Space Development Club

Not actually a club.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

I started this account because I saw in Starship the potential for a $10,000 return-trip ticket to the moon and I wanted to start a fundraising club to help get it bootstrapped. I gave up on the club when I saw SpaceX was raising the money well enough on its own.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

SpaceX will build a system that allows anyone to travel to Moon.

This will so insanely cool 🚀💫🤩

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@SpacerFC It's not capital allocation, hardware development, or God that made so many court cases and government decisions go his way. Remember that SpaceX started with Elon taking a plane ride to Russia with an ex-CIA guy to talk about buying ICBMs.

I don't believe ex-CIA guys exist.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

This is what I've found increasingly concerning about SpaceX in recent years: the tendency to take advantage of any cooperation or support to eat both their suppliers' and their customers' lunches. Lately, you get the sense that they're aiming to replace humanity itself.

[Eric Berger @SciGuySpace]

The Western launch crisis is already bad, so what happens if SpaceX does indeed take the Falcon 9 off the commercial market in two years?

https://t.co/ilohCOx5dg

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@SpacerFC ...and I have my doubts that Elon is "uniquely good at capital allocation and hardware development". His career looks suspiciously as if unseen hands were clearing the way for his and only his companies to pass regulatory and other artificial barriers to certain tech.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@SpacerFC Yeah, I think megacorps shouldn't exist. Do you think Amazon and Google are good, and we should have more companies like them? You looking forward to finding out what SpaceX-Tesla enshittification looks like?

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@SpacerFC If they're just building rockets and spacecraft, I'm happy regardless of Musk's stated motives. If they're relentlessly "vertically integrating" both their suppliers' and their customers' fields of activity, I'm unhappy regardless of Musk's stated motives.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@SpacerFC I don't think you should judge what SpaceX is doing any differently than if Elon Musk had come out twice a year to say publicly, "I'm just doing it all out of greed and lust for power, and have no interest in space colonization or the long-term good of humanity."

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@mattlindn @SpaceKoala If you complain that someone's breaking into your house, then you complain that they've switched to setting it on fire, that's not "moving the goalposts". The main launch market is still comsats, and Starlink is now basically aiming to eat the entire communications market.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@SpacerFC That's nonsense. It would be enough for SpaceX to provide space transportation services with continuous improvement on costs and capabilities. They don't need to become Weyland-Yutani.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

This is the kind of thing that could be living under the moon's surface. In a certain depth range, there are constant liquid water temperatures, under a constant ice temperature layer. Deep drilling on the moon should be a top scientific exploration priority.

[Kekius Maximus @Kekius_Sage]

Scientists found a black fungus inside Chernobyl's reactor.

It appears to use radiation as fuel through radiosynthesis.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@peterrhague I think now that SpaceX has IPO'd, and as Starship matures, it's quickly becoming much easier to recruit their employees away.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@eager_space Yeah, I think they could make upper stages that are shrouded and cradled until separation *super* cheap, especially if they're willing to let efficiency slip a little. I don't see any reason they can't approach the cost of the propellant and be competitive with reuse.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@booster_10 The fairing recovery works well enough to be worth using, but it was its own whole development program and requires separate recovery operations. The integrated bay is almost certainly a better choice for a small booster designed to be reusable from the beginning.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@Fenmire55 Ship 41 could be back first, but there's no guarantee it'll be recovered successfully.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

Looking more and more likely that this will be the first Starship upper stage recovered, though I doubt after a couple of weeks in the sea it will be fit for reuse.

[Oliver The Space Nerd @OliverNerd7]

As of now, S40 has been attached to preliminary tow lines via the aft section of the vehicle. Teams are working towards fully rigging up and towing the ship. Bound to be an exciting few days!

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@Graham_117 @DrPhiltill I think you should reconsider whether you know what would be optimal for LEO, given the many complex considerations. What you're claiming here is that the main variant is optimized for things it won't do, at the expense of what it will do.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@Graham_117 @DrPhiltill That doesn't make a lot of sense. One of the easiest things to vary is tank length, and the moon and Mars landers won't be the same as the LEO version. The LEO version is designed for LEO.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@Graham_117 @DrPhiltill Oversizing the upper stage relative to the booster is for the sake of lower stage reusability. The earlier it stages, the lower the booster speed and altitude, and the easier it is to bring it back to the launch site.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@KsNewSpace The landing and engine reuse are both hard. Upper stage recovery has a bigger performance penalty, but I don't know if I believe the heat shield and aerodynamic features are such a big fraction of the challenge.

[Space Development Club @SpaceDevClub]

@eager_space @AndrewHard96304 I think more rocket companies should use nitrous oxide and ethanol. Think of the parties!