OT: Starship

[bitrex]

<https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/>

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

 

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

While it takes 9 months using the energy efficient Hohmann transfer
orbit, the journey can performed in a shorter time, but requires much
more energy to first accelerate rapidly from Earth's orbit and also
decelerate more heavily when approaching Mars' orbit.

With such large payload, the fuel consumption would be huge,
especially if all the fuel needs to be launched from Earth.

Even if the fuel can be manufactured on the Moon, the payload and fuel
is initially in "wrong" orbits. Apparently the manned module would
have to be launched on Apollo 13 style slingshot orbit, the fuel from
the Moon would have to accelerated, so that a high speed randezvous
can be performed, while the crew module is behind the moon on the top
of the slingshot orbit.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

Indeed.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/30/19 8:29 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 9/30/19 8:06 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/


Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.


I think the Mars-rhetoric is to keep the public invested and interested
while they work on what's at best a near-space tourist vehicle. There's
probably some money in near-space tourism; sell circumlunar out-and-back
trips at 20 million a seat and sub-orbital hops for 2.

It seems about what space is good for

Manned spaceflight, I should say

 

[bitrex]

On 9/30/19 8:06 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.

I think the Mars-rhetoric is to keep the public invested and interested
while they work on what's at best a near-space tourist vehicle. There's
probably some money in near-space tourism; sell circumlunar out-and-back
trips at 20 million a seat and sub-orbital hops for 2.

It seems about what space is good for at the moment from a money-making
perspective, but luxury space tours for billionaires isn't a project
most people are going to get really excited over (or want to invest
public or private funds in)

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/30/19 7:23 PM, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

While it takes 9 months using the energy efficient Hohmann transfer
orbit, the journey can performed in a shorter time, but requires much
more energy to first accelerate rapidly from Earth's orbit and also
decelerate more heavily when approaching Mars' orbit.

With such large payload, the fuel consumption would be huge,
especially if all the fuel needs to be launched from Earth.

Even if the fuel can be manufactured on the Moon, the payload and fuel
is initially in "wrong" orbits. Apparently the manned module would
have to be launched on Apollo 13 style slingshot orbit, the fuel from
the Moon would have to accelerated, so that a high speed randezvous
can be performed, while the crew module is behind the moon on the top
of the slingshot orbit.

The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is just brutal. AFAIK the
fast-trip-to-Mars on chemical rockets problem is similar to the
single-stage-to-orbit on chemical rockets problem. So much of your
vehicle mass has to be fuel, and the faster you want to go the more fuel
you need, but you need even more fuel to get that fuel up there, which
reduces your payload even more, requiring more fuel, etc.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

Indeed.

the intersection of orbital mechanics and ship-engineering is prolly
very complex and the math not fully explored. but I don't think folks
have been researching plasma engines to cut the trip time down for ~40
years because finding a design and trajectory that made the three-legged
stool optimal with chemical rockets was easy.

If they found something everyone else missed it seems Nobel-worthy, surely.

 

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 20:29:57 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 9/30/19 8:06 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.


I think the Mars-rhetoric is to keep the public invested and interested
while they work on what's at best a near-space tourist vehicle. There's
probably some money in near-space tourism; sell circumlunar out-and-back
trips at 20 million a seat and sub-orbital hops for 2.

It seems about what space is good for at the moment from a money-making
perspective, but luxury space tours for billionaires isn't a project
most people are going to get really excited over (or want to invest
public or private funds in)

A vacuum isn't very interesting.





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:24:13 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 20:29:57 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 9/30/19 8:06 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.


I think the Mars-rhetoric is to keep the public invested and interested
while they work on what's at best a near-space tourist vehicle. There's
probably some money in near-space tourism; sell circumlunar out-and-back
trips at 20 million a seat and sub-orbital hops for 2.

It seems about what space is good for at the moment from a money-making
perspective, but luxury space tours for billionaires isn't a project
most people are going to get really excited over (or want to invest
public or private funds in)


A vacuum isn't very interesting.

The view is said to be spectacular though.

 

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 17:06:58 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.

He makes a pile of money raiding the US treasury. I suspect this game
is no different.

 

[John Robertson]

On 2019/09/30 6:24 p.m., jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 20:29:57 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 9/30/19 8:06 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.


I think the Mars-rhetoric is to keep the public invested and interested
while they work on what's at best a near-space tourist vehicle. There's
probably some money in near-space tourism; sell circumlunar out-and-back
trips at 20 million a seat and sub-orbital hops for 2.

It seems about what space is good for at the moment from a money-making
perspective, but luxury space tours for billionaires isn't a project
most people are going to get really excited over (or want to invest
public or private funds in)


A vacuum isn't very interesting.

I dunno, Douglas Adams had a pretty interesting universe...and 'they'
say truth is stranger than fiction!

42.

John ;-#)#

 

[Bill Martin]

On 9/30/19 5:19 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 9/30/19 7:23 PM, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/


Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

While it takes 9 months using the energy efficient Hohmann transfer
orbit, the journey can performed in a shorter time, but requires much
more energy to first accelerate rapidly from Earth's orbit and also
decelerate more heavily when approaching Mars' orbit.

With such large payload, the fuel consumption would be huge,
especially if all the fuel needs to be launched from Earth.

Even if the fuel can be manufactured on the Moon, the payload and fuel
is initially in "wrong" orbits. Apparently the manned module would
have to be launched on Apollo 13 style slingshot orbit, the fuel from
the Moon would have to accelerated, so that a high speed randezvous
can be performed, while the crew module is behind the moon on the top
of the slingshot orbit.

The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is just brutal. AFAIK the
fast-trip-to-Mars on chemical rockets problem is similar to the
single-stage-to-orbit on chemical rockets problem. So much of your
vehicle mass has to be fuel, and the faster you want to go the more fuel
you need, but you need even more fuel to get that fuel up there, which
reduces your payload even more, requiring more fuel, etc.



Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

Indeed.


the intersection of orbital mechanics and ship-engineering is prolly
very complex and the math not fully explored. but I don't think folks
have been researching plasma engines to cut the trip time down for ~40
years because finding a design and trajectory that made the three-legged
stool optimal with chemical rockets was easy.

If they found something everyone else missed it seems Nobel-worthy, surely.

You didn't hear? powered by burning lithium batteries...

 

[Robert Baer]

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 20:29:57 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 9/30/19 8:06 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:46:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/elon-musk-spacex-starship/599065/

Musk has claimed crew of 100 to Mars in 80 days, or at least that's the
quote the LYING MEDIA tosses around.

Smells pretty musk-y, to me.

What I mean is it's a big buncha bullshit!!!

I wonder what his business model is for Mars. Cemetery plots are
cheaper here.

Everything he does loses money.


I think the Mars-rhetoric is to keep the public invested and interested
while they work on what's at best a near-space tourist vehicle. There's
probably some money in near-space tourism; sell circumlunar out-and-back
trips at 20 million a seat and sub-orbital hops for 2.

It seems about what space is good for at the moment from a money-making
perspective, but luxury space tours for billionaires isn't a project
most people are going to get really excited over (or want to invest
public or private funds in)


A vacuum isn't very interesting.

Yah...NOTHING to talk about. But when we put glass around some of it
and metal electrodes inside, Shakespeare did: Tu-Be or not Tu-Be