SpaceX Starship Plans to CRUSH the Airplane Industry, Here's why
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
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Are point-to-point global long-haul passenger flights in under an hour really possible with SpaceX's Starship rocket? That's what they've proposed, but recent developments have left some wondering if the idea has been abandoned. We'll examine the logic behind SpaceX's decision to purchase and then sell two oil rigs and what that means for the Earth-to-Earth transportation program. Join us as we analyze fuel efficiency, safety, locations, and total trip time to see if this revolutionary transportation system makes sense. SpaceX Wants to Become an Airline, Here's Why
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
03:39 Starship Analysis
07:54 Using Starship For Comercial Transport
09:42 Starship's Main Limitations
18:24 Conclusion
what we'll cover
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Really good analysis. For the record though, Jetliners have NEVER used leaded gasoline; the change to unleaded gasoline that the FAA approved was for piston engine powered light airplanes. Jetliners burn jet fuel (Jet A, A1 or B), otherwise known as kerosene.
no it isn't. he got so much wrong i cant even be bothered to correct him.
@@knottytoob 14:52 rookie mistake 1. In that table he's comparing a flying form of transport vs cherry picked land transport. I'd like to see how you get from London to Sydney via train or bus or car!!!
He conveninetly obfuscated airplaine PMPG form this video to prove your argument. So let's talk airline PMPG, which is, on average for US domestic flights for the 2018 data I've found in 30 seconds, is only 58 PMPG. That's only double Starship. But WAIT! That's a fully loaded single class airliner. What about those fancy business seats which take the space of 4 normal seats? Well, you divide by 4, or 2 or whatever the equivalent footprint might be. And you assumed Starship will use the booster, which it might not need to on shorter flights, and subjectively might not need to use it at all on any Earth-to-Earth SUBORBITAL flights. The energy requirements for 100 tons to LEO vs suborbital are drastically different!
As for time to board an prepare Starship, you have no idea and neither do I. It simply hasn't been done yet so we can't know, AND DON'T KNOW, but you went on to assume that fueling Starship happens AFTER passengers board because that's what Falcon 9 does. Well, this isn't Falcon 9 with its toxic RP1, and with the Space Shuttle the crew boarded AFTER fueling was complete. He's being subjective and doing selective bias.
As for G forces, again, wrong! He's using Falcon 9 Crew Dragon data for it going to ORBITAL SPEEDS around mach 25. This is a suborbital flight with a much lower top speed, dependinng on the distance travelled, so who says they can't just throttle down for passenger flights in order to keep g forces manageable?! Yes, a 10.000km flight accorss the world would require about 7km/s of delta V, around mach 20, but that's over a much longer distance so again, you can accelerate slower over a longer period of time to keep down g forces!
As for safety, last time I checked, airplane crashes have usually 100% death rate and only small crashes with low speeds at the very beginning of takeoffs and the very end of landings have survivors, because guess what? No ejector seats or parachutes on commercial airliners either!
Satisfied?
With the oil rigs... im thinking that they bought them to convert them to launch the rockets like everyone thought. What if the cost to alter them for their needs was more than making their own, by a lot. I think they will make their own and there will be way more tech in them.
Well it's the only way I will be able to commute when they finally let me come into the office....so yeah, you're onto something I reckon...
They were "pathfinders"
No, what you are overlooking is that the 'cost' of the oil rigs included the amount of money & man-hours they would consume while SpaceX is trying to prove concept and deliver for its first real customer NASA Artemis. They have more money than you or I but still a limited amount, working on the oil rigs would slow their work on Starship and thereby endanger both; the intelligent thing was to sell them until needed. Unfortunately she may have been given some BAD advice about how easily a land based launch could be done, perhaps from some twit accountant reading reading promos from the cement company?
@@owenwilson25 good point
I bet they bought the rigs to reverse engineer them and then sold them to get their capital back and then build their purpose built brand new floating platforms…
You forget a option.. to use the farry trip, to strap people in.. and then just load the cabin into starship..
I think they were sold for scrap.
That’s definitely a brilliant idea! A ferry passenger container!
Once you are in your seat you are staying in it until after landing. No getting up to go to the toilet or stretch your legs. People will probably want to be confined at the last possible moment.
I think a dual cycle engine scram or ram jet will be the next step in passenger aviation.
Noise pollution.
They're working on triple cycle engines now.
Very insightful.
A wonderful breakdown and great perspective.
Regarding Point to Point flight. A key challenge that SpaceX faces is finding enough paying customers in order to have a high flight rate. The flight rate is as critical as reusability to lowering launch costs. The super constellation of satellites will satisfy this for the first year but following the deployment we go into a replacement mode that drops the flight rate by 80%. Point To Point travel is expected to be bigger than space tourism as a market. The more markets that it can find, the more cost effective it will become.
The Space Force wants their Starships. They will be major users of the service. Heavy lift abilities into interplanetary space will enable the occupation and control of resources throughout the Solar System. Starship will connect to true interplanetary cruisers that are likely designing now, which will employ some form of centrifugal artificial gravity, and perhaps use nuclear thermal, if not Nuclear Electric Metal Plasma Engines with Isp of over 3000, putting all destinations out to the Saturn system within a one year voyage range.
Single-stage PtP Starship flights of under 6000 miles will be more common than predicted here. Six engine lift off will be much quieter and could proceed from newly enlarged hub airports on a limited basis. Methane, cryogenically distilled from LNG piped in to the airports, and liquid oxygen distilled from the atmosphere, will be on hand and available.
Starship's much cheaper heavy lift capabilities will be used and exploited.
@@psycotria Starship is not going to be launching from airports. That's just fantasy. So are "interplanetary cruisers". PtP Starship passenger flights will never be very common. They will only make sense for very long flights, and they will be very expensive.
I like RUE, rapid unscheduled excavation
What do you mean about the FAA only recently approving unleaded fuel for jetliners? Don't you mean piston-engined aircraft? Jet fuel (kerosene) has always been unleaded.
Since point to point transport is suborbital, is there not an option, perhaps with reduced payload, to use Starship or a slightly extended version of starship that could be used without the superheavy booster? If so I think the options for departure locations and all the times analyzed here could change significantly.
Things could happen much faster if the risks of placing people on an already propellent filled Starship is reasonable and they get the refill time down to a reasonable number. The time getting people out to the launch pad could also become much faster if some sort of ground effect vehicle, seaplane or possibly even dedicated floating airport (possibly even for connecting flights from farther inland) was used to get people out to the launchpad. If it becomes practical to make fuel directly from CO2 in the air, the carbon footprint could be brought down significantly. Someday, we might even see a Spaceforce One.
Yeah I think the time estimates here are extremely conservative. Once things become more routine I think it would save many hours on the longest flights. Flying from England to Australia is a grim experience, especially for a tall person like me. With advances in electric planes and air taxis, getting to a spaceport could be made much easier.
@@willsonj Also the propellant amount he assumed are the maximum possible, which doesn't make sense at all for suborbital hobs. Propellant load times will also get much faster, the more they learn about the system.
@@NavrasNeo Yeah for sub-orbital I’m pretty sure that Starship alone would be enough
I agree, except that making methane from CO2 and H2 from the atmosphere will never been cheap enough to replace LNG. "Carbon Footprint" is part of the UN 'Equity' Agenda 21; make everybody equally poor or dead, using some invisible hoax, just like the one that causes the common cold from three years back. The Sun is driving climate change throughout the Solar System, as it has aways done, and will continue to do.
It will still only be saving time on trips to the other side of the planet. Unlike loading passengers onto a plane, staff would have to individually double-check that every passenger is properly secured in their seats before take-off, and basically lock them into their seats so they don't get up and move around or try to loosen their harnesses. I strongly doubt it will ever carry 1000 passengers, as the seats will need to be larger than normal airline seats, but even 600 passengers would take a very long time. Getting 600 people up the tower will also be time consuming. Even with three fast lifts that can each do a round trip (load, rise, unload, descend) in 2 minutes and carry 12 people each, that's over half an hour if everything goes perfectly smoothly.
As for getting passengers to the launch pad, I don't see them spending the money to build floating airports (basically an aircraft carrier in addition to the launch platform) and there aren't any seaplanes that can hold 600 (or even 100) passengers. A big hovercraft could be fast, but they require calm waters. A fast ferry is realistically what will happen.
As an earth based example, consider the travel time from Dallas-Fort Worth airport to downtown Dallas is about 30 minutes. There are other similar airport to city-center travel times. So taking a 30 minute ferry trip to save 10 hours of flight time is not unreasonable.
I think another agency that might have a problem with passenger rockets as Earth transport is DoD. "Oh don't mind us! THIS ICBM is just a trip to London!" With the considerably shorter time to respond if that turns out to not be the case, I think SpaceX would have a real uphill battle convincing DoD.
Even if I could afford it, I don’t like flying too much anyway for my job I have now. I would want to wait to see it run several dozen times before setting foot on it for a blast off. Very interesting!!
I was in aviation ground support for 20 years, but usually turned down offers to go up. I went up only a handful of times, in only the best or most unusual aircraft over that time.
That said, I say, "Blast me off!" If the landing fails, it will be over instantly.
I would want to see more than a few dozen successful flights before I consider it safe. Also, it might be fast, but it won't be comfortable. Once you are strapped into your seat (a process that will take quite some time for hundreds of people) you are not getting up for any reason until after landing. There won't be any toilets, or drinks, or snacks, or in-flight entertainment. Passengers won't be able to hold onto any loose items, so no phones, laptops or tablets. No headphones or earbuds that could come loose and fly into someone else. It will be so noisy that they probably wouldn't work anyway. Maybe they'll provide helmets with built in VR entertainment and noise cancellation, otherwise you'll just have time to think.
I also guarantee that at least 3 passengers will throw up during every belly-flop landing, and at least one will soil themselves.
I could definitely see a higher priced bulk cargo transport as supplemental to our standard cheap marine shipping for time critical cross global packages.
Basically, a new form of premium express shipping, but for freight that needs even faster than air freight.
@@jonjohns8145 Oh, definitely not on cost. What I meant was that it would provide fast shipping for some items, but wouldn't replace cheap marine shipping.
it's a stupid idea you know that right?
@@koiyujo1543 no, i don't. While the numbers might not end up making sense, the difference in delivery could in fact be worth it for some cargo
@@EliotHochberg obviously. koiyujo is stupid.
Really. Why would you account for loading and unloading? You don’t do that for an airplane.
One of the primary use cases for the Reaction Engines SABRE (Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine) has always been a revival of the 80's dream of the HOrizontal Take-Off and Landing, Single Stage To Orbit, Space Plane design.
REL's innovative heat exchanger design is already being investigated as a solution for cooling EV batteries, and enabling hydrogen fuel cell aircraft engines, but a single engine able to work in both atmospheric and space flight modes, could revolutionise the aerospace industry and eventually help make long haul flights a thing of the past.
Spot On!, Splash Out!.. I have been arguing this point with a lot of viewers on why star ship should not be Earth point-to-point transportation. Leave that for the airline companies that are progressing in emissions, and dynamic production. Starship should only be for space exploration like in the title. Traveling across the world in 30 min is not Xploration, it's just helping the damage of the deterioration of the world. I get it! but trust me, they need to just focus on making it past the "G" line, and not creating a fire for effect," strike every time they launch.
Loved the show and I literally wrote some of the same topic we are all talking about in my scripts.
Thanks for watching. And agreed I think point to point was a distraction for them. Now they can focus more so its good news really.
Do you write for a channel?
You asked why we think they sold the oil platforms and I don't think it requires speculation beyond the reason the CEO gave. She said they weren't right for what they needed. If you were to commission a new offshore rocket launch platform, obviously there would be a huge difference between the specs you'd require to accommodate that function and the specs for an oil rig. The oil rig would have a huge amount of unnecessary equipment adding weight and taking up precious room, while it wouldn't have the heat shielding and support structure you'd need for rockets. I suspect they saw the rigs for sale at a fraction of their original cost and jumped on the deal while it was available. Then when they looked into the details and got a better idea of what it would take to repurpose them, they realized it wouldn't cheaper and easier to build new ones from scratch.
Two issues: 1. The propellant could be fully loaded before passengers arrive. Or timed to compete when the ship is loaded with people. 2. Electric VTOL will soon be able to replace the ferry trip at a faster speed.
But in the final analysis, it is not safe or efficient for human transport to fly via Starship unless you are urgently needed for an emergency surgery or something else that is super time-sensitive. Telepresence will soon solve these issues more efficiently.
Finally, freight may be an option. Worth looking into?
Why is it not safe? 232 successful flights and counting.
Elon,I have absolutely no reason to doubt this guy,if anything am just exited for the new age
no reason? None at all? really?
@@jonjohns8145 yeah,non whatsoever,I won't sit n pretend to think like he does or view things like he does for that's what has made him accomplish what most couldn't,so with that in mind,I just wait to see what he comes up with
@@andrewmutavi590 what has made him accomplish was his daddy gave him money to get into the funding business where he got in on paypal. He then bought Tesla and forced the founder out and went on a publicity tour to pretend he's this visionary when all his "visionary-ness" was BS. The Boring company is a failure, so is Hyperloop. Space-X is essentially funded by the Government, He had no problem getting a big handout from Uncle Sam a few years ago. And even Tesla doesn't make money from selling cars but carbon offsets (a major scam played on people by polluting industries). And I think we all see his Twitter fiasco. The man is a charlatan and snake oil seller.
@@jonjohns8145 Yep, none.
Maybe in the current geopolitical climate, those oil rigs became more valuable as oil rigs again?
I just discovered your channel, Fantastic!
For a suborbital hop you won't need all the propellant like a orbital launch with 100t+ of payload? I doesn't seem you accounted for that. Also the shorter the hob the less propellant you need, which should help with efficiency, because of the rocket equation. And then propellant load time also get faster.
Every number he uses is wrong. This is just FUD.
@@davidbeppler3032 I thought so, one of the rare videos I had to dislike. Not well researched.
@@NavrasNeo The sad thing is he is very well spoken and people will believe him.
I don’t assume FUD, just lack of research. Main point: no one has ever said p2p would use the booster.
@@GouldTimes Its reusable so why wouldn't you. Methane and liquid oxygen will be generated on site(by the time this happens it will anyway). It certainly wont need to be a full tank as NavrasNeo said.
One counterpoint is that the emissions don’t matter as much if the methane is made from CO2 in a renewable manner, which is the plan…
Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab said that the cost of marine recovery or any marine assets is very high so he won’t be using them with his neutron rocket. Maybe the cost of operating sea based launch platforms proved too high to be viable.
The cost at least for the next few years is very possible. We didn't focus on it but there might also have been some politically strategic reasons for buying the rigs.... and maybe they served their purpose ?
Fast travel times were part of the promotion for the Concorde SST, but that quickly turned into a financial failure due to high fuel costs and limited number of airports capable of handling it. A "point-to-point Starship" would have even higher fuel costs and even more limited ports.
I can understand the enthusiasm for it, but enthusiasm alone cannot overcome bad economics.
It's true that Starship would have even higher propellant costs per passenger at the current respective costs for jet fuel, liquid methane, and liquid oxygen. And apart from the major capital costs involved in building offshore launch ports, that is indeed the major economic challenge to making Starship Earth-to-Earth transportation competitive with airlines.
But at current prices, it's not all that far off. It costs about $1 million USD to fully load both stages of a Starship with propellant (958 metric tons of liquid methane at $400 per ton = $383,200 + 3642 metric tons of liquid oxygen at $160 per ton = $582,720), compared to the approximately $200,000 that it costs to fully fuel a Boeing 747. And with about double the passenger of a 747, assuming full propellant/fuel loads and a full compliment of passenger on both vehicles, that brings the propellant costs per passenger for Starship to a little over double those of a 747.
SpaceX's plan to deal with that is to start manufacturing their own propellant (from sea water and atmospheric carbon dioxide, using the Sabatier process). Existing industries that already do that ("Power to Gas" plants) in most cases can't produce methane cheaper than in can be extracted from the ground. But their main cost is the electricity needed to use electrolysis to remove the hydrogen from the water molecules, and SpaceX plans to use massive solar fields to produce cheap solar energy to power that process. (Solar is a particularly good fit, since its main downside of being intermittent isn't a problem for a manufacturing process that doesn't need to operating constantly.) And SpaceX will also be able to harness the liquid oxygen produced from that process, which in other applications might just be a waste gas. That process also produces oxygen and methane in almost exactly the same proportions that Starship's raptor engines use them (4-to-1, with a little left over oxygen). They also hope to find cost savings from scaling that process up.
With all of those factors, it's conceivable that (again, capital expenditures aside), Starship flights might be able to be made cost-competitive with airline flights. Starship flights might even have a cost advantage, since their faster travel times will allow them to squeeze in more flights per ship per day, so the profit margin on each flight doesn't need to be as high.
While nothing you said was wrong specifically, comparing Concorde to Starship to get the economics isn't right. Remember, the Concorde didn't have another market. Just regular high speed travel. And it's time savings wasn't that much for the cost over regular flights. SpaceX has both of these fixed. They have a huge market for Starship even without point to point travel. So they don't have to make up all costs simply on selling tickets. Further, the premium price for the tickets is going to be much more worth it on time savings alone when you are talking about 20-30 hour flights vs 30-60 minute long flights. Then you have the extra premium just for the experience to go into space and experience zero G, which is already an expensive ticket by itself today.
None of that means that it will be successful or even happen. But it does at least cover some of the economic concerns. The bigger issue is likely to be the time delays/costs getting to Starship to be able to fly and the limited consumer base who will even be physically able to fly.
@@anthonypelchat I don't think the experience of space or Zero-G will be that enticing, considering you probably won't be near a window, and you certainly won't be allowed out of your seat at any point. Everyone will have to be tightly strapped in for the landing manoeuvre to be safe, and the only time staff will have to check passengers are secure will be before launch. Once you are in your seat you are staying there until after landing. People won't be able to have their phones, laptops or cameras out either. Every object will need to be securely stowed for the entire duration of the flight. There won't be toilets, or snacks and drinks. It will be so loud everyone will need high-end hearing protection, so you won't be able to talk to other passengers. It might be fast (for very long-distance flights), but it won't be comfortable.
@@Pushing_Pixels Most of the trip won't be loud. Only a few minutes during initial launch and then again during landing. Should be some windows, but maybe not many. Most of the rest of your comment is irrelevant as the trip will be too short to matter. We're talking 20-30 mins max.
That said, you may have misunderstood the market. It doesn't need to be a huge market that competes with current international flights. It might not even fly as often as Concorde did. And there is nothing wrong with that as it will just be one additional market for Starship.
Great video as usual!
What do you think about smaller hubs, little like you mention?
Like four in the US, two on both sides of the country and maybe four in Europe, one in the Middle East, two around India and about eleven around Asia and of course some around Africa and south America?
If you have dedicated coastal runways or rocket launch sites, it might be something.
But as you mention, it will probably be more for the richer and maybe a one-time trip for the others, because it will still take a long time all the things that also take up a rocket trip.
There are a lot of uses of "cheap" way of sending people in the space that are very economically viable, like factories that take advantage of space vacuum or absence of gravity.
Fast travel, isn't the issue more how interrupting travel is to other things the person wants/needs to do verses the clock time involved with travel?
Thanks for putting that magnificent, Tasmanian made catamaran up on your post.
If this takes off (pun intended), what will be the carbon footprint compared to airplane travel?
Less.
It's hard to say. In this case, we need to talk about the "carbon dioxide equivalent" footprint because the operation of Starship's Raptor engines should technically be made carbon neutral in the future. Currently, SpaceX is using methane sourced from fossil fuels in their test flights, but their plan is to reduce costs as they scale up by switching to manufacturing their oxygen and methane from atmospheric carbon dioxide and sea water, using the Sabatier process and solar energy.
Instead, the concern is the form in which that carbon that they took from the atmosphere will be re-released. Most of it will be combusted with oxygen to be rereleased in the same form that they drew it from the atmosphere: carbon dioxide. But some of it will be re-released in the form of a much more potent greenhouse gas: uncombusted methane. Methane is more than 25 times as potent as a greenhouse gas per molecule as carbon dioxide (over 9 years on aveage that it takes to break down in the atmosphere).
Musk has said that the rocket uses oxygen and methane in the a 3.8-to-1 ratio, by weight. But in order to fully combust all the methane, you need to 2 oxygen (O2) molecules per methane (CH4) molecule, and each one weighs almost exactly twice as much as a methane molecule. So in order to fully combust all the methane, you need a 4-to-1 ratio. What's probably going on is that the Raptor engines are being run fuel-rich to stop them from overheating. So if we assume each of the following:
1. That Starship's oxygen and methane are loaded onto the ship in a 3.8-to-1 ratio
2. That a cumulative total of 958 metric tons of methane are loaded onto both stages of Starship when fully loaded at launch
3. That all the oxygen and methane that's loaded onto Starship at launch is fed into the engines' combustion chambers over the course of the flight
4. That all the carbon atoms in the methane fuel are released in the atmosphere one of two forms: carbon dioxide or uncombusted methane
Then it would seem that each fully-loaded flight of Starship would release a total of 47.9 metric tons of uncombusted methane into the atmosphere, which on average would take 9 years to break down, and over that 9-year period would have the same effect on global warming of 1,197.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
For comparison, a fully loaded Boeing 747 with 20 metric tons of kerosene produces about 66 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Since Starship will have about double the passenger capacity of a 747, we should multiply that by 2. So 132 metric tons. That's much less global warming over a 9 year period, but since CO2 basically doesn't leave the atmosphere on a human time scale, over a 100 year time period the global warming impact of the 747 flight will actually be higher per passenger.
@@RobinClaassen I don't have numbers but excess methane is likely burning using atmospheric oxygen once it leaves the ship if your numbers are correct. Would it be all of the excess? Probably not, but you can be sure a lot of it is.
@@NScherdin That's a good point that I hadn't considered. I wonder how we might go about making a good estimate of what proportion of that excess methane combusts with atmospheric oxygen.
What if the passenger part of the starship was separated from the engine/fuel section until right before launch? it could be loaded separately and then moved on a track over to the launchpad, lifter up and attached right before launch. That could reduce load times
and what if that separate part was loaded on the ferry itself, so you can do the loading (+ individual safety checks) in parallel with the ferry travel time and the fuel loading happens in parallel too once we're sure of safety. so it takes around 2 hours total to go from space-port (which is actually a port) to ready for liftoff.
It should be noted that they already do fill all 4 of the main tanks concurrently (2 in the booster and 2 in the ship). You can see that in the percentage full readouts for each of tanks in the period before the launch in the SpaceX livestream. The ship is loaded with propellants through the quick disconnect arm of the tower, and the booster is loader through ports at its base.
I would assume that they slow down the loading of the tanks in the ship to wait for the tanks in the booster to fill up enough to give the booster more structural strength so that it can bear the weight of a fully loaded ship above it. But the tanks of the ship and the booster do reach 100% at the same time, so it seems unlikely that loading the ship separately would reduce propellant load times.
Also, lifting the 3,400 metric tons of propellant that the ship holds + the 200 metric tons of the ship itself is a significantly more difficult engineering challenge than just lifting the 200 metric tons of the ship alone. I imagine that the tower would need a significant redesign (and likely be much more expensive to build) in order to accomplish that task. I imagine that the ship would have to be lifted from below, because it would be impractical to build lifting pins at the top that could bear the weight of all that propellant. It's not immediately obvious to me what method could be used to place the ship on top of the booster.
@@owenwilson25 You're assuming that it will be very expensive to fly by Starship, but it might not be. SpaceX's plan seems to be based on getting the costs per seat down to about the level of airline seats. There's a tremendous amount of capital expenditure that would go into building an offshore launch port (especially if you want to have a connection to the nearest hub airport that's faster than a ferry). But those capital cost aside, it's conceivable that the per-Starship payroll and maintenance costs could be brought down to a similar level of the per-plane costs of airlines.
So that just leaves propellant costs. At current market prices, it costs about $1 million USD to fully load both stages of a Starship with propellant (958 metric tons of liquid methane at $400 per ton = $383,200 + 3642 metric tons of liquid oxygen at $160 per ton = $582,720), that's substantially more than the approximately $200,000 that it costs to fully fuel a Boeing 747. Even assuming that a Starship will be able to hold double the number of passengers of a 747, that's still more than double the propellant cost per passenger.
So in order for Starship Earth-to-Earth flights to be cost competitive per-seat with airlines, those propellant costs would need to be brought down. SpaceX's plan for that is to start manufacturing their own oxygen and methane from atmospheric carbon dioxide and sea water, using the Sabatier process. That's already being done in "Power to Gas" (P2G) plants, and in most cases the those plants are not able to produce methane more cheaply than in can be extracted form the ground, which is why we still extract methane from the ground. SpaceX's plan is to find cost savings from scaling that manufacturing process way up, and also using cheap renewable energy from solar fields that they build to power their plants. (Electricity is the main cost of P2G plants.) For SpaceX, they would also have the advantage of also being able to use the liquid oxygen that they produce in that process (which in other applications would just be a waste gas of the process). With all those factors, they might be able to reduce their propellant costs enough to make Starship flights cost competitive with airline flights.
One factor in SpaceX's favor is that since Starship travels much faster than an airliner, they should be able to squeeze in more flights per day on the same ship, which means that the profit margin from each flight won't need to be as high.
@@RobinClaassen Rockets would cost more than jets, for starters the oxygen costs about 40% more than the methane, so just the fuel cost is 2.4 times what is suggested in the video; he was also proposing unrealistic optimal situation of the desired destination being the maximum (20K) distance instead of the majority (8-12K) long haul flights. And besides cost & danger, there is still no immunity from weather delaying proposed launches; so while rocket passenger earth travel is theoretically possible, no business model has been proposed that would make that use plausible this or next decade.
@@owenwilson25 There are certainly some major challenges involved in making a an Earth-to-Earth Starship transportation service viable. As you mentioned, weather might be one of them. It does seem that the range of weather conditions in which a Starship can take off and land is probably going to have to remain more restrictive than those of airplanes.
Safety is another one. Because rocket engines inherently need to operate close to their failure points, and because the major mass limitations require rockets to have lower safety margins than airplanes, we're not likely get rocket travel as safe as airplane travel any time in the foreseeable future.
But the propellant cost issue, at least, does seem at least possible to solve. There's nothing in SpaceX's plan for reducing propellant costs that's impossible. It would certainly involve a lot of capital costs, but once built, it should be theoretically possible to produce both propellants (both oxygen and methane, in the ratios needed) at very low cost. Whether that's practically achievable remains to be seen, but it is SpaceX's plan. They seem to be planning based upon the assumption that they are going to get that to work, so we should at the very least take the possibility that they might succeed at doing so seriously.
So when we consider the viability of their business plan, we should not just consider how much the propellants would cost at today's market prices, but also how much SpaceX plans for them to cost with the means of production that they plan to develop and build.
SpaceX's whole mission is Mars colonization, and everything it does as a company is intended to contribute to achieving that goal in some way. The primary purpose of an Earth-to-Earth transportation service would be to create more demand for Starship to create economies of scale to make using that same vehicle for Mars colonization cheaper. And one key process that they need to master in order to make Mars colonization work is in situ propellant production on Mars for return trips, using Martian permafrost, atmospheric CO2, and solar fields to produce that propellant for the return trip.
That's a problem that they absolutely need to solve in order to make Mars colonization work. It's not necessary a huge one, since variations of that process have been in industrial use on Earth since at least 1890, but there are challenges to making it work in that specific application. Since that's a process that they absolutely need to develop, I think it's fair to assume that they'll devote whatever resources they need to to make sure they do. And since they're going to develop it for use on Mars anyway, they may as well use that same process to manufacture propellant on Earth as well.
So as far as the various challenges to Starship Earth-to-Earth transportation plan go, it think that we can fairly confidently put the "propellant cost" challenge in the "likely to be solved" category. If the Earth-to-Earth transportation plan is going to not work, that probably won't be the main reason why.
I think you are missing something. Starship is designed for, among other things, point-to-point transport. But the Super Heavy booster is not required. I don't know what the range of Starship without SH will be, but SpaceX could always build a junior booster for ten-thousand-mile flights. Second, I think the reason the two oil rigs got canned, is the simple solution to long turnaround times. Put the Starship on a (relatively fast) ship. Passengers get on the ship, and then on the Starship while the ship is moving out to sea. Reverse on landing. Plan it right, and the passengers don't have to do much waiting.
Also, have you been following the discussion of adding three more engines to the Starship? Lengthen the Starship as well, and you have a ten or twelve-thousand-mile range...without the Super Heavy.
The one thing that's ever taken to account with these projects, is that we don't have enough oil to do them. We've used over half the world's reserves already. The remaining oil is sour crude, that is far more expensive to mine and refine and that we need for infrastructure for renewables.
SpaceX plans on producing the methane directly. So that argument is moot.
Doesn't the larger A380 configs take about 500-600 passengers and they are certified for over 800 ?
The number of seats on A380s depends on the configuration with different ticket classes. It goes from 379 with 4 classes on Singapore Airlines to 615 passengers with a 2-class layout on Emirates. You're right that the A380-800 certified for over 800, up to 840 in fact. This would require a single class with all 840 passengers in economy, which would likely not happen given how much more business class seats contribute to a flight's revenue per amount of space taken.
None of the numbers make any sense. The launch pad does not need to be 300 miles away from land. It could be just a mile out. The loading that you claim takes a 300 foot climb, using a ladder, stairs, or elevator? 2-4 hours to board? Why? Do you think it takes passengers 2 hours to board a plane today? Have you ever been on a commercial flight? The people are constantly slowed down by the airport. People could be boarded in less than 15 min. Which seat is yours? Any seat. The flight only takes 20 min not 16 hours. Safety checks? How many hours is the safety check at 6 flags before the batman launches? 2 min? You time loading propellent with the launch time starting before people start boarding. Launch is on time, every time. Whole process for the rocket is about 1.5 hrs total. From getting to the port to landing at your destination.
Take a private jet some time. From the time you get to the airport to your location you will have almost zero wait time.
I would agree with most of that. I think that you're wrong on your first point though: The distance that offshore launch ports need to be from where people live. Rocket engines are inherently loud, and 33 Raptor engines firing at once is very loud. _Maybe_ sound suppression systems around the launch mounts could make a significant difference, but the engines themselves cannot be made quieter, and it's very unlikely that any sound suppression system could be made that would make it feasible to have a launch facility within 1 mile of where people live or work.
The distance between the Starship orbital launch mount in Starbase and the southern tip of South Padre Island (where people watch the launches from) is a little under 8 km (5 miles). From videos of the recent test flight taken from that location, it seems like even from that distance, people needed to raise their voices to be heard over the launch. So even that distance might be too close to a city.
The other challenges (including the propellant cost per launch) can likely be overcome, but there's probably no way to get around that minimum distance from where people live. That's the big challenge for Starship Earth-to-Earth transportation as a service.
@@RobinClaassen 5 miles away it was noisy with zero noise abatement designs? Even a minimal noise abatement would reduce the volume by 50%. Also, how many people live in a port? You don't put it a mile out to sea from a residential neighborhood.
I would pay $300 extra just to avoid wasting 20 hours. How much is your time worth?
Thanks for your reply!
I love intelligent well thought out comments!
@@davidbeppler3032 I looked it up (an article entitled "NASA's Incredible Sound Suppression System Prevents Rockets from Exploding" on the site "Interesting Engineering", if you're interested in checking the source), and apparently a full water deluge system like that that appears to be being built for the Starship launch mount at the Kennedy Space Center (and those built for the Space Shuttle and SLS) reduces the noise of launches by about half.
So it is a significant reduction of noise levels, though it uses an incredible amount of water (about 1 million liters per launch for the SLS's system). I don't think that we can reasonably expect a sound suppression system to be developed for offshore launch platforms that's more effective than that. If anything, we're more likely to see something that uses less water and is therefore less effective at reducing noise levels, in order to reduce the launch costs and prep time. So a distance of 5 miles off shore from a city might be within the realm of plausibility, but a distance of 1 mile seems like setting your expectations for what's possible beyond the realm of the reasonable.
I don’t think that would be a good idea. I mean, sure, fast travel would be cool. You could go from London during breakfast to New York while they are still having breakfast like with the Concorde, but I think space vehicles would be better for longer distance travel, not short distance travel like from one place to another across the world.
The reason they sold the oil rigs was because they realized that the rigs were not adequate for launching the heavy booster. Look what it did to the concrete below the launch stand! If that were water, it would have carved out a huge void of water, which would cause the rigs to sink, and tilt. I doubt the cost was much of a factor, since they only spent a couple of million between the two of them, and SpaceX is not seemingly adverse to spending significant sums of money. Without a heavy booster, yet working, and also with no overt reason for falcon to be launched from the sea, and with the considerations noted above, they just decided to get rid of them and if they ever decide to go this route in the future, they will just build a custom version that specifically meets their needs. There were probably other considerations recognized as well, such as how do you haul tons of liquid, oxygen and liquid methane out to the platform, and likewise for the rocket stages, and crew, etc. I just think that someone finally realized that there was more to it than just the platforms, and that this was just a distraction until they had working boosters to put on it and until they had a real need that mandated platform based launches. In that regard, they might have also bought them when they were not sure that the regulators were going to let them launch from land. So it could have also been part of a ploy or a contingency plan for that.
The star-ship could (and should) also be used to set-up an orbital and CIS-lunar infrastructure, if the plans of becoming a multi-planet (or multi-world species) is going to be successful. You're (eventually) going to need all manner of storage facilities (for things like fuels, oxidizers, water, and other resources), research-, process-, production- (and perhaps even recycling-) facilities, orbital dockyards (both wet and dry), and of course, habitats. The space station design by a youtube channel called smallstars is specifically designed to be used with the star-ship in mind, and the basic design could be adapted in many different ways (as mentioned above), depending on your needs. It could even be turned into a very large mars-cycler, or even colonial transport vessel. It is designed in such a way, that you would have artificial gravity, and has room to dock about 96 or 100 star-ships (48 or 50 star-ships per rotating habitat ring), and could theoretically carry up to ten thousand (or more) passengers in one go (depending on the amount of passengers per star-ship). Plus, the company, that at least idea-wise, could potentially build this station, is called Gateway Spaceport LLC, at least, looking at their videos. What i don't know, however, is how far along this company really is with their developments, or if it is just cool looking vaporware.
@19:15 *StarShip* might be important, but *StarLink* will be what *_pays_* for actually getting to *Mars.*
"Only a fool is astonished by the foolishness of mankind." ~ Edward Abbey
to be fair in 50 years rockets might look very different than today :) So we should also consider that.
Yes 50 years from now is a whole different story..... predicting what will happen 10 years from now is extremely hard..... 50 is near impossible..... but we still like to dream.
At 16:30, you say that one launch of Starship will release 2,750 metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. While it's true that it will be about that much (I calculated slightly less: 2,668 metric tons of CO2, assuming the compete combustion of 958 metric tons of CH4, which I believe is the combined amount held by both stages of Starship), I think it's worth qualifying if such a release would be a net contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere. You imply that it would be a net contributor (that it would release CO2 that wasn't already in the atmosphere in the recent past). And that's true enough for these test flights, in which they're using CH4 that was extracted from the ground.
But you were talking about the future after this testing phase, in which there's a cadence of tens to hundreds of launches per day. And regarding that future, SpaceX has talked about manufacturing their own CH4 and O2 from sea water and atmospheric carbon dioxide, using the Sabatier process, powered by large solar fields. They've said since they need to master that manufacturing process on a mass scale anyway in order to do in situ propellant production on Mars for return trips to Earth, it would likely make sense to source propellants on Earth through the same means. They seemed to imply that they were basing the projected economics of an Earth-to-Earth transportation service on an assumption that they could get the manufacturing cost of those propellants using renewable energy below their current costs (which at least in the case of the CH4, are from non-renewable sources).
That's not to say that Starship launches would be carbon neutral, though (or more exactly, "carbon-equivalent neutral"). Musk has said that Starship uses O2 and CH4 in a 3.8-to-1 ratio by weight. that's below the 4-to-1 ratio that would seem to be needed in order to have complete combustion of all the CH4 (2 O2 molecules per CH4 molecule, with each one have double the atomic weight of a CH4 molecule). My guess is that they're running the engines fuel-rich in order to reduce their operating temperatures. So that would seem to suggest that they're emitting a significant amount of uncombusted CH4 per launch. So even if all the carbon that they're emitting was already recently in the atmosphere, a portion of it would be in a form that acts as a more potent greenhouse gas than the form in which they extracted it.
The booster won't be used for earth to earth transport. So the travel time will be about double, but efficiency will be a lot better
Agreed, booster was never a part of the p2p system. Quoted times remain the same, not double.
No clue why 2 bit did most of his thesis including the booster, as it invalidates most of his negative arguments.
Commercial air travel is the safest way to travel. Starship I'm sure will turn out to be the most dangerous. I might be wrong but you can get a ticket and tell me how it was or not.
Awesome analysis. Comcerns would be:
1.) Noise🤮
2.) What happens to the areas near the launch pads? Is that toxic stuff? What doea that do to the fish?
3.) What will the insurance cost for this?
That would be amazing if they could solve these.
Yep, loud.
Fish don't care.
Less than a car.
What "toxic stuff" - the fuel is methane and turns into water and CO2.
@@jessepollard7132 awesome, thanks for letting me know. So do rocket engines not lose trace amounts of metals during combustion? They also don't have oil for lubrication?
@@functionalvanconversion4284 If they do (and it does happen), usually the engine explodes(which is part of what happened to the BE4). The engine proper has no oil and few moving parts (basically, only valves for the fuel and oxydizer, neither that use much in the way of oil (it would freeze solid). The only oil used might be in the pistons used for tilting the engine for directional control of the thrust.
You should do a video on the new Stargazer jet! It's offering speeds similar to spacex's point-to-point transport system but using a jet instead of a rocket!
It cannot offer the speeds of 17,500 mph.
Nothing like launching a skyscraper to space.
SN24 and BN7 used for test launch. Date had to be 4/20 since plans for SN20 and BN 4 were scrapped.
Excellent video !!! What is going on with ION ENGINES these days?
You forgot to discuss carrying cargo. When something critical is needed on the other side of the globe this could do the job. SpaceX meets FedEx. And there's not the risk of killing a bunch of passengers.
A friend work with NASA on space shuttle. He said they had envisioned it fly long haul flights cutting time noticeably
You need to add a correction graphic for "unleaded fuel for airliners". The approval was for aircraft gasoline piston engines.
If spacex can go to mars and back this would be a piece of cake
Yes! Real journalism, rich in critical thinking, right here on UA-cam!
Sources in description would be great
Rocket has less airframe stresses in that it is not horizontal, does not have to takeoff/land on wheels. Passengers could board a module on the ferry. The entire module gets attached to the starship. Passengers have to use SpaceX standard luggage, enabling robotic handling. Likely jumpsuits issued to avoid loose objects and easy vomit cleaning.
I suspect the oil platforms are just too unstable with the large mass of the rocket, when fueled. They probably need one that firmly attaches to the ocean bottom. Another issue might be that they may need the rocket exhaust to be able to go directly to the ocean surface with nothing in between to keep from destroying stuff. But, if that was the case, perhaps they could have attached the two together adding some bracing between and put the rocket in the middle. Another issue is If you can't fly the rocket, how do you get it off the platform? This matters because there are always scrubs and things. And something serious could be wrong with the rocket, and you may need to bring it somewhere for those repairs.
I think they missed one of the better options during the pandemic. Cruise lines sold off a number of large cruise liners for very cheap. SpaceX should have bought 2 that were roughly the same size and joined them, again, with bracing in between...like a massive catamaran. Then you have good mobility, and can easily take it to a dock with sufficient cranes for the rockets, the rockets can blast the water instead of a deck, and you have a really nice place for all the passengers to relax while the rocket is getting ready. There would probably be space to put 3 or 4 rockets. The ships would also have large storage tanks that can be repurposed for rocket propellant. Similarly, connecting just one cruise ship and similarly sized tanker ship might be even better. Then you can have lots of fuel for several launches.
the analysis looks pretty accurate by now, but it's hard to tell what is going to happen in 50 or 100 years in the future
The FAA launch license references only Starship and booster configuration and the plug has firmly been pulled on any further launches of Starship and the booster together, but not on any launches of Starship by itself. All they have to do is address any concerns they know they will have coming out of the starting gate and apply for the license. Lots and lots of flying time is really what Starship needs to gain experience flying it. Then you can practice chopstick landings at 3,000 ft. above them till you get landings perfected. There's got to be a ton of practice flights into the chopsticks before the vehicle gets certified. The fact there are only 3 engines running makes the neighbors happy too.
Great analysis.
Wow. This is very well researched
I'm sure everyones grandma and grandpa would love those g-forces, in fact, most of us would pass out.
@@caesarsalad1170 at 4.5g? Nah
@@mlzs_ Older people would, so yah.
2 - 4 hours to board?
Wrong. Security will have been asserted before passengers board shuttles / craft to get to the pad.
I believe the sale of the platforms were due to size constraints. They may need to construct a larger platform.
One big issue is what about a situation that could require the rapid disembarkment of all aboard prior to launch because of an emergency situation? There's videos of what the astronauts needed to do during the shuttle era. Fine for a relatively small amount of people but scale it up for 1000 passengers is totally impractical. I don't know how the risk assessment for something like that would even be figured out?
I could see the use for this for point to point for military or humanitarian missions...It suits the risk profile and being able to land anywhere on earth in the next hour. Especially if you don't care how much noise you make when you land. With one you could put 1000 people on the ground anywhere. Or imagine a highly trained medical and support team (250 people?) with tons of support equipment after a tsunami or big earthquake. Now imagine you have 5 of them read to go...wait did we invent the "Thunderbirds"? Just my two bits...
mmm, 5000 metric tons lifting off a floating platform with 74MN of thrust assuming that the engines will be going into the water, making some assumptions in 10 seconds starship would flash boil 2440KG of sea water. Not sure how much those oil rigs weighed they bought but flash boiling 2.4 tons of water to steam from around a floating platform whilst also removing 5000 tons off the top would make for some interesting conditions on a floating platform.
Very true and interesting point.... The Chinese have already used floating launch platforms but not for something as powerful as star ship.
@@TwoBitDaVinci yeah mate, sea launch did it for years and ICBM submarines are designed to do it but Starship is as you pointed out in your excellent video above raises a whole different set of challenges purely by its scale.
At first I was worried because of the clickbait title and not being familiar enough with the channel (just finished watching the Titan sub analysis), but at the end of the day you're an engineer and didn't lie to us: using a rocket to travel around the earth is ludicrous. It's like a combo of the Concorde plane and Oceangate's sub: too expensive and too dangerous.
They have now launched a mini version of the v2 sats on F9.
Yes they have.... very cool looking too.
Also the fact that launches get delayed often because of bad conditions
How about a boring tunnel bridge between the mainland and to the launch pads instead of using ferries?
Yes there might be ways to shave off time but thats just one aspect. And cost needs to be considered too.
I think Elon realized that it would be more cost efficient to build his landing pad from scratch than it would be to ruin 2 perfectly good oil rigs. Brand new purpose built vs second hand MacGyvered stuff. With oil prices today he probably made a profit on the rigs that can finance his new landing pads.
Also he had enough time to study the stabilization system on the rigs, the only thing that was crucial for him.
You can argue with it (the boat) : under water tunel with a higt speed train betwing etween the center of new York and Shangaï (and there airports) and the plateform with ''automatic'' transfere between the train and the starsips (elevetors...). Still is problem as you say but it does make a difference.
Instead of RUD they should have called it a rapid unscheduled disassembly experience, RUDE. Cheers
Good points, neither do I think that with current technology it is profitable to launch people through space form one place on earth to another. Everything in current world world comes to profitability and reliability. In the future with more knowledge and technologis it might become a reality!
launch prep checks -> when doing that level of mass transport i bet it will wind up being similar to normal airline.
There are many many ways to optimize, for example a bridge with robotaxis / hyperloop to bring people to starship.
300feet/100meter climb won't take much time neither compared to the vast size of airports.
I'm probably not the target market for this, as I don't even really like air travel. But I couldn't see myself flying in a rocket to travel some place on Earth. 60 minutes from anywhere to anywhere sounds nice, I suppose... But does anyone really need to travel that fast? It also seems to me that rockets use A LOT more fossil fuel than airplanes do, especially when you factor in all the latest efficiency tech. Also, flying into space and back down just seems incredibly dangerous to me. I would probably never choose to fly Starship no matter the cost or time savings.
Starship does indeed _currently_ use a lot more fossil fuels per flight than airplanes. However, SpaceX's plan for scaling up and launching a high cadence (and lowering propellant costs) is to manufacture their own liquid oxygen and liquid methane from atmospheric carbon dioxide and sea water, using solar energy.
So that would be technically carbon neutral, and use no fossil fuels. It wouldn't be "carbon-equivalent" neutral through, because some of the carbon that they captured from the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide would be re-released as in the form of uncombusted methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas.
Ricky thank you for a well researched video. Your points on the efficiency and convenience make sense. However i wish you had gone to detail about how the landing flip manouver could result in passengers experiencing 4g of force. Is it from the landing burn that starts the flip or is it from the flip itself?
Yes we should've sorry. The flip itself creates G-forces just like fighter jets get largest g forces during maneuvers. But your also right the moment of the first landing burn at the flip might be a bit of a hit too.
Methane can be obtained from biomass. Agricultural waste and even raw sewage can be used to make this gas. Such gas is called biogas. The technology to do this is already in use in many places, especially Germany. Using biogas for starship fuel could make starship launches carbon neutral
FYI, Space X is focusing on different ideas. The Mars project and Other Constellation projects.
We wouldn't have to deal with any of this if Starship was seawater launched like Sea Dragon was.
@14:30 It's all going to come down to which is *_cheapest._*
You can take a helicopter to the launch pad, where an almost-fueled *StarShip* is waiting for passengers, and get on, take off, and fly from *New York Bay* to *Tokyo Bay.*
But imagine being able to ship *cargo,* like organs or other life-saving medical materials that fast.
The cabin space is maximum a cylinder of 9meter diameter and 18 meter height. so you can divide that so that you get 7 floors. on the outer ring you can have 28, then 25, then 21, then 18, then 15 (per floor) and even with a so tight arrangement that makes only 749 people. ( not 1000 ) and that still breaks the zero weight cabin and seats barrier.
Very good point. We were going to cover this 1000 figure more in depth but it got cut. We also thought it sounded extremely cramped.
@@TwoBitDaVinci Wasn't 1000 person number from BFG? Which was a bigger rocket than Starship. At least so far.
This would be possible to use as travel only if both pay load and passengers are scheduled for same lunches maybe twice or three time a month. Both cargo and passengers capacity booked to it's fullest. You reach to space deliver the pay load then proceed to land to your flight destination delivering the passengers. If starship is as reliable as falcon heavy that hasn't been destroyed then passengers won't have to worry about fatalities.
Thank you so very much
So first you mes up this planet and now up to the next one
And i own a cheap Growatt hybrid and it runs more than fine Thanks for your video and Regards from Holland
Considering the antics accompanying the initial launch of Starship I wouldn't want to live within a hundred miles of a departure or touchdown point.
Point to point may not require the booster, ie no need for 33 raptor engines. Just the starship.
I realise that you're probably right but I hope we look back one day and say "hey, look at what our guy said back in 2023". Call me a dreamer.
Amen!
They should use the ships for Moon and asteroid missions, or maybe do something on Venus.
That's the plan.
They'd need to build spaceplanes, like sierra space's the dreamchaser spaceplane, or Radian one if they wanted to fly ppl around the world by going into orbit.
Picture the thrust drilling a hole in the ocean and what do you think is going to happen to the oil platforms when the water is thrusted away from it?
basically, nothing. oil platforms are designed to tolerate the largest hurricanes, which have bigger wind and wave action.
Buying a sea platform specifically designed for another purpose, might not have been the cheapest option. I am betting that designing and building their own, minimalist sea launch platform, might be cheaper in the short and long run.
They ultimately bought it too early. The FAA alone is going to add 4-6 extra years to the development time to delay spacex. The FAA is hell bent on slowing spacex down because they work for boeing. Boeing half owns ULA which is not launching vulcan any time soon and still cannot get their capsule working.
The cooling plate design for the pad will protect structure of a platform and when landing, only 3 engines are used. There is nothing about an oil rig that will not work.
We should all start asking politicians for an FSA who prioritizes space flight instead of boeing's bottom line. Spacex knows they will have time to create a better platform and does not need to have unused rigs sitting on the books for half a decade waiting on FAA red tape.
They would have reversed engineered the rig designs. That means they have a better idea of what they want out of a rig like this and will have a better version in mind when they either buy a another rig in a few years or make their own solution.
@@_PatrickO Hopefully any new regime that comes in, in 2 years time might speed things up..That goes for Nuerolink as well.
@@treestandsafety3996 Biden is definitely better than the last guy on these issues. So what new regime are you talking about? I hope you are not trying to say you think a serial rapist should be president. A serial rapist that aligns with these gestapo FAA tactics. The FAA is acting like a trump lawyer against spacex. Neurolink does have options of testing in other countries if the FDA wants too much animal testing before a quadriplegic or someone near death with a degenerative condition gets to try it out.
The FDA normally does make exceptions for terminally ill people, so hopefully spacex gets one as they should.
Trump wants to defund the FDA which would slow down all approvals because he is an idiot. He is too stupid to change anything for the better, he just wants to break things instead.
Not building, but maybe designing the upper structure.
The question is, How I am gonna fart on Mars?
Into the fuel tank. Runs on Methane.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your investigation on the matter. Personally I think it will see some application but not very widespread.
My thoughts go to a different direction. I wonder if nuclear propulsion will ever overtake the current methane technology. But methane technology is quite great to be honest because it burns very cleanly indeed and it’s a gas that we can produce. But I haven’t really studied these things, just dumping my thoughts on a UA-cam comment. 😅
Also doubt Starship will be used for point to point earth transport. However I believe you are a bit too pessimistic on potential time savings. Imagine the starship being two parts, passenger compartment and propulsion unit. The passenger compartment could be preloaded during ferry trip to booster and upper stage propulsion unit. Booster and upper stage propulsion unit are both fueled while passenger compartment is making trip to launch platform. On arrival passenger compartment is picked up and mated with upper stage propulsion unit. After attachment checks it is ready for launch. SpaceX is great at optimizing systems and this might be one way it could be done.
Point to point only for military equipment and personnel for rapid deployment.
Staying lower in the atmosphere, surely the booster would not be needed, or at most, a shorter or less powerful booster. Also, I don't think they'd bother if fueling and boarding took so long, They'll have to figure out a way to make it quicker.
It's interesting that the sale of the oil rigs occurred shortly after the test launch. Perhaps they realized that the oil rigs were not going to make suitable launch pads.
They sold the rigs 2 months prior to booster 7 starship 24 launch. Unless you meant the static fire?
When I saw the thing lift off, I wonder what oil rig would be able to take the thrust the thing throws out.
Oil rigs were sold a long time ago.
I think it was costing more money for the dock fees on those oil rigs than the "decision maker" had figured into the purchase calculus!
Long haul flights have an industry average of 51miles/gallon/passenger. Also, you are assuming Starship will need to be fully loaded to launch. I don't see why that would be the case. All point to point launches would be suborbital. I expect the mileage would actually be comparable to long haul passenger airplanes.
Starship PtP might be fast (only for the longest trips), but it won't ever be comfortable. Once you are strapped into your seat (a process that will take quite some time for many hundreds of people) you are not getting up for any reason until after landing. Everyone will need to be tightly secured for the landing manoeuvre to be safe, and the only time staff will be able to ensure everyone is secure will be before launch. There won't be any toilets, or drinks, or snacks. Passengers won't be able to hold onto any loose items, so no phones, laptops or tablets. No headphones or earbuds that could come loose and fly into someone else. Every item will need to be secured. It will also be so noisy that passengers will need high-level hearing protection, so there won't be any conversations. Maybe they'll provide helmets with built in VR entertainment and noise cancellation, otherwise you'll just have time to sit there and think (and hold it in).
I also guarantee that at least 3 passengers will throw up during every belly-flop landing, and at least one will soil themselves.
As for those oil rigs, they were never going to be viable launch platforms. SpaceX is still struggling to build a launch pad that can survive a full engine test on land. Building one on an artificial island will be harder. Only a very carefully engineered (and expensive) custom design will ever work. It will need to be much larger than an oil rig, as you can't have the buildings or superstructure right next to the launch tower. They would be destroyed by the blast and flying debris from every launch. The superstructure would have to be armoured to the point it could withstand both the blast and potential high-velocity debris. We're talking main battle tank armour. In fact, the whole thing would need to be so tough it could withstand a launchpad detonation, unless they want to rebuild them from scratch after every accident. That's 5 kilotons of fuel going off. I'm not aware of any manmade structures that could withstand that kind of force, other than ones buried underground.
Honestly, I'll be very surprised if Starship PtP passenger services ever become a regular thing. The up-front capital investments required for a network of launch/landing facilities, plus associated transport of both fuel and passengers, will never be economically justifiable. That's without getting into the cost of running the service. The market of people who would both want it AND be able to afford it will always be too small.