Starship 12.5km launch

[jogri]

Cost per launch Over US$2 billion excluding development

Hell yeah, 

What? Just because one of the four RS-25 engines of the first stages costs more than an entire, fully expendable Falcon Heavy launch?

I just did the math, if i didn't screw up somewhere a Block 1 SLS has a net weight of roughly 2470 tons. Falcon Heavy can lift 63.8 tons to LEO, so you could theoretically get a complete, fueled SLS to orbit in 39 trips, each costing 90 million USD for fully reusable Falcons. This would cost you 3.5 billion, if we add the development cost of the SLS to the 2 billion per launch (~10 launches seem realistic, that would mean roughly extra 2 billion dev cost per launch) it is actually cheaper to launch the SLS on another rocket instead of flying it under its own power...

[vad]

Please, explain what makes SpaceX so happy? With modern tools, they try to repeat what was done many years ago with primitive tools. Yes, well done, it's good that there is work for engineers, but this is the invention of the wheel.

I bought a tube from an old soviet scope and want to make it a three-beam high-voltage low-freq scope with isolated inputs - will you be happy for me? 

Reusable engines for one thing. Lowering cost of launch for other. 1.5B per launch of Space Shuttle in 2000’s dollars vs 57M per launch of Falcon 9 in 2020’s dollars.

The Starship (the rocket that is discussed in this topic)  is super heavy rocket capable of putting 150 tonnes to LEO. It has no competition. Even Mother Russia was not capable of lifting 150t in its entire 63 years of history of space exploration. The closest was Saturn V that was retired long time ago.

[wraper]

The Starship (the rocket that is discussed in this topic)  is super heavy rocket capable of putting 150 tonnes to LEO.

Latest spec claims 100+t. The thing is, as it's reusable, it's intended to be refueled by other Starships on orbit, therefore can deliver 100 t not only to LEO, but anywhere. While anything else takes a huge hit on payload mass, and cannot be refueled economically by expendable rockets. About reusability, unlike Falcon rockets, it intended for rapid reuse without any refurbishment, the same day if needed.

[rdl]

The SLS has become a financial disaster. It survives mostly only because of politics. Using four of the very expensive RS-25 engines on an expendable booster is stupid beyond belief.

[wraper]

The SLS has become a financial disaster. It survives mostly only because of politics. Using four of the very expensive RS-25 engines on an expendable booster is stupid beyond belief.

What's the most surprising, is how they already spent more than $20 billion on severally delayed all-old technology, old engines, old solid rocket boosters, basically made nothing new, and it's still not finished. And what's supposed to launch soon is under-specced SLS block 1 with no human carrying capability, which makes no sense whatsoever. And development shall continue, yay  .

[coppice]

When I think of NASA projects like the SLS, I always think of

[tom66]

The SLS has become a financial disaster. It survives mostly only because of politics. Using four of the very expensive RS-25 engines on an expendable booster is stupid beyond belief.

Pork barrel politics.  Far better to waste billions developing a rocket system that will barely see use,  than to put that money to useful things (boy, I bet that could buy a lot of wind farms, which would probably still employ plenty of people.)

[wraper]

The SLS has become a financial disaster. It survives mostly only because of politics. Using four of the very expensive RS-25 engines on an expendable booster is stupid beyond belief.

Pork barrel politics.  Far better to waste billions developing a rocket system that will barely see use,  than to put that money to useful things (boy, I bet that could buy a lot of wind farms, which would probably still employ plenty of people.)

Money can be wasted on anything, including wind farms. Problem is not that SLS is made as such, It's about HOW it's made.

[raptor1956]

My initial impression of the Starship SN8 12.5km test was that it was a partial success and therefore a partial failure, but the more I learn about it the more I'm left to conclude that it was much more success than failure.  Watching it realtime the loss of the first engine appeared unplanned ... ditto the second engine, but when they fired up two engines at the end it showed that the earlier engine shutdowns were planned -- at least one of them anyway.  So, it we take the news from SpaceX that the crash was do to low pressure in a header tank it puts the failure down to that singular issue -- still, they've been failing with tanks a bit too much for my taste.  The green exhaust seen in the final seconds was put down to the copper in the engines burning up, but when I saw it realtime I thought they were using TEA/TEB like they use with the Merlin engines.  Since the Raptor isn't supposed to use TEA/TEB and instead uses a spark torch setup I thought they'd used TEA/TEB as an emergency engine restart, but, consuming copper fully explains the green color so no TEA/TEB.

Blue Origin, in operation two years longer than SpaceX, has yet to put anything into orbit!


Brian

[Refrigerator]

Money can be wasted on anything, including wind farms.

And solar panels *cough* solar roadways *cough*.

[Mr. Scram]

My initial impression of the Starship SN8 12.5km test was that it was a partial success and therefore a partial failure, but the more I learn about it the more I'm left to conclude that it was much more success than failure.  Watching it realtime the loss of the first engine appeared unplanned ... ditto the second engine, but when they fired up two engines at the end it showed that the earlier engine shutdowns were planned -- at least one of them anyway.  So, it we take the news from SpaceX that the crash was do to low pressure in a header tank it puts the failure down to that singular issue -- still, they've been failing with tanks a bit too much for my taste.  The green exhaust seen in the final seconds was put down to the copper in the engines burning up, but when I saw it realtime I thought they were using TEA/TEB like they use with the Merlin engines.  Since the Raptor isn't supposed to use TEA/TEB and instead uses a spark torch setup I thought they'd used TEA/TEB as an emergency engine restart, but, consuming copper fully explains the green color so no TEA/TEB.

Blue Origin, in operation two years longer than SpaceX, has yet to put anything into orbit!


Brian

The intended product of a test flight is data and as far as I understand this flight was a resounding success in that regard. More relevant data than expected was produced.