what will happen to Starship SN15 now

[Clovis]

And I think I made that clear. A ship that can take off, go to another planet and land, and come back again. Not going to happen.

 

[Clovis]

.Musk has the crew dragon space capsule, it's proven to be reliable. He has the ability to ferry astronauts to a big ship in orbit. Put one of his starships , or something like it in orbit and do it that way.

 

[Clovis]

An international effort would be helpful. Depends on how badly we all want to get there. Or how soon we all have have to do it anyway. Estimates say by 2050, were all going to be in trouble.

 

[Slarty1080]

They said it was underpowered. It's made out of stainless steel. Weight to power ratio. When we launched the Shuttle into space, it had booster rockets. And bigger engines.

It seems that NASA thought that the bad design was good enough for the HLS Moon landings. The problem with the shuttle was it was never properly reusable unlike the Starship design. The shuttle system would be better described as partly refurbishable at hideous cost.

 

[Clovis]

Then let's see it happen.

NASA identifies risks in SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander proposal – Spaceflight Now

Elon Musk says SpaceX is developing a 'bleeding' heavy-metal rocket ship. Making it work may be 100 times as hard as NASA's most difficult Mars mission, one expert says.

SpaceX is building a steel launch system called Starship for the moon and Mars, but some aerospace experts say Elon Musk's new design won't be easy.

www.businessinsider.com

Just build the dang thing in orbit. Like we did with the ISS. Yes very expensive, but it's cheaper to ferry back and forth in the long run.
The Earths space ship, because we need it. We say SciFi predicts the future? It already is.

 

[Clovis]

Just build the dang thing in orbit. The old sailing ships would anchor offshore. And use large row boats to get to shore. No differant.

 

[Clovis]

The Hermes as seen in the movie, The Martian.

View: https://youtu.be/nfGDbBwutsw

 

[Clovis]

Centrifugal gravity, which would be very beneficial in a nine month journey like this.

 

[Clovis]

Notice it's made sectional. Just like the ISS. The best way to do it.

 

[Clovis]

More likely to happen in the long run.

View: https://youtu.be/y-u2w17Vdrw

 

[Slarty1080]

The SpaceX Starship design has evolved since 2020 and now uses a tile based heat shield (no bleeding). Obviously there are still risks with a rocket with twice the thrust of Saturn 5, but it is happening. SpaceX are building Starship, Superheavy and orbital launch facilities in southern Texas right now (they’re going to need a bigger crane):
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=53981.0;attach=2036840;image

SpaceX will be “building the dang thing in orbit”. Any rocket bound for Mars will consist mostly of propellant and SpaceX will be filling it up in orbit.

NASA seem to have been satisfied that SpaceX stand a good chance of achieving what they say as they have recently given them a 2.9 billion dollar contract to build the lunar Starship and land it on the Moon:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/spacex-sole-winner-in-nasas-hls-moon-lander-program-report.html

 

[Clovis]

There are a lot of differant designs on the board. Blue Origin, Boeing, and what ever the other countries have. Namely China. And the SpaceX launch facility in Texas is at Boca Chica.

 

[Clovis]

Even Vigin Galactic just finished a successful test, taking off from Space Port America in NM. But their ships are suborbital, for now.

 

[Slarty1080]

Yes lots of different designs, some more under powered than others. Blue Origin haven’t even achieved an orbital flight yet.

 

[CCooper96]

Well, as I understand, SN15 won't refly soon. Elon showed a photo of the updated SN16 that's supposed to fly. It's interesting.