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Comment by scotty79 | Hacker News Reader

Only when you compare it to nothing people already achieved half a century ago.

SpaceX now I basically using taxpayer money to launch empty tubes one after another on suborbital trajectories in hopes that one day they could be used for private Starlink satellites and pretty much nothing else.

Starship is Cybertruck. Watch what some competent people that are critical of Elon have to say and the completely different image emerges than what he tries to project with less and less success. More rooted in facts.

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Show me a single rocket carrying any payload into orbit and land again afterwards that isn't made by SpaceX. I'll wait.

Not only that, SpaceX has launched more mass to orbit than everyone else combined over the entire history of space launches. They are responsible for more than 80% of the world's mass to orbit last year. Starship is a full 2x - 3x the power of Saturn V, the previous largest rocket ever to reach orbit. Raptor operates with the highest chamber pressure of any rocket engine that's ever flown. SpaceX operates the largest constellation of satellites in the world - more than all others combined. The list of records goes on. It's really nuts.

Wild that people think a cult of personality or even billions of dollars can accomplish all that. Not without serious engineering chops to back it up.

Starship never went to orbit and made all flights so far with zero payload so any launch capacity it might have is purely theoretical and aspirational.

The most mass SpaceX launched are their own Starlink satellites which may very well prove to be uneconomical soon. They'll be falling down at the rate they are brought up.

And all of that supported by tremendous amount of money (billions) from US taxpayer given for unrealistic promises of building something that might get to the Moon on schedule.

Citations, please.

NASA's largest payments to SpaceX that I'm aware of have been part of the commercial crewed flight program, which was openly bid, and which SpaceX has provided the only fully working system so far. Starliner, the only major competitor, is a half-decade behind schedule and stuck at the space station at the moment.

Starlink seems to be raking in the cash, and has provided great low-risk demonstration of the world's first flight-proven rockets.

Starship has made it to orbit twice now. With apogees intended to bring it down safely in case of failure, as is prudent with a new platform. But orbital velocity is orbital velocity, and Starship has achieved it.

"In April, NASA selected Musk's aerospace company SpaceX for a $2.89 billion contract to work toward landing "commercial" humans on the moon. Musk beat out Jeff Bezos's aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin for the contract, which gives NASA use of Musk's Starship spacecraft to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon. Musk's company has been developing the spacecraft with the intent of taking the first humans to Mars. "

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-su...

> Starship has made it to orbit twice now. With apogees intended to bring it down safely in case of failure, as is prudent with a new platform. But orbital velocity is orbital velocity, and Starship has achieved it.

That's still suborbital flight, basically ballistic because they didn't re-ignite engines in space, even if it had orbital velocity (of some orbit) at some point. Also flight no. 3 was helplessly tumbling so even if they could reignite engines it would just move randomly. So far it was basically flung piece of ballistic garbage. Only the last flight achieved some control and only half-burnt on re-entry. The only thing that worked was landing burn (which they had a lot of practice with Falcons) and their engines very gradually improving reliability, which I assume could be done without fireworks if they didn't intend to re-ignite them in vacuum and zero gravity yet.

Project Apollo was way further by their fourth flight, without any modern engineering or computing.

Falcons are solid although market for their services is mostly Starlink, because the rest of humanity simply doesn't need to hurl as much stuff into orbit yet.

Starship is Cybertruck. Baby of Musk's "genius" where "vision" (to mislead investors) overrides actual engineering.

I don't see anywhere in your citation how much of that money has been dispensed, or for what milestones. $2.89 Billion would have paid for exactly one shuttle launch (https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...). Sounds like a deal to me.

> That's still suborbital flight

You're just making yourself look silly here. Folks who regularly report on space like Scott Manley have spoken at length about the difficulties in achieving orbit and consider Starship to have done so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo An orbit regularizing burn is not a large obstacle compared to achieving orbital veloticy. The delta-v involved is minuscule.

> Project Apollo was way further by their fourth flight

Project Apollo operated under different engineering principles which emphasized extra expenditure prior to flight to attempt to ensure successful flights. Starship is being engineered through flight-testing which is closer to how the Russian space program did things. Flying rockets is less expensive than spending endless engineer hours testing on the ground and for something the size and flight profile of Starship, no ground testing can ever fully simulate the forces involved.

You're either ill informed, or starting with a conclusion and reaching for things to justify it.

> I don't see anywhere in your citation how much of that money has been dispensed, or for what milestones.

I don't think milestones are public but I can guess that there was some money up front and that some money was attached to Starship launches. That actually explains why SpaceX is sending barely ready empty tubes on ballistic trajectories for no sensible reason whatsoever. And does stupid checkbox things like "opening bay doors" that barely work, even though there's nothing on both sides.

> $2.89 Billion would have paid for exactly one shuttle launch (https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...). Sounds like a deal to me.

Depends if you are actually getting the thing or just brief illusion of hope of getting some part of the thing.

When it comes to realistic estimates I'd trust Bezos over Musk any day. And Musk outbid him hugely.

> An orbit regularizing burn is not a large obstacle compared to achieving orbital veloticy.

It is a key thing if you never re-lit your engines in vacuum and zero-g. They broke and exploded in earlier flights after relighting in way more favorable conditions.

> Flying rockets is less expensive than spending endless engineer hours testing on the ground and for something the size and flight profile of Starship, no ground testing can ever fully simulate the forces involved.

That would have been true. If SpaceX had computers Russians had in the 60-ties. Ability for modelling and simulations and to test things properly on the ground skyrocketed (pun intended) over last few decades. Be real with yourself. Don't but those excuses. They are half-assing it for the grant money they need rather sooner than later.

And don't start high-and-mighty ad hominem at me. It serves no purpose. I'm dead inside.

Also watch some Thunderf00t between your Scott Manley-s.

> I'm dead inside.

No kidding?

> Also watch some Thunderf00t

Somehow I knew that tool was your "source". He's never done anything but complain on the internet, often parroting outright falsehoods. Watch his videos from a few years back and compare his bullshit with what actually happened. Huffing that stuff will kill your brain cells.

Scott works in the engineering professions.

> I'd trust Bezos over Musk any day.

I'd welcome another vendor of reusable rockets. Really love Rocketlab and Stoke who are doing same. Still waiting on Bezos though. I hope he succeeds. Meanwhile, SpaceX keeps launching and breaking records.

> It is a key thing if you never re-lit your engines in vacuum and zero-g.

Like they did for the landing burn? Yeah, they checked that one off the list already. Firing ullage thrusters before lighting engines is technically rocket science, but not the hard part.

> I can guess that there was some money up front

This isn't pictionary. Guesses don't count.

> Ability for modelling and simulations and to test things properly

And SpaceX has the best simulation software in the business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYA0f6R5KAI

It is not sufficient to molecularly model a system as large and complex as Starship, nor as fast as building and flying a rocket.

> Somehow I knew that tool was your "source". He's never done anything but complain on the internet, often parroting outright falsehoods.

He also does actual scientific research. And in a decade no thing he called bullshit ever turned out to be anything close to what was being advertised. And you are seriously going to accuse him of parroting while you re-post Musk's apologetics verbatim? Do you think I haven't seen "it's good actually, ground breaking even, everybody who says otherwise is incompetent, some smart people cheer for it and you can't simulate everything" arguments?

> Watch his videos from a few years back and compare his bullshit with what actually happened.

Care to share specifics? What was he ultimately wrong on?

> Scott works in the engineering professions.

Scott is affable enthusiast, fellow gamer and software developer. Also astrophysicist. I like him. Has some good points that Thunderf00t misses. None actually contradict the criticism.

> Still waiting on Bezos though.

Bezos isn't working on anything like Starship because he didn't get the grant because he assessed (imho correctly) that it requires many times higher budget and longer timelines. Musk just overpromised as always and will underdeliver as (nearly?) always. He's already underdelivering because he's behind all published schedules for what he's doing.

> Like they did for the landing burn?

Landing burn was done in both gravity (from air breaking) and atmosphere. Also they had a pile of experience in doing landing burn so not screwing that up is not really an achievement. The only impressive thing about it is that they managed to do it with the second stage. Which means in only half-melted on re-entry and didn't tumble with engines forward like on the previous "flight".

> This isn't pictionary. Guesses don't count.

Right... no guessing allowed. You eat up and find out it was crap only after a full plate. Because smell is not always reliable.

> And SpaceX has the best simulation software in the business

Right, you still need to know how to use it and actually use it. It perfectly explains why their engines work at all. Apart from that, it's way simpler just to fling an empty pipe to the border of space for added benefit that it technically meets some milestone and you get cash shower you desperately need.

> Care to share specifics? What was he ultimately wrong on?

Here's a list of 9 counterfactual claims from just one video: https://www.reddit.com/r/thunderf00t/comments/lrhznb/i_fact_...

Here's a well referenced article about the man, titled "The Never Sinking Ship: How Thunderf00t Sucks at Science (or Else He’s a Liar; Probably He’s Just a Liar)": https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/9345

Appears he's also a creationist.

> Bezos isn't working on anything like Starship

It's called "Project Jarvis" and here's a whole article about it with photos: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/first-images-of-blue...

> The only impressive thing about it is that they managed to do it with the second stage. Which means in only half-melted on re-entry and didn't tumble with engines forward like on the previous "flight".

Cynicism is tiring. You don't have to find their achievements impressive. Their goal isn't to impress you. It seems to me that they're relentlessly accomplishing their goals step by step, as any good engineering team will.

IFT5 is right around the corner. Booster has been loaded onto the OLM. I'm looking forward to all the improvements they'll be testing this go-round. It's a blast watching each test flight!

> it's way simpler just to fling an empty pipe

Not sure what you're attempting to describe here. If you think Starship is an empty pipe you aren't familiar with the details of it's construction.

> Here's a list of 9 counterfactual claims from just one video: https://www.reddit.com/r/thunderf00t/comments/lrhznb/i_fact_...

I don't think counterfactual means what you think it means.

Anyways, I didn't ask for minutia of objections people have against him. Just for one thing he called bs that eventually turned out to be as good as how it was advertised.

> Here's a well referenced article about the man, titled "The Never Sinking Ship: How Thunderf00t Sucks at Science (or Else He’s a Liar; Probably He’s Just a Liar)": https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/9345

Wow, such a well reasoned, calm and objective assessment form a non-partisan.

> Appears he's also a creationist.

Are you kidding me? He has the whole video cycle titled "Why do people laugh at creationists" from 16 years ago. It consists of 44 parts and is informative and hilarious. That's how I first encountered his content.

Guy attacks beliefs semi-professionally. With first-hand science knowledge and math. He does that for more than a decade. People don't like their faith challenge so he accumulated a mountain of haters over the years. He doesn't care. It doesn't stop him from going after bs. Even if it's peddled by a billionaire.

If you tried to prove that you don't know anything about him apart from the name and smearing produced by faithful that hate him and hate that he doesn't agree with their bs ... you couldn't have done it better.

> It's called "Project Jarvis" and here's a whole article about it with photos: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/first-images-of-blue...

Thanks, but it's just booster recovery project for New Glenn which is in direct competition with Falcon Heavy not Starship.

> Cynicism is tiring.

Only for people who can't bare reality.

> I'm looking forward to all the improvements they'll be testing this go-round. It's a blast watching each test flight!

I can agree with that. Fireworks are always fun to watch. I'll enjoy it even more with grounded Thunderf00t commentary. I don't need cheerleaders to enjoy.

> If you think Starship is an empty pipe you aren't familiar with the details of it's construction.

You can see insides of the Starship on the video from the flight tests. Apart from engines and tanks it's empty, it's not even pressurized. There's a girder across to prevent it from collapsing.

Whatever. Enjoy. I see that you are a fervent believer so this conversation pretty much ran its course. But I'm thankful to you for giving me an idea for the best explanation why Elon is doing what he's doing. Milestone was a key word.

> People don't like their faith [sic] challenge[d]

Great demonstration. Thanks for pointing that out as a motivation.

No one is under the illusion it’s his cult of personality unless they are themselves in the cult.

Also, serious engineering chops WITHOUT the billions of dollars doesn’t get you very far anyway. It’s not like there is an abundance of organizations with the resources to compete with spaceX.

If the US budget was properly balanced for that as opposed to more war maybe we would’ve gotten self landing rockets and more by now…

Lack of funding is not among the top reasons the US space program never produced a reusable rocket. The US space program, like most nation state space programs, is organized as much to keep weapons developers employed as to build rockets. It was the reason we cooperated with Russia on the ISS. As such, the projects get split and sub-contracted to many different suppliers in ways which prevent the sort of top-down integrated whole-systems engineering required for reusability. Changes to make one part more reusable necessitate changes in other parts of the vehicle, and the moment those cross systems boundaries that span different organizations, you're screwed.

It was researched, but deemed uneconomical.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/mpam1a/why_no...

It still may very well be. As far as we know SpaceX is burning money not earning it.

Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 are very nice rockets. If you go by data provided by SpaceX cheaper than competition.

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