The pace of innovation here is absolutely ludicrous. They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four <i>weeks</i>? They've gone from a production rate of one prototype in 8 months to one prototype every 2 weeks in less than a year. They doubled the size of their workforce in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna have to agree with the article author here: this is absolutely mad.
Excerpt:<p>"Just iterate, baby"<p>"I’ve spoken with plenty of the earliest engineers who worked at SpaceX, and almost all of them have noted that Musk tackles the hardest engineering problems first. For Mars, there will be so many logistical things to make it all work, from power on the surface to scratching out a living to adapting to its extreme climate. But Musk believes that the initial, hardest step is building a reusable, orbital Starship to get people and tons of stuff to Mars. So he is focused on that.<p><i>He knows he won’t get Starship right at first. He employs some of the smartest engineers on this planet, and they’re still, in many ways, fumbling toward solutions for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth’s gravity well into orbit—then to land it and fly it again. Musk has come to believe the only way to realistically achieve this is through trial and error, by iterating closer and closer to the right design.</i>"
Slightly off-topic but apart from Mars-related things, I don't think are appreciating how big of a deal Starship/Super Heavy will be.<p>Because space is hard and expensive, when designing payloads, they also have to be over-engineered to make sure you're getting the most out of your ride, which then makes the rockets over-engineered and expensive to make sure they don't blow up carrying the precious cargo. It's a positive feedback loop. So we end up with incredible telescopes like Hubble or James Webb, but it's literally a once-in-a-generation event. There's no tolerance for failure, so budgets and timelines ballon.<p>What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime? Why not mass-produce slightly lower quality telescopes instead of these masterpieces. The JWST's successor is LUVOIR, slated for sometime in the 2040s (!!), why not build a dozens JWST-like telescopes and use interferometry to build giant telescopes larger than the earth with higher light-gathering ability than even ground-based telescopes? This is the technique used by Event Horizon Telescope to capture the first picture of a black hole last year.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-long-baseline_interferometry" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-long-baseline_interferome...</a>
It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it.<p>Purpose is so hard to come by now because we all don't know what we want. When we do know, we're constantly unsure about it.<p>Such a clear goal makes it easy to have greater purpose that you don't second guess.<p>This isn't a scheme to get rich, a zero sum political movement, or a narcissistic artistic endeavor. It's pretty unique there.<p>There's that whole danger of a cult of personality but the project is bearing fruit.
This is a spectacular gamble, however Musk has a track record and I think Superheavy/Starship will pay off with unpredictable dividends.<p>But the elephant in the room that Musk appears to be ignoring is the life sciences side of things. Only 12 humans have sortied outside the Van Allen belts (which protect us from the deep space radiation environment). Nobody has spent more than 18 consecutive months in space or reduced gravity, and we <i>know</i> there are biological changes that affect astronauts. The same goes triple for the plants and bacteria and fungi (never mind animals) we depend on for agriculture, and a closed-loop agricultural system and air plant is implicit in Musk's goal of a self-sufficient colony on Mars. We haven't even repeated the (failed) Biosphere 2 experiment.<p>We need the giant payload capacity before we can test the life sciences problems in a realistic manner (small and ferociously expensive lab experiments on the ISS are useful but fail Musk's iteration test because the lead time for running one is measured in years if not decades).<p>So we won't know if a Mars colony is even possible until some time after Musk builds the ships to put one there.
This article from October 2019 also does a great job explaining the enormity of vision.<p><a href="https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-starship-is-a-very-big-deal/" rel="nofollow">https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-sta...</a>
Self-promotion:<p>If you want weekly updates about SpaceX's progress, and about space science and the space industry in general, I write a newsletter for just that purpose: <a href="https://orbitalindex.com" rel="nofollow">https://orbitalindex.com</a>
I wonder how they handle differences in plans/knowledge/outlook between the 4 shifts. I can totally see the AM team working towards different quality standards or designs than the Evening team because they never talk to one another.
This Musk quote from the article resonated with me:<p>> There’s plenty of forgiveness if you pass me the buck. There is no forgiveness if you don’t.
Wonder if friction stir welding would be suitable instead?<p>That seems to be used when very strong + predictable welding is needed.<p>Not sure if it's generally used for 4mm thick material though.
So we've accepted that we're never going to find life on Mars, and that there's no concern of "contamination"? Or is this just a big plan to build a city in the first bit of "unspoilt" wilderness we can find off planet?
I hope he gets to solve the terraforming part of going to Mars, as well.
Also, maybe he sets his eyes on colonizing the ocean space on Earth - lots of empty space in the water.
What is the benefit of settling on Mars?<p>Until we explain that in some kind of sane way that doesn’t just involve the earth being a crutch for raw materials, it all seems rather stupid to me.<p>Settling an earth-like planet? Sure! Seems logical. Mars? Not really.
Not a bad idea, it's a good way to save the few healthy/surviving ones if coronavirus (or nature, or humanity itself) ends up wiping all of humanity.
A Linguistic Beef:<p>The word "Starship" means specifically that the ship is capable of traveling between stars. At a minimum, it should travel from it's home star to the nearest neighboring star.<p>What we're talking about here are "Spaceships".
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The only way I can lighten up and enjoy the name Starship in this context is to assume it's being used ironically... like someone who's named their cat "Dog".
I don’t get the point<p>1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn’t it be good to solve that first?<p>2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn’t be better to fix that first? (No, electric cars won’t suffice)<p>3) is it really necessary to spoil astronomy/night sky to finance one’s dream? (No, vantablack won’t solve the issue)<p>4) our technology presently rely on mining 100+ elements. Does anyone here believe one can mine all of those on an a planet that misses an atmosphere? Using Earth ressources for a “colony” seems a dubious idea.<p>5) has anyone an idea of the CO2 equivalent cost of bringing one person to mars?<p>6) there is growing evidence that there is life in the Martian underground. Should we take the risk of destroying another biosphere?
I respect the clarity of the vision and the drivenness to make the vision a reality.<p>I disagree with the vision. The best analogy I can think of right now is high school kids renting a hotel for a party and trashing it and then doing the same thing next week. That’s humanity right now.<p>There is no Planet B until we build a mutualistic relationship with the one that created us.<p>And yes when I say “there is no Planet B” I’m being vaguely spiritual. I believe Earth is a creature and somehow won’t allow one of its creations to explore the stars until that creation learns mutualism. But I’m also being pragmatic: A) colonialism was a big motivation in our last 2 world wars and we still have intense colonizer memes circulating through our societies B) we now have the means to destroy ourselves thoroughly C) Mars is the crown jewel of potential colonies right now.