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(th) sees 52 tons cargo, I saw 56 tons.
I think a major point is that if you were flying early editions of a new spacecraft, you would be totally stupid to max out the amount of test cargo you would deploy. Until reliability and trust are established you would pull back and reduce to perhaps 70% of capacity. The unfinished nature of the engines is one reason. They have not been tested in flight very much yet. Safety is another issue, related to trust. As trust may build then the boundaries of safe actions can be better learned.
I think that one place for a lot of improvement may be in handing the ice that apparently builds up from the pressurization of the tanks using some type of gas. I may be wrong, but I am thinking that partially burned fuel or Oxidizer may cause that. They seem to have been needing to rig filtration methods to counter that problem. My guess is that over time they will find better solutions to that problem and so reduce the "Dry Mass" of the stages.
I have also read that it is said that Elon Musk has said, that there may be a way to get rid on one of the three grid fins on the 1st stage by flying it in a serpentine fashion though the atmosphere.
And now I will suggest that over time new materials may improve the performance of the system: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE Quote:
America's INSANE Technology Just Killed Aluminium! TESLA CHASSIS 2026
YouTube
Unseen Vault
15 views
What if they could replace some of the steering linkages with that or parts of the Nose/Cargo sections? What about the Pez dispenser?
What if they could leave the PEZ dispenser in orbit and reuse it as atoms for something else they might build in orbit. What if parts of the Starlink and Starmind Satellites could be made of such a lighter material?
Should Starship become a repeatable process, (And I expect it will), then wants and needs and new tricks will likely improve the results of that process.
Ending
Last edited by Void (2026-10-02 07:37:08)
Be careful what you wish for.
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The SpaceX website stated that the full load of v.3 satellites will be 60. That calculates to a payload to orbit of 120 tons. And as GW stated, the weight of the PEZ dispenser system.
Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2026-10-02 13:47:50)
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Part of the payload carried by the Starship includes the pez dispenser of those v.3 satellites. That's a few more tons, in and of itself. But I stand by what I said in post 2396 above! It is stupid to carry max payload in a vehicle still deep in experimental flight test. You test the effects of only 1 thing at a time. Known since the Wright brothers, if not before.
Most of the stuff posted on SpaceX's website as I just now visited it, is data for version 2 Starship/Superheavy, not version 3, and for Raptor-2 not Raptor-3. There is no distinguishing a sea level Raptor from a vacuum Raptor on their website (most of the data looks like sea level version 2 to me). There is (and never has been) any information about stage inert masses (what I used a few years ago was from Wikipedia).
A few years ago I used what I could find to estimate the payload capacity of a version-1 Starship/Superheavy to low-inclination LEO. It was near 150 metric tons payload. But, the version-1 Raptors never achieved their design max chamber pressure, and so never achieved their design thrust or specific impulse. That shortfall made my numbers junk. Doubly so, since a thrust shortfall lowered liftoff thrust/weight, and that correlates to GREATLY-INCREASED gravity loss that the first stage must "cover".
So, we are arguing angels on the head of a pin here, with no reliable data as to stage inert masses, or enough engine details to estimate their thrusts and Isp's. And apparently, not even reliable figures for propellant capacities on the SpaceX website! Without reliable numbers, all performance and payload capability estimates are BS, no way around that!
I do NOT see the point of this argument! Not until there are reliable numbers available by which to check the payload claims on the SpaceX website, which as I saw them today, are "100+ metric tons" to (implied low-inclination) LEO. They know what their numbers are, we do not! And they do not publish them, precisely to keep competitors (and people like us) from reverse-engineering what they are doing!
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2026-10-02 11:26:30)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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And there is still another elephant in the room being ignored.
Bob Clark
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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Care to tell us what your second elephant in the room might be?
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Begins with the letter “A”.
Edit: and it ain’t no baby elephant neither.
Bob Clark
Last edited by RGClark (2026-10-02 21:25:39)
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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If by "A" you are talking about the Artemis program, actually I agree with you.
I think the Blue Origin lander has a far greater chance of working, than SpaceX's HLS variant of Starship (which still does not yet exist, even as a prototype for test). Blue Origin at least seems to understand wide stance legs with low cg height, although I think their cg height is still too high.
Whether they (Blue Origin) have enough pad area not to sink in, is an open question. It's not about static pressure loads, it is about transient dynamics and also the effects of the unevenness of the loads put upon the supporting surfaces.
I have seen NOTHING from SpaceX that indicates any understanding of the issues one must address when attempting rough field landings in soft dirt. They have a lot of stage landing experience now, all of it on smooth, level, hard reinforced concrete landing pads. Precisely ZERO of it was landings on soft dirt, much less soft dirt with surface slopes and grade irregularities, even boulders.
I think SpaceX is still some years away from having a lander we can trust. I think Blue Origin is also still a few years away, too. Not as many years as SpaceX, though!
I'm not much worried about the ultimate operational payload capacity of SpaceX's Starship/Superheavy, as you know. Nor am I worried about that of Blue Origin's New Glenn. Both will probably perform approximately as advertised, once all the bugs are worked out.
I am very, very worried about either of them being able to supply NASA with a manned lander for Artemis, especially on NASA's BS schedule. But I am far more concerned about SpaceX's lander ever being viable, than I am Blue Origin's lander!
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2026-10-03 09:44:20)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Isaacman has planned to give an update on Artemis in “early October”, so I suppose within the next week or so:
Isaacman Promises ‘Artemis Acceleration’ Update Next Month.
JACQUELINE FELDSCHER
September 24, 2026
https://payloadspace.com/isaacman-promi … ext-month/
Perhaps we can get a definitive statement of the Starship V3 payload capability. Having to wait for another Starship iteration, V4, or even later, to get to the needed 100 tons payload for the refueling flights would put extreme pressure on the Artemis schedule.
Bob Clark
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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He also is talking about more from the ISS partners in this process of advancing the timeline.
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Bob:
As I have repeatedly said, there exists simply NO definitive estimate of Starship v3 payload capability to LEO (or anywhere else) until it finishes experimental flight test! There is only a projection of what they intend it to be. Asking for a firm estimate, during experimental flight test aimed at configuration development, is pointless! Essentially by definition, there is NOTHING you can trust! There CANNOT be!
But complaining repeatedly about there not yet being a definitive value, just shows your own lack of understanding about what experimental flight testing does, and does not, do! To do it successfully, you test your significant changes one thing at a time! Lest you obscure the effects your changes made! That has been true in all sorts of development testing since long before the Wright brothers!
You have to test and verify a whale of a lot of things to get your first successful vehicle configuration. Then there are fewer changes to verify in test, when you come up with each and every variant (those would be dedicated tankers, freighters with big clamshell doors, and the HLS lunar lander). But you still have verify each and every one of those changes! And if something does not verify, you have even more changes and tests to do! Which ALWAYS happens!
If this gives you the impression that there can be no reliable hard-estimate schedule for this process, then you got the right impression! Trying to maintain a hard schedule during development testing is a bullshit notion at the very best. The wise government program manager knows this, and at least doubles, preferably triples or even quadruples, the contractor's proposed development test schedule, based on prior performances in previous development contracts. Apparently there are no longer any "wise" government program managers any more! And with "new space" contractors, there is little or no prior development contract performance by which to judge! So quadrupling is the best choice for your schedule to be realistic! NASA DID NOT DO THAT!
Instead, NASA "believed" the Blue Origin and SpaceX proposal hype about how fast they could do the work! It is hyped in order to win the contract. That is just the fundamental nature of government contracting. THAT nonsense is what underlay NASA's Artemis landing schedule, that has so clearly proven to be utter nonsense!
Spacenut:
I pointed out just above in post 2407, and again in the paragraphs just above, that NASA's Artemis schedule is nonsense, and I have repeatedly pointed out why: projecting a landing date when you have no lander ready to start experimental flight testing, and preferably nearing the end of experimental flight testing, is essentially an egregiously stupid thing to do!
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are still some years away from having lunar landers we can trust with crews aboard, with SpaceX more years away than Blue Origin is, in my opinion. Landing on the moon next year is as nonsensical as was last year's setting that date for this year! Neither Blue Origin's bigger crewed Blue Moon nor SpaceX's HLS will even be flying experimentally by next year, not with Blue Origin's launch pad blown up, and SpaceX still trying to make its first basic orbital freighter work right! (SpaceX still has serious bugs in its Raptor-3 engines, and it is painfully clear from flights 12 through 14 that they do not yet understand those bugs! Without that understanding, those bugs CANNOT be fixed!)
At least Blue Origin's lander design concept comes closer to something that might actually make successful landings on soft dirt with rough terrain features, and they have a mock-up at least, and are just starting to build a first prototype of the smaller unmanned Blue Moon lander. The SpaceX lunar lander design (HLS) is still just a paper design, and I personally would not trust it to land successfully in soft dirt with rough terrain! A non-successful landing really means a dead crew, and we all know what a dead crew costs! We've seen it twice before: $billions and years!
Neither outfit is flying anything like their landers experimentally yet, much less anything remotely "operational". That's true today, and was even more pathetically true 2-3 years ago when this Artemis schedule crap was first announced! And when it was first announced, they did not even include a lander checkout mission in Earth orbit, before trying a manned landing on the moon! Recipe for a dead crew, that was! So, how stupid was THAT?
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2026-10-05 10:23:11)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW--I don't disagree with anything you have stated above, but back in the Apollo era, there was a helluva lot of risk taking and we still managed to complete many lunar landings with "experimental" designs. I also agree with your assessment that Blue Origin will have a better shot at success. But the timeline is a "variable constant," which you may remember from engineering school "jokes." The realistic time will probably be several test flights and unmanned landings FIRST before another manned mission completes in late 2029.
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Oldfart:
The difference between JFK committing us in 1962 to a landing before 1970, and what NASA did with its Artemis schedule, is proper background data plus good advice. JFK had some knowledgeable advisors on his staff, plus informal access to the heads of the industrial contractors who would be doing the work. Plus, there were actual experiences with new aircraft developments from about 1940 to 1962, and with ballistic missiles from about 1950 to 1962.
That set a background for what kind of timelines might be reasonable and realistic, presumably resulting in a best-estimated landing date about 6 to 12 years away. That range bracketed 1 Jan 1970, and JFK was good at public speaking, so he picked that date as one everybody in the country could easily understand. It was reasonable and realistic, plus it was challenging, which his speech implied he wanted it to be. It was not NASA that made that decision, it was JFK.
And yes, NASA was taking higher risks with crews than anyone commercial today would ever be allowed to do. We ended up beating the deadline by less than half a year, despite the year-long debacle after the Apollo-1 fire with its dead crew. We did it precisely by taking those risks. Very nearly losing some more crews (Apollo-13 and the Gemini that went out of control that Armstrong piloted, both come to mind. As does John Glenn's Mercury, and maybe Gordon Cooper's Mercury).
NASA working with "new space" contractors did not have that background history of how long it would take for those companies to actually develop new flight vehicles, although there was the 8 years demonstrated by SpaceX getting from Falcon-1 to Falcon-9, and the next 8 years getting to Falcon-9 stage recoveries. Government development contracting has been long infamous for hyped schedules, and it's worse today than it was then for Apollo. Unrealistic schedules hyped to win the contracts. Yet NASA failed to double, triple, or quadruple those hyped times to actually estimate how long it would really take to produce a new flight vehicle.
(BTW, those two 8-year examples in the previous paragraph demonstrate conclusively just how idiotic the Artemis timeline really was, and still is. That's SpaceX. Blue origin is no better. Their number might be a bit different, but it will be comparable.)
Why did NASA fail to allow for that? Simple: all the people who did the technical or the managerial work on Apollo before, were long-retired or dead (more dead than retired), unavailable to pass-on the 50++% of the required knowledge and skills that was never written down in the contract reports! And do not kid yourself, that effect is quite real! No manager EVER wanted to pay for writing EVERYTHING down, only what the contract required! That's about 50% undocumentd in production work, and far higher in development work. Been there and seen it and done it myself! I was roundly hated by upper management for trying to write down everything that I could.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2026-10-06 08:40:54)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW-Thanks for your very well reasoned statements about the engineering involved back in the 1960's and early 1970's. The fact that most of the Apollo astronauts were big risk-takers--test pilots--allowed NASA to push the envelope on what risks were acceptable. I must have watched "The Right Stuff" 20 times to figure out why NASA has changed so much since then. It's a mind-set issue and the simple fact that SPACE IS HARD! There WILL be casualties in the program and I think that Isaacman know that. But--he too is a RISK-TAKER.
That said, the development timelines were set to be very overly optimistic by the politicians in control of the money. The FAA seems to me to be the biggest stumbling block to the current progress. Both Musk and Bezos are not the problem financially.
Just my 2 cents on the subject!
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Oldfart:
I agree, spaceflight is hard and it is inherently dangerous. Doing new things will always require test pilots and involve high risks, same as with high-speed airplane flight, but worse.
I agree that the FAA is indeed the stumbling block, but it is a necessary one! Musk has proven himself willing to take too many risks with other people's lives, by always trying to push ahead faster than is prudent. That showed up in his repeated violations of his launch license conditions, earlier in the Starship flight tests. Remember how he fumed at the delays in granting the next license? It is the FAA's restraint that keeps the casualty rate down. As it does with new airplane manufacturers, as well.
However, for there ever to be commercial space travel of someone other than test pilots, one must address all the risks and mitigate them to the max extent possible, same as was done with high speed airline travel! It's a big row to hoe! But NO ONE will ever tolerate in commercial space travel of civilians the same high casualty rate that one sees among test pilots in experimental flight test!
Somehow or another, Tom read something into what I said in post 2412 above that I did not say! JFK set a reasonable and realistic goal for the moon landing, despite there being neither space craft nor launch rocket adequate to the task when he set it. He was able to do that because he had advice from people who actually understood and had direct experience with how long it might really take to do such things! Most of them were high up in the defense contractors, relying on how long it took to build new jet airplanes, and how long it took to make a new ballistic missile reliable. No "magic" there! Just lots of experiences to draw upon.
I don't think there ever were any people at NASA who understood such issues, or if there were, they were never in positions of decision-making at that level. No one at NASA set the moon landing goal, JFK and his advisers and industry contacts did!
Today's NASA probably still suffers from the same lack, hampered further, in that goals and programs are set by a Congress totally incompetent to be setting them! Not to mention the fact that unlike "legacy old space" contractors, the "new space" contractors involved with the Artemis landers have no such long track record of experience at developing new spacecraft and rockets.
The closest thing to such a track record would be SpaceX, but there are ONLY 2 such examples to look at! How long was it from constructing the first Falcon-1 until Falcon-9 could launch reliably as an expendable? Something close to 8 years! How long was it from the first flying prototype (Grasshopper) to a Falcon-9 booster core recovery that seems routinely reliable? Also something like 8 years.
Why would anyone actually knowledgeable, ever expect it to be anything less than 8 years for Starship to go from its first prototype to flying reliably? And given how much more demanding a reentry-vehicle second stage (something never done before, this is NOT a space plane like the shuttle) really is, the timeline is probably longer than 8 years! SpaceX would seem to be "about on track", reaching orbit in experimental flight test but still having serious problems. It has NOT been 8-10 years yet! Flight 1 of ship+booster was in 2023. The suborbital flights occupied about 1-2 years before that. They're only about halfway through the process!
Something near 2021/2022 getting started, plus 8-10 years is 2029-2032, before the baseline Starship is safe to ride by anyone but test pilots! The HLS is later than that, maybe mid 2030's! Blue Origin with its bigger manned Blue Moon might beat that schedule, but not by much, if at all! They only started the little unmanned Blue moon a couple of years ago. 2024+(8 to 10) = 2032-2034! Where does THAT put NASA with its Artemis landing?
And SpaceX still has to experimentally test and verify any significant variants, such as tanker versions, cargo versions with big clamshell doors, or the HLS for Artemis! That variant verification problem adds yet more time (not necessarily 8 years once the baseline ship and booster are "right", maybe closer to 2 or 3), and it CANNOT be done in parallel with the development and verification of the baseline vehicle!
And if there is a fatal accident (test pilot or civilians on the ground) anywhere in any of these efforts, they will take longer! It is more than just wise to proceed prudently, and not "crash" the program! Crash programs have higher casualty rates! They always have! They always will!
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2026-10-07 09:24:59)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW--That's why they are called CRASH programs! (Tongue in cheek)
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