What if Starship fails? Possible Plan B's for SpaceX

[Tywin]

Everybody is making a lot plans with the Starship, like is a success imminent and for sure, but nobody care, that maybe this spaceship could failure like others in the past...

Maybe take too many years of development, maybe is too unsafe spaceship and inefficient, maybe is too expensive for be reusable, etc...the resason isn't important in this hypothesis, the question here,...

What could be the scenario for Spacex if this happend?

What could be the possibles plans B for them?

[yoram]

They claim the first stage is mostly a scaled up F9 (well new engines and different materials). But still the chance of that working, including F9 style reusability are fairly high.

Let's assume reusability of the second stage doesn't work out. This is probably the most risky part, apart from the orbital refilling (but without S2 reuse refilling will be quite tough because it's just too expensive, needing ~5 second stages for each flight)

In this case if they get the costs low enough it would still be a viable rocket. Perhaps somewhat more expensive than a F9 second stage, but also a lot more payload and delta-V. I assume they would need to start seriously pursuing dual (or more) payloads for the commercial market. So they could at least have viable rocket for the commercial workload, perhaps running it in addition to F9.

The Mars campaign might not be viable though. Difficult to get any useful payload to Mars without refilling, and without S2 reuse it will be very expensive.

[ZachF]

Then they try other avenues until it or something like it works.

Other space companies exist to funnel money to their owners, or are quasi-public entities that provide jobs.

Starship is the reason SpaceX exists.

[freddo411]

This is a *VERY* counter factual supposition.


Iterate.  That's what SX will do until SS succeeds.

Does anyone ever talk about Windows 1 ?   Or Windows 2.0 ?  This is a good demonstration that achieving success with a complex product requires dedication and willingness to continue the pursuit thru various versions.

Starship is focus of SX and they will pursue it's development and eventual "success" until they succeed or Elon is permanently removed.

[TripleSeven]

Everybody is making a lot plans with the Starship, like is a success imminent and for sure, but nobody care, that maybe this spaceship could failure like others in the past...

Maybe take too many years of development, maybe is too unsafe spaceship and inefficient, maybe is too expensive for be reusable, etc...the resason isn't important in this hypothesis, the question here,...

What could be the scenario for Spacex if this happend?

What could be the possibles plans B for them?

I suspect the first stage is fairly easy to tame.  They have a lot of experience with this now, the landing algorithms are pretty understood...guessing the only thing that snakes them is some structural issues but ...they would be trivial

the second stage ?  If the vehicle is going to have issues it will be there.  if they have issues they will try and evolve the design to fix them.  I have no idea how long that might take.  It depends on how steep the knowledge curve is  

[steveleach]

This is a *VERY* counter factual supposition.


Iterate.  That's what SX will do until SS succeeds.

Does anyone ever talk about Windows 1 ?   Or Windows 2.0 ?  This is a good demonstration that achieving success with a complex product requires dedication and willingness to continue the pursuit thru various versions.

Starship is focus of SX and they will pursue it's development and eventual "success" until they succeed or Elon is permanently removed.

But what if the overall Starship design turns out to be fundamentally unworkable for some reason? SpaceX won't give up on the "making life interplanetary" vision, but what might they try instead?

What if, after a few years of operation, Raptor ends up being more trouble than its worth? Methane turns out to have a fundamental problem, or full-flow staged combustion cannot be made reliable enough? Maybe the capsule turns out to be the only long-term viable solution for human-rated earth reentry.

I don't think that any of these are likely, but I think it might be interesting to think about what other options SpaceX might try. They don't seem afraid to pivot to a new approach if it becomes necessary.

[AC in NC]

But what if the overall Starship design turns out to be fundamentally unworkable for some reason?

I hear what you are saying but I just don't see how such a failure might manifest itself.

Perhaps it's not as intended but I see "What is Starship fails?" meaning that something called Starship can't continue forward and iterate.  At this point, I don't see how Starship will not be able to operate successfully in expendable mode, while iterating, and at worst be an expendable launcher.  While it will not have met it's goal, I don't see that as any kind of failure necessitating a Plan B vs. iterating or adapting mission to that eventuality.

All Plan B's I see involve Starship but I'm not sure if that is within the scope of what the OP framed.

[Pipcard]

Remember that 10 years ago, any proposal for a concept like Starship would've been shot down as "economically non-viable due to lack of demand and flight rate."

[TripleSeven]

Remember that 10 years ago, any proposal for a concept like Starship would've been shot down as "economically non-viable due to lack of demand and flight rate."

economic success is in large measure dependent on technical success. 

[Exastro]

the second stage ?  If the vehicle is going to have issues it will be there.  if they have issues they will try and evolve the design to fix them.  I have no idea how long that might take.  It depends on how steep the knowledge curve is

Must has made the point the ship is harder than the booster, starting from the original MCT presentation years ago.  IIRC it's the reason he gave for developing the ship first.

Most people here think EDL is likely the hardest part.  Even the guy responsible for figuring out how to land the ship is worried about it.

[hplan]

The most plausible scenario to failure in my opinion is financial failure. There's just not that much technical risk remaining that couldn't likely be resolved with another iteration or two.

Maybe they have a couple of big RUDs that shut down SS for a year or two, maybe another that shuts down F9 as well. Maybe the cost of getting Starlink on orbit has left SpaceX so highly leveraged that these RUDs put them over the edge. Or, maybe Musk is hit by a truck (license plate 419) and his heirs don't continue the pursuit.

Would another company want to purchase SpaceX and continue the work? I'll bet they would, if perhaps without the Mars focus. ULAX?

[Eer]

Remember that 10 years ago, any proposal for a concept like Starship would've been shot down as "economically non-viable due to lack of demand and flight rate."

economic success is in large measure dependent on technical success.

The biggest risk factor I see for Starship is the risk that market demand will not catch up to the huge capacity Starship makes possible.  There is a risk that it is just too far ahead of its time.

That said, Musk and SpaceX have plans to consume a huge amount of capacity all on their own.  If they can manage to fund that, maybe they'll be able to stick it out long enough for the rest of the market demand to grow to begin taking up the slack.

Thinking back to the evolution of aviation industry.

If Atlas, Titan, and other expendable vehicles correspond roughly to biplanes and such supplying light cargo (e.g., air mail) services, then Falcon 9 represents, perhaps, a DC-3 or similar vehicle that substantially changed how people thought about what one could do with airplanes.

Still, it would have taken quite a while before the market demand would grow to be able to make economical use out of a Boeing 707, or heaven help us, a DC-10, an L-1011 or 747.

Just because you can build capacity doesn't mean the market will respond "in a timely manner" to be ready to consume that available capacity.

So - SpaceX will need to consume the capacity itself for quite a while.  A decade or more, most likely.  During that time, it will have first market mover advantage for P2P, if they can make that work, as well as heavy cargo services to Moon, Mars, LEO and other BEO services ... but their own demand will outstrip market uptake for at least a couple of development cycles, as consumers work their way from "it will never happen", to "I'll believe it when I see it", to "what the hell is that?", to "okay, just suppose - but no, still to risky for our next product launch", to "okay, I'll try it once", to "okay, it works - what can we do with it?".  It will take THAT long for planners to begin thinking in terms of multiple 150T payload launches to really start USING the capacity.

Or so I worry.

[pathfinder_01]

Maybe the capsule turns out to be the only long-term viable solution for human-rated earth reentry.

I don't think that any of these are likely, but I think it might be interesting to think about what other options SpaceX might try. They don't seem afraid to pivot to a new approach if it becomes necessary.

There area number of ways to handle this problem.

1. Starship could carry a reentry capsule in a cargo bay for trips in LEO or to the moon. Note the capsule could also act to fairy the crew over to LOP-G and could act as a lifeboat there.

2. Starship could aerobrake\aerocapture to LEO from BEO missions(Moon, Mars). From LEO it could rendezvous and dock with an capsule already in LEO(say a ccrew vehicle that was previously used to bring up the crew) or a space station. Note we could also launch a CCREW spacecraft after Starship arrived in LEO to pick up the crew. If the launch failed we could consider using ccargo to support the crew until a CCREW craft could be ready to try again.

3. Starship could aerobrake\aerocapture to a high earth orbit where a capsule like say dragon on FH or in the cargo bay of Starship or even(EWEH!) Orion on SLS, could be launched to meet it there. This might make landing Starship for reuse more difficult but on a return trip from Mars could be a reasonable solution.

This is not a show stopper.

[Tywin]

Maybe the capsule turns out to be the only long-term viable solution for human-rated earth reentry.

I don't think that any of these are likely, but I think it might be interesting to think about what other options SpaceX might try. They don't seem afraid to pivot to a new approach if it becomes necessary.

There area number of ways to handle this problem.

1. Starship could carry a reentry capsule in a cargo bay for trips in LEO or to the moon. Note the capsule could also act to fairy the crew over to LOP-G and could act as a lifeboat there.

2. Starship could aerobrake\aerocapture to LEO from BEO missions(Moon, Mars). From LEO it could rendezvous and dock with an capsule already in LEO(say a ccrew vehicle that was previously used to bring up the crew) or a space station. Note we could also launch a CCREW spacecraft after Starship arrived in LEO to pick up the crew. If the launch failed we could consider using ccargo to support the crew until a CCREW craft could be ready to try again.

3. Starship could aerobrake\aerocapture to a high earth orbit where a capsule like say dragon on FH or in the cargo bay of Starship or even(EWEH!) Orion on SLS, could be launched to meet it there. This might make landing Starship for reuse more difficult but on a return trip from Mars could be a reasonable solution.

This is not a show stopper.

Exist a limit for the size of a capsule, that could have for a safety reentry from LEO and BEO?

[pathfinder_01]

Exist a limit for the size of a capsule, that could have for a safety reentry from LEO and BEO?

1. Dragon and CST-100 could carry down 7 people from LEO. Which is a larger crew than has ever been to the moon or mars.

2. Dragon(with some upgrades) and Orion could carry down from HEO. The current limit for Orion is 4 and the limiting factor on the Dragon would be how long does it need to support the crew for the trip back. Orion might be upgradeable to handle more people but it's poor launch rate would be the bigger limiting factor.

3. No capsule currently under development would act as a BEO on a trip to MARS there likely won't be space to carry such a capsule. On a trip to the moon this isn't a problem and the crew could board the capsule hours before rentery if need be.


Starship does not need to carry 100 people to space to be useful just carrying a few esp. early on is enough early on which buys time either for rocket landing to be successful or for a specialized reentry craft that can carry more people down to be developed(i.e. the Space Shuttle).

[Tywin]

1. Dragon and CST-100 could carry down 7 people from LEO. Which is a larger crew than has ever been to the moon or mars.

2. Dragon(with some upgrades) and Orion could carry down from HEO. The current limit for Orion is 4 and the limiting factor on the Dragon would be how long does it need to support the crew for the trip back. Orion might be upgradeable to handle more people but it's poor launch rate would be the bigger limiting factor.

3. No capsule currently under development would act as a BEO on a trip to MARS there likely won't be space to carry such a capsule. On a trip to the moon this isn't a problem and the crew could board the capsule hours before rentery if need be.


Starship does not need to carry 100 people to space to be useful just carrying a few esp. early on is enough early on which buys time either for rocket landing to be successful or for a specialized reentry craft that can carry more people down to be developed(i.e. the Space Shuttle).

The Orion was not prepare for a Mars trip? off course, with a habitat module coupled?


Ok, but if you want build a capsule for 35-100 passenger, is possible, that this structure of that size, support the reentry from LEO or BEO?

Where is the limit for the size of a capsule?

[punder]

SpaceX will need to consume the capacity itself for quite a while.  A decade or more, most likely.

It will take a decade to get customer payloads on SH/SS. But it won't take a decade to start racking up contracts for those payloads. Contracts will begin magically appearing a few months after the first successful orbital launch, regardless of successful recovery of either stage. Because fully expendable, SH/SS represents Saturn V capability at Atlas V prices (if that). Industry skepticism is one thing; a fait accompli is another. See Falcon 9, the hobby rocket that took the US share of the global commercial launch market from zero to a majority in a short few years.

[Tywin]

SpaceX will need to consume the capacity itself for quite a while.  A decade or more, most likely.

It will take a decade to get customer payloads on SH/SS. But it won't take a decade to start racking up contracts for those payloads. Contracts will begin magically appearing a few months after the first successful orbital launch, regardless of successful recovery of either stage. Because fully expendable, SH/SS represents Saturn V capability at Atlas V prices (if that). Industry skepticism is one thing; a fait accompli is another. See Falcon 9, the hobby rocket that took the US share of the global commercial launch market from zero to a majority in a short few years.

Maybe a cargo SS is too expensive for be expendable?

[Tywin]

Other option for a crew SS if is a failure, is a concept of a revolution like the Dream Chaser...

The idea, is a sustaining body, with small wings, and enough big, for be in the top of the Super Heavy...horizontal landing, off course...

Something like this, but instead a Atlas, will be the Super Heavy, and instead, the Dream Chaser, something bigger but with the same architecture...

[docmordrid]

>
Something like this, but instead a Atlas, will be the Super Heavy, and instead, the Dream Chaser, something bigger but with the same architecture...

We've been there and it didn't work out so well...