I don't think "no idea" is fair. We don't have exact numbers, but there are various statements out there that give clues. Even the highest estimates I can put together put Starship far cheaper than SLS.
You have to consider that Starship has not reached anywhere near the operational goals for Artemis, and there is no realistic time line for when it might. So we really do have no idea how much it might cost by the time it reaches the milestone SLS has already cleared (successful flight in lunar orbit, with a full payload that it successfully deploys).
You also have to consider that SpaceX has the fastest, most reliable,
most cost efficient launch service in operation ever, and are using the same methodology to develop the most advanced launch system ever attempted.
We also have to consider the other major Musk lead company Telsa had the best selling car in the world and string of successful cars leading up to that before completely shitting the bed on the Cyber Truck.
I want Starship to be a success and reduce the cost to orbit and beyond, but past success does not in any way guarantee future success.
True but we know for a fact that it doesn't consume 4-5 billion $ a year for the last 15 years like SLS/Orion because SpaceX couldn't afford that. If you actually do some basic math and look at SpaceX revenue and so on, you can make some pretty decent guesses. And SpaceX is analyzed in detail by lots of people.
Even if a Starship needs to be scrapped after landing, the Super Heavy booster works, returns nominally to the launch site, and can be reused. This alone should make the whole thing cheaper than SLS.
Only if the SuperHeavy booster can achieve the same performance as the SLS (payload to orbit), with similar levels of operational complexity.
The SLS has already proven it can fly to lunar orbit and back on one single launch. In contrast, even if everything goes according to plan, Starship requires at least a dozen re-fueling flights while it hangs in orbit around the Earth to be able to then fly to the Moon.
Will one Starship launch, when it eventually works, be cheaper than SLS? Very likely. Will 12+ Starship launches + the time in orbit be cheaper than a single SLS launch? Much, much less likely.
Actually, we already know that with booster reuse disposing of 12 tanker starships will cost less than an SLS launch and actually be able to get to the moon, which SLS with Orion can’t actually do.
We don't, because Starship has not had even one successful flight with any appreciable payload. It's absolutely possible that the booster will need to be completely redesigned, and become much more expensive, in order to achieve the mission goals.
It's also worth noting that a captured booster has only once been successfully flown again - and certainly not in the kind of tight time line that the in-orbit refueling operation requires (first flight was March 6, second flight was October 13 - and no more flights are planned anyway). There is currently little proof that boosters can be "rapidly and fully reused" as needed to match any of the cost promises.
Economic history is full of examples of demand shocks. This is not some unique situation that has never occurred before.
This is actually a clean commodity price spike because it’s specifically not for market manipulation or financial engineering. It’s because demand for this product really did explode overnight.
> This is actually a clean commodity price spike because it’s specifically not for market manipulation or financial engineering. It’s because demand for this product really did explode overnight.
Based on how the same 3 billion has been circiling between Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and a few other companies... I really doubt that this is the case, to be honest.
I think it's reasonable to distinguish which side drove this. RAM prices are going up but it's not engineered primarily by RAM manufacturers. They are naturally jumping on the bandwagon and responding, but they aren't the drivers. Of course, how they respond matters. They could make other choices. Over time we'll see how this goes because AI could cool and then RAM manufacturers end up in a spot where they choose to manipulate prices to keep them higher.
Tax is also an economic term, which is not what’s happening. Calling it a “tax on consumers” doesn’t make sense because any data centers buying RAM right now are also buying from the same global market.
If commenters just want to be outraged and throw words around then use whatever words you want, I suppose.
Canada has had the INTERAC payment system for over 20 years now. It is privately run by Canadian banks, universally accepted and runs on a cost recovery basis.
1. Debit Mastercard/VISA. These are Debit Cards that use the Mastercard/VISA communication system to process transactions. While they are not "Credit" cards because you are using cash in an account that is your money, they rely upon the VISA/Mastercard system and merchants will be charged the Mastercard/VISA fee like a Credit Card.
2. Interac Debit Card. Interac was the first company to offer a debit card type system in Canada, and they are the traditional bank card. These cards use the Interac system (so does eTransfer) and Merchants are charged by Interac for using the system. Its typically less than Mastercard/VISA, which is why you see these "Debit Card only" signs.
3. Mastercard/VISA and Interac hybrid cards. These are newer and combine both Mastercard/VISA and Interac cards in one. The merchant can choose how they want to proceed.
Most of these "Debit" only signs are really saying "Interac only", but because for 30 years Interac was the only provider of Debit cards in Canada, it became the common vernacular to say "Debit" when you mean "Interac".
>Is this going to be like that submarine that guy built to bring people to the Titanic?
Doubtful. Might seem counter intuitive but in some ways space is an easier problem then under water, at least once you get up there. The pressure differential between ~vacuum and 1 atmosphere obviously is just one atmosphere, and outward instead of inward, whereas you get to 1 atm of pressure (14.6 psi) in water at almost exactly the 10m mark (in salt water). The Titanic wreck (which is what the sub you're referring to was designed to reach) is at 3800m, at which point the pressure is around 380 atm (~5600 psi). Any failures are going to be absolutely catastrophic with no time to react. Whereas a space station can handle small leaks just fine for quite awhile (as ISS has had to [0]) if it has some buffer, it's "just" a supply loss and if it became too much would mean people having to get into a safe area or suits and eventually abandon it in the worst case, but it doesn't go pop like a soap bubble. And such things can definitely be patched. Assuming normal proven safety procedures are followed (most importantly having some margin and constant backup life boats or rooms sufficient for all humans on board until all can get to Earth) an impact or mistake or the like might put the station out of business but should be very survivable.
At any rate nothing like the titan, where IIRC the implosion went supersonic and thus they literally didn't even know what did them in because the collapse front was faster then the speed of human nerve signal propagation (120 m/s at best, usually lower).
Things aren't perfect in a lot of countries, but what is happening in the US right now is absolutely unique. Things are careening out of control, and the political system seems completely incapable of getting a handle on it.
Most people I speak to in Canada, Europe and Central America seem perplexed why Americans they know do not seem more alarmed.
> The two components of the dual state are the normative state — the seemingly normal world that you and I inhabit, where, as Huq writes, the “ordinary legal system of rules, procedures and precedents” applies — and the prerogative state, which is marked (in Fraenkel’s words) by “unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees.”
> “The key here,” Huq writes, “is that this prerogative state does not immediately and completely overrun the normative state. Rather, Fraenkel argued, dictatorships create a lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state.”
> It’s the continued existence of the normative state that lulls a population to sleep. It makes you discount the warnings of others. “Surely,” you say to yourself, “things aren’t that bad. My life is pretty much what it was.”
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