Thread

1. Zigurd · 1790601391 · focus · HN ↗

   Having an impossible critical path will be the demise of the starship project. Too many things have to work that cannot be tested out of order. Too many of those things that needed to work years ago still don't. And those are the easy ones.

   The items I'm listing here are just a subset of the critical path, and each milestone along the way will take months, optimistically, and years more realistically. To the point that starship won't be relevant to moon missions or any commercial use by the time it does what it needs to do to even partially fulfill the plans for it:

   It needs to meet payload specifications. Currently it is off by a factor of two, which sounds doable until you realize the spec is 100 tons, and they need to find 50 tons more capacity by shedding weight elsewhere in the system.

   It needs a launch cadence fast enough so that refueling doesn't take 15 separate starship tankers. Currently it would take years to refuel one single starship to make a one-way trip to the moon.

   There's just a minor milestone on the way to that launch cadence: catching both stages.

   Once both stages are reliably caught after a mission, refurbishment needs to be minimal. Proving that out will take several missions.

   This is a simplified list of items on the critical path, but reaching each of these items has risks, and if those risks prove to be problems to solve, then each of those problems has a list of tasks and tests associated with it.

   Some people think very highly of Elon for proposing technologically elegant solutions. But he's got a really big blind spot for the project management implications.

   1. motionlessveloc · 1790601765 · focus · HN ↗

      Starship's commercial viability rests almost entirely on whether it can orbit Starlink satellites more cheaply than Falcon. Falcon is around $3000/kg, Starship was promised at $100/kg, I doubt even Elon believes that number but it does mean they have plenty of buffer and cutting capacity from 50T to 100T is not the end of the world.

      I agree that the Human Landing System plan for the moon is a shitshow, but it's almost a distraction for SpaceX at this point, and it would not surprise me if the whole program gets axed by whoever comes after Trump.

      1. estearum · 1790602756 · focus · HN ↗

         Its commercial viability (not program success) depends on Starlink launch, sure. But also: that depends on Starlink's viability and value.

         Selling sub-fiber Internet access into a globe increasingly covered in fiber is a silly long-term value proposition.

         1. Schiendelman · 1790603849 · focus · HN ↗

            Is it? I think you might think differently if you challenge yourself to calculate the total addressable market for Starlink.

            1. estearum · 1790605756 · focus · HN ↗

               The vast majority of that market is too poor to afford Starlink and as soon as they're not, their top priority will be to invest the capex to replace it with the vastly superior terrestrial modalities.

               1. Schiendelman · 1790610430 · focus · HN ↗

                  Their top priority? Compared to what?

                  1. estearum · 1790610902 · focus · HN ↗

                     Compared to spending large amounts of money on shitty space-internet?
            2. Zigurd · 1790608215 · focus · HN ↗

               The elephant in the Starlink business model room is the fact that terrestrial wireless keeps getting cheaper and faster. To be a good Starlink customer you need to be prosperous enough to afford it, while being far enough away from an urban center to have little or no chance of being served by terrestrial wireless services.

               That's a very special TAM to begin with, and the harsh part is that it shrinks over time.

               1. Schiendelman · 1790610405 · focus · HN ↗

                  As a product manager, I can tell you you're making a mistake in the way you're thinking about this. If you actually try calculating it, you'll figure it out.

                  1. estearum · 1790611008 · focus · HN ↗

                     Makes sense. Product Management seems to attract the economically illiterate.

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