Cont: Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla II

a_unique_person said:
Is this one of the ways Musk's iterative process breaks. For the much simpler Falcon rocket system it was ok. They were carrying much lighter loads and low orbits were the target.

Starship is next magnitude complexity. Fully reusable main stage. Physically much larger and heavier. Far more complex missions and loads. Much more expensive. They have a contract with NASA that's not on target. They don't have an interior. That should be being developed in parallel.
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They do seem to be still good at pulling the wool over the eyes of idiot journalists: https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ship-rocket-is-beating-nasa-in-the-space-race
 
jeremyp said:
In 2020 they had the following goals for Starship with respect to Artemis.

Orbital launch test: Q2 2022
Propellant transfer: Q4 2022
Long duration flight test: Q2 2023
Unmanned lunar landing: Q1 2024
HLS launch: Q1 2025

The deadlines have all passed except the last one and we can be certain that they will not achieve that goal in Q1 2025.

Four goals that should have been achieved by now and they have achieved none of them.


Do you think that, back in early 2023 before the first test launch they were expecting not to have achieved orbit by flight 6? Their ambition seems to be somewhat lacking given they are running three years late.
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And every single one of those goals has a solution that is widely known and should be easy for SpaceX to implement if they were in any way interested in actually fulfilling their contract.
 
arthwollipot said:
I mean, that's a fair enough statement. Musk has always set unrealistically ambitious goals, and Starship is no exception.



It just seems to me that some people are holding SpaceX to a standard that it's not even holding itself to.
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Well, we are simply doing what NASA should also be doing, holding them to the terms of the contract, which is the standard SpaceX held itself to. SpaceX agreed to do X now they've decided that the contract should only be for a much easier and much lower standard of work.
 
Starship test flight 7 launches in a few days (barring unforseen cancellations of course). It's goal is to deploy ten simulated Starlink satellites, relight the Raptor engines, and splash down in the Indian Ocean. Its goal is not to reach orbital velocity, it is not to perform an orbital fuel transfer, and it is not to make an uncrewed landing on the moon. And anybody who says that Starship has failed because it has not done those things is just lying.
 
arthwollipot said:
Starship test flight 7 launches in a few days (barring unforseen cancellations of course). It's goal is to deploy ten simulated Starlink satellites, relight the Raptor engines, and splash down in the Indian Ocean. Its goal is not to reach orbital velocity, it is not to perform an orbital fuel transfer, and it is not to make an uncrewed landing on the moon. And anybody who says that Starship has failed because it has not done those things is just lying.
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I think that is what you call a strawman.
 
a_unique_person said:
I think that is what you call a strawman.
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Not really.

jeremyp said:
Starship is supposed to get people on the Moon. Apollo did tht. That seems like a reasonable comparison. How is Starship doing compared to Apollo?




I can and do. They've done six test flights of Starship and have failed to reach orbit so far. According to Musk, it's costing about $2 billion a year which is in the same ballpark as SLS. They are years behind schedule.

Yes, I can say they are doing a bad job.



Just because SLS is more expensive and just as late doesn't mean Starship is going well.


I can judge them against their own stated goals and time scales. Starship is going badly.
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The goal of none of those six test flights was to get people to the moon. The goal of none of those six test flights was to reach orbit. Is SpaceX behind schedule? Yes, clearly. But you can't criticise them for not reaching goals that they have not set.

There were ten Apollo missions before anybody got to the moon.
 
arthwollipot said:
Not really.


The goal of none of those six test flights was to get people to the moon. The goal of none of those six test flights was to reach orbit. Is SpaceX behind schedule? Yes, clearly. But you can't criticise them for not reaching goals that they have not set.

There were ten Apollo missions before anybody got to the moon.
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Musk already set much higher goals. The engineers have other ideas. The changes per iteration are small compared to what is required.
 
a_unique_person said:
Musk already set much higher goals. The engineers have other ideas. The changes per iteration are small compared to what is required.
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Those goals were for the SpaceX Starship program as a whole, not for any individual mission.

You would not want to say that Apollo 7 failed because it didn't land humans on the moon.
 
arthwollipot said:
Starship test flight 7 launches in a few days (barring unforseen cancellations of course). It's goal is to deploy ten simulated Starlink satellites, relight the Raptor engines, and splash down in the Indian Ocean. Its goal is not to reach orbital velocity, it is not to perform an orbital fuel transfer, and it is not to make an uncrewed landing on the moon. And anybody who says that Starship has failed because it has not done those things is just lying.
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And they are using Raptor motors from a previous flight, something that has never happened on a NASA rocket, only the space shuttle.
 
a_unique_person said:
I'm damn sure the shuttle had something to do with NASA.
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Yes, and the space shuttle is obviously not a rocket.


a_unique_person said:
The shuttle was also reusable orbital. That's a whole order of magnitude more complex than reusable first stage.
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Not according to the skeptics here at ISF. It's easy, all they had to do is hold itself to terms of a contract. Or something.
 
SpaceX critics in 2017 – "Elon Musk promised me reusable rockets 15 years ago. SpaceX is a failure."

SpaceX 2024:
85% of all mass to orbit.
Booster 1067 completed its 24th launch and recovery.
134 orbital lunches – all other US companies combined managed 20 total.

SpaceX critics in 2025 – "Elon Musk promised Starship would be going to Mars by now. SpaceX is a failure."
 
Bogative said:
SpaceX critics in 2017 – "Elon Musk promised me reusable rockets 15 years ago. SpaceX is a failure."

SpaceX 2024:
85% of all mass to orbit.
Booster 1067 completed its 24th launch and recovery.
134 orbital lunches – all other US companies combined managed 20 total.

SpaceX critics in 2025 – "Elon Musk promised Starship would be going to Mars by now. SpaceX is a failure."
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Hey, I am more than in favour of SpaceX and Tesla.

I reserve the right to criticize him for his far-right politics and anti-democratic intrusion into governments around the western world.
 
If you are referring to the solid rocket boosters, please don't reply to this. Lame.
 
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