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"Over 50 years ago, NASA was able to get its Saturn V, a rocket nearly as large as Starship, to fly without ever having a failed launch over its 13-launch, six-year operational lifespan. This was a rocket designed with computers less powerful than a Casio watch, built with far less accurate techniques and materials, with check systems and procedures infinitely less sophisticated than anything today. Yet, engineers were able to ensure it never had a launch failure [...]"
https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/spacex-has-finally-figured-out-why
@CliftonR The big red flag I see here is the SV mindset of 'move fast and break things' and 'rapid iterative design' applied to launchers. I have worked in both industries. This method works for s/w because you need to solve problems only once - even if the code is a big kludge.
But it doesn't map well to rocketry where unlike s/w, safety margins are razor thin and nothing is repeatable. It may work someday, but I will be worried about the technical debt waiting to rear its ugly head.
And taking into account these rockets are supposed to be reusable, SpaceX design philosophy is incompatible.
The original specifications have failed against design realities multiple times.
The fantasy plan of delivering 1 million people to Mars is unachievable.
Elon failed the basic math.
If you divide 100 people per starship into 1 million, you don’t get 1000 spacecraft you get 10,000
…
These starship with people loaded onto them were supposed to be parked in orbit while the fleet of 1000 ships is assembled and provisioned.
Supplying meals to people in space is extraordinarily expensive. I believe it’s on the order of tens of thousands of dollars per day. So months of that.
But the volume of the second stage isn’t sufficient to carry 100 people, much less than 100 with all the requisite life support and supplies.
So supposedly individuals are supposed survive a nine month journey to Mars in what amounts to a beer can, with no waste management facilities, no exercise equipment to maintain body tone and so on and so forth.
The people who would survive this journey would’ve survived several months breathing a mist of their own waste products without radiation shielding to arrive at a planet with no means to lower themselves to the surface..
And after an extended period in space, they would not be capable of handling even that reduce gravity, but of course we’ll have to somehow do a pressure suit and lower themselves from their nonexistent quarters down 10 or 15 m of a tunnel that has no accommodation for gravity and then lower themselves to the surface and walk around.
The entire concept of the Mars mission isn’t just delusional. It’s psychotic.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @CliftonR I don't think a 100 people per ship is practical to begin with. Those payload bays appear HUGE! But the space inside is too cramped for that many people. Forget the toilets, provisions, common areas, recycling machines etc. Think sardines in a can.
Of course it isn’t. I think the calculations of the crew space would be about the equivalent of four people to your average bathroom, for a nine month trip.
This starship floor plan has no provision for sanitary facilities and there’s no real medical Bay no place to exercise which is absolutely essential for maintaining muscle strength and bone mass. Crew on the ISS have to work out diligently several hours a day in order to maintain themselves physically
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @goku12 @CliftonR everything makes a lot more sense when you realize that Musk's main skill has always been convincing rich people and governments to give him money.
Not engineering, not science... he's rich because people think he can make them rich.
@wilbr @GhostOnTheHalfShell @goku12 @CliftonR He's basically a human LLM. He produces garbage that sounds good enough to people with absolutely no knowledge in a field can believe. The worst and least competent people who have the majority of the money jump all over that because they can't tell the difference between knowledge and garbage shaped like knowledge (which is why LLMs work on them too).
Yeah, I’m inclined to broadly embrace the idea.
Very rich people approach the role in the consistent way they say things and do things to get other people to do what they want. But you generally means that whatever is coming out of their mouth and whatever they’re doing is exists Only to extract from others.
People who go through business are trained to think about the world in that way
@wilbr @GhostOnTheHalfShell @goku12 @CliftonR
The most valuable person in this culture is the person who can talk you out of your money (usually some kind of salesman.)
Nuff said.
@minorusaba @goku12 @CliftonR
Except less survivable.