Comment by delichon
2 days ago
Not only were they not trying to reach orbit, they are specifically trying to do risky things that they can learn from. It's not exactly destructive testing because they hope to succeed, but it's close.
2 days ago
Not only were they not trying to reach orbit, they are specifically trying to do risky things that they can learn from. It's not exactly destructive testing because they hope to succeed, but it's close.
That just seems like a huge waste of money
Each Expendable Starship Super Heavy launched costs less than a single engine on the Artemis program.
Every time you see a Starship launch what you aren't seeing is manufacturing processes corrected, issues in launch protocols and field issues resolved. All the little things that build up to make your system reliable. Do you want the doctor who has done a hundred successful surgeries, or the one who has done one or two but spent a long time in school watching videos.
The big difference is in the end, Starship gets built faster, costs much less, and can do more. It's not even close.
You can't compare costs for a rocket that doesn't work yet. It's fictional. As I said in my post, if we are comparing fictional rockets then I have a $1 rocket that can fly to Jupiter.
2 replies →
Until it actually works every dollar is waste.
3 replies →
It wouldn't if you were scheduled to fly on it.
By the time people are scheduled to fly on it, it will have launched 100s of times and SLS wilk have launched once. Which so you want to ride on?
Elon Musk's net worth now (sadly) near a trillion dollars... :/
He is spending it effectively to colonize the sky. That makes him the MVP of the whole biosphere.