anywhere you go is going to be hard. But then if in the middle of his planning a gold rush started to happen and great big town appeared in the middle of the desert a few days travel from the prime spot, then wouldn’t Musk be smarter to take advantage of that and build up his capital helping develop that town before then later on going to his prime location? That’s sort of how I see this whole moon shift thing. It’s a good way to get the ball rolling because of the opportunities it affords. If the moon dries up - fine, SpaceX can move on and go to Mars with the experience and technology they developed for the moon - but if it doesn’t, then SpaceX has yet another revenue stream to help make a Mars colony work more quickly, as well as more experience in colony building. It really makes a ton of sense if you forget the hatred and vitriol for a moment and think about it.
I’m obviously not disagreeing with you - just chiming in with some support.
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