alt Hacker News> Starship's goals
Rockets don't have goals. People do. Rockets have features like payload capacity, thrust, cost/ton to orbit, reusability, etc. On which Starship seems to be doing excellently compared to... everyone else.
> SpaceX investors are not investing in a marginally more efficient Starlink deployment system.
IDK what any given investor's rationale is without asking them, and neither do you. Groups, like rockets, are not possessed of singular will.
> You seem to be suggesting that it's a foregone conclusion that ... Starship will achieve its much grander ambitions.
You seem to be the only one who's said such a thing. However, since you bring it up, I will point out that engineering is a process, akin to science, and success merely takes enough determination and resources to keep trying. SpaceX seem to repeatedly demonstrate the determination, and successfully launching Starlink with Starship provides the resources.
I see what they've achieved already, and expect them to continue applying the same process. I'm not sure how far they'll go. But it's a fun ride already. I trust the process. I'm a fan of the process. You and I get to have this conversation because science and engineering work, rockets fly because science and engineering work. I'm not sure how one would even attempt to argue otherwise.
> Rockets don't have goals. People do.
Cute but it's quite obvious I'm referring to the Starship program. And no, the payload continues to fall and is now not even remotely close to being able to achieve the program goals on pretty much any timeline at all.
> IDK what any given investor's rationale is without asking them, and neither do you. Groups, like rockets, are not possessed of singular will.
No you can actually infer from the revenue multiple that the market is pricing quite a bit more than "slightly cheaper Starlink." Of course you can play stupid if you want, because playing not-stupid would require your opinions to confront reality, but it's a very transparent play.
> I see what they've achieved already, and expect them to continue applying the same process. I'm not sure how far they'll go. But it's a fun ride already.
Uh huh....
Okay so we went from "Starship is a successful program because Starlink makes it economically sustainable" to "I don't care or know what Starship is trying to do, I don't care or know how successfully they're doing it, but rocket go up is a fun ride already."
The history of Starship is one of continuously lowering the ambitions and slowly climbing towards the new, lower ambition. Arguably fine, but it's frankly beyond delusional to be acting like this is some inexorable march towards Mars (which is literally no longer a goal at all anymore, because they can't do it with Starship).
It started at 100 tons of payload to Mars. Now the goal is 200 tons to LEO, with only 35-50 tons being demonstrated today.