SpaceX to build five Starship/Superheavy prototypes in 2023
According to Elon Musk, SpaceX intends to build five Starship/Superheavy prototypes in 2023 for flight testing.
Assuming they can get launch permits, these five rockets should provide the company ample launch testing capability for at least the next two years, especially if it succeeds in landing these units and can consider reusing them in test flights.
At this moment, the launch permits from the federal government appears the main obstacle to getting this heavy lift reusable rocket tested and operational.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to Elon Musk, SpaceX intends to build five Starship/Superheavy prototypes in 2023 for flight testing.
Assuming they can get launch permits, these five rockets should provide the company ample launch testing capability for at least the next two years, especially if it succeeds in landing these units and can consider reusing them in test flights.
At this moment, the launch permits from the federal government appears the main obstacle to getting this heavy lift reusable rocket tested and operational.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Five rockets in 12 months is an impressive tempo – I mean, it’s makes SLS look embarrassing – but they will need to increase that a great deal, if they are going to meet their HLS milestones for NASA, let alone deploy the Starlink 2.0 constellation on the timetable they’ve committed to. (Let alone, colonize Mars!)
Curious what Elon’s team thinks they can build in 2024.
We’ll know its a go if Elon is spotted at Hunter’s house with large bags of cash.
Make a deal with Mexico, build a new launch platform a few miles south of the current facility, and send up any rockets that American bureaucrats won’t approve from there. I can see this scenario playing out in the very near future anyways. Elon is surely thinking globally.
Tom: I paste this comment in response to every comment making believe Musk can flee the U.S:
——————
Why is it the first reaction of so many people when I post stories like this is to suggest that Elon Musk flee, to run away? Not only can’t he do it (both for legal and practical reasons), it is the worst possibly reaction to this government overreach.
It is time all Americans stopped running. There really is no where else to go. We need to stand and fight, and force the government and its intolerant minions to back down. Otherwise, freedom will continue to lose ground everywhere.
I expect Musk to fight, as he has fought and won previously.
As for moving:
1. Legally he can’t. SpaceX as a rocket company falls until strict federal regulations. No matter where he moves those regulations will apply, especially because much of his work force and materials will come from the U.S.
2. Practically he can’t. The qualified workers and infrastructure doesn’t exist in these other locations. You can’t simply recreate this kind of hi-tech company in South Africa, in Mexico, or any other third world country.
What Elon has on his side, beyond merely SpaceX’s popular base of support and like-minded political allies, is that there are a whole lot of people at NASA and the Space Force deeply vested now in Starship succeeding.
If FAA drags their feet, a bureaucratic scrum could ensue.
The recent news of Tesla’s self-driving promotion being staged won’t help. Bob Lutz tried to warn him off trying to automate everything. That’s how Cabada was nearly killed. Reusing rockets is to libertarians what recycling is to Greens.
Nothing can stop Elon now.
If his car company dies so what he made the cash already.
Everything is riding on Starlink now. It has the potential of earning him billions a year for almost nothing.
‘Even the rocket company is now protected by the simple fact the government needs him more than he needs them. The SLS has failed even if it flies just fine. Its late and over priced. Eventually the politicians will cancel it, quietly but canceled non the less.
Sending people to Mars is a goal for his people to meet. Something to keep them energized. As soon as he proves its possible the governments of the world will rush to his door with buckets of cash.
Reusing rockets is to libertarians what recycling is to Greens.
The self-driving promotion was indeed a fiasco, but this proposition doesn’t follow from that. SpaceX doesn’t pull off 61 launches in 2022 without reusing first stages.
Delta II was also inexpensive-just small, and flew how many times?