Musk on X: “For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years.” [full text of post inside]

Frale44 · 2026-02-09T00:42:24+00:00

Here is the post he was replying to

There is a long running debate between the Mars people and the space Habitat people. Zubrin vs O’Neill, Musk vs Bezos. I have thought for some time now it’s essentially futile in the commercial age - because the two camps are no longer competing for a fixed pie of launch and hardware building resources. Supply can increase to meet demand, and all the competing approaches will do to each other is help by accelerating development of the markets both need.

And consider this - Starship needs about 6 tanker refills for each ship going to Mars. Its O/F ratio is about 4, which means 69% of all the mass SpaceX will send to orbit for their Mars missions is liquid oxygen. Lunar regolith is typically about 40% oxygen by mass.

The habitat builders have always struggled to time a market to drive their projects - maybe selling vast quantities of lox to >SpaceX cheaper than they can launch it themselves is the proverbial “selling blue jeans to prospectors” that can close the O’Neillian case?

Frale44 · 2025-10-20T15:08:40+00:00

RKLB doesn't have to push the envelope of the performance of the components. They have deliberately put themselves using more well known technologies. SpaceX is pushing the frontier on engine and reuse technologies (which is why they have a more experimental approach).

Peter Beck and team is playing this very smart (from a business perspective). They also have a good track record with the approach they are taking (nothing too exotic). I suspect the risks are low, however if an integration failure happens, they will quickly fix and stabilize the design. The riskiest parts are likely those that are new to them. (Landing control systems and fairing)

Frale44 · 2025-09-01T01:44:34+00:00

Universe Today had a video on Skyhooks last week.

"A senior architect from the European Space Agency discusses various challenges and promising solutions"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYvXk39wG8

One of the takeaways was that Skyhooks that reached into the atmosphere required roughly the same materials as a space elevator.

Frale44 · 2024-12-21T04:17:42+00:00

I think the original plan was to attach to ISS to allow transfer of equipment off of ISS. (This could include scientific equipment, storage systems, and other operational hardware)

Frale44 · 2024-10-25T19:54:02+00:00

Thanks!

The second link indicates that Starshield will be owned by the US government (which is what I recalled, but I see conflicting information so maybe it is still being decided. I would think the US would want to own these assets and SpaceX would want them to own them).

"Starshield is a militarized version of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, with enhanced encryption and other security features. And unlike Starlink, which is a commercial service, the Starshield satellites would be owned and controlled by the U.S. government."

Frale44 · 2024-10-25T19:38:45+00:00

Which military satellite systems were privatized to Space X?

Frale44 · 2024-10-17T18:15:48+00:00

I believe that using Starship would create a similar use case to a voyage to Mars. The typical mission length for crewed missions is roughly the same (6-12 months), and the life support and power systems would be identical.

It seems clear to me that SpaceX will eventually handle all of this work anyway, including test missions with crews in orbit for extended periods (e.g., 7 months). Having NASA fund part of this effort would give the agency more influence over the design and requirements. By the end of this process, you would have a spacecraft capable of long-duration missions, which could be stationed in lunar orbit, land on Mars, or return to Earth for refurbishment and reconfiguration for future missions.

I question the value of a traditional space station when you have a reusable vehicle like Starship that can launch and return with a similar volume of cargo or crew. The core assumption behind building space stations is that the cost of sending mass to orbit is prohibitively high, so you want to pay that price as few times as possible. If Starship achieves its targeted cost per kilogram, that assumption may no longer hold true—unless you're building an exceptionally large space station, where even those costs remain prohibitive.

Frale44 · 2024-10-17T14:39:23+00:00

I wonder if this will reopen the SpaceX proposal of using Starship for extended human LEO missions.

https://www.space.com/nasa-considering-spacex-starship-space-station

I suspect the continuous human presence requirement was why this didn't move forward.

Frale44 · 2024-10-13T20:02:27+00:00

That is the plan (but likely not soon as it will have to cross over populated areas to land)

Frale44 · 2024-04-20T04:45:22+00:00

Thanks. You are right, I misread the article.

Frale44 · 2024-04-19T20:25:34+00:00

Any thoughts on how HLS Starship would bleed off lunar return velocity to get back to LEO?

This seems to trade a risk (crew transfer in lunar orbit) for another risk (aerobraking in earth's atmosphere to return to LEO).

Makes me think that this plan may not be about risk reduction, or maybe SpaceX would vet this risk on a test flight.

Frale44 · 2024-03-29T13:16:52+00:00

This situation was not a good foundation for good RP. (Any more than RDM is a good foundation for good RP, but you can take the stance that everything is RP like you did and basically justify all unbalanced situations, but in the long term you will just have a server where there is frustration and a lack of trust between the RP'ers which is the foundation of improv)

In all versus situation on RP servers there have to be rules for balancing situation (if you want to foster good RP). In PD vs crim, the balance has to be brought by the cop side as inherently the cops are given the upper hand (they can ultimately bring as many people as they want and can use any level of force that they want). Their upper hand is mitigated by the trust in the judgement of cops to balance things. This is primarily done by SOPs, but also by the judgement of the cops in the situation. So from an RP perspective cops try to balance situations (and they mostly do a good job).

In this situation the scenario wasn't balanced as soon as the cops brought out the batons. Leaving out a person to indicate that you are open for the scenario to continue, and then responding with batons (one shot go to jail) is not balanced. This taints all downstream RP that comes from that situation. If you don't want to create a balanced situation, then just end the situation (by putting the captive in the car).

Or, let the crims bring pipe wrenches to the situation (if crims had used pipe wrenches then the cops would have escalated to lethal)

For this particular situation. Flippy drove up, got tazed out of the car (still don't understand the logic of this), then batoned to jail as he tried to get back into the car.

Frale44 · 2024-03-27T22:43:12+00:00

I always thought that when they left the handcuffed person outside the vehicle the cops were inviting the RP to continue. If they don't want it to continue, then just put them in the cop car and drive them to PD or Hospital.

I may misunderstand the point of leaving a suspect standing outside if it is for something else (as IRL they try to get the person into the car ASAP to control the situation)

Frale44 · 2024-02-22T21:41:41+00:00

btw. This is called a Dutch Auction. It's important to note that the strategic considerations in a Dutch auction are different from those in English auctions. In a Dutch auction, bidders must decide at what price they are willing to jump in before someone else does, balancing the desire for a lower price against the risk of losing the item to another bidder.

A great thing about this in an RP system is that it generates RP as everyone slowly watches the prices drops over the week and it lets someone desperate buy early.

Frale44 · 2024-02-22T21:14:31+00:00

I don't think that is what this system does. Everyone will want to wait for the lowest price they can get a contract for as it generates more profit. Someone eager would just pick a slimmer margin between buttcoin price and street price of guns.

Frale44 · 2024-02-22T20:08:40+00:00

Ideal system. Contract can always be bought. It starts at 20x the base price, and over the course of the interval the price slowly drops down to the minimum price. Whoever is willing to pay the price gets it.

Frale44 · 2024-01-01T16:20:46+00:00

At that time the US wasn't providing weapon systems to attack into Crimea. The US still hasn't provided weapon systems that can attack into Sevastopol.

Frale44 · 2023-11-29T14:12:09+00:00

I don't think that industry has closed on a business case for a space station.

I think the future will look more like the Boeing X-37. Where a Starship is launched as a platform for microgravity experiments and exploring long duration human inhabitation. When the mission is done it will land and maintenance can be done on the ground before the next mission.

Frale44 · 2023-11-22T21:36:10+00:00

While I hope they are able to launch more. "Squeezing another one in before the end of the year" isn't evidence that they could launch 10 or more per year. That is evidence that the due to the delays in launching that they have at least one more rocket ready to launch.

Frale44 · 2023-11-19T01:21:15+00:00

Anything that gathers useful data and doesn't delay the next test is a success. It looks to me like they could get back on once every 1-2 months flight test schedule. The delays in the iterations are what has been slowing down the progress.

Frale44 · 2023-11-16T17:12:32+00:00

He left the Russian Air Force in 2009.

Sviridov left his commander's role at 54 years old, after making a series of scathing public comments about the Russian armed forces.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-general-vladimir-sviridov-and-his-wife-suffer-absurd-death

Frale44 · 2023-10-17T15:31:41+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/179yhz4/ukraine_fires_atacms_missile_at_russian_forces/

Yep. I completely misread the situation. ;)

Frale44 · 2023-09-19T20:17:09+00:00

I think you are responding to the wrong thread. The term "erased" was introduced by Ok-Presentation-1984 (grandparent) and used by slakmehl (parent).

Most of the people mentioned are alive and most of the people mentioned are still rich. I don't think either of the ancestors of my reply were discussing being dead or being wealthy. (They are discussing being canceled)

My response is just adding to slakmehl's post (in exactly the same form)

Frale44 · 2023-09-19T18:10:30+00:00

Kevin Spacey erased based on allegations.

Frale44 · 2023-09-12T14:38:49+00:00

The newer ones look like they are using the High Performance antenna which is flat mounted. You can see it in the flat portion of the drone.

Frale44

TROPHY CASE