Anonymous A started this discussion 1 year ago#122,904
SpaceX successfully landed the booster but lost coms with the ship. Recently, Blue Origin launched New Glenn and lost the booster but got the payload to orbit.
So it looks like the options are:
A. The booster comes back but you don’t.
B. You come back but the booster doesn’t.
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 1 year ago, 5 minutes later[^][v]#1,340,521
If wonder if the same thing could happen in a self driving car. You just send somebody out in a self driving car, then later the car comes back, but the person isn’t there, and you’ve just got no clue what happened.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 1 year ago, 6 minutes later, 11 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,525
I'd like to be able to send my car on trips for me. Spy on friends who called in sick, go to a drive through and stuff. Maybe it could even represent you in court with AI
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 1 year ago, 2 minutes later, 17 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,529
Starship is an interplanetary spacecraft, in an entirely different class than Bezos' Blue Ring satellite refueling ship. You can't draw a fair comparison.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 year ago, 2 minutes later, 21 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,533
@previous (A)
There's no such thing as a half success in space missions. If you don't complete all aspects of the mission, and as planned, it's considered a failed mission.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 year ago, 4 minutes later, 25 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,537
@1,340,529 (C)
Also just pointing out that a satellite in LEO goes at about 8 kilometers per second to stay in orbit, but escape velocity is about 11 kilometers per second. You only need to go about 40% faster to escape the Earth’s gravity and travel to another planet, which is mostly dependent on the mass of the payload and the efficiency of the second stage. Rockets much smaller than either Starship or New Glenn can send payloads to other planets.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 year ago, 37 seconds later, 26 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,541
@1,340,530 (A)
Starship requires refueling during interplanetary missions, yes. But you're trying to compare launch vehicles and spacecraft. It's apples and oranges. Blue Origin's New Glenn launch system is being tested with a payload that is a satellite refueling ship. SpaceX's Super Heavy Booster launch system is being tested with the Starship, an experimental interplanetary spacecraft which includes a 2nd stage which is designed for capabilities of interplanetary travel and landings on other planetary bodies
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 year ago, 3 minutes later, 33 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,549
@previous (C)
They’re not completely different. They’re both two stage super heavy rockets that are powered by methane. There are two variants of New Glenn’s upper stage, one designed for reuse and one designed to be as inexpensive as possible to see which one is the less expensive strategy. Just because Elon Musk says he wants Starship to send humans to Mars doesn’t make the rocket magically different. Starship can’t reach escape velocity and go to Mars without orbital refueling, which requires multiple launches and has not been demonstrated (not saying that it’s impossible or can’t be done, I’m just saying it hasn’t been done yet which is true).
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 1 year ago, 18 seconds later, 37 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,553
@1,340,533 (C)
Such nonsense. Nothing in life is 100% Perfection.
For a living I keep LEO's healthy. Of course with radiation trying its best to mess with IC's - Mechanical things like Gyros have life problems.
Key if for a good return on investment. Imperfections can still lead to a good bottom line.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 year ago, 1 minute later, 39 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,557
Since Starship’s upper stage requires propulsive landing, and it is powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen, in order to actually land on the surface of Mars, it will have to maintain cryogenic temperatures in its tanks for months with constant sun exposure. Not saying that’s impossible, I don’t know enough about material science or about how much heat the sun would transfer to a stainless steel body vehicle in the vacuum of space. I’m just saying, Starship is not inherently a better rocket for being designed for a capability which it has yet to demonstrate until it demonstrates that capability. Some of the design decisions which were made in order for Starship to be a Mars-capable vehicle could be detrimental to its use as an inexpensive means of getting satellites into LEO if it does not become a Mars-capable vehicle.
> Starship requires refueling not the other way around.
Syntax, calm down. Blue Origin has a little baby spacecraft meant to refuel satellites and is their usual test payload for the New Glenn launch vehicle
> Such nonsense. Nothing in life is 100% Perfection. > For a living I keep LEO's healthy. Of course with radiation trying its best to mess with IC's - Mechanical things like Gyros have life problems. > Key if for a good return on investment. Imperfections can still lead to a good bottom line.
Yeah, you're right. More specifically, during testing missions are pass/fail. You have to complete all mission objectives as written in the application or it counts as a failure in eyes of government
Anon replied with this 1 year ago, 14 seconds later, 45 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,566
@1,340,560 (C) > >There's no such thing as a half success in space missions. If you don't complete all aspects of the mission, and as planned, it's considered a failed mission.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 year ago, 33 seconds later, 46 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,340,567
@1,340,557 (A)
Also, oxygen condenses from a gas to a liquid at -183 degrees Celsius while methane solidifies from a liquid to a solid at -182 degrees Celsius, and if you look at a cross section of Starship’s upper stage, they’re using a thermally conductive stainless steel common dome to separate their oxygen tank from their methane tank.
For a mission that lasts on the order of minutes vs months, heat transfer might be an issue. (Not saying it will be an issue I’m just saying, it might be a thing that they should consider.)
> Some of the design decisions which were made in order for Starship to be a Mars-capable vehicle could be detrimental to its use as an inexpensive means of getting satellites into LEO if it does not become a Mars-capable vehicle.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 year ago, 21 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,340,576
@1,340,567 (A)
Some of the earlier failures of the booster were caused by ice building from methane condensing and destroying the engines. So it is possible for a mission which only lasts minutes to have this same issue. They added more filtration systems to filter out the ice so that the ice doesn’t reach the engines. But that doesn’t work if the methane completely solidifies, which over several months, could happen. Because if you go one degree higher, the oxygen would evaporate and increase in pressure causing an explosion, and one degree lower and all your methane freezes into a solid.
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 1 year ago, 10 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,340,580
To be honest, I don’t like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. I’m not a fan of billionaires in general. So far I’ve just said what I think about objective things. But my subjective opinion (which is not enough to justify with reasoning) between Starship and New Glenn, is that New Glenn is a viable rocket for putting satellites into orbit and for sending robotic probes to other planets. Starship is also *nearly* (not yet but will be eventually, I’d say by next year) viable for sending satellites into Earth orbit. Either Elon Musk will give up on the Mars thing (which is more likely) or he won’t and one thing they didn’t think of will go wrong and somebody will die. But that’s just my opinion. Everyone else can think whatever they want.
