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Space Businesses

Elon Musk Is Webcasting a Live Update About 'Starship' (youtube.com) 156

An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk is speaking live right now on SpaceX's YouTube channel, promising an update on his plans for "Starship". Dressed entirely in black -- and joking about the wind -- he first thanked the SpaceX team, as well as its suppliers, for an "incredible vehicle....the most inspiring thing I've ever seen" and then promised tonight's speech would "inspire the public and get people excited about our future in space." In addition to solving earth's problems, he said, "We also need things that make us glad to be alive...and be fired up about the future... Space exploration is one of those things."

He also says it's possible for us to become a space-faring civilization, "being out there among the stars," adding "We're faced with a choice. Which future do you want?" Looking back over the history of SpaceX, he describes their goal of creating a rapidly reusable -- and fully reusable -- rocket, and traces their progress on a long-term goal "to make space travel like air travel." (He calls earth "a deep gravity well" with a thick atmosphere, adding "this is a tough but not impossible thing.")

But is he preparing a bigger announcement?

UPDATE (9/29/2019): Summarizing the event, The Los Angeles Times reported that "A prototype of SpaceX's Starship Mars spaceship could reach orbit in less than six months and fly humans next year... Musk did not give an updated timeline for when Starship -- essentially a second-stage rocket and lander -- would go to Mars. SpaceX has said its 'aspirational goal' is to send cargo missions to the Red Planet in 2022."

GeekWire added that SpaceX is also "working on technologies to convert carbon dioxide from Mars' atmosphere and water ice extracted from Martian soil into methane and oxygen, which are the propellants for Starship's Raptor engines."

"In response to a question, Musk said the tunneling technologies being pioneered by another one of his ventures, the Boring Company, could come in handy for building underground habitats Mars. And he acknowledged that Tesla's electric-vehicle technology could be applied to Mars rovers as well. 'Teslas will work on Mars...because electric cars don't need air."
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Elon Musk Is Webcasting a Live Update About 'Starship'

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  • Yeah, no (Score:2, Interesting)

    by drh1138 ( 6194498 )
    I want the future where space isn't dominated by capitalist corporations. No "Planet Starbux" for me, pal.
    • I'm not certain I understand the alternative implications of what you want. A socialistic entity with no corporations? A bunch of private individuals working for free? Government entities producing everything? An AI that manages every aspect of an individuals life and tells people what to do to produce goods? An artificial machine race that does everything for us? Truth be told, the last one is the most interesting, but I'm losing the track here and that comes with an entire host of new challenges. Corpora
    • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @09:44PM (#59248404)

      I want the future where space isn't dominated by capitalist corporations. No "Planet Starbux" for me, pal.

      How will it be "Planet Starbux" just because Space X is building the rocket that will go there?

      Say we do what you say and wait for the government. Ok, MAYBE in 20 years a rocket will be going there. But it sure will not be you, it will be people the government selects as optimal...

      Isn't a system where anyone could buy a ticket to go if they really wanted one, really better?

      Why do you want to limit passengers to space to those the government deems worthy? To me that's a way more depressing future than having a private company in space.

      • You shouldn't try to understand commies. Their entire world view is centred around jealousy and the idea that, if someone other than them is doing incredible things, it must be because he's somehow oppressing them. People like you and me watch Musk give his presentation and are filled with joy, wonder, and excitement at the prospect of an incredible future for mankind. People like drh1138 watch his presentation, and the only emotion that can muster is disgust.

        These world views cannot be reconciled. It i

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Whenever Musk announces something I just remind myself of all the broken promises. Self driving Teslas by 2017, for example.

          It's good that he aims high and does achieve quite a lot, but you have to take everything he says with a handful of salt.

          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            I think this is the attitude that's doing most to hold us back, particularly in space.

            The world is stuck in the incremental improvement groove. We need more people willing to dream up crazy plans and execute them. If their timeline slips a bit, who cares?

            There's a nice illustration in this paper:

            https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstre... [tdl.org]

            Launch costs dropped precipitously from the late 50s to 1970. Then utter stagnation. All of a sudden in 2010 SpaceX shows up and gets the ball rolling again.

            • by HuguesT ( 84078 )

              Read the article carefully, the cost went up in the 1970s because NASA was saddled with the impossible task of designing a safe Shuttle. Cost per kg to LEO went down only a factor of 2 between the Saturn V and Falcon 9. That is not bad, by any stretch but not that revolutionary. The Saturn V was not designed for commercial use. The article associates this progress with simple, effective design, no subcontracting and commercial culture, not much to tech improvement.

              With commercial culture comes also wild est

              • Yes, energy requirements, a.k.a. fuel costs, definitely put pretty hard floor on how far launch costs can fall. (at least until we start building launch-assist infrastructure such as skyhooks)

                However - a Falcon 9 launch currently costs around $57 million, while the fuel costs only $200k-$300k of that: about 0.5% of the total cost. There's plenty of room for a couple orders of magnitude improvement in launch costs before fuel becomes a majority of the expense. *IF*, like a commercial airliner, the rocket t

        • by Kjella ( 173770 )

          Meh, you don't have to be a miserable cunt to think that capitalist priorities are sometimes seriously out of whack. Like you have people making millions of dollars because they're really good at throwing a ball or playing the guitar because that can draw a crowd while nurses struggle to take care of the sick and elderly for a few bucks. If you value people simply by the size of their wallet where the homeless bum is a worthless person while the rich are VIPs to brown-nose I think most would consider that

    • It's funny, when it comes to colonization hasn't it always been private colonists / local corporations being mistreated by the governments of the countries they left behind?
      Like why the fuck do you think the UK lost 90% of its land to colonies declaring independence?
      • No, most colonization was done by companies, like the (in)famous UK East India Corporation.
        Do you actually know that whole Africa and most of Asia was once colonized by European robbers and bandits? Escalating into the Vietnam war?

    • I want the future where space isn't dominated by capitalist corporations.

      You mean like the nonexistent past, where the Age of Sail wasn't dominated by capitalist corporations?

    • Think about what you're saying and how you're saying it. You're likely in a home built by a developer, typing on a device built by a litany of different tech companies (GPU, CPU, power supply, semi conductors, etc), fed by agricultural products from a variety of farming/retail businesses and employed by a company of some kind that allows you to pay for all of that. Governments likely contributes less than 5% of your daily life. None of this negates having a separate government, hopefully democratically e

  • Go Elon (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @09:04PM (#59248354)
    Whether or not it's cool to support Elon these days -- I love that this man is doing what should have been done decades ago, reach for the stars. Thanks to him and all the engineers behind him.
    • by Tim12s ( 209786 )

      He is bringing bold thinking into the limelight. There is alot more bold thinking and research going on that we are not fully aware of (E.g. CRISPR) in different fields of science. I see him as an inspiration.

      On his record, I do not believe the engineering capabilities were of commodotized to a point necessary to achieve what he is doing. It would only be possible inside secret government facilities.

  • "incredible vehicle....the most inspiring thing I've ever scene" sade sumone that kant spael.....
  • We see an astronaut on Mars sitting in some ugly, boxy internal-combustion-engine vehicle (Pontiac Aztek?). He turns the key, and the starter chugs pitifully, but an "O2 Sensor" warning light comes on.

    Then, a red Tesla Roadster comes roaring over the hill, it does some donuts around the car, and comes to a halt. The door opens to reveal Starman in the driver's seat, and 'he' beckons the astronaut to get in.

    The astronaut toddles over, and the Roadster races off into the distance, where we see a dome
    • Great idea! Fits in with all the other Musk made up nonsense. Your roadster won't work on Mars any better than your ICE. And Muskville on Mars? Lololololol o lololololol omg you watch waaaaaaaay too much sci-fi. Remember, kids, the "fi" is short for "fiction".
      • Why wouldnt a Tesla car work on Mars? You know we sent and used electric powered cars to the moon, right? Elon said directly last night that a Tesla would work on Mars.
        • We have 3 or 4 electric rovers on Mars, too.
          One is even bigger and heavier than an ordinary car ... powered by solar panels. Yes, they suck at night ...

  • Obligatory film reference.

    • The Man Who Fell to Earth? Or maybe it's a Space Oddity reference.

      I'm thinking Elon Musk is probably a huge Paul Kantner fan. I may just be projecting and Starship was definitely the worst incarnation of the band he is famous for, but

      "You know - a starship circlin' in the sky - it ought to be ready by 1990
      They'll be buildin' it up in the air even since 1980
      People with a clever plan can assume the role of the mighty
      and HIJACK THE STARSHIP
      Carry 7000 people past the sun
      And our babes'll wander naked thru the

    • Far more like IKE and JFK. His vision is not about space, but helping the future.
  • Until gretas start shouting at UN accusing governments of not doing more for space flights

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