Two weeks ago on 6 June, the world changed and hardly anyone noticed. On that day Spacex’s Starship flew its fourth test mission and achieved remarkable success. The booster, called Super Heavy, lifted the space capsule, simply called Ship, into orbit. Then Super Heavy, returned to earth, fired its rockets and performed a vertical controlled ‘landing’ in the ocean.

The capsule, likewise, after achieving orbit, returned to earth, similarly fired its rockets to slow descent and achieved a vertical controlled splash down in the Indian Ocean.

All of Spacex’s goals for the test flight were achieved. Next, Spacex plan to perform a fifth test flight where the Super Heavy booster will land back on its base, and be ready for its next flight within hours. Later they aim to catch the Ship on its return for it to be also reused.

Ultimately the aim is to build Super Heavy boosters at the rate of one a week and launch daily. As with the current Falcon 9 reuseable boosters, Spacex will be launching more rockets than the rest of the world combined.

So, why the hype? The new rockets will be able to launch up to 150 tons of cargo each time at costs that make putting things in space highly affordable. For example, the old Space Shuttle could launch 25 tons at a cost of $1.5 billion per launch. The new Starship can launch 4 times that at 1/30th the cost. Even as compared to the Falcon 9 rockets, costs will come down by over 75%.

Getting into space is all about cost. These new rockets will make it affordable. NASA will use the system to get it to the moon around 2027. Elon Musk plans on using it to send up to 100 astronauts to Mars within the decade.

At these prices space based solar, asteroid mining, moon bases, massive space stations and even partial Dyson Spheres become achievable. Starlink will be completed by 2030.

Mankind is on the brink of becoming a multi-planet species. Bickering over the Donbass, Gaza etc will seem superfluous.

http://newspaceeconomy.ca/2023/05/13/the-dawn-of-a-new-space-era-the-impact-of-spacexs-starship/

No qualms about pollution & carbon foot print on these toys !

mhaze, thanks for that, very enlightening.

Space exploration has been one of the great achievements of mankind in my lifetime. Much of the success has been down to US with their NASA missions, I commend them for that. Now private enterprise has entered the field I hope to see more achieved, and not just joy flights for billionaires.

BTW, Do you know if the Space Family Robinson ever did make it to Alpha Centauri aboard the Jupiter II.....and when will "Beam me up Scotty!" become a reality?

The world didn't change, and hardly anybody noticed because they are not interested. There is enough for them to worry about here on Earth.

. Cost of living
. Poor, incompetent government
. Mass immigration
. Indoctrination of 5 year olds (child abuse)
. Perversion, transgenderism and other abnormal practices
. The threat from China
. The lack of interest by governments in our security and values
. The threat of Islamism and the continued threat of it being imported by governments

A “multi-planet species”. What garbage. The species can't get along together now. Australia can't deal with its share of the closest thing to space, the Antarctic, where they have allowed the Chinese to establish 3 of their 5 bases in Australian territory. And they are looking to expand.

Space should be left to Hollywood.

mhaze,

Thank you for this discussion.

In the words of Oscar Wilde, - "some of us are looking
at the stars."

Those who look at the stars know that there
is a world outside this one and wish to make efforts to reach
it. It's by picking ourselves up, as well as lending our
telescopes to others who can't stargaze well enough that
will encourage us to achieve the impossible.

ttbn,

Why are YOU such a negative person, with your list of awful's? YOU say you are a "conservative" and you're in your 80's, having lived a long life, if that's what conservatism does to a person, I thank my luck stars I am, if a tag is necessary, a progressive socialist, trying to improve my world in my very,very small way through positive action. My advice, for once in your life go out and smell the flowers.

Just a question, what good if any, do you see in the world?

Here is a link that may be of interest:

http://cbsnews.com/news/spacex-super-heavy-starship-test-flight/

Exciting times ahead.

Thanks mhaze for the thread. Elon Musk does some great projects and he hasn't been cancelled yet. Dyson sphere's are Type 2 Civilization technology the new industrial age. With Dyson sphere's we can build space highways. Before long we'll have space elevators and mag launchers on mountains. And you thought the Suez Canal was a critical piece of global infrastructure.

"A “multi-planet species”. What garbage."

Wow!!. This character (ttbn) makes the Luddites look positively progressive. I wonder if he realises where the computer in front of him came from....how progress works.

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Paul asked: "Do you know if the Space Family Robinson ever did make it to Alpha Centauri aboard the Jupiter II.....and when will "Beam me up Scotty!" become a reality?"

In the first iteration of the TV series (late 1960's) they never got there. In the second, wholly crappie iteration(2020's) they did, only to find, surprise surprise, aliens who they had to fight. A travesty against the iconic 1960s version.

As to Teleportation beams, I once saw a Ted Talk which said that it was theoretically possible but that there would never be sufficient computing power in universe to do the calculations necessary to make it happen. So, never say never, but highly unlikely even in the 23rd century.

___________________________________

"Dyson sphere's are Type 2 Civilization technology the new industrial age."

I don't think anyone's talking about a full Dyson sphere, at lest not this side of 2500AD. But partial spheres are a different thing and would utterly change all issues about energy. They would make arguments over wind/solar seem as puerile as Neandertals arguing over fire. Progress is governed by cheap energy. Space based energy capture through, first vast solar panels and later partial Dyson spheres, would utterly change the trajectory of humankind. It would allow the colonisation and habitation of every terrestrial planet and moon in the solar system, preparatory to moves out of our home sun.

The ramifications of what happened this month can hardly be exaggerated

Since the start of the industrial revolution, there have been a series of names that have been instrumental in moving humanity out of general poverty and into general wealth. To name a few:

Cartwright -power loom
Stephenson - steam engine
Bessemer - mass produced steal
Edison - telephone, phonograph, internal lighting etc etc
Ford - production line
Gates - personal computer
Jobs - mobile phone

But among them, the name Musk may well stand out as supreme - the forefront of the electric car, tunnelling break-throughs, democratising social media, Starlink. But clearly the most consequential is the space revolution. If things pan-out as expected in the next two decades, he will easily be seen as the most consequential inventor-entrepreneur since Edison and vastly more influential on mankind's future.

mhaze- I'm uncertain of your previous interactions with ttbn, perhaps you are a little frustrated, but ttbn's point of view is a common one with respect to space. There is a view that 'why do stuff in space when we have so many problems on Earth'. It's a commonly held view- I agree with your answer but I empathize with ttbn's. Even Carl Sagan believed that manned space exploration was ineffective- and believed that 'using robots' was better. The world is full of paradoxes. One of the paradoxes of space 1. it's hugely expensive 2. it's an enormous opportunity. In this case enormous trumps huge but someone has to front up the startup capital for a long return time frame usually the tax paying public. Different groups and countries have made tilt's at space at enormous cost over 70 years for little obvious benefit. Of course satellite communications are a definite benefit- but many would see fibre as more effective.

Dyson sphere's- I don't think we'd ever want a 'full' Dyson sphere, it's an aspirational concept not an outcome. Everything you've said here about Dyson sphere's seems pretty much 'very correct'- but I disagree with the implied universalist kumbaya stuff- also we'd need better rocket technology- probably pulse nuclear fusion rockets or similar. But Elon Musk's heavy rockets are definitely a huge step along the path. From memory there are about 150 million kilometres on average between the orbits of planets and some outer planets have periods of 200 Earth years.

Certainly the Moon, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt are candidates for exploration. The inner planets Venus and Mercury are probably too hot. They talk about "The Goldilocks Zone".

I've just read about NASA's Artemis Programme.

We're told that NASA wants to use Starship to put
astronauts back on the moon for the 1st time in more
than 50 years as part of the Artemis Programme.

Apparently in 2021 the US Space Agency awarded SpaceX
a $2.8bn contract for this mission, followed by an
additional $1bn agreement.

We're told that SpaceX has also set itself the goal
of getting humans to Mars. That one of SpaceX's stated
primary aims is to establish humans as a multiplanet
species as a precaution in case Earth becomes
uninhabitable.

"We're trying to build something that is capable of
creating a permanent base on the moon and a city on
Mars. That's why the Starship is so large." Musk
said in October.

"Otherwise we can make it much smaller."

Science-fiction becoming reality?

The biggest problem with space is the first 1000km.

CM,

re ttbn...I understand the view from some that prioritising Earth's problems over space exploration makes sense. But that wasn't what he said. He just pooh-poohed the notion of seeking to become a multi-planetary species. That's entirely different. It also fails to understand that doing one doesn't preclude the other or that conquering space would help solve the problems on Earth. The computer you're read this on was made possible by the advances from the space programme.

"One of the paradoxes of space 1. it's hugely expensive 2. it's an enormous opportunity."

It WAS hugely expensive. Starship's IFT4 flight just went a huge step to resolving that.

"The biggest problem with space is the first 1000km."
Not even the first 1000km but the first 100km. It is said that 50% of the cost in getting to the moon (c 400,000km) is the first 100km. Again SpaceX all but resolved that.

"Certainly the Moon, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt are candidates for exploration. The inner planets Venus and Mercury are probably too hot. They talk about "The Goldilocks Zone"."

They are candidates for human habitation. As are one or two of the gas giant's moons. Venus and Mercury will absolutely be explored but not by humans but by robots. Robots are of course another by-product from space exploration and are another field Musk is leading. Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO has said recently he expects major break-throughs in humanoid robots in the next 2-3 years and that they'll be as prevalent and more consequential than the car. Musk talks of 20 billion robots by 2050. The energy for that will have to be sourced from space.

Already humanoid robots are working autonomously in the Tesla factory. As the world's human population falls to around 4 billion by 2100AD, the economic gap will be filled by robots. (That is, 4 billion on earth. How many will be elsewhere is uncertain).

There are many inflexion points in human history, most of which we missed at the time - the wheel, the arrow, the alphabet, the ability to sail the oceans, the piston, steam engines etc etc. When the mainframe computer first became available, it is said that the 'experts' at IBM - at that time the leaders in electronics- thought they might have been able to sell 6 worldwide. They thought Gates was a fool for taking royalties for MSDOS rather than a lucrative sale because they had no idea how ubiquitous the PC would become.

I feel privileged to live in one of those inflexion points and to be able to impress its important on my grandkids - where were you when IFT4 flew?

mhaze- Thanks for the information. Kudos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

You might like the single stage rocket equation above. It gives theoretical limits on rockets. You can put it into a spreadsheet and vary the parameters to control different targets such as 'height of arc', 'cross section of rocket', impulse, payload, burntime, etc. The limits on cost seems to be that of the fuel. I think the costs below are for LEO rather than HEO orbits. From memory the baseline for US rockets was $20,000/kg and for India $10,000/kg- so even $1000/kg would be great ($100/kg would be brilliant), and could open the possibility for high schools to do space based projects depending on the red tape especially with micro-satellite technology. Remember the UK teacher that launched the camera via weather balloon to 30km's taking pictures of the Earth's curvature.

mhaze,

You left off, Gutenberg and the printing press, Farnsworth and the television. There is some conjecture as to who invented what. Ford didn't "invent" the production line, nor did Gates invent the personal computer and as for Jobs and the mobile phone, nah. We could go one forever about great things invented, Appert and the canning process. The Americans claim the Wright brothers as the inventors of the aeroplane, many would not agree.

As for the Forum Luddite, he's just purchased his first pair of spats and a straw hat, ttbn, you old trend setter!

"The limits on cost seems to be that of the fuel."

I'm not so sure about that. While its very true that new technology and fuel mixes have significantly improved efficiency and reduced costs, the major factor seems to be the reusability of the SpaceX family of craft. By recovering the boosters essentially in tact, the cost of construction is reduced by orders of magnitude.

While those countries and companies who don't recover their boosters have seen rather good drops in costs of launch, SpaceX have seen dramatic savings. For example, estimates are that the current Chinese rockets cost around $4000/kg into LEO whereas Falcon 9 is a touch over $2000/kg, Falcon Heavy a touch under $2000/kg. SpaceX estimates Starship will be around $200/kg.

And yes, at that cost, myriad groups and organisations will have access to sending all sorts of things up there for experimentation and exploration.

"You left off, Gutenberg and..."

Yep, I left off an awful lot of potential candidates, 350 words and all that. I guess each of us would have his own list and each would have valid cases.

And not just people but also events can be inflexion points. I've always thought of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to have been one of the most important events in history and the marker for the rise of European dominance of the planet.

I agree Gates didn't invent the PC. But MSDOS turned a machine that only interested enthusiasts into a household product. Equally Jobs took the technology behind cell phones and put it in the hands of billions.

By the same token, Stephenson didn't invent steam engine but he did put it into a locomotive and that changed the world.

I was looking more at people and events that changed the world. The invention of the PC didn't change the world. Putting MSDOS in a PC did.

" The Americans claim the Wright brothers as the inventors of the aeroplane, many would not agree."

Yeah, the evidence is pretty good that some Italians got there first. The difference is that the Wrights turned their flight into an industry, the Italians not so much.

The difference is that the Wrights turned their flight into an industry, the Italians not so much.
mhaze,
Yes, the English speaking World has always & still is relying on excessive hype to get a feel of relevance !