How SpaceX’s Starship will change space travel forever
“Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic’s flights only just reach suborbital space, with flights lasting as little as 10 minutes. Thank god we have bigger dreamers.”
September 2021: It was a bright morning a stunning 575km or 300 miles above the surface of the Earth when the crew of the Inspiration4 mission opened the Cupola for the first time, getting their first real glimpse of the Earth below.
It’s difficult to convey the incredible feeling the official video posted gives you. It almost looks like a civillian airliner interior. In classic Elon fashion, Star Wars music automatically played when they opened up the cupola. Regardless of your thoughts on him, credit must be given where credit is due: His SpaceX has completely changed the game.
This historic mission that was dubbed Inspiration4 (the first orbital tourism mission that lasted almost 3 days) was a prelude to the Polaris Program, announced by billionaire CEO of Shift4Payments. The first mission, Polaris Dawn, involves an appogee of close to 1000 miles (that’s almostthe highest orbit achieved in human history, and the highest one in more than 50 years).
That will launch next month atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Then, the program culminates on the third mission dubbed Polaris III which involves the first crewed Starship launch. The world will be watching closely when that happens.
Meanwhile, Axiom Space, a private space company prepares to launch its Ax-3 mission — yet another launch to the ISS atop a Falcon 9 rocket transporting the first Turkish astronaut to the ISS. Ax-4 will transport the winner of Space Hero, an upcoming reality TV show where contestants get to go to space, and Ax-5 may transport Tom Cruise to the ISS where he’ll film a blockbuster film in outer space and conduct the first civilian spacewalk on the ISS.
Beyond that, Starship’s development will be insane for the space industry barring any disasters. Companies may choose to use it as a private space station for recreation or research.
This list on Reddit I posted features upcoming major spaceflights, if you are interested.
Interestingly, Starship has an interior size that is slightly larger than the ISS, so there is a lot of room for creativity in what it might be used for. Besides space hotels and mixed use business parks in orbit, there are countless researchers aching to send a payload for some kind of experiment or Science to be conducted — this configuration allows for a quick send of the payloads, Science to be conducted onboard and the high-quality data and instruments to be sent back.
This will expand what is possible in the realms of medicine, geoscience, and so much more, even without us noticing. Most will chalk it up to regular human technological progression, without realizing that space is behind so much of it.
Another application is to to allow point to point travel between anywhere on the planet in less than an hour.
DearMoon
A pretty major thing to mention is DearMoon. Next year, Artemis 2 will send 4 astronauts to the moon and back, but there’s an arguably equally exciting mission coming up. Later this decade it’ll carry 1 Japanese, 3 American, 1 Czech, 1 Indian, a South Korean and a British private tourist to the fly around the moon and back.
Excitingly, they’ll be using Starship. The official website states a 2023 launch, but this is highly unlikely unless the crew is suicidal. A more likely estimate for launch is in the 2026–29 timeline.
Nonetheless, the crew of 8 artists and creators including Tim Dodd, otherwise known as EveryDay Astronaut — will have a massive spacious skyscraper to spend their time in during the 1 week+ tourism flight. Starship’s predicted configuration hints at about 10 floors with a solar flare shelter, common area, sleeping pods, lounges, cargo bays, etc.
That being said, before DearMoon, Polaris III (the mission that the private space program known as the Polaris Program) culminates in a crewed Starship launch, so that’ll be our first look.
A timeline of Starship:
- Starship conducts 3 test flights in 2023
- Starship conducts 5 test flights in 2024, achieves orbit
- In 2025, Starship achieves a crucial milestone which is the refuelling of the vehicle after launch in low-Earth orbit
- In late 2026, Polaris III gives us the first crewed Starship launch and is likely to be an internationally broadcasted launch. Other details unknown at this time beyond that.
- In 2027, the Starship vehicle lands on the moon and back to demonstrate to NASA that it is safe to carry human passengers for Artemis 3 (first moon landing since Apollo).
- In 2028–9, DearMoon launches.
It is our first real spaceship. With Starship, gone are the days of spending days or weeks cooped up in a relatively cramped capsule. Besides the space shuttle, Starship is our first real look at what the things that make up a quintessential spaceship.
Allow us to step into the future together with this incredible rocket.
