SpaceX’s Starship rocket is nearing first orbital tests. This Super Heavy launch vehicle promises to lift enormous masses into space, and do so at far cheaper costs than the competitors. What could these capabilities do for astronomy though? Join us today as we explore the potential transformative power of Starship for astronomy.
Written & presented by Prof David Kipping.
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::References::
► House Science, Space, and Technology Committee video: https://science.house.gov/hearings/keeping-our-sights-on-mars-part-3-a-status-update-and-review-of-nasas-artemis-initiative
► Starship Update by SpaceX: https://youtu.be/3N7L8Xhkzqo
::Music::
Music licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS) [shorturl.at/ptBHI], or via Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), or with permission from the artist
► Hill – There is But One Good [https://open.spotify.com/album/4pmiXcyRpPlFjWjb45pYLx]
► Hill – Arc [https://open.spotify.com/album/4pmiXcyRpPlFjWjb45pYLx]
► Chris Zabriskie – Cylinder 2
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► Chris Zabriskie – The Sun is Scheduled to Come Out Tomorrow
► Atlas – Waking Up
::Film/TV clips used::
► Interstellar (2014) Paramount Pictures
::Chapters::
00:00 Prologue
00:48 Space Telescopes
05:10 Starship Background
07:38 Bigger is Better
10:42 What Makes Starship Different
16:32 Astronomy Benefits
21:41 Risk
22:46 Outro and Credits
#SpaceX #Starship #CoolWorlds
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Wonderful and very, very, interesting report. Thank you
Where do they carry the fuel?
Watching it from underground while hiding from Russian bombs.
The irony.
P.S. Great video. thank you.
How would the lunar telescope deal with moon dust?
Watching from Greece.hi everybody.
NASA became the federal government, too bloated and overcome by wasteful bureaucracy.
It's disheartening to see the scientific community so quickly acquiesce to charlatans like Elon Musk
One must accept their limitations especially if one is only a fish out of water or has radiation which our sun pumps trillions of tons out into our solar system every second has left planet Mecury and Venus and Mars unable to have life if the Earth did not have a magnetic north and south poles and an O- Zone layer which protects the international space station how can one venture beyond the magnetic force field !!! I too claim that I have walked on the surface of the moon and I did it without a spacesuit LOL even in star trek they say raise Shields which without would render the human body into death this is misinformation and lies and that is the reality which is a hurdle that technology has not provided us with a solution of forcefields but the Earth has it
hello im not trollling so if anyone sees this please know im just curious from a outside perspective knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING . Would it be possible that they could shoot out a rocket (sorry if the term is wrong) that only responsibility would be to drop solar panel antennas all throughout space . so that (ok im reaching) we can send out more bots that we can control here on earth maybe even a ai . also know im thinking large scale not one or two antennas. if this is already a thing excuse me
Just had a disturbing thought. Newton's 3rd law – basically how rockets work.
Everytime a SUPER HEAVY Starship takes off, its pressing down against the Earth to get up into space. The more powerful the rocket, the more powerful the downward thrust against the Earth.
Now I know our planet is very big and uber heavy compared to a single rocket taking off but Elon Musk plans to colonize Mars.
He said it will take about 1 MILLION rocket launches to transport sufficient people and materials.
1 rocket pushing downward against the Earth might be insignificant but…
1 MILLION SUPER HEAVY rockets taking off – even if not all at tbe same time, the cumulative effect is bound to start pushing the Earth in the opposite direction.
Our moon is only 1% our planet's mass and from a quarter million miles away it significantly affects our planet.
So…
Anyone wager a guess what a million plus super heavy booster rockets will do to our planet's orbit?
Okay. I will click the SUBSCRIBE button and the LIKE button. Then, I'll post it on socialist media.
every month something changes everything, so changing everything is basically changing nothing ?! xd
I'm more likely to become the Queen AND King of England than Musk is to colonise Mars
Amazing content and very interesting. I'm not 100% sure I agree with the risk part. I do mostly agree but a lot of instruments are built by University engineering departments which simply cannot afford to replace kit if it was lost or have the electronic parts to remake. Perhaps there are ways to overcome this, with faster fabrication, 3d printing etc. but for certain equipment, the ultra cautious approach seems to bear fruit. Very thought provoking and I am open to being completely wrong about this. Cheers
Gigantic telescopes are great no doubt, but you're right, the idea of landing deep-drilling rigs on other planets/moons really does it for me too. Seriously valuable "clues" down there that can't be picked up any other way.
15:20 A note here, not only do I think this estimate is too low by a factor of ten, Musk has a history in exaggerating. He said a very similar thing about Falcon 9 and that still costs 60mio + as well, I doubt Starship will ever drop bellow 100mio per launch (which would already be a huge achievement anyway).
Also, its not that NASA is itself incapable of doing it for cheaper or finishing projects quicker, NASA is severely restricted by politics. The rocket parts need to be sourced from all states so every politician can go hoke and say they brought some business to their state, obviously this makes everything way more complicated and more expensive.
Similarly NASAs budget allocation changes under every administration, so they constantly have to shift focus all over the place.
Almost the same thing is true for ESA except that you need to replace states with member nations.
Personally I think this capability of starship should be advertised by SpaceX way more aggressively. I think building a Mars colony is largely infeasible with Sparship, even though it is gigantic for a rocket, it is still rather small compared to other methods of transportations we used in the past to build colonies (mainly ships).
Plus I think the difficulty in creating autark colonies are way underestimated even on earth and being on another planet totally escalates this difficulty into the real of fiction if you ask me.
But being able to launch truly gigantic telescopes into space is a very real and tangible service only something like Starship could provide.
BFR – Big Falcon Rocket
Yea, right!
Sadly it's established that humans can't survive long term outside a gravity well let alone accounting for radiation. At this stage space travel is a dream for those willing to die early
why not building a 1000M Rocket that can carry 1000t ?
This is why SpaceX seems to be on schedule with their Starships while SLS still sits in the hangar, half done years after their promised launch date. Because SpaceX figures things out by trying things that don't work and learn from their mistakes.
@6:25 – wait, did you just say "irregardless"?
One of many things I love about this channel is how it holds your attention to the very end. I have two screens so I can watch one while looking for something else to watch. Half way through the video, I realized I have stop looking until this one is done. Amazing stuff every time.
I think with non-life projects, the space industry should adopt SpaceX's concept of constant testing and iteration. However, the Challenger showed us that approach is not acceptable when human life is on the line. So many a hybrid method? Or even better, test and fail with non-life projects, and as they become more reliable, transfer that tech over.
It's too bad their CEO is a doofus. Also I'm sad how much credence you give his comments. Most of which were inaccurate to wildly inaccurate.
Space X, Blue Origin, ESA: We need more reusable rockets that can land themselves to save costs.
NASA: AMERICA F**k YEAH!!!!
*Starts burning dollar bills as they have the SLS burn up after every use*
SLS is such a clear case of government welfare for States where the political climate may normally be hostile to the idea of “welfare” (without some dressing around it, at least).
i.e. billions of dollars being spent inefficiently creating jobs around SLS, when there’s a superior and far CHEAPER system that can achieve the same (and probably sooner) that the SLS can.
Space $$$ in the budget is so hard to come by as it is. If only it was spent more wisely.
I'd like to see a mostly automated facility that prepares these rockets for relaunch in minimal time. Imagine if they got the turn around time way down they could be launching huge payloads nonstop. You could have insane amounts of anything put in space and on planets and moons in very short time. It would certainly help all the stuff Elon wants to get to mars.
Love your studio bud
Magnificent work once again!
history is being made, and i am absolutely here for it.
While we acknowledge how great this channel is we can also give a round of applause to Elon Musk. He was able to take the BFG idea from gaming culture and name a rocket similarly. He even slightly modified the 'F' so it could be used seriously while still sounding close enough for gamers to get a good laugh. Big F-ing Gun…Big F-ing Rocket…Big Falcon Rocket. Genius.
This is an insane video, but F my attention span, cuz of TikTok :'(
I'm sure NASA would love to be able to do things in house, but they have to subcontract everything because capitalism
I believe one reason for using stainless steel and methane together is that during reentry, methane can be vented from the stainless steel skin through many small holes. This would form a thin layer of liquid methane along the bottom side of the rocket, the side exposed to the greatest heat. The methane would turn to gas and as it was left behind it would draw heat away from the rocket.
NICE AWES0ME KEEP_IT_UP! ✨🎉✨🎉✨🎉🎉🎎🎭🎎🎭🎎🎭🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎑🎑🎑🎑🎑🎑🎑✨🎆🎆
Awesome dude, you made me breath deep again dreaming about see some of this within my lifetime. I´m 52 and so far I don´t seeing more people such as Elon. Not a fan but I undestand curiosity and risks. Love the pace of your products. Keep pushing the concept.
so…why have Nasa continue to design/build rockets if the costs are so extreme compared to spacex, not to mention slower to innovate? Is it politics or what?
Strange that these days people like the guy from Cool Worlds have almost to beg to get NASA to do the obvious! 😎
Very well done very interesting nice pics etc video coverage. Awesome
Using a crater for a dish with a mesh net, brilliant!
Although reusable ships are preferred and cost effective, there's still a huge cost that is much higher than the fuel. There's maintenance, storage, certification, preparation, and all the payroll cost that go with it. To say that it's only a matter of fuel cost is oversimplifying the true cost. It's not easy or cheap to leave the ground.
SpaceX is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. We need more people like Elon Musk among the wealthy.
No one gives a sh!t … all PR … bullshit rockets for the 0.00001% … cars for the 1% … should have pumped all the investment capital into scientific research (and not just spillover science like this project will yield) …. the most useful thing Spacex have done is given us an entertaining video of a rocket landing.
What is the outro music?
Hang on, hang on…
You're saying it costs a little over 4k to put 1kg into orbit, yes? And then, in the next sentence, you tell us that it cost NASA 87 million just for the launch cost of the TESS satellite observatory? Do you know how much that satellite would need to weigh for it to cost 87 million???? It would need to weigh about 20 tons (ie- 20,000 kg)!!! The satellite only weighs 400 kg (a bit less, actually). So why don't these numbers add up??? The REAL cost-per-kg works out to be about $22,000 (that's the 87 million in launch costs divided by the roughly 400kg of weight).
What am I missing here??