The future of Space with a fully reusable SpaceX Starship means everything about space will become huge. Our dreams for space were unfulfilled for decades. We could only put tiny satellites into space and costs were at the weight in gold or silver.
The shocking SpaceX Starship tower catch means the a rocket with double the payload of a 747 will be able to launch a hundred times each year starting in about 2026-2027.
A SpaceX Starship could launch 120 Generation 3 satellites every time. They launch flat but when they unfold they will each have about the same solar panels as one of the four solar panel wings of the international space station. Ten put side by side would be the area of a football field. Each launch would have 12 football fields of solar panels.
A hundred launches for each Starship every year and each one launching ten times the mass in a Falcon 9. Starship will be ten times cheaper to make than a large jumbo plane. $30 million each instead of $300 million. However, we will not destroy the Starship or the booster after each mission. Each mission will only cost $3 million or less for fuel and maintenance.
Space will take be used for most communications (cellphone and high speed internet).
The financial and business impacts will be even more shocking that the Starship tower catches.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Until they use a hydrogen or nuclear engine, anything that SpaceX wants to do beyond low orbit is just unfeasible.
Every time I see this mentioned I wonder, has Kessler syndrome been debunked or something? How are we going to manage all the stuff we are about to put in orbit without turning LEO into a debris field? So what if the price to orbit goes down, if the price to clean up junk like fairings, old boosters and derelict satellites is too high. This is also a place where I disagree with Musk and libertarians about deregulation. If the government doesn’t mandate deorbiting of space junk, there will be no incentive for companies to take care of it in a capitalist system.
The answer is that Kessler syndrome is kind of a Tolkien concept: It’s really only applicable to *middle* earth orbits.
In the extremely *low* earth orbits SpaceX is using, debris without station keeping thrusters deorbits very rapidly, so it can’t really accumulate.
The other answer is, of course, if you can put things into orbit cheaply, those things can include debris cleanup and collection of dead satellites.
Starship is just a small step towards our space dreams. Don’t forget Starship is still a chemical rocket, with low speed compared to the size of the solar system. We also need to develop to new propulsion systems which can go to mars in weeks instead of a year. Starship won’t take humans to the moons of jupiter/saturn. If we can develop nuclear propulsion we can reach pluto in months.
I can’t see Mars in weeks any time soon. Any propulsion system that could get you to Mars in weeks, could get you there in months with more than ten times the payload. And if we’re colonizing Mars, what sane colonist would prioritize avoiding a few months of tedium over arriving much better equipped?
No, better propulsion systems might shorten the trip a bit, allow transits outside of synodic periods, but they’d mostly be used to get you there cheaper, or with more supplies.
I disagree. Any colonist would prefer to send equipament SLOWLY and before, but the HUMANS would travel there in weeks.
A 747 of internal volume is TOO LITTLE for most people, except professional astronauts that have tons of stuff to do WHILE on the ISS. And the ISS, which has the volume of a 747, I think never hosted more than 10 at a time.
Even weeks is too much for a hundred colonists per starship. Months is crazyness in such cramped space for people with nothing to do while travelling, in a CLOSED environment.
Cabin fever might be a problem but it is overstated.
People can perfectly survive a flight of 4-5 months without going nuts.
At least, people that has been screened for existing or potential health or mental conditions. Which will be the case with any potential colonists.
Also I doubt they will send 100 people in a Starship to Mars any time soon.
First missions will include a handful of people, with a gradual increase when the Mars city idea gets going.
I’m pretty sure the first mission will just be equipment, supplies, and robots. Maybe the second, too, depending on how good the entry (Can’t really call it a “re” entry, can you?) at Mars is.
Once they’ve got living facilities and at least a synodic period worth of supplies there, and have proven that the entry is reliable, THEN they’ll send the people.
And, of course, since the delta-V available to a fully fueled Starship (7900mps) greatly exceeds that necessary to pull off a fully propulsive landing on Mars, when you include aerobraking in the landing profile, the Starship should not have to arrive with a marginal fuel supply, and variations in aerobraking shouldn’t be catastrophic.
I’d expect you could launch a mix of manned and unmanned ships, and do a fuel transfer along the way to make sure the manned ships had good fuel margins, and the unmanned were cutting it closer.
That’s a first world problem right there. In the Middle Ages, ship journeys taking months to cross the Atlantic were routine, if not that frequent.
I like Rubbia’s Americium 242 Mars-ship concept
We could put all the members of congress on a single flight.
Yesh, but an shaping an orbit to the sun is a bit expensive…
One-way trip = one-time cost.
How long till it’s less than $100,000 for a few days in an orbiting or moon-based hotel? My guess is still 30 years.
My guess is, thanks to inflation, never.
I was assuming 100K corrected for inflation…otherwise yes it would be a silly question. But it is not.
Yes, it’s an exciting time: Cost to orbit will soon plummet, while the maximum size of payloads will explode. The only thing that would make this complete would be some major advances in gerontology so I can be around to see what happens next…
Born in 1959, grew up during Apollo, and then space just sort of… stalled. Now things are finally moving again, and I’m too old to be part of it. How frustrating.
Longevity escape velocity. There are 7 known types of damage involved in the aging process, and the SENS Foundation is working on each. ( https://www.sens.org/our-research/intro-to-sens-research/ ) Couple this with the accelerating effects of AI, and it’s not hard to imagine that if you can survive for another 10 years, then you can survive indefinitely.
I do follow and donate to the SENS foundation, but ‘longevity escape velocity’ is a concept more applicable to my 16 year old son, than to a guy in his mid 60’s. “The ion drive will accelerate you to escape velocity, too bad your orbit will intersect that mountain range first.”
Well, I do what I can with supplements. A pity I don’t live near Dr. Fahy’s lab.
You are clever. It is for our kids.
If we assume optimistic scenarios that assume an escape velocity around 2050, people born before 1980-1990 could theoretically be considered the “last mortal generation.” In this case, those born after 1990 or 2000 might have a chance, thanks to new technologies and medical advances, of living to an age old enough to reach escape velocity and thus potentially overcome natural aging.
I keep saying that the AI server farms need to eventually go where they can grow unlimited in space and energy: into space.
If the cost of sending a standardized space-hardened server rack in a self powered satellite gets low enough, it will make more sense to send them in bulk and just ensure they burn after they have outlived their usefulness.
Gee, if they are numerous enough and launch is cheap enough, it will make sense to have an IT crowd in orbit (can be robots) to fix or retire them in batches with controlled re-entry, to avoid polluting the high atmosphere with vaporized metals and plastics too much.
Kind of how the 70s people dreamed about space industry working (which might also happen), but for energy-unrestricted computing in orbit.
What exactly is the value add in sending compute into space?
I guess it depends on how much power you intend to spend on compute. Once you get off Earth, the upper limit is the energy output of the Sun. On Earth, the upper limit is a lot lower.
1. You’re adding massive lag to the communications by being in space. Not much of a problem if you’re bulk storage like Netflix, but it will matter if its something like distributed AI or processing.
2. Server farms currently give out huge amounts of waste heat. Having your server farm exist in a perfectly insulated vacuum will end it quickly.
Geothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean is where they should really be 🙂
Nah, in Antarctica. There are areas there that have perpetual high winds to power actually reliable wind power, and subzero temperatures for cooling. Perfect combination!
“But, but Antactica belongs to everyone!”. 😁
Which means is a no-business zone. Or else they’ll come for you with guns and strong worded UN letters.
Comon man, you maybe got 20 more good years, start chewin that rapamycin and working that fatty cells!
Not necessarily. You send prompts and receive responses. That is relatively light in information.
Also most of the action can be in LEO, where latency is not such a serious problem.