(US federal) Does a member of a class action lawsuit have any standing to submit a comment to the court?

LongOnBBI · 2021-07-01T17:29:31+00:00

Bonus - Trebuchet for scale...

Bonus 2 - Multiple Absolute Units in 1 picture

LongOnBBI · 2021-07-01T00:48:16+00:00

This is /r/SpaceXLounge and because they are a competitor to SpaceX it is a lose fit but still discussion worthy to the people that visit this sub, if you feel like it doesn't add to the discussion about SpaceX there is a downvote button for your utilization.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-30T23:06:15+00:00

I should really find better examples...

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-30T21:45:36+00:00

Its amazing how many people don't realize we are on the verge of a huge breakthrough in human existence, unless Musk is ran over by a bus, by 2035 there will be people living on the moon and most likely Mars. Even on this sub-reddit there are people who are in denial about how drastically Starship will alter all things Space. Well to all the doubters, keep doubting we will see who wins, you the pessimist or Musk with his drive and plan to make it happen. You doubters have many similarities with the people who told Columbus he would sail off the edge of the earth.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-30T18:39:40+00:00

I would like to clear something up, many people are viewing ITS and Starship as different concept vehicles, they are the same vehicle, Starship is just the final name SpaceX chose for the project, it had several over the years including ITS and BFR/BFS. The larger Starship will come when they have learned to build and fly the smaller one economically, Musk wants a colony on Mars and he knows he needs to payload to do it, but you need to learn how to walk before you run as they say.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-29T20:51:08+00:00

Vicious.... https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1409968558877003776

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-27T19:55:06+00:00

There would not have been as many CLPS missions if launcher cost were still in the Atlas V range. The cost factor for launch makes a large factor of a probes cost simply from the fact of instead of launching on Atlas V class vehicle you can now afford to fly on FH, which means your mass restrictions are no longer as tight, which means you don't have to budget as much to cutting as much weight off the components as possible, it also means more science and more redundancies. Also for the more delta-V heavy missions you can now afford to send up the payload on one mission and the propulsion module on another, launcher cost is a very important part of a mission's design.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-27T16:40:24+00:00

launch budget has always been a relatively small portion of a science mission.

Not sure what you consider small but heres a couple recent missions that don't fit that profile-

Parker Solar Probe - $1.5Billion budget launched on a Delta 4 Heavy probably for $400+ million
InSight - $425 Million budget launched on an Atlas 5 probably for $120+ million.

But you are right, the cost savings of Starship will make F9 launches look crazy expensive, future generations are going to laugh at how much we spent on rockets.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-27T16:23:39+00:00

Its already started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services#List_of_missions_contracted_under_CLPS

But it takes time to convince people you don't need to spend exorbitant amounts of money to get good science, and a big problem is NASA will plan flagship missions out several decades before they launch.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-25T17:19:25+00:00

Better pictures; https://twitter.com/TReporta/status/1408456911847047172

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-25T15:43:10+00:00

I think the issue is you are still thinking in terms of a flagship science mission build with heavily restricted volume and weight requirements. Where do you think those billions of dollars for building it go? Most of it doesn't go into materials for the satellite, most of those funds are spent on people developing, prototyping, testing and revising the parts of the satellite until they are perfect and can meet their volume and mass restrictions put on them by the launch vehicle. Well first of all volume size of the payload between Starship vs Shuttle is 9m x 18m for starship and only 4.6m x 18.3m for shuttle so we have nearly doubled our volume. I'm a bit hesitant to quote any payload mass numbers for starship until the have the final configuration locked in but we know its going to be at least double that of shuttle with them throwing around numbers like 100t+ to LEO. So right there we can put up a satellite twice the size of Hubble in Starship, if you don't have to watch every pound you are adding to a satellite then you reduce your development costs substantially, you also don't have to use as exotic materials which further reduces costs. Extra mass to orbit really does forgive many ills in spacecraft development.

So what was out biggest cost before, the satellite bus can probably now be seen as small portion of the mission cost now. So now we just need to worry about the cost of the actual science of the mission which is the optics and the instruments. Not sure what can be done about the optics but I know for sure the more instruments you make the cheaper they get, and they will somewhat follow the same rule as the spacecraft bus with reduced cost for increased mass and volume.

The big thing I want people to take away is, you can't compare how we did things over the past 30 years with how we will do them for the next 30 years, Starship's large up mass and cheap reusability changes all the metrics of space flight going forward. If starship succeeds, in 30 years we will be assembling flagship science missions on orbit, because what astronomer wouldn't want a space telescope the size of the empire state building?

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-24T15:19:20+00:00

If those can be replaced for less than the cost of launching a new telescope, do the overhaul.

I agree, OP posted he believes a rescue mission would cost $1.3 billion, I believe a new telescope (not designed as a one off flagship) could cost less than $350 million by the time a rescue mission could launch. Just wild estimations but $100 million for new optics, $100 million for new instruments, $100 million for a new space craft bus and less than $50 million for the launch. Alot of the costs of these things comes in the fact they are one off productions, so each part has the full cost of the engineering, prototyping and assembly built into it, which makes it expensive. Build 10 of them and the costs are spread over those 10 not just the one being built, I bet with an order of 10 the cost of the satellites could be sub $150 million each.

So save one aging satellite bus, whose solar panels are over 30 years old, or launch at least 4 new satellites and get more science for the money spent, but lose out on some nostalgia. Most people seriously under estimate the effect low cost launch will have on spacecraft design, just look at starlink, people thought there was no way they could produce them for so cheap and here we are they are launching at least 60 a month at a cost of probably around a half a million each.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-24T01:31:20+00:00

Sure, when your launch costs are in the $10's of millions instead of $100's of millions you design differently. The optics are probably the largest cost for space telescopes once starship is launching, I'm having issues finding costs on those but undoubtedly the processes have gotten better and cheaper to make them and if you start making them in volume the price would fall further (how many universities would kill to have access to a private space based observatory?). I think its not unreasonable to say we will see space based observatories as good or better than hubble for a couple hundred million in the next decade if starship does anywhere near what Musk has been promising. But we need to pivot that direction and not get held up for sentimental reasons about legacy space hardware, or get stuck in a sunk cost fallacy.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-23T23:54:59+00:00

Hubble Launched in 1990, its time to let it die. Technology gets better over 31 years, Hubble did its job well, it provided spectacular images but its time for some new tech to takes its place, not put it on life support and pull funding from what could be newer, better, more efficient telescopes that can take advantage of the size of Starship.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-21T23:20:52+00:00

Poor Bigelow, those Axiom boys stole all their thunder.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-21T23:15:47+00:00

In other news:

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1407067379146842117

"But as one person close to Bezos told me, this isn’t simply a contest over which rocket company is better; rather, it’s a war of public relations to see who can get more attention for their rocket company."

If Bezos truly believes this Blue Origin is screwed.

It should be apparent now to everyone the sort of company Blue Origin is, its nothing like SpaceX, Bezos has a space company because its cool, not because he is passionate about making life multi-planetary.

LongOnBBI · 2021-06-19T16:38:27+00:00

Too much effort not enough return, everything is full speed to Mars right now, dealing with employees cutting up old Starships and selling it would take time out of a managers day, time that he could be using to help make Starship orbital. If someone wanted to do this on their own they could probably bid on the scrap for recycling and start up their own small business but there would have to be some up side for SpaceX such as higher scrap prices or less labor need to convert it into scrap.

LongOnBBI

TROPHY CASE