Meet The Rocket That Will Power The Future (Hint: Its Not SLS)
12 million pounds of thrust at liftoff pic.twitter.com/4ArkgU4Vff
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 17, 2021
12 million pounds of thrust at liftoff pic.twitter.com/4ArkgU4Vff
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 17, 2021
“Meet The Rocket That Will Power The Future (Hint: Its Not SLS)”
Absolutely! This is already obvious except to congress, the president, and NASA.
And Elon’s next post reports a new interplanetary engine NOT named Raptor ? ? ?
https://twitter.com/elonmus…
The implication is that it’s still a light cryogenic chemical reaction engine (LCH4/LOX) but will not be from the FASTRAC/Merlin/Raptor heritage in design. Consequently, it may take a lot of time and money to make it happen.
“Consequently, it may take a lot of time and money to make it happen.”
Agree and who better than Elon, for such a challenge?
He will have Raptor 2 to fill the gap in the meantime. I look forward to see what he has in mind to replace it.
I think what he’s talking about is the rocket counterparts to the design techniques and materials used to give jet engines their reliability and long operating lifetimes. We’ve been essentially flying with engines hand-crafted in laboratories. Merlin and Raptor have made serious efforts at reducing cost and improving turnaround, but they’re still kind of equivalent to early jet engines. It’s likely going to take multiple generations to get rocket engines to the level of maturity that jet engines are at, probably investing more in development and construction costs to reduce operating costs.
It was obvious to Kathy Leuders who, when she chose SpaceX for the HLS, essentially made the decision that will eventually see (we can only hope) the demise of the current Artemis Rube Goldberg plan. SLS, if used at all, should be for cargo only.
Yes. It seemed to me when SpaceX won the HLS contract that NASA (or at least Kathy Lueders) had finally come to believe that Starship would succeed and they reached for the brass ring – a next generation vehicle for space exploration. Sadly, I’m afraid that might have been why Explorations Systems Development was taken away from her and given to Jim Free.
There’s no sane reason to use SLS for cargo either.
There is if it’s already paid for.
It is not paid for and judging by its decades old history will never be paid for.
Fair enough, if one is launching easily-replaceable not-very-valuable cargo. I wouldn’t put anything that I cared much about on an untested vehicle.
At $4 billion a pop, that is expensive cargo. Even if the $4 billion is half for SLS and half for Orion, still expensive cargo.
Ya’ll know it hasn’t flown yet either, right?
True, but look at the progress and history of both as far as innovation, cost, and timeliness.
Yes, the Super Heavy with Starship has not flown yet but, at this point, the main stumbling point is the FAA. Also, the next booster and starship are nearly complete.
Under the current Administration the economy has gone downhill fast and NASA can no longer afford the wasteful spending of the Orion-SLS-Gateway program. In the NEW ARTEMIS, Star Ship is the way. The Old Artemis has no choice but to die a rapid death. The Old NASA needs to go with it.
Of course you meant to say that the downturn in the economy was driven by the pandemic, and you also meant to say that Orion-SLS-Gateway has never been affordable or sustainable.
So, that crashing economy of yours includes the highest level of consumer spending ever recorded. That doesn’t look much like downhill to me. Perhaps you should consider broadening the range of information sources you use. What you’re presently using isn’t serving you well.
Because of the worst inflation we’ve seen since Jimmy Carter. A big part of that is Biden torpedoing oil supplies and the fear his BBB program isn’t actually paid for (as many economists think is the case. CBO weighs in soon.)
“Right now, there are five different drivers collectively causing higher inflation concerns:
1 – A recovering and growing economy
2 – Increased money supply
3 – Increased government spending
4 – Pandemic-related supply shortages
5 – All of which are contributing to expectations of increased inflation going forward
I believe these are better reasons.
A longer-term problem is the millions of retired Boomers who want to spend their money before they die. Thank the gods so much of that cash is being burned up buying crazy investments (e.g., Rivian has larger market cap than GM? WTF?)
Do you honestly believe $1.8 T in spending over ten years, which will add $16B per year to the debt, will move the inflationary needle at all? It’s such a non-issue. God forbid we provide paid sick leave to families when we could buy more guns for the army instead.
The market runs on expectations. Now they anticipate rampant overspending and reductions in domestic oil supplies. Its going to cost Dems the next 2 elections.
You know the last guy thought the pandemic was a hoax, right?
The last guy signed off on Operation Warp Speed, which funded those fancy new mRNA vaccines Joe is so proud of. He also took a chainsaw to the regulations which would slow down their development.
Actually, mRNA vaccines have been out for a while. Since the early 90s. And Moderna was not part of Warp Speed…but facts don’t matter to you folks…
And NASA’s problems are deeper than Joe or the last guy.
? , and you can’t make a vaccine until the viral DNA has been published, which for CoVid 19 was January 29, 2020 by Institut Pasteur.
https://www.politifact.com/…
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10…
Not so fast my Orange Julius worshipping friend…The deal with Moderna was strictly for production, not development. Matter of fact, they went out of their way to avoid involvement during development.
Are we going to talk about the totally unrealistic timeline that the last Administration put NASA on?
Not an orange lover, not much of a populist like T and Bernie, but credit where credit is due. It got done.
Everything slips. Are you discounting the role of Blue Origin in blocking progress for nearly a year? The Dem Congress for underfunding it?
he signed off on it only AFTER saying it was the democrat new hoax and when people started dying and the pressure mounted did he sign off on it in may of 2020 It wasn’t like he took the bull by the horns right out of the gate. It was the opposite and compared it to the common flu.
I don’t know what economic indicators you are looking at.
https://www.franklintemplet…
Can’t wait to see that one launch. It’s a beast!
Tonight at 1800 Eastern Musk talks about Starship at the National Academy.
https://youtu.be/rLydXZOo4eA
This was really enjoyable. I noted that Boca Chica won’t be ready for the first attempt at orbit until “January or February”, so the timetable isn’t being held up by the FAA, which has promised that it will be done with its responsibilities by the end of December. I loved the reaction of Dr. Margaret Kivelson, who is leading one of the Europa Clipper instruments, when Elon mentioned aiming for the ability to land 100 tons on the surface of that satellite. She smiled and gently shook her head in pure amazement. The very idea clearly provided a certain amount of cognitive dissonance for her, after a career during which the hope was likely just to get a couple of tons of equipment into orbit there.
“…the timetable isn’t being held up by the FAA…”
I disagree. The FAA said it would have the review ready by December 31, 2021. Assuming it is 100% supportive, that still leaves Space X to get permission for the first flight. The January or February target looks like it is because of the FAA rather than Space X.
I check on their progress every day, and I’m skeptical that they’d be ready to launch in December. They still appear to be installing plumbing and electrical on the launch tower and mount, as well as some minor structural stuff… lots of scaffolding still present. They need to finish the heat shield on the booster as well as various aero covers, minor work on ship 20, the launch mount probably needs protective covering, and a water deluge system, they need to install the protective cover on the QD head, etc… all those systems need some sort of testing, and of course they need to static fire the booster. February might be the FAA, but January I think would likely just be SpaceX.
Kick the tires, and light the fires, Big Daddy Elon. Kill SLS.
To get back to what I thought was the discussion… I don’t know what the new engine(s) will look like, but if you get too big, you can just run into the problems that faced the developmental versions of the F-1, combustion instability on startup. Maybe they are going to even higher chamber pressures so as to avoid the larger size. Be interesting to see what’s next.
I’m expecting a size increase in Starship which will drive the need for a larger engine.
Musk has talked about increasing the size of Starship/Super Heavy’s core diameter. It’s now 9m, but has anyone noticed that those huge GSE tanks are 12m? More props, same height, more cargo space. Maybe build new chopsticks for the tower.