Elon Musk's ambitions for Starship soar high while reality waits on launchpad
- Reference: 1696613525
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/10/06/musk_starship_interview/
- Source link:
The [1]interview , which seemed more of a platform for Musk to extol his vision for interplanetary spaceflight rather than a serious chat about when the monster Starship rocket would leave the ground once again, was conducted in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Regarding the Starship, Musk aimed some snark at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on being asked when the first stage of the launch system might be recovered. "There's a decent chance – depending on when our licenses are granted – that we would catch the booster in a year. Or maybe less than a year," he said.
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A license is needed before rockets can be launched.
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There was one attempt at launching the full Starship and Super-Heavy Booster combo in 2023. The launch had to be aborted shortly into the flight, but not before the [5]launch pad suffered severe damage . The second attempt is still on hold [6]pending regulatory approval .
In order to catch a booster with the arms on the launch tower by 2024, things would need to go very, very well. This would have to start with the FAA green-lighting an impressive launch cadence.
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As for Starship, a catch might happen by the end of 2024, although it would only be after SpaceX had demonstrated that it could splash the vehicle intact into a specific location on the Pacific.
Not that a second stage recovery would hold back the Starlink program. Musk claimed: "There's a good chance we'll start deploying Starlink v3 satellites roughly a year from now."
[8]Musk's mighty missile is ready for launch once FAA says OK
[9]China succeeds where Elon Musk has failed with first methalox rocket
[10]SpaceX says, sure, Starship blew up but you can forget about the rest of that lawsuit
[11]Eco warriors sue FAA over Starship fallout, claim watchdog is lost in space
But Musk's predictions didn't stop there, another of which was a landing on Mars within four years. He initially put the timescale at three to four years before shifting it back, much to the undoubted relief of a workforce already racing to keep up with their boss's statements.
In 2022, [12]SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell told an interviewer that SpaceX should put humans on Mars within the decade – still ambitious, but nothing when compared to Musk giving his engineers less than 48 months to make Starship not only work but land on Mars.
Musk put the timescales as driven more by planetary alignment than anything else.
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He didn't give away much to viewers interested to know more about the here and now – getting stages to separate without exploding sounds a challenge – he did make one reference to the past: "We try and draw as many lessons as possible from the Soviet N1 rocket which is probably the closest in design to Starship."
The Reg can but hope Musk's team has learned some lessons from the design of the Soviet N1 and that the similarities end at the point of both having lots of engines. The Soviet Moon rocket suffered four launch failures before the program was canceled nearly 50 years ago, including one so catastrophic that it leveled the launch complex. ®
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[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/07/musks_mighty_missile_is_ready/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/china_methalox_rocket_launch/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/06/spacex_denies_environmental_lawsuit/
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[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: At some point...
You may recall about 2-years ago when Twitler had a bunch of people fired because they signed a letter requesting he be sidelines because he was becoming a distraction from the serious work they were doing. The engineers at SpaceX already know.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/17/spacex-said-to-have-fired-employees-behind-company-wide-letter-criticizing-elon-musk/?guccounter=1
Re: At some point...
"You may recall about 2-years ago when Twitler had a bunch of people fired"
I do recall. I also recall being amazed that such allegedly smart engineers didn't see their inevitable departure coming before they signed the letter.
See, his Muskiness owns the company. He does the telling, everyone else does what they're told. That's how it works. I'm sure that, on matters within their expertise, their views are at least heard if not actually acted upon. But how the company is run is far from their remit, and if they really don't like it both they and the company benefit from their immediate departure. While he is undoubtedly a pillock, it is not for anyone else to demand that he runs his company in a way that pleases them.
Musk time may not have much to do with reality, but it doesn't seem to be doing SpaceX any harm. I have no doubt that Starship will continue to explode, to the gleeful delight of onlookers, until it eventually doesn't. At that point they're off to the races.
Re: At some point...
While what you say is certainly true, there's also a lot of wisdom in allowing your employees to express themselves freely. Even if it makes you look bad from time to time. There's only so many rocket engineers out there, and considering they need to also be able to get a security clearance, which doesn't come cheap, you limit the pool even more. Pretty soon you'll be like Amazon where you've already fired everyone willing to take a job in your shitty warehouse and find yourself without anyone left to hire. You can potentially automate a warehouse, but you can't really automate designing and building rocket engines... yet anyway.* Then if you fire all your best people and they go to work for Blue Origin or some other company, how much longer can SpaceX's technical lead hold out?
The phrase "cutting off your nose to spite your face" seems to apply here. There's nothing illegal about it, it's just incredibly shortsighted and stupid.
* Bootnote: Now I'm curious what an AI would come up with if tasked with designing a rocket to get a person to Mars and back
Re: At some point...
I think you missed the point of the letter. Putting things like that out in the public are how workers in a company try to build support for changing company policies - or even senior management. In other companies, this is how unions become organised.
Yes, this group lost the bet - but their bet was either change of behaviour or they didn't want to work there. Just because Musk "called their bluff" doesn't mean it wasn't ultimately the best choice for them.
Musk's great skill is selling a vision to people with money that is not entirely linked to reality - that does the companies he's bought no end of good, and allows them to spend their way to workable products. The danger for those companies is if his visions lead them on wild goose chases, or people eventually feel defrauded when they realise their money has not gone towards the vision they were sold, but building a distinctly less revolutionary business that ultimately only benefits Musk.
Musk's timelines are inverse Montgomery Scott. So... multiply by 4 to get closer to the real timeline.
I really just don't get how people can still be blind to the fact that the whole Mars thing is just a grift to fund SpaceX. But, if I had my way, I'd tell the FAA to grant Twitler's license(s) on the conditions that
1) He be a passenger on the maiden flight
2) The landing test is conducted on Mars, not Earth
As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if the rocket suffers some kind of catastrophic failure along the way or everything works perfectly; Twitler is no longer our problem, so a net win for society as a whole.
All future US launch contracts should be given to ULA on a cost+plus basis with the actual amounts classified fore national security.
Because the CEO of SpaceX is a dick and the President of LockheedBoeingMartinBAe is a saint
Getting people to Mars seems relatively easy
It's getting them back that's hard.
Re: Getting people to Mars seems relatively easy
I think you've just triggered Suella Braverman.
Mars Taxation
Since Musk gets US tax breaks on his plans to abandon Earth, does the US get to tax Mars profits?
A lot of the N1's problems were quality control related. One launch failed because someone left a bolt inside a propellant tank and a turbopump ingested it and grenaded, for example. They weren't even testing every engine before flight, something I believe SpaceX is doing. However, the two spacecraft do have a rushed development process in common.
Isn't the attendant problem very high numbers of points of failure, and very bad modes of failure? Saying N1 failed because "they just weren't trying hard enough" might be slightly missing the reason designs like the N1 are not common.
Mars taxation
Spot on.
I used to fly free flight models (F1A gliders and F1J power models to be precise) in competitions where assorted Soviet model flyers used to turn up (and were expected, complete with their KGB keeper) through the '70s and 80s, though by the '90s and into the Gorbachev era the 'minders' had vanished, so I got to know some of them quite well. They were all cynics to a man and the stories that came out as the vodka started to flow were amazing. One of their common sayings was:
"The State pretends to pay us and we pretend to work".
The contrast between the quality of Soviet manufactured goods and that of the free flight models they'd designed and built had to be seen to be believed: all this took place when the FAI Free Flight Competition Rule contained a rule requiring all competitors to have built their own models, so we knew that their beautiful and innovative models were their their own work, including engines and timers.
You couldn't static-fire NK-15 engines at all, because the valves were activated by pyros, and thus were one-time-use-only.
And speaking of bolts, there was the Proton that did launch gymnastics because an accelerometer had been installed upside down - using a hammer to defeat the bracketry specifically designed to stop such an event. To quote the Beastie Boys: Sabotage?
And of course, the Soviets lacked the necessary number of Nazi Rocket Scientists.
Rushed?
I believe they prefer the term, "agile."
A brief look back
What NASA Risks By Betting On Elon Musk's SpaceX
Loren Thompson
Senior Contributor May 23, 2011
https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/23/what-nasa-risks-by-betting-on-elon-musks-spacex/?sh=695f927c6eb2
"Even a cursory review of SpaceX programs and plans reveals reasons for doubt. The questions begin with a business strategy that isn't just disruptive, but downright incredible. Mr. Musk says that he can offer launch prices far below those quoted by any traditional provider -- including the Chinese -- by running a lean, vertically integrated enterprise with minimal government oversight that achieves sizable economies of scale. The economies of scale are possible, he contends, because there is huge pent-up demand for space travel in the marketplace that cannot be met within the prevailing pricing structure. By dropping prices substantially, this latent demand can then be unlocked, greatly increasing the rate of rocket production and launches. When combined with other features of the SpaceX business model, the increased pace of production and launches results in revolutionary price reductions.
There isn't much serious research to demonstrate that the pent-up demand Musk postulates really exists, nor that the price reductions he foresees are feasible. He has suggested in some interviews that launch costs could decline to a small fraction of current levels if all the assumptions in his business plan come true, and he has posted a commentary on his web-site explaining how SpaceX is already able to offer the lowest prices in the business."
"So far, SpaceX's track record is decidedly mixed, with three launch failures in seven attempts, sizable schedule delays, and some fairly substantial price increases above what were originally proposed. With regard to launch failures, the company did not succeed in launching its initial Falcon 1 vehicle until the fourth try, about five years after it originally proposed to demonstrate the system."
Re: A brief look back
"There isn't much serious research to demonstrate that the pent-up demand Musk postulates really exists, nor that the price reductions he foresees are feasible"
Whilst I'm reluctant to side with Musk on anything, it's pretty clear from the rate of increase in satellites in orbit that there is and was a substantial pent up demand for for launches. If anyone posits that past performance does not predict the future, take a look at satellites per capita and form the obvious conclusion. As for economies of scale, well they're a thing whether airhead journalists understand or not. Economies of scale are the key enabler of the industrial revolution, and as such the basis of all the technology we enjoy today.
Musk, well he's still a pillock, but that wasn't the basis of the article that was quoted. I might also add that many famours entrepreneurs and technologists have been opinionated, sometimes difficult people. My own dad worked on gas turbines at Pyestock, and knew Frank Whittle. He characterised Whittle as a miserable old sod. But Frank is still a man that history will remember, and rightly so.
Irony
That was entirely the point!
I didn't think I needed to overtly explain the irony of the article in light of events proving it wrong.
Sigh ....
Re: A brief look back
Musk is a pillock, and more than likely a complete pain in the ass to work with.
However, its not the people who played it safe history remembers.
Plus hes saving the US taxpayer millions by having a cheaper launch option than ULA ever produced, such as the falcon heavy costing less to fly in full on throwaway configuration than a ULA rocket of the same lifting ability(and if the falcon heavy can land the sideboosters and core stage its even cheaper)
Spacex have also proved the reliabilty of their rockets as they've lost 2 in 200+ launches (one to a helium tank failure and 1 to a manufacturing fault in the helium tank asembly)
As for starship, all they've proved with that is that it can fly with multiple engine failures, an APU failure, a flight control failure,its strong enough to survive the flight termination system, and it would be great for digging big holes really quickly if you got it to hover at 40 foot from the ground.
heres looking forward to starships next launch.
PS Musk is still a pillock even with the above going for him
420
Musk moved the Starship launch date up so he could watch the rocket go high into the air on 4/20, triggering a chain of events that lead to the big sky boom. What a tool.
Re: 420
That's what you get when a stoner with a five year old's sense of humor is in charge. At least he leaves SpaceX alone most of the time since it has its own highly competent CEO unlike Tesla, or Twitter's powerless figurehead CEO.
I bet Ms. Shotwell was very happy when Elon bought Twitter, because she knew he wouldn't have time to mess with SpaceX's operations for a while (other than changing that launch date, I guess)
At some point...
People will realise that all of the real work is being done by engineers bought by Musk, and that his "direction" of those engineers does as much damage as it does good. In some cases, more.