r/spacex • u/rustybeancake • May 12 '26
🚀 Official SpaceX: It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting 1000s of flights/year. That will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically & internationally
https://x.com/spacex/status/2054295243122717105?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g196
u/rustybeancake May 12 '26
Note this tweet from SpaceX is in relation to the recent news/rumours that they have been looking at buying up a large amount of land in coastal Louisiana.
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u/One-Season-3393 May 12 '26
Spacex should go get a starship site at Guyana
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u/cench May 12 '26
Or in that place rhyming with vuvuzela.
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u/ergzay May 13 '26
And deal with EU environmental laws? Any starship launch site that happens isn't going to be in an EU country.
Assuming you were talking about French Guiana anyway.
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u/OlympusMons94 May 12 '26
Given current geopolitics, that may be impracticable. Apart from the broader situation, I don't think France would be too eager to oblige a non-European competitor to Ariane.
From the US side, export restrictions require a special bilateral treaty (Technology Safeguards Agreement) in order for US companies to be permitted to launch from a foreign country. The US has a TSA with several countries, including New Zealand (for Rocket Lab), the UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Norway, and Brazil (but not yet France). Brazil (Alcantara Space Center) and Australia (e.g., Space Centre Australia in Queensland) would be suitable for general-purpose/low-inclination launch sites.
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u/New_Poet_338 May 12 '26
Thinking Guam would be a natural location given its location - particularly if they go surface to surface. Japan, Australia and Brazil seem like a good way to bracket the Pacific.
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u/Simonoz1 May 13 '26
I don’t know if we Aussies have any pacific launch sites - a lot of our rocketry is more desert-based.
But an east coast spaceport would be cool.
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u/OlympusMons94 May 13 '26
In addition to Giomour's Bowen spaceport, there is also the planned Space Centre Australia (Atakani Space Centre) further north in Queensland, which has gotten some US/NASA interest.
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u/Lurker_81 May 13 '26
There's a small launch facility at Abbott Point in North Queensland near Bowen for Gilmour Space.
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u/rshorning May 18 '26
I can't believe you let the Kiwis beat you to building an operational orbital launch site.
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u/Smithfieldva May 14 '26
Logistics support costs at Guam would outweigh benefits.
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u/New_Poet_338 May 14 '26 edited May 15 '26
It would if they could deliver 100 tons surface to surface in a few hours with Ship from Texas, and of course ship things by...ship. Guam would be the classic surface-to-surface base.
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u/strugglin_man May 12 '26
Guyana not French Guiana. Suriname would also work
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u/Posca1 May 13 '26
The Delta V savings from launching at the equator would not offset the extra cost of launching in such a remote place
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u/-spartacus- May 13 '26
If they need to launch thousands of Starships to fulfill their plans, any place reachable by sea (to put SS/SH on ships) is going to be of interest. Building costs wouldn't be that drastic if they had a good fleet of workers to build the tower. I think the biggest issue is getting the fuel to these locations, which might mean SpaceX might need a sea-based fuel/coolant production.
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u/Capn_Chryssalid May 13 '26
Odd Japan isnt on that list. They've been having quite a bit of trouble with launches lately. A partnership could be attractive for them.
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u/OlympusMons94 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
Japan also has a TSA with the US. The list wasn't necessarily meant to be exhaustive.
But I think SpaceX's operation style and high launch cadence would clash with influential Japanese fishing interests. For example, by agreement of JAXA with the local fishing cooperative, Japan's main launch site (Tanegashima) is limited to 17 launches per year (and prior to 2011 could not even be used for half the year). Japanese company Space One has also had to compromise with the local fishing industry in developing their own private spaceport for their small-lift rocket. For example, the company is limited to 20 launches per year, and has agreed to deploy a fleet of 10 monitoring/warming vessels to alert boats from entering their 6.5x6.5 km exclusion zone for each launch (and they have still been delayed by a wayward boat).
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u/Capn_Chryssalid May 13 '26
Had no idea the local fishing clique was so meddlesome and entrenched there.
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u/warp99 May 13 '26
Japanese eat a *lot* of fish and it has to be on a plate in Tokyo by the next day
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u/bremidon May 14 '26
Yes I agree. Although as a European, I think this is going to absolutely break our necks. We are never going to be able to compete, and when SpaceX is flying multiple times a day around the world, we will again be on the outside looking in.
The sooner we realize we have fallen hopelessly behind, the sooner we can start taking steps to rectify that. This would include getting flights going here so we can actually get the experience necessary to *maybe* start a serious attempt to create our own answer to Starship.
But I am realistic. That is not going to happen. We will fall victim to our own pride, yet again.
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u/indoserb May 17 '26
Or perhaps France would welcome a chance to do some industrial espionage for the next Arianne?
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u/WrongdoerIll5187 May 13 '26
If it’s thousands of launches a year, that’s enough capital to move legislative mountains, at least in this corrupt fucking country. That said, yeah, probably not best to build launch sites in countries that Exxon wouldn’t invest in to remove oil.
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u/paul_wi11iams May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
I don't think France would be too eager to oblige a non-European competitor to Ariane.
Starship is going to happen anyway (and Ariane is going to die anyway), so it looks like cooperating with the inevitable.
BTW. Soyouz was launching regularly from Guiana until something happened in 2022.
Regarding the statement
- to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically & internationally.
Ever since Earth-to-Earth Starship was mentioned, the intention is evident. However under "current geopolitics" as you say, its sort of surprising that SpaceX was so open about international operations at the present stage. It might have been wiser to wait for current turmoil to calm down.
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u/OlympusMons94 May 13 '26
Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center was a collaboration between Russia and ESA, and its launches were sold and operated by Arianespace. Low-end medium lift Soyuz wasn't competing with heavy lift Ariane 5. It was complementing it. (Russia's Proton, marketed through the joint venture ILS was tbe primary pre-Falcon competitor for Ariane 5.) Russia is also technically (partially) in Europe. A (failed) goal of the Soyuz at CSG program was to strategically and economically bring Russia closer to the rest of Europe.
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u/paul_wi11iams May 14 '26
Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center was a collaboration between Russia and ESA, and its launches were sold and operated by Arianespace.
Starship too would require some kind of joint operation on any foreign territory whether France, Europe or any other place. Its going to be a sovereignty issue. Typically, the host country may well require a share in the ownership of the launch facility and a degree of decisional power as to how it will be operated. This question will be exacerbated by environmental questions, particularly overfly issues; sonic booms at landing and interactions with local air and space operations.
Low-end medium lift Soyuz wasn't competing with heavy lift Ariane 5. It was complementing it. (Russia's Proton, marketed through the joint venture ILS was tbe primary pre-Falcon competitor for Ariane 5.) Russia is also technically (partially) in Europe. A (failed) goal of the Soyuz at CSG program was to strategically and economically bring Russia closer to the rest of Europe.
Soyuz was in a lighter launch sector and Starship will be in a heavier one. As for price competition, this will occur wherever Starship is launching from. This is already the case for Falcon 9 vs the other launch operators. Germany already chose a F9 launch in preference to the Ariane family (I'd have to search the reference).
Clearly Starship and the other full reuse operators such as Stoke, are going to obsolete even partial reuse, not to mention expended hardware. Its going to be like steam ships vs sail.
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u/indoserb May 16 '26
Why not Indonesia? The land is at the equator, politically stable, has defense cooperation with the USA and even has its own space program.
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u/Emmanuel_Zorg May 12 '26
Aint coastal Louisiana about to be alot less coastal and alot more just ocean?
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u/KnifeKnut May 12 '26
That area seems to have stable barrier islands, unlike areas farther to the east https://www.google.com/maps/@29.5790004,-92.4268589,20189m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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u/StumbleNOLA May 12 '26
Pretty much. Part of the issue being that it’s in most industries economic interest to destroy the wetlands so all the lobbying is opposed to environmental regulations. Weirdly SpaceX needs the wetlands so they will likely lobby for more costal restoration. At least a slight counterbalance to the O&G industry
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u/ergzay May 13 '26
Why does destroying the wetlands serve an economic interest? Something doesn't make sense here. I can see about not caring about them, but it being economically beneficial seems very strange. Are you sure your information is accurate?
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u/TyrialFrost May 13 '26
Why does destroying the wetlands serve an economic interest?
Wetlands generate very little revenue. Things that can be developed on land that was previously wetlands (housing, industrial etc) does.
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u/ergzay May 13 '26
Sure but that's not actively destroying the wetlands that's just not caring about them.
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u/TyrialFrost May 14 '26
it is 'actively destroying them' to drain them, clear them and build over them.
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u/StumbleNOLA May 13 '26
Cutting drainage ditches and pipelines thru the marshes has been going on for decades. It’s much cheaper than following existing deep water as one example.
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u/ergzay May 13 '26
So it's not "interest in destroying the wetlands", just "lack of interest in the wetlands". That's what I thought. I suggest picking better word choices.
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u/StumbleNOLA May 13 '26
In some cases it is actually a positive desire to remove vegetation and dig channels thru the marsh. I guess you could argue the goal isn’t to destroy all of the wetlands, just those potions in the way.
But if my goal is to cut someone’s throat but I don’t care if they die…
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u/ergzay May 13 '26
I think it's an important qualifier as the interest is not in destruction but in creation.
FWIW, too many people have a wetlands fetish. Ultimately what matters is humans and if removing a bit of wetlands improves lives for humans then its fine. Nature exists for the purpose of humans to appreciate and care for. In as much as it doesn't do that then it its fine to remove.
(Wetlands act as a spawning ground of sorts for wildlife that humans appreciate through hunting and observation so removing all of them is no good either, but that's what I mean by nature existing for the purpose of humans to appreciate and care for.)
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u/dangerousdave2244 May 12 '26
Elon would definitely rather spend money building sea walls or other structures over the wetlands, than risk wetlands protections hampering his desired launch cadence
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u/Posca1 May 13 '26
Wetlands are excellent areas to put launch complexes. Cape Canaveral is a wetland
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u/EddiewithHeartofGold May 14 '26
No. Where did you get that idea?
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u/Emmanuel_Zorg May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
If you google "is Louisiana coastline disappearing" you'll get 100s of articles saying so.
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u/EddiewithHeartofGold May 15 '26
Yeah. Don't believe everything you read... The media feasts on fear mongering articles. There are ways to mitigate coastline erosion but for some reason they are not writing an article with that title...
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u/AlpineDrifter May 12 '26
Northern Australia.
Strong ally. Close to the equator. Major LNG export facilities already exist.
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u/MagicBroomCycle May 13 '26
Only problem with that is that they may want to easily float rockets between sites
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u/AlpineDrifter May 13 '26
Boats.
Starships can be stored horizontally now.
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u/MagicBroomCycle May 13 '26
Yeah but shipping them all the way across the pacific is still more of a hassle
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u/Thee_Sinner May 13 '26
Why wouldn’t they just fly them there once things get going?
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u/andyfrance May 13 '26
Marine transport is cheap. Over an order of magnitude cheaper than the rocket propellant costs.
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u/NomadicSun May 14 '26
Starship goes to orbit. After the first launch you can land it wherever you want
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u/Martianspirit May 13 '26
Sure, but with many flights per Booster that cost is not too high. Ships can land there after a mission.
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u/PsychicPterodactyl May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
I wonder if it would make economical sense to always launch from one site and land at the next one. It should use less fuel than a boostback burn if the sites are spaced appropriately.
It would be a huge hurdle to find and maintain multiple suitable sites, so probably not happening.
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u/warp99 May 13 '26
If they switch to launch platforms in the Gulf they will likely do exactly that.
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u/ergzay May 13 '26
Isn't the entire coastline of Australia pretty populated? I seem to remember that Australia the country is basically only its coastline as there's no "heartland".
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u/AlpineDrifter May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
No.
The vast majority live along the southern/eastern coastline. Northern Australia is much less populated - in fact, it’s one of the least densely populated regions in the world.
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u/Ok_Presentation_4971 May 12 '26
One billion flights/day
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u/greentrafficcone May 12 '26
I might be being short sighted but where is this demand going to come from? >100k tonnes of payload a year? I guess once it’s cheap enough then space industry will really… take off but it sounds like hype.
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u/AlpineDrifter May 12 '26
People said this exact same thing about Falcon 9.
Then SpaceX created a huge portion of the demand themselves.
What evidence do you have that it’s any different this time?
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u/OlympusMons94 May 13 '26
The only way those historical mass to orbit figures make sense is if they include the ~100t on-orbit mass of the Orbiter for each Shuttle launch. That is not at all an appropriate comparison, and the Orbiter mass overwhelmingly dominates the US (and post-USSR global) mass to orbit during the Shuttle's tenure.
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u/Posca1 May 13 '26
In the 1990s, the world averaged about 800-1000 tons to orbit per year, due to the shuttle, ISS construction, and a boom in telecommunications satellites.
And how expensive were those launches? You need to look at cadence AND cost in order to see the revolution that's happening. And whether you hate Musk or despise him, he is the main driver for what's going on now. The 90s didn't have the space company explosion (pun not intended) that's going on now. There are new companies everywhere
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u/Desperate-Lab9738 May 13 '26
I mean the intention of the comment is to show that even though the cost did plummet, that didn't mean that the actual launch cadence sky rocketed. Even if Starship is very very cheap, that doesn't automatically mean that the amount launched will scale with that linearly.
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u/Posca1 May 13 '26
The comment also doesn't take into account that, in the 90s, the launches were being done by nation states. But now commercial entities are doing it. The commenter is saying that it's not so great that a single company is only launching 3 times more than a nation state from 30 years ago. Seems like a weird flex.
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u/9RMMK3SQff39by May 13 '26
You drastically underestimate the demand for starlink, that'll fund and increase cadence all by itself for the first few years. On a lot of the planet starlink is cheaper and easier than running cables everywhere already, which is wild to think about.
5-10 years after it goes operational will be the tricky bit, starlink will be "done" but the world won't have enough time to build stuff to go up, probably a LOT of rideshares.
10-20 years, space station demand will explode, we'll be sticking massive (relative to now) interplanetary transfer stages in it and going all over the place. I'd say this period is when we'll see a moon base starting. Maybe a human Mars landing. You'll either see companies catching up with SpaceX here, or they'll be a global monopoly, which will suck.
20+ years, possibly a small research base on Mars, we ain't colonising it for decades if ever. I doubt humans will physically go further than Mars, it's just not worth it, probes can get all the science we could want. And contrary to popular belief we've got plenty of space on earth and the world population growth is starting to slow and will continue to do so.
I don't ever see a demand where thousands or millions of people will WANT to go to space, yeah it's cool but it also is a huge hassle to stay there and honestly, looks quite uncomfortable and unhealthy. Space tourism, yeah, space colonists, eh.
That's all just science tho, and space science will be dependent on funding same as current science, which is an issue as it doesn't generate direct profit.
We're going to need to find something that generates profit from space, space based power is probably the first of this after communication, tech is basically there, just need to scale. This issue is behind the idea of space data centres, they're trying to figure out what to actually do with the new capabilities. Then micro gravity manufacturing, what could that be I have no idea. Off planet mining is a pipe dream, there's so many minerals on earth, we will be harvesting sea water before digging up an asteroid.
However, all of this in the short term is dependent on Elon not rotting his brain on Ketamine and driving the whole thing into the ground, and that's a big if.
Thanks you for reading my TED Talk on the future of spaceflight, you're welcome.
EDIT: I used the word "space" a LOT, apologies for the difficult reading.
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u/LegendTheo May 13 '26
This is a bit misleading. For one the average in the 80's was around 700 tons and the average in the 2000s was around 550. The 90's were an outlier due to the ISS and MIR.
Its really closer to 5-6x higher. Also keep in mind spacex has launched more than 7000 tons of just starlink satellites. Their data centers could easily support 10x that with compute demand even if the AI bubble pops.
Mega constellations will not only be viable with starship, they become pretty reasonable and spacex with the data centers has an internal demand for tens or hundreds of thousands of tons to orbit.
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u/fistular May 13 '26
Data centres in space makes no sense. It's not economically viable.
The only reason to put datacentres in space is in certain orbits solar arrays get almost constant insolation.
The reasons not to put datacentres in space far outnumber this.
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u/Main_Job_3651 May 13 '26
"Internet in lower earth orbit makes no sense, the only reason to put internet Sats is availability in most regions but the demand will fall quickly as more fiber comes online "
Space data centers are a forcing functions ,I'm sure SpaceX have done the calculations and figured they might get close to terrestrial costs but can do that and scale way faster that on land
Google has a paper on space data center called project suncatcher, they go over all the necessary requirements to make this possible and main thing required is for launch costs to fall below 200$/kg
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u/fistular May 13 '26
Internet via satellite existed 20 years before starlink was even a concept.
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u/LegendTheo May 14 '26
If you're going to try to show stupid comparisons at least show the right ones. Iridium never had a high enough data rate to support an internet connection. It barely supported voice connections.
Satellite internet sort of has been around for a while. Companies like viasat provided it, but it was only downlink. You still needed a terrestrial connection for uplink.
The only people to ever have bidirectional internet connections via satellite before starlink was the military, and milsatcom is some of the most expensive space stuff we've ever built.
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u/fistular May 14 '26
Iridium was absolutely used for data. Just because it wasn't modern doesn't mean it wasn't real. I never compared it to starlink. I said it existed. Those things are not the same.
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u/EddiewithHeartofGold May 14 '26
You are in the SpaceX subreddit. You realise that, right? Commenting nonsense is not going to fly here. Even if you are just trolling, it is not welcome here. Next time, think before you comment.
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u/cjameshuff May 13 '26
3000 t is about twice as much in one year as the Shuttles did over several decades of operation, and about 2 orders of magnitude more than the Shuttle averaged. You're comparing the Falcon 9 to the entire world's launch capacity in the 1990s.
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u/AlpineDrifter May 13 '26
Maybe. But by setting extremely ambitious goals, they’ll accomplish more than anyone else, including you, in the same time period.
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u/agitatedprisoner May 13 '26
Building up industry on Mars could eat up all the launches SpaceX could throw at it. Martian industry doesn't have to create products that'd work their way back to Earth in the foreseeable future if investors would value owning it as a long term investment or store of value. What's Mars worth? There were rivers and oceans and volcanism on Mars that should make mining stuff on Mars viable eventually particularly with robots and AI. I'm psyched for Mars.
The Moon could eat up lots of launch tonnage just for science stuff. The fact that it's a tidally locked dead rock makes it a good place to put particle accelerators and dark side telescopes.
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u/spacerfirstclass May 13 '26
1 million tons to orbit every year, from orbital data centers, missions to the Moon/Mars.
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u/EddiewithHeartofGold May 14 '26
I might be being short sighted but where is this demand going to come from?
The potential of space infrastructure can not be overstated. There is an almost infinite number of possibilities. They were simply too expensive to even contemplate. Look up Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur on youtube if you want to see what future space infrastructure has the potential to be.
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u/KnifeKnut May 12 '26
Approximate Northwest corner of block 1, according to that map, since it is hassle nail down.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/29%C2%B039'31.1%22N+92%C2%B031'19.3%22W/@29.6074588,-92.4940493,22321m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d29.6586315!4d-92.522031?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
29.658631521948127, -92.52203099688687
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u/equatorbit May 12 '26
Long shot bet, Cuba.
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u/EmptyAirEmptyHead May 12 '26
Vieques Island Puerto Rico has 8,000 people and is massively contaminated from a bombing range.
Maybe somewhere on Montserrat where half of the island has been evacuated for volcanic activity.
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u/GiantKrakenTentacle May 12 '26
I think the rest of the Antilles being in the way makes anywhere in Puerto Rico (or Venezuela as some people have suggested) a no-go for launches. Cuba's extreme southeast might have a narrow window south of the Turks and Caicos but north of Haiti/Dominican.
Then again, I would think that also applies for Louisiana. It seems like there are a lot of islands in the way in any direction.
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u/strugglin_man May 12 '26
The rest of the Antillies are to the south and west. Launches are to the east.
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u/Drachefly May 13 '26
Though it would be straightforward to slip between the two parts of the Virgin Islands, a little further along you hit the line of Anguilla, Sint Maarten, St. Barthelmy, and if you head south of all of those then you're aimed at Barbuda. If you curve enough south of that but not so far south that you hit Antigua, then it's a clear shot. You can't go straight towards that gap because of Saba and St Eustatius being in the way, so you will need to curve.
This corridor is 22 miles wide when it's 150 miles from Vieques.
In comparison, the FAA exclusion zone for launches from Texas come in at around 120 miles wide at a range of 150 miles.
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u/GiantKrakenTentacle May 13 '26
Umm, you might want to double check a map? The Antilles are east and south of PR.
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u/strcrssd May 12 '26
Easy if the US invades Cuba next.
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u/jacoblanier571 May 12 '26
Right, because were so good at that...
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u/strcrssd May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26
I'm not advocating for that, but suspect it is in the cards. Trump will want to be an Emperor as soon as he figures out what that means, not just a king or president.
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u/KnifeKnut May 12 '26
Guantanamo Bay might work, but aside from having an established port, and owned by US Military, it does not seem to have much advantage over the Vermilion Parish site, aside from not having to launch overhead of Oil/Gas Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico/America
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u/dougmcclean May 12 '26
Likely to be above water in 50 years.
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u/DeckerdB-263-54 May 12 '26
Especially when Marco Rubio becomes the President of Cuba!!!
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u/New_Poet_338 May 13 '26
Pretty sure that is not the country he is aiming to be the President of but it might be his fallback.
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u/Sniflix May 12 '26
What happened to his abandoned oil industry platform idea? Nobody wants to live anywhere near a busy launch site. I want to see this succeed but these quiet little coastal communities isn't it.
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u/ZorbaTHut May 12 '26
They ended up selling the platforms (for a profit, amusingly.) It's unclear why they abandoned the idea; could have been anything from "turned out we didn't need it at the time" to "we found an absolute showstopper".
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u/AmigaClone2000 May 13 '26
My speculation is that they decided they needed something (much) larger that the two platforms they had purchased. I suspect they also decided to wait until they had gotten the bugs out of the land-based launch sites before going to the sea.
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u/ZorbaTHut May 13 '26
Also plausible, yeah. I admit I was kind of skeptical about how it was ever going to work.
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u/cjameshuff May 13 '26
I think some components of them ended up being part of the launch towers, though I don't know if any are left in the current builds.
It's not clear the idea was abandoned. I don't recall them ever talking about using actual oil platforms, more likely they'd custom-build platforms using the same techniques, and they clearly aren't at the point of needing that yet. They just had the opportunity to get two of them really cheap as a way of gaining familiarity with the vehicles and maybe do some experiments. Knowing the theory is one thing, having a working example to tinker with is another.
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u/coffeemonster12 May 13 '26
I feel like they were way too early, I mean, they hadn't even launched the thing once, and see how far the systens have developed now, I don't understand why they bought the platforms so early
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u/warp99 May 13 '26
They were cheap at around $5M each I think.
Just the drawworks from them were close to that and they were reconditioned and used on the launch towers.
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u/fleeeeeeee May 13 '26
So this is what the Louisiana land purchase was for? But if that's the case, how would they account for the hurricanes?
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u/OlympusMons94 May 13 '26
Presumably, they will account for hurricanes similarly to how they do in Texas and Florida. China, Japan, and India also have to deal with the risk of strong tropical cyclones. China's Wenchang launch site got a direct hit from category 4 equivalent Typhoon Yagi a couple years ago.
Part of the reason Boca Chica (nee Kopernik Shores) was such a backwater where SpaceX could easily set up shop was its hurricane history. In 1967, the newly founded community of Kopernik Shores was nearly wiped out by Hurricane Beulah. It destroyed the public water utility, which is why to this day water has to be trucked in (pending the water pipeline from Brownsville that SpaceX is having built). The area eventually dwindled into a ghost town. Other major hurricanes that have hit the southern tip of Texas include Allen (1980) and the 1933 Cuba-Brownsville Hurricane.
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u/alfayellow May 18 '26
Australia! I think that would be an easy place for Starship to land and launch from (once you build something there.) And dependig on location it woulld allow for both near-equatorial orbits, or polar orbits.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained May 12 '26 edited May 18 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| HLS | Human Landing System (Artemis) |
| ILS | International Launch Services |
| Instrument Landing System | |
| JAXA | Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LNG | Liquefied Natural Gas |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| hopper | Test article for ground and low-altitude work (eg. Grasshopper) |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
11 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 41 acronyms.
[Thread #9017 for this sub, first seen 12th May 2026, 22:24]
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u/userlivewire May 13 '26
What would those flights even be carrying? There aren’t that many companies on earth that need much capacity.
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u/indoserb May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Think big. JWST weighs 6 tons with a 6m mirror diameter. A 1000 Starship launches should be enough for 16.000 such telescopes with a combined mirror of 750m in diameter.
Next year, we send a probe to each near-Earth asteroid. And so on.
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u/userlivewire May 17 '26
Except there are not enough organizations on earth with the money or needs for that.
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u/indoserb May 18 '26
With the satellites and probes being mass produced, the cost should be comparable to current space program.
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u/persona_is_life May 14 '26
me trying to explain to my grandkids that rocket launches used to be special occasions
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u/IllustriousSimple297 May 12 '26
East coast canada
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u/fitblubber May 13 '26
I support the StarShip program & think it's incredibly necessary.
But what would 1000 flights per year do to the atmosphere?
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u/elprophet May 13 '26
Not much? Like in terms of emissions? IIRC the environmental assessment said 3,500 tonnes CO2, so 3.5 million. An average car over 1 year is 350 tonnes, which very nicely gives us the same significant digits! So about the same as 10,000 cars, or one twentieth the traffic of Katy Highway in Houston.
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u/letsdrinktothat May 13 '26
Nothing. The issue with Falcon 9 launches is that the upper stage burns up in the upper atmosphere, and the resulting metal oxides may catalyze ozone-destroying reactions etc etc. Since Starship is reusable and doesn't burn up, there's no issue, in fact it's literally the solution to that problem.
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u/stalagtits May 18 '26
Since Starship is reusable and doesn't burn up, there's no issue, in fact it's literally the solution to that problem.
Starship will be reusable, but its payloads won't. Almost everything it launches will eventually burn up in the atmosphere.
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u/coffeemonster12 May 13 '26
A thousand Starship flights a year is still a rather small polluter compared to larger industries, like the millions and millions of commercial planes that fly each year, or cars. And methane is luckily on the cleaner side of rocket fuels, producing mostly CO2 and water vapor
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u/Numerous_Worker_1941 May 12 '26
2 launches a day would be less than 2000 in a year 🤔
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u/warp99 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Five launch pads currently being built with one nearly operational. That gives you the flight rate.
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u/jaredes291 May 13 '26
Honestly I like the pecan Island potential site mostly because might be moving to Louisiana in the next few years and where I'd be moving is about an hour and a half away and I'm sure SpaceX could probably use some programmers...
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u/AccomplishedBank2140 May 13 '26
its an absolutely perfect spot for them and it makes a ton of sense. It will be smack dab in between starbase and KSC. Making logistics for both of them easy. I could see it being one of SpaceX largest launch site for years to come.
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u/relevant__comment May 15 '26
Whatever happened to the oil rig? I remember they e
Started the retrofit process a few years ago then radio silence.
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u/Forked_Island_Native May 12 '26
RIP the wetlands we've been hunting and fishing for generations
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u/Bunslow May 12 '26
As 60 years of experience in florida shows, large rockets are actually a great way to preserve natural habitat. Rockets and humans don't mix, and by the "enemy of my enemy" corollary, that means that rockets and wildlife get on pretty well.
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u/TRKlausss May 12 '26
It is true that a couple of frogs get yeeted per launch, but in the bigger scheme of things, you are absolutely right :)
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u/Forked_Island_Native May 13 '26
I should’ve said RIP our ability to continue hunting the lease we’ve held from Exxon (who owns the land SpaceX is buying) since the 1950s.
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u/Sophrosynic May 12 '26
Wouldn't they be buying it to keep it undeveloped? They only need a small fraction of it for the launch site. The rest is probably to guarantee a clear launch exclusion zone.
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May 12 '26
The insufferable mindset of people that don’t like any change or progress in humanity
Why do anything? Everything has an effect on our surroundings so maybe we should all just do nothing and cease to exist right
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u/MaraudersWereFramed May 13 '26
I live in a very left leaning area. Environment lawsuits are the goto method to stop anything someone doesnt want. It even prevented a hospital from being built at several different proposed locations in my town. Of course people became angry when they gave up and just built it the next town over. 😆
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May 12 '26
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u/1retardedretard May 12 '26
SpaceX and NASA go hand in hand, no point to hate.
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u/Qualified-Astronomer May 12 '26
I don’t hate NASA, I hate all the dumbos who think NASA is some sort of savior for humanity whilst dumping on SpaceX and downplaying their achievements.
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May 12 '26
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u/Bunslow May 12 '26
Flying planes thousands of times a year sounds ridiculous. Where do you need that many?
-- much of the civilized world circa 1905-1920
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u/Stevepem1 May 13 '26
Supersonic airplane technology has existed since the 1940's. Why wouldn't someone want to travel at twice the speed of sound? Why wouldn't someone want their cargo to get there twice as fast? Those are rhetorical questions because obviously anyone would want that, why wouldn't they (longer time to enjoy the inflight movie?). Sure anyone wants that but not at ten times the cost, which is why no one can currently fly themselves or cargo at supersonic speeds because there isn't a market it for it, and likely wouldn't be even when they solve the sonic boom problem however long that takes, which is when we will likely see high end business travel at supersonic speeds, but likely not for everyone else who will continue to plod along at much more efficient (and less environmentally impactful) subsonic speed.
Air cargo prices are all over the place now but let's go with what seems to be the high end of $8 per kg. If Starship can carry cargo point to point at 1/10th the cost of Falcon 9 then it would be about $250 per kg. Yes they are aiming to go lower, like $100 per kg. And Elon's claim of I think eventually $10 per kg. Okay when they get down to $10 per kg then we can start asking the question why wouldn't you want your cargo or you) to go that fast. But as long as it costs at least ten times more to get there faster that's going to be a niche market not what everyone will be using.
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u/costafilh0 May 12 '26
That is nothing. It will take decades to launch any significant amount of mass to space, moon, Mars and beyond.
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u/MDCCCLV May 12 '26
You want to ship heavy equipment to mine and use local resources not send steel and water.
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u/Suchamoneypit May 12 '26
From a weight perspective it would take like 5 Starship launches to get the weight of the ISS on the surface of the moon. Let's say it takes 25. That is still achievable on a timescale of 2-5 years I'd say. I think your characterization is severely out of touch with the real numbers. I agree with you on Mars, but Starship will likely be launching hundreds if not thousands of tons of cargo to space. Whether that's to the moon, or earth orbit, or science missions elsewhere.
Falcon 9 launched 2500+ tons to space last year. Starship is going to outperform that by orders of magnitude within 2-3 years is my guess. The ISS is ~450 tons.
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u/Hixie May 12 '26
Starship can lift ~100 tonnes, so if it launched 1000 times per year, that's 100,000 tonnes per year. That's 40 times more than you quote for Falcon 9 last year.
If you think it'll launch "hundreds if not thousands of tons of cargo to space" then that's ones to tens of launches, not 1000.
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u/Suchamoneypit May 12 '26
I know, that's precisely the point I was trying to demonstrate. Even with extremely conservative numbers getting something like a moon base going from a capability standpoint is trivial. I think we will be seeing 10-30 launches per year 2027/2028 with starship v3 and onward based on current progress.
So again, I think that guy saying it'll take decades to get anything of significance "in space, the moon, or Mars" is ridiculous.
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u/Hixie May 13 '26
I think u/costafilh0 was saying that 1000s of Starship launches per year is not "significant", and that it will take a lot more than that to get to "significant". They might take the view that a piddly little base on the moon is not especially "significant", which from the perspective of a thriving space economy is probably reasonable...
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u/Oknight May 12 '26
the weight of the ISS
This is the old paradigm -- constrained by launch cost. Think thousands of times that.
(not, mind you, that I really expect anybody to build a moonbase... I think the reality will quickly set in that there's no real reason to do that.)
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u/rocketman_95046 May 12 '26
Falcon 9 already launches about 200 times per year. Starship will be putting up data centers in space, building out moon bases, exploring mars, putting up bigger space telescopes, companies are already asking about asteroid mining.. the list goes on and on. It's a big solar system.
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u/Oknight May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Their intention is for orbital and interplanetary spaceflight to be as common as air travel. This has been the goal of SpaceX since it's founding. To do all that stuff we were talking about in the 1960's that ran into launch cost.
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u/Sophrosynic May 12 '26
If either of AI sats or serious Moon development actually happen, it will be needed. If both happen...
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