Well I think you’re not exactly wrong, the idea to do starlink was definitely about their rockets, but I’d say it was clearly more about falcon 9 than about starship or jump-starting a bigger satellite industry.
First off, starlink works, it’s essentially done and it never used the starship to get its satellites to orbit. So in that light, it clearly wasn’t about starship because it didn’t use it (though it surely will at some point).
But you can just look at what they did with the falcon 9 to see that this was really the reason behind starlink. The thing is, they were designing this reusable rocket and it had never been done before. As a result nobody thought it would work. Nobody trusted it, nobody wanted to put their payload on a rocket they didn’t trust, and no banks would insure these payloads as they had low expectations for success. As a result, spaceX could build a reusable booster, but they couldn’t get anyone to buy it.
SpaceX was basically left with 2 options: They could continue to launch rockets with no real payload to prove the reliability of their reused boosters, essentially wasting a whole bunch of launches. Or they could create their own payloads to launch, accept the risk themselves, demonstrate that the reusable boosters worked fine, and not waste every launch.
The advantage of taking that second option was that they could continue to iterate and make constant changes and upgrades to their rocket. Normally, making big changes would put your vehicle back into the “untested and untrusted” category, but if they continued to have their own payloads to put up, they could continue to demonstrate its reliability.
I will say though, I think starship is absolutely about jump-starting a larger space industry. I think completely reusable rockets are a necessary first step to any larger, more permanent utilization of space.
But it goes both ways. Starship is about jump starting a much larger space economy, but it also requires a much larger space economy.
Falcon 9 is sufficient for today’s space economy. It already carries 80% by mass of the worlds launches. As the economy gradually grows, it’s easy to see it increment to keep pace, or other companies/countries growing into bigger shares. In this world, starship is a waste of time and money.
But if we get that paradigm shift, suddenly starship is at the center
In this world, starship is a waste of time and money.
Well I don’t think I agree with these statements at all. The thing is, if/when they get starship to work, not only will it be able to lift significantly more mass to orbit than the falcon 9, it will likely be cheaper per launch. Not cheaper per kg to orbit, but cheaper overall than launching a falcon 9 (remember, they need to build a new falcon second stage for each launch). That is such a significant improvement that I’d argue that its development is totally worthwhile even if the demand for launches were to stay stagnant.
And honestly, we definitely need some heavy lift rocket. The Saturn V doesn’t exist anymore and the SLS is… economically unrealistic.
Yes but remember there is not currently much that needs that large of a rocket, and you get diminishing returns on rideshare. Major satellites are still likely to need private launches and there’s no point in buying a bigger launching you need.
Large rockets are currently needed
for space stations - a handful of times total
manned missions to moon/mars, a few times
a constellation like Starlink can take more advantage of rideshare
Current space economy has a use for maybe half a dozen launches per year. All that money developing re-use, building multiple launches per sites, a lot of the basic technology, is a waste, if that’s all we need.
Making back that excessive development cost, achieving that low launch price, entirely depends on there being sufficient market to launch many times per year. It’ll be revolutionary for sure, but only if
They’ve designed and built for scale, which will be amazing when it happens, but only if we scale dramatically.
I hear you that such a large rocket is not “needed” very often, but it can still be used. I believe the plan is to ramp down falcon 9 production and go to starship launches for everything, even smaller payloads, simply because it’s cheaper and more sustainable. As long as they launch regularly, the price should still be lower than falcon 9. And at least on paper, it is more sustainable, burning methane results in cleaner exhaust than burning kerosene, the only major exhaust products are CO2 and water. And not letting an upper stage burn up or fall into the ocean is an ecological plus too.
Well I think you’re not exactly wrong, the idea to do starlink was definitely about their rockets, but I’d say it was clearly more about falcon 9 than about starship or jump-starting a bigger satellite industry.
First off, starlink works, it’s essentially done and it never used the starship to get its satellites to orbit. So in that light, it clearly wasn’t about starship because it didn’t use it (though it surely will at some point).
But you can just look at what they did with the falcon 9 to see that this was really the reason behind starlink. The thing is, they were designing this reusable rocket and it had never been done before. As a result nobody thought it would work. Nobody trusted it, nobody wanted to put their payload on a rocket they didn’t trust, and no banks would insure these payloads as they had low expectations for success. As a result, spaceX could build a reusable booster, but they couldn’t get anyone to buy it.
SpaceX was basically left with 2 options: They could continue to launch rockets with no real payload to prove the reliability of their reused boosters, essentially wasting a whole bunch of launches. Or they could create their own payloads to launch, accept the risk themselves, demonstrate that the reusable boosters worked fine, and not waste every launch.
The advantage of taking that second option was that they could continue to iterate and make constant changes and upgrades to their rocket. Normally, making big changes would put your vehicle back into the “untested and untrusted” category, but if they continued to have their own payloads to put up, they could continue to demonstrate its reliability.
I will say though, I think starship is absolutely about jump-starting a larger space industry. I think completely reusable rockets are a necessary first step to any larger, more permanent utilization of space.
But it goes both ways. Starship is about jump starting a much larger space economy, but it also requires a much larger space economy.
Falcon 9 is sufficient for today’s space economy. It already carries 80% by mass of the worlds launches. As the economy gradually grows, it’s easy to see it increment to keep pace, or other companies/countries growing into bigger shares. In this world, starship is a waste of time and money.
But if we get that paradigm shift, suddenly starship is at the center
…
Well I don’t think I agree with these statements at all. The thing is, if/when they get starship to work, not only will it be able to lift significantly more mass to orbit than the falcon 9, it will likely be cheaper per launch. Not cheaper per kg to orbit, but cheaper overall than launching a falcon 9 (remember, they need to build a new falcon second stage for each launch). That is such a significant improvement that I’d argue that its development is totally worthwhile even if the demand for launches were to stay stagnant.
And honestly, we definitely need some heavy lift rocket. The Saturn V doesn’t exist anymore and the SLS is… economically unrealistic.
Yes but remember there is not currently much that needs that large of a rocket, and you get diminishing returns on rideshare. Major satellites are still likely to need private launches and there’s no point in buying a bigger launching you need.
Large rockets are currently needed
Current space economy has a use for maybe half a dozen launches per year. All that money developing re-use, building multiple launches per sites, a lot of the basic technology, is a waste, if that’s all we need.
Making back that excessive development cost, achieving that low launch price, entirely depends on there being sufficient market to launch many times per year. It’ll be revolutionary for sure, but only if
They’ve designed and built for scale, which will be amazing when it happens, but only if we scale dramatically.
I hear you that such a large rocket is not “needed” very often, but it can still be used. I believe the plan is to ramp down falcon 9 production and go to starship launches for everything, even smaller payloads, simply because it’s cheaper and more sustainable. As long as they launch regularly, the price should still be lower than falcon 9. And at least on paper, it is more sustainable, burning methane results in cleaner exhaust than burning kerosene, the only major exhaust products are CO2 and water. And not letting an upper stage burn up or fall into the ocean is an ecological plus too.