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From a perspective of humans in space getting somewhere fast solves many problems. Size does not solve all problems. Starship would be better utilized to build a fast human Mars transport vehicle in LEO than being used directly as the crew transport.

Sure! It's the size of a Corgi and weighs 4 baby elephants

You can predictably triple any timeline Elon says

Edit: Who would downvote this truth bomb?! Simps

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When Musk says something about SpaceX everyone hurries to remind everyone that Musk isn't SpaceX. When SpaceX says something, people complain because of some unrelated Musk thing.

Make up your mind already, r/space.

I can afford not to loose weight!

The pandemic has shown us a taster of what it’d be like.

It is nice. I guess Im annoyed by their constant focus on it being 3D printed. It does not give the rocket more merit. So far *everyone* is losing money with small launchers, and I dont see how this one will be any different with its pricing. So Im treating it more as gaining experience for their medium rocket. I dont expect Terran 1 to live very long, or to have a significant impact.

Give him time. He'll figure it out

You wanna bet? Don't count out the wheelchair

I don't know. I've been shooting mine in the air consistently since 2021

Your smart phone is real close to going global. Reconditioned Smart phones in Africa can be bought for <$7. But they've been slow to catch on bc the towers get stolen/destroyed too often. Move the towers into space and suddenly 1B new users have internet access. All the Einsteins and Beethovens that never got a chance to learn anything more than subsistence lvl farming get a better chance to reach their potential. China will find it more difficult to censor info.

Yes, it's going to take time, but good things are coming.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |AR|Area Ratio (between rocket engine nozzle and bell)| | |Aerojet Rocketdyne| | |Augmented Reality real-time processing| | |Anti-Reflective optical coating| |GEO|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |JWST|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |LEO|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|

^(4 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 7 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8597 for this sub, first seen 23rd Feb 2023, 00:12]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

I don't think you know what I meant in my response to you saying "we won't be able to get off this planet in any significant way, until humanity develops a social structure different and a bit more politically advanced." Us being fucked is possible, I'm not ruling that out, but Humanity doesn't decide anything. I don't think we would even begin to be able to do that until we become a type 1 civilization, until then, we're bound by Human/Nature. We grow around whatever life changing discoveries or revolutions we make, base off how humanity is hardwired to adapt. There are obviously things that could prevent growth, but I just believe that it won't happen until it randomly happens, we're in a perpetual state of being fucked and based on where we are, technologically, until your proposed mindset happens. We don't have to do anything spectacular outside of our capabilities, except refine and prove the things we have until we eventually hit a turning point, things like the world wars, the space race, or the internet and now, interest in AI and AR/VR.

Humanity wont be able to congregate and decide as a whole. We develop around whatever gets dropped onto us. A choice will be made and people will live on the moon, or start some sort of colony in space in a near earth orbit, whether that choice is made in effort to keep the advantage over geopolitical enemies and influence their will, or for the sake and benefit of humanity, science and our curiosity. This, especially if Artemis 2 and 3 are successful. The amount of difference that makes is enormous. in 27 years, that base could become a manufacturing facility with a bigger crew, and new technologies to develop in that time, just as the internet practically changed how the world communicated in 15-30 years and the explosion of smart phones, homes, and other devices. travel could be made easier with residential space station hotels, as you mention, then a technology is developed to launch smaller crafts for trips around the earth, maybe for faster long range shipping, or a "trip" you could take, and more important trips to the moon for research without having to launch heavy rockets on earth. Money could be made with that commercially.

As the technology gets more efficient, it gets easier to send things to and from a moon base. Maybe using solar sails or utilizing fuel more efficiently due to lower to no gravity. in time their technologies and communities grow. We may not be space travelling actively but this scenario is possible, but depending on if technologies like chatGPT and robotics develop to be more reliable and accurate, it's possible in 27-30 years to have stuff like this completely automated, if not more than we expect. It would force humanity to think differently, it really just depends on what scalable discoveries we make, because as we start implementing them, the world will change bit by bit, as laws are made and the technologies made commercially in these advancements inevitably puts us in that mindset.. The world thinks radically different already than it did 50-70 years ago, even if a lot of people still live in the past.. The world in general is different, society itself would probably break down or at least grind to a halt if access to the internet just disappeared in todays world, especially as younger people who deal with automated things likely wont have manual knowledge, or how company identities and worldwide services fully exist on the internet. Imagine how short a change could take when now the world is connected by the internet? Stuff like that can happen any moment.

I understand what you see, and why you think that way, I'm simply expressing a differing perspective.

I would bet that the rate of technological advancement at the furthest ends of the tech tree will slow. I think it applies more broadly but certainly there will be areas where things continue to advance rapidly.

Regarding commercial opportunities here in Earth orbit, I'm sure there is huge potential. Particularly on the defense side, I'd imagine that's pretty much open ended as far as potential revenues and profits go.

But, I do think those profits will end up coming at the cost of the long term stability and commercial viability of Earth orbit. So, it's a bit tricky.

That’s what I thought but most media reports make it sound otherwise

I guess it's very fortunate we live in a time where small scale orbital rocketry can be taken for granted. It's still nice to see more players enter the field, especially with different approaches.

Starship (or at least that systems architecture) definitely solves more problems than NTRs.

NTRs are interesting, but I don't think they're as magical as many people claim. One of their biggest problems is that first generation NTRs have a super narrow niche of applicability. In the long run they might be more useful in more scenarios, but you have to get from here to there for that to happen.

This is super exciting. We absolutely need nuclear propulsion if we are really gonna start colonizing the solar system, mining asteroids etc.

People can't deal with 2 different thoughts.

I read post today about how tesla is a giant scam and is going to be the next Enron.

Like, what about all the stuff they make. It's not bad accounting. Lol

Have you ever watched Primitive Technology make some iron from ore? The guys who first made some iron didn't say "okay, now let's make an integrated steel mill". And we still ended up in today's world.

We're currently in the Primitive Technology phase of space mastery. But we don't need to jump straight to in-situ resource-utilised manufacturing. Each new capability unlocks a new way of making money. Each new way of making money pushes development of new capabilities.

First satellite 1957; first communications satellite 1960. Many steps since. More steps to go. But we are getting close to a tipping point. SpaceX is launching often enough to get good at it, making it routine. Space-based manufacturing research is at the point that they see viable products at the horizon. Either StarShip or competitors will drive launch costs further down. There will be a point where these lines cross, and the floodgates will open.

I don't think I will live to see the space equivalent of an integrated steel mill, but I do think space will touch my life in more ways than only through communications and remote sensing.

1000lb where are the photos of this massive rock?

That’s about $10 a pound wow

If you are betting the pace of change will slow, I'll take that action. You're really fighting history with that one. Just as soon as we can make fuel outside the g well, everything changes. I've been pitched multiple times with ideas I don't think are ripe, but I do think they will happen.

And we are still a long ways from reaching potential from LEO. I've got multiple active deals trying to improve the human condition. The space economy is going to continue to grow even without going super geo.