Thoughts on Starship going forward

 

Spacex has rolled out the newest of their Starship prototypes. There has been some commentary elsewhere on the web about this. I have a few thoughts of my own.

This blog has had many a post about what should be done in outer space. But this post won't go that direction, but instead, try to grasp what it is that Elon Musk is trying to do.

Overall, it looks like he wants to make it a profitable enterprise. The way he is doing it is by reducing costs, but he also needs to find markets for his space services. This is what Starlink does. He also has plans to use Starship to transport cargo and people across the globe.

It is not clear how he will make the colonization of Mars profitable. There can be no market if there are no people there. He has to get people there somehow. Making a ship that can get people there is only part of the problem that has to be solved. There are many other problems to solve before he can make those trips.

At present, it looks like the Earthly enterprises will have to subsidize the Martian ones. Eventually, the Martian enterprises will have to start producing something of their own. If there might be an intermediary step, it could help. Let's say if there were a Lunar enterprise. But that doesn't really seem to be in the plans right now.

I've written about Moonbases on this blog before. The advantage to a lunar outpost is the much shallower gravity well. You could make plenty of rocket fuel there. If not methane, then plenty of oxygen is there. The moon isn't made of cheese, but there's oxygen all over the place, which is locked in the rocks.

This may be straying a bit from my opening paragraphs, but it would seem to me that Musk should consider going to the Moon before going to Mars. I don't think his plans include the Moon, though.

Economies of scale will get you to cheaper rockets and cheaper operation of those rockets. But the funding of his plans for a Martian colony is an enormous undertaking which will require enormous sums of money. Best to keep with the program and find a way to make the whole thing profitable from end-to-end, rather than just to count on efficient operations from the Earth.