Starship is designed for mars. They built a new space craft that will be re-usable, at a cost efficiency never seen before that uses technology specially designed because of Mars. It's engines will use Methane - something no other manufacturer was able to master because of specific issues with those styles of engines and they did it in with the purpose of generating methane on mars to be able to fly back. The methane can be synthesized on mars from CO2 in atmosphere and Hydrogen in Ice. They had to invent the largest re-usable rocket platform, the first re-usable and working methane engine and the first flight computer that could take off and land...
Not only that, but they invented or invested in massive technology for manufacturing all of this such that the engines are often 3d printed and designed with precision only dreamed of before.
"First flight computer that could tiake off and land"
Soviet Buran could do that in the 80's
"Starship is designed for mars"
Original starship design was 5x larger and could take meaningfull payload to Mars. It had to be scaled down so that it use the ancient Saturn 5 launchpad and other infrastructure and be more affordable. Current starship is in the same weightlifting category as saturn 5.
"First engines to use Methane"
So what? If it was first one to use Uranium, that would be a revolution. This is just burning a different propellant. Its an incremental step. It is not a 60 -year milestone. Its like saying 'i upgrading home boiler from coal to oil' - so what? You are still stuck will low energy fossil fuels
Landing a winged aircraft is different than landing a rocket.
Starship is designed for mars and its design changes pending mission realities. The fact they're progressing so quick is awesome.
First engines to use Methane are great - and it shows a mission profile that is correct for a trip to mars - since they can use science to generate fuel while on mars.
Uranium wouldn't be a revolution and there is no way it would ever pass certification for leaving earth orbit beyond small decay batteries that have been used for 60+ years.
Just because you don't agree with the cool shit going on, doesn't mean it isn't cool.
And if it could have been done 60 years ago, it would have been done 60 years ago.
No, not a "fan" of spacex, i'm a fan of space in general. my passion is cosmology, where were discovering more about black holes and gravity waves and new kinds of stars and getting closer and closer to possibly figuring out what all the dark matter and dark energy is.
But hey, two can play this game, you seem to hate SpaceX so you throw out the sciences and engineering too..
There are multiple space companies sending up tourists now and dropping the cost per kilo of space travel down while creating new tech to do it. Sure, it may look like a rocket is a rocket, but its certainly not the same rockets from the 1960s - these are rockets that can take off, launch multiple payloads and have components return to earth and land from where they started.
Absolutely not! I love SpaceX and the all-composite Dreamliner, but the benchmark is not 'pretty good', the benchmark being discussed is 'exponentially better than anything that came before', otherwise we don't have 'exponential progress' - perhaps we have linear progress, or quadratic, or asymptotic.
I think they are not in the same league as Wernher von Braun or the Wright Brothers - those folks changed the world as we know it,
- when Braun was designing rockets, we didnt even know that human body can function in space at all. There were no engines to look at for examples. There was nothing.
Not only that, but they invented or invested in massive technology for manufacturing all of this such that the engines are often 3d printed and designed with precision only dreamed of before.