Maybe with this, SpaceX will focus more on development of their actual Starship+SuperHeavy, rather than mostly focusing on mass production set-up.
Anyway, this it really exciting news.
So it seems smart to say, "why don't they just build and test one, then figure out how to manufacture it at scale?" But to do that would be even harder because you'd have to redesign everything from scratch the second time around, while maintaining component compatibility... much smarter to design for manufacturing from the get-go and treat the test articles as expendable.
BTW, ULA is doing something similar with Vulcan & Centaur V. The design of the rocket itself is deeply related to the assembly line they are producing.
Related question: Just how many Starships do you think will be necessary to fulfill all our launch demands? Given that it's designed to be reusable and it has a huge payload capacity, perhaps there is less need to mass-produce them, since fewer vehicles will be able to do the same job as many expendable vehicles...?
Note that the killer feature of Starship, IMHO, is in-space refueling. This isn't a Earth-based heavy-life vehicle... it's a re-configurable spaceship able to explore the entire solar system through fuel depot staging (with Starships themselves serving as both tankers and fuel stations).
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Then there is the idea of using Starships for very fast transport on earth. Fly from NYC to Sydney in half an hour. If that catches on, they may be replacing part of the airplane fleet.
Then there is lunar shuttle services, satellite transports and asteroid mining.
My guess is: a lot.
Yep, but if a "quickly" built Starship lander makes SpaceX a few billions, so they can invest it into the Mars program, then that may be a good option. For the same reason they are doing the Starlink network.
They succeeded, and this is far less ambitious.
Taking risks is reasonable, but in the end this is still a vanity project. IMO, figuring out how to do self sustaining spaceships / habitats is much more useful long term than going back to the moon using giant chemical rockets, stored food and oxygen etc. Even just orbiting Mars and coming back without landing would be a new achievement.
As far as I can see, there isn't much point to going around Mars just to go. You could just go to a high Earth orbit (or Lagrange point), and gain similar experience, with better communication. The ISS has spent 20 years in low-earth orbit; we're not going to learn much more from it or a similar station.
From an engineering perspective going to mars orbit means far less sunlight which means a host of new problems. An engine and fuel system to get there would be new and could also be used to send a lander for future missions.
IMO, the Moon might be closer, but Mars is a much better target for long term colonization due to an atmosphere, shorter day, higher gravity, etc.
The ISS is not in a useful orbit for a Mars trip and whatever your sending there can make the trip in the same thing you send into orbit. Trying to shoehorn in the ISS just make the trip more expensive and complex.
Part of this whole moon approach is absolutely about sustaining the long term. Have you ever read the Artemis program concepts? It is very much about using commercial capability to develop moon resources.
You can't start with producing food, if you make the system depended on that it will fail. One you can actually land on the moon or mars with SIGNIFICANT payloads you can actually start to test out system for large scale food growing and things like that.
As to growing food, for on a single mission it’s not that critical, but if you’re sending several missions to Mars unused supplies from one mission can be used on the next mission. Further, the difference between survival and comfort adds up to a lot of food.
> It’s clearly viable, but for that kind of DeltaV across such a long trip, solar powered Ion thrusters have several significant advantages.
Not really. The only potential use for ion thrusters is for cargo transport that is not time depended. If you do that you need to figure out how to do the landing, so the complexity is just higher. The thrust is just to low compared to a few powerful chemical engines. If you can refuel in earth orbit for cheap you are gone be way better off with chemical.
If you move on from chemical, nuclear thermal is by far the best option.
Food is really not the problem. The mass of food needed for humans is pretty small. Clearly you want to produce food on Mars eventually but its not a priority for the first 5 to 10 years. Refuel on Mars is by far the biggest mass saver.
For comparison the ISS’s solar panels are over a decade old and still generate 240kW in direct sunlight. So, you could easily reuse those panels for multiple trips, though power output is cut in half near Mars.
So the argument that 'you can only do this when the government gives NASA military budget' is just nonsense.
Additionally, I doubt that Starship or SuperHeavy will be ready by 2024; flying, maybe, but reliable enough for manned missions? I don't think so.
That seems overly optimistic for a system that is now a year and a half past it's original target launch date and has a current target date of late next year.
Seems to work great for satellite launch and ISS supply mission. Why not for moon transport?
I think that’s doable in 4.5 years. They expect to fly and land an unmanned prototype upper stage this year. A manned upper stage up to 4 years later doesn’t seem unreasonable. They reckon the upper stage is that hardest part, the first stage should be much simpler.
They will actually have to prove out refueling pretty soon under the NASA contract.
And SpaceX bid also includes flying the system many times until 2024.
So SpaceX will have to do a lot of flights and demonstrate all this stuff to have a shot at this. So it is good that they are going right into mass production that is the only way they can prove all these different things until 2024.