I’ve been watching NASASpaceflight’s YouTube channel’s coverage of the SpaceX Starship sixth test flight.
Maybe they don’t have the polish of old-school broadcast media, but I thoroughly enjoy what they do. That’s partly because they’re frankly nerdish. And partly because they actually know what they’re talking about.
Pre-launch preparations are going smoothly, so if this keeps up the Ship 31 upper stage and first stage Booster 13 will take off a little over four hours from now: about 4:00 p.m. here in central Minnesota.
Then, if all goes well, Booster 13 will land back at the SpaceX facility on the Gulf Coast. It’s another suborbital flight for this launch system, this time with an in-space relight for one of Ship 31’s Raptor engines, before ‘landing’ in the Indian Ocean.
I’m not as excited about this as I was, watching the Apollo missions. Or not excited in the same way, at any rate. That’s probably inevitable. I was in my teens then. Now I’m in my mid-70s.
But I am excited. And I think the SpaceX goal, “Service to Earth Orbit, Moon, Mars and Beyond”, makes sense. (spacex.com/vehicles/starship)
Mainly because I think humanity will keep doing what we’ve been doing for uncounted ages: wondering what’s over the next hill. And then wondering what’s over the new hills we found.
All that’s changed is that the new hills are now on other planets.
I’ve talked about this before. You’ll find links under My Favorite Posts: Science and technology in the sidebar.
About SpaceX, Starship, and humanity’s renewed interest in getting back to the Moon; I think that makes sense, too. And I’m glad folks from my country are involved:
- “Skylon Defunct, Radian PFV01 Test Flights Begin“
(November 16, 2024) - “Starliner, Dream Chaser, and Beyond: The Sky is Not the Limit“
(June 8, 2024) - “Boeing Starliner in Context: Apollo, Shuttles, and American History“
(May 11, 2024) - “India: Fourth on the Moon, First near Lunar South Pole“
(August 26, 2023) - “Commercial Space Services and Changing Times“
(April 29, 2023)
“I think humanity will keep doing what we’ve been doing for uncounted ages: wondering what’s over the next hill. And then wondering what’s over the new hills we found. All that’s changed is that the new hills are now on other planets.”
Indeed Brian, the Universe is immense. Will we ever travel like in Star Trek and reach other Galaxies and worlds. And beam up/down to planets and in-between Starships? Or are we the only “life” in the Universe? What do you think?
God bless.
😀 – Travel, or at least send our robotic explorers, to other planetary systems? I’d be astounded if we did not.
The question is more ‘how soon’, and ‘how’. We are very close, now, to having technology for robotic interstellar probes: an example are the Voyager probes; which, as someone wrote recently, weren’t designed to last this long – – – but were “designed to not fail”.
Getting a probe to, say, Proxima Centauri in a reasonable time: decades, rather than millennia – – – that’s an issue for planning such missions.
As for the Star Trek option: the last I checked, scientists are still discussing variations on the Alcubierre “warp drive” – – – and one team thinks they’ve found a way to build a device that would test the principle without needing exotic materials which may or may not actually be physically possible. What they described couldn’t move a vehicle faster than light, but it could demonstrate that Alcubierre’s math works – or that it doesn’t.
Right now, there’s not enough known to say whether or not the Alcubierre math describes something that’s physically possible in this universe. I emphatically want what he described to be possible: but my preferences don’t determine reality, for which we should all thank a merciful God. 😉
Science fiction tech like the Star Trek transporter, on the other hand, hasn’t – to my knowledge – been described by anyone’s math. “Impossible” is a pretty big word: but my guess is that something like that, particularly tech that doesn’t need a receiving station, is a fascinating and very useful way for the original Star Trek writers to keep the show’s budget within limits.
And I’m pretty sure that if there is live on other worlds – and if we meet people like us, self-willed creatures with physical bodies – they will be very unlike the reassuringly familiar Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi and all the rest of the Star Trek universe – and like us only in the sense of being people.
Knew I forgot something. A recentish discussion of “Alcubierre Drive” (informed) speculation: https://brendans-island.com/catholic-citizen/alcubierre-drive-a-new-subluminal-physical-solution/
Thank you so much Brian for taking the time to answer so fully. I really appreciate it. I find space and space travel fascinating; especially the Star Trek variety. However, it all seems so daunting and I often wonder whether we are going too fast – so to speak. Are we as a society, as a human race, ready for all these scientific advances? The latest talk is about AI and the problems and opportunities it presents. I am not fearful of science per se; but I wonder whether humanity is ready for scientific progress and how to handle it.
God bless always.
My pleasure!
As for ‘are we ready?’ My guess is – yes.
Dealing with new knowledge, and the technology it makes possible, hasn’t been, isn’t, and won’t be, easy.
But so far – we’ve learned how to use fire with only the occasional catastrophe, string is so much a part of our lives that we seldom think about the danger posed by winding it too tightly – – – – well, maybe that’s silly.
I remember when the old ‘science and technology will solve all our problems’ attitude was morphing into ‘s. and t. will destroy us all’ – and I don’t think either extreme made sense.
That’s a good question, actually – – – – ‘are we ready?’
Briefly (for me) – no, not in the sense that we’ve got a clear idea as to how we’ll deal with everything on the horizon. But that hasn’t stopped us before – – – and I think that most of us, given a chance, are both smart enough to deal with new stuff – – – and many would get bored if we **didn’t** have something new to solve.