Vocal Voices

Last night Starship SN15 took off, did the flip, "flew" down towards the ground, flipped back vertical and landed.

It may seem like it is so routine now with the Falcon 9 doing this regularly but there is an order of magnitude difference here. Falcon 9 is made out of carbon fibre and aluminium and is 12ft in diameter and with both stages is 230ft tall. The Starship upper stage is 160 feet tall almost 30 feet in diameter and is made of out stainless steel. When mounted on the booster (which is taller than the entire Falcon 9 with both stages), it will be 390 feet tall.

There was a fire below the Starship after landing but SpaceX had installed a high pressure water cannon and they managed to put it out. Another step on the way to achievable space exploration. SpaceX is currently the cheapest launch provider going for serious launches. It is about to get much cheaper. Musk estimates down to $10 per kg. But even at $100 per kg that is 1/4 the current lift price of SpaceX and waaaay lower than Nasa or ESA.

Musk believes Starship will be Low Earth Orbit capable early 2022. He's optimistic on most things but I won't bet against him on this. He has a passenger for a flight around the Moon for 2023 and I won't bet against that either.

This is the first fundamental change in our foray into space since Apollo 11. I thought it was worth staying up to watch.

Yes, a job well done. Now it's on to the moon landings and whole new set of problems before astronauts can trust and use it.

NASA wants it to land people on the Moon this decade - that's a tough ask.

And bring them back - two landings in one trip!

WM I did a bit of looking at the SpaceX portion. Apparently the lander is only for the moon. So it's land and ascent. The Orion module is for lunar transfer and return plus splashdown and will be launched by SLS. There appears to be some kind of transfer at the moon which is why they want a lunar space station.

The initial landings will be open spacewalks they say.

But, a long, long way to go.

There is some info about fuelling, multiple landings and ascents from the Moon and the ferrying of fuel to the lunar station (possibly by Starship tankers). But not a lot confirmed.

Orion is a crew capsule... getting it to the Moon / Mars and back is the thing - doable. Landing its support is another.

Landing and taking off from other places with different masses (gravity) and thinner atmospheres is a really big deal. "The Martian" was a film, not a documentary, right.. Earth's gravity is 9.8m/s² (SI Unit = 1) and the Moon's is 1.6m/s², roughly one sixth. The Moon's atmosphere is 0.3 nPa - Earth is 1.013 bar (103,000Pa), and for gravity M1 x M2 / R². R - distance between. Do the maths.

We are aeons away from deep space exploration and escape, time in which we will trash planet Earth for human life forever.

Then a few of us might escape and do it over again....

We're on the road to nowhere... enjoy the ride.

Orion doesn't land. That's the job of the SpaceX lander. Which will go to the moon, empty, then won't come back. It will stay there and do multiple landings/ascents for the Orion crew.

Or so the theory goes.

Lunar Gateway is another part of the mix. Orion and the lunar lander are supposed to both be able to dock with it.