SpaceX set to surpass Gemini 11's altitude record with Polaris Dawn mission The Polaris Dawn mission to send humans to a 1,400 km orbit – higher than 1966's Gemini 11 – is set for launch in less than a week. The private mission led by Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman represents the furthest humans have ventured from Earth since the days of the Apollo program. The plan is to launch Isaacman and his three …
Not really. For the Dragon the only things carried by the trunk are solar panels and radiators, everything else is in the capsule. That's in stark contrast to the Starliner and Orion capsules which do have a traditional service module containing a lot of the (very expensive) equipment required. eg Starliner is having trouble with the thrusters on its service module, there aren't any on the Dragon trunk.
Isaacman said Starship "could very well be the 737 for human spaceflight someday, but it'll certainly be the vehicle that will return humans to the Moon."
Yeah... Maybe don't mention the 737, even if intending to mean the old one that changed passenger air travel, it has unfortunate connections with wanting to land itself aggressively, parts coming off, and poor build quality.
I get the idea, but yeah.
That's because it is. There was some adjustments in the software and control systems to make the MAX fly like a 737 so that certification would be quicker and cheaper… I understand (but could easily be wrong) that since the "unfortunate and tragic accidents that no one could have expected" the customisations have been removed and pilots have to learn to fly the new plane.
"Yeah... Maybe don't mention the 737, even if intending to mean the old one that changed passenger air travel, it has unfortunate connections with wanting to land itself aggressively, parts coming off, and poor build quality."
So far, Starship has had issues with engines not working or powerful enough when they are, parts flying off and melting when re-entering the atmosphere. Oh, going boom as been a problem too. Nothing has been discussed or reveled concerning an escape system and there's been no concept drawings for interiors from SpaceX (lots from others). It's getting less likely by the day that Starship will be the vehicle to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon's surface and back up. It's never been slated to take people from Earth to the moon.
You mean like it was getting less likely by the day that SpaceX would be able to land a booster and reuse it...
Starship is still in that period of finding out what works and what does not. Since they're trying to do things that have literally never been done before, I'm cutting them a bit of slack to keep trying.
Edit: I have a strong feeling that "catch a huge booster with a pair of 'chopsticks'" is not a viable plan, but I'm willing to buy the popcorn and watch.
You sound like Congress when anything fails at NASA, which is the reason NASA is terrified to actually try anything new these days.
Yeah, I'm a little dubious about that too. It will require a very precise landing to pull it off. I was also dubious about using momentum from the booster "flip maneuver" to separate the first and second stages. After the first launch separation failure they quickly pivoted to a more conventional means of separating them with good results.
"You mean like it was getting less likely by the day that SpaceX would be able to land a booster and reuse it..."
I was at a company doing that long before SpaceX and NASA was doing it long before that. Landing and reuse hasn't been a technical challenge, just a financial one.
Good news! SpaceX have listened to your disappointment in their Raptor engines and made many progressive improvements plus three big step changes (pretty pictures). The thrust has gone from 1.81MN to 2.75MN. Reliability has gone up and huge improvements have been made to the consistency of propellant pressure delivered to the engines even during extreme manoeuvres. (Out of spec propellant supply was been a common cause of engine failure in flight.)
SpaceX have listened to your complaints about parts flying off and melting during re-entry. They have made many progressive improvements to the way heat shield tiles are attached and how the attachment is tested before launch. The entire heat shield for Ship 30 has been ripped off and replaced with something better just for you.
As for going Boom, SpaceX are a long way ahead of the competition. Not one Atlas V, Delta IV Heavy or SLS has come close to a successful landing and they never will. There is a plan for Vulcan to blow up and the bottom bit to come back with the engines (I would love to see this but I am not holding my breath). The only other company successfully recovering an orbital class booster is RocketLab. (Some launch start-ups are showing progress towards re-use. They are using the explode, improve, try again method too because it has been shown to work with limited investment funds.)
Absolutely everything has been revealed about the escape system (there isn't one). An escape system does no good whatsoever on the Moon or Mars. The plan is to find and fix all the issues during development when there are no crew or passengers on board. SLS/Orion is having major issues. SLS has a huge upgrade planned but all future launches will be with crew despite problems with the heat shield and the life support system so far untested in orbit.
SpaceX have not published concept drawings for the interior of Starship HLS but some must exist. SpaceX has fitted out a manufacturing prototype Starship with a first draft of an HLS interior for tests by NASA staff. I am absolutely certain Artemis 3 will not be ready for launch in late 2026. 2027 is not a certainty and people who know better than me are saying 2028 as the earliest with a real chance of everything being ready. NASA are playing schedule chicken - not talking about glaringly obvious delays to SLS/Orion when they can talk about delays for Starship and the space suits instead.
The other vehicle that could take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back is Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander. Blue are much less public than SpaceX so we have not seen much of their progress. What we have seen so far is not impressive. The good news is the NASA launch date for Artemis 5 is 2030. Blue have lots of time to show something more convincing even before we consider the current delays to SLS block 1B, exploration upper stage and the new mobile launch platform it will need.
At well over $4B per launch at best every over year SLS/Orion is a barrier to a permanently occupied Moon base. An alternative will be needed. SpaceX are spending a huge amount of development money on creating a versatile launch system that can be mass produced and launched cheaply. Reliability will be learned over the course of hundreds of Starlink launches. Your other choices for human spaceflight are Dragon, Soyuz, Shenzou, Starliner, Dreamchaser, Gaganyaan and possibly some secret Blue project. China is the only other developer putting serious effort into launching humans beyond LEO. SpaceX are the only ones with a clear path to getting the price of Earth->Moon->Earth down into the (very rich) tourist price range. That will take many years so you do not see work on the fine details today. Just progress on a very large launch vehicle so the ticket price gets divided by a number of passengers much greater than 4.
The lack of escape system is going to be a problem.
The idea that the system can be safe without one, is one of the things that killed the astronauts on Challenger.
I don't believe that a rocket can be that safe, no matter how much testing you have done
(If you want to say that Starship is for Earth orbit to Mars and then back to Earth orbit, then fine. Use a Crew Dragon for human launch from Earth, and have the astronauts switch to a Starship in orbit. Then after their mission, have them swap back to a Crew Dragon for re-entry to Earth).
The problem with escape systems is that to be actually usable, they drastically reduce the amount of cargo you can take with you.
And then, their usability and practicability are still questionable. AFAIK, you can't eject yourself from a starting or landing spacecraft (or any other very fast flying object - regardless of what Tom Cruise's opening scene in TG2 claims).
"AFAIK, you can't eject yourself"
No, but you can significantly improve your chances of surviving whatever catastrophic event caused ejection to suddenly look like a really good idea, if you remain *inside* part of the vehicle body during at least the initial ejection sequence, if not for the whole thing. e.g. F-111, B-58, B-1A...
My car lacks ejector seats. Commercial aircraft do not give passengers an opportunity to leave before landing/crashing. One reason the space shuttle did not have escape systems was a survivable escape system would have been even more difficult than fixing other issues with the vehicle. Your beliefs are your own and I believe you when you say you will not change them no matter how much evidence is later generated to the contrary.
Your return journey from Mars has problems. Your choices are:
*) Use magic to generate enough propellant for a retro propulsive capture to Earth orbit. With magic like that you will not need a Dragon to complete the journey.
*) Stay in the Starship and do an aerocapture to Earth orbit. Wait around for someone to get a Dragon out of a museum and re-qualify it for flight.
*) Go all the way to Earth in a Starship that successfully landed on Mars and whose cousins have landed on Earth hundreds of times - far more often than Dragon will ever fly.
*) Take a Dragon with you to Mars and six+ years later be the first person to test its heat shield at Mars return velocity.
No-one with a clue (and reasonable health) would ride any of the Starships we have seen so far. Each has been very different from the last and this will continue with some spectacular explosions until they land regularly. Would you take a free ride around the Moon on Artemis 2? How about Artemis 5 (first block 1B SLS. If you are not sure about the Blue Moon lander you can hang around in the Gateway instead). How about Artemis 9 (first crew flight with upgraded booster design from the cancelled OmegA rocket)? SLS/Orion has a very different development strategy. The budget only included one test. The heat shield did not perform as well as expected. Will NASA ask for another attempt at Artemis 1 or will they collect enough evidence to say it is safe to put people on Artemis 2 without testing whatever changes they make to the heat shield?
"SpaceX have not published concept drawings for the interior of Starship HLS but some must exist."
When Elon has been asked about many things that will be required, he often comments that it's a good question and maybe they should be looking into the issue. That sounds like there been nothing going on at all or he'd be saying they have a program in place that's working on it.
SpaceX has not delivered a HLS mock up. They have a mock up of the cable crane. Blue Origin and Dynetics delivered lunar lander mockups. If SpaceX has, I haven't heard and a quick search comes up with nothing.
"At well over $4B per launch at best every over year SLS/Orion is a barrier to a permanently occupied Moon base."
Cadence has a huge impact on pricing. There's no point in optimizing production and workflow if the goal is 4 items.
"The other vehicle that could take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back is Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander. "
I don't see how it's failing to impress you. A big advantage is the door to get in and out isn't 50m from the surface. Kathy Lueders unilaterally awarded SpaceX the contract for a lander when they should have been disqualified and they've been whizzing past delivery dates just like with Commercial Crew. Yes, Blue doesn't publish much, but the don't have to so it's pointless for them to spend money on it. New Glenn will launch not too long from now on a trip to Mars so we'll get a good look at how they do on a much bigger vehicle than they've been flying to date. I would like to see NASA requiring public statements and media of Blue Origin on their lander's progress since the US taxpayer is footing the bill. Initially the Apollo program wasn't going to have the coverage they wound up giving it but that paid off in spades when somebody that knew PR got their opinions heard. The word "propriety" should be banned from publicly funded space projects. I'd also like to see detailed technical drawings and specs for all of the Mars rovers. Again, government funded so the IP should be public domain. I also would love to see schools, groups and individuals taking those designs and running with them.
So far, Starship has had issues with engines not working or powerful enough when they are, parts flying off and melting when re-entering the atmosphere.
Oh don't be so disingenuous. You're not kidding anybody here. NASA's contractors blew up a lot of engines and test vehicles before they got Apollo working. They even killed a crew on the test pad.
It is fundamentally dishonest to compare a test and development program with Boeing's "Mission ready" calamity capsule or selling the 737MAX for routine passenger travel and killing 350 people because they'd lied to the regulators. You complain about not having interior renders. Why? How about they get their full-flow engines and underlying vehicle design fettled first before worrying about interiors? Realistically the early "production" launches are just going to be rails of StarLink satellites that can be deployed whilst they build experience operating the vehicle. Any sort of pressurised, habitable space is a long way away.
None of which absolves the Cyber Boer of drinking his own kool-aid and being a tiresome TESCREAL arsehole. Props to SpaceX for getting so far in spite of his help.
Nothing has been discussed or reveled concerning an escape system
I will allow this. The abort modes for StarShip seem to be on par than those for the Shuttle, which could be best summed up as "Thoughts and Prayers". Whatever they might do for Lunar transfer (which at least doesn't incur any atmospheric reentry), it seems like man-rated Earth-orbit launch is liable to remain the preserve of rocket-capsule arrangements for the forseeable future.
"Oh don't be so disingenuous. You're not kidding anybody here. NASA's contractors blew up a lot of engines and test vehicles before they got Apollo working. They even killed a crew on the test pad."
The engines should be a finished product at this point. It's already 7 months past the timeline for an uncrewed test flight and there's still no SpaceX contracted component (Depot, tanker, HLS) that's been tested yet. There's been no in-orbit work on transferring cryogenic propellants between vehicles (the "test" that SpaceX said they did isn't really valid if it did happen). SpaceX was paid to develop the connections and there's no word on whether that's been done. The propellant transfer projects could be done with Falcon as the biggest hurdles are doing it at all rather than in large volumes. That would also mean being able to do that work concurrently with Starship getting to the point where it works. If SpaceX waits for Starship to be capable of orbital flight before they can work on propellant transfer, the timeline is seriously in trouble. It's something that nobody has done before so the gremlins waiting to bite somebody in the backside haven't been identified.
The engines are not ready. The first Starship stack was sent off with a hodge podge of mis-matched engines and the last flight flew with a deprecated version. The first v3 Raptors have yet to fly. No raptors have been restarted in space, much less several times to mimic a proposed flight plan.
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