{"id":12926,"date":"2019-09-29T18:24:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T10:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/elon-musk-wants-to-move-fast-with-spacexs-starship\/"},"modified":"2019-09-29T18:24:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T10:24:35","slug":"elon-musk-wants-to-move-fast-with-spacexs-starship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/elon-musk-wants-to-move-fast-with-spacexs-starship\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk wants to move fast with SpaceX\u2019s Starship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
SpaceX\u2019s Starship Mk. 1 prototype stands 164 feet (50 meters) tall at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Standing in front of a shiny full-scale prototype of SpaceX\u2019s Starship vehicle in South Texas, Elon Musk said Saturday night he wants the company\u2019s gigantic next-generation rocket to fly into orbit within six months, a bold schedule that he acknowledged requires \u201cexponential\u201d improvements in design and manufacturing.<\/p>\n

Regardless of when the futuristic-looking vehicle reaches orbit for the first time, Musk told several hundred employees, local supporters, space enthusiasts and space reporters \u2014 along with thousands more watching online \u2014 that SpaceX will build a fleet of Starships and launch them from sites in Texas and Florida.<\/p>\n

The first full-size prototype of SpaceX\u2019s Starship space vehicle \u2014 named Starship Mk. 1 and built this summer on the South Texas coast \u2014 should be ready to launch on a high-altitude atmospheric test flight in the next one or two months, Musk said.<\/p>\n

SpaceX plans to practice launching and landing the Starship with suborbital up-and-down flights, similar to the way engineers perfected landings of Falcon rocket boosters with an experimental vehicle named \u201cGrasshopper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s really kind of hard to grasp, at a visceral level, is that this giant ship will do the same thing that Grasshopper did,\u201d Musk said, backdropped by the Starhopper prototype. \u201cThis thing is going to take off, fly to 65,000 feet \u2014 about 20 kilometers \u2014 and come back and land in about one to two months\u2026 So that giant thing, it\u2019s really going to be pretty epic to see that thing take off and come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s wild,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Musk, an avowed optimist, said an orbital launch attempt with Starship, and its not-yet-built Super Heavy first stage booster, could happen next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith any development into uncharted territory, it\u2019s difficult to predict these things with precision,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I do think things are going to move very fast. So, our plan is in basically in one to two months to do the 20-kilometer flight with Starship Mk. 1. Our next flight after that might actually just be all the way to orbit with a booster and the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX says the reusable Starship and Super Heavy will eventually replace the company\u2019s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, along with the Dragon cargo and crew capsules.<\/p>\n

According to SpaceX\u2019s website, the Starship and Super Heavy will be able to deliver satellites to orbit at a \u201clower marginal cost per launch than our current Falcon vehicles.\u201d But SpaceX says the next-generation booster and spaceship can do much more, including interplanetary flights to the moon, Mars and other destinations with up to 150 tons of cargo, or crews of up to 100 people.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s presentation Saturday came three years after he first unveiled the deep space transportation architecture that became the Starship and Super Heavy. SpaceX has since settled on a smaller, but still record-large, rocket than the design Musk presented in 2016.<\/p>\n

The Starship and Super Heavy are designed for vertical takeoffs and landings, similar to the method SpaceX uses to return Falcon rocket boosters to Earth for refurbishment and reuse. During orbital launches, the Super Heavy booster will propel the Starship toward space before detaching and returning to a landing near the launch site. The Starship will then accelerate into orbit on its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have this mantra called, \u2018If a schedule\u2019s long, it\u2019s wrong, if it\u2019s tight, it\u2019s right,’\u201d he said. \u201cIf the design takes a long time to build, it\u2019s the wrong design. This is the fundamental thing. The tendency is to complicate things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have another thing, the best part is no part, the best process is no process,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIt weighs nothing, costs nothing, can\u2019t go wrong \u2026 The thing I\u2019m most impressed with when I have design meetings at SpaceX is, \u2018What did you undesign?\u2019 Undesigning is the best thing. Just delete it, that\u2019s the best thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ethos led SpaceX to assemble the first Starship prototypes in the open in public view, not inside a climate-controlled factory with strict cleanliness requirements. Musk said it would have taken too long to construct a dedicated assembly building for the Starship.<\/p>\n

And instead of building the vehicle out of carbon fiber, as many modern rockets use, the Starship is made of stainless steel. The structures of modern launch vehicles are primarily made of carbon fiber or aluminum, but rockets designed in an earlier era, such as the Atlas-Centaur conceived in the 1950s and 1960s, flew with a stainless steel skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until October of last year, we were pursuing a completely different design,\u201d Musk said, referring to SpaceX\u2019s switch to a stainless steel structure for the Starship, reversing earlier plans to construct it out of carbon fiber.<\/p>\n

Less than a year after the redesign, Musk has a full-size Starship prototype on the verge of its first test flight. SpaceX says a Super Heavy first stage, which will stack under the Starship during an orbital launch, is not far behind.<\/p>\n

Stainless steel is heavier than other rocket materials, but it comes with several major benefits that ultimately make the entire vehicle, including its heat shield, lighter than otherwise possible, Musk said.<\/p>\n

Stainless steel is resilient and strong at super-cold temperatures. That\u2019s important because the Starship and Super Heavy will be loaded with 9 million pounds of cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen at liftoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best design decision on this whole thing is 301 stainless steel because at cryogenic temperatures, 301 stainless actually has about the same effective strength as an advanced composite or aluminum-lithium,\u201d Musk said. \u201cUnlike most steels, which get brittle at low temperature, 301 stainless gets much stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts strength-to-weight ratio at cryogenic temperatures is equivalent, or even perhaps slightly better than, advanced composites or aluminum-lithium,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not well appreciated because if you just look at the materials manual and say what is the strength of stainless steel, it looks much weaker than it is. (If) you say what is the strength at cryogenic temperature \u2026 much, much stronger at very low temperature, almost twice as strong. That\u2019s when it becomes better than carbon fiber or aluminum-lithium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steel has a melting temperature of around 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius), significantly higher than that of the aluminum structure used on the space shuttle orbiter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a reusable ship, you\u2019re coming in like a meteor,\u201d Musk said. \u201cYou want something that does not melt at a low temperature. You want something that melts at a high temperature, and this is where steel is extremely good as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means the top side of the Starship will not need a heat shield, and the thermal shielding on the side of the vehicle oriented forward during re-entry into the atmosphere will be \u201cmassively reduced,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the steel can take a much higher temperature, your heat shield even on the windward side is much lighter,\u201d he said. \u201cThe net effect is that a 301 stainless steel rocket is actually the lightest possible reusable architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

A ton of stainless steel is 2 percent the cost of a ton of carbon fiber, Musk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, it\u2019s very easy to weld stainless steel, the evidence being that we welded it outdoors without a factory,\u201d he said. \u201cWith carbon fiber this is impossible, with aluminum-lithium, also impossible. But steel is easy to weld and it is resilient to the elements.\u201d<\/p>\n

For orbital-class Starships, SpaceX plans to install hexagonal ceramic tiles on the bottom side of the vehicle. The tiles will take the brunt of re-entry heating as the ship falls into the atmosphere at an angle of attack of around 60 degrees.<\/p>\n

The ship will then free-fall in a horizontal orientation \u2014 \u201clike a skydiver,\u201d Musk said \u2014 using fins and thrusters for stability before flipping vertical and igniting its base engines for a vertical landing.<\/p>\n

\"\"
SpaceX assembled the Starship Mk. 1 test vehicle at Boca Chica, Texas, in less than six months. Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX is building a second Starship prototype, designated Mk. 2, at an industrial yard in Cocoa, Florida, near Cape Canaveral. Once complete, the vehicle will be transported to the nearby Kennedy Space Center for testing at launch pad 39A, a former Apollo and space shuttle launch facility now leased by SpaceX for its Falcon rocket family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m giving you literally just stream of consciousness here,\u201d Musk said Saturday at SpaceX\u2019s launch site at Boca Chica, Texas. \u201cMost likely, we would not fly to orbit with Mk 1, but we would fly to orbit with Mk. 3, which will be built after Mk. 1 right here. In fact, we\u2019ll start building it in about a month.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, Musk said the SpaceX would probably launch the first Starship into orbit using the Mk. 4 or Mk. 5 vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to frame things, we are going to be building ships and boosters at both Boca and the Cape as fast as we can,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really nutty to see a bunch of these things, not just one, but a whole stack of them. We\u2019re improving both the design and the manufacturing method exponentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, the third iteration of SpaceX\u2019s Starship will be built in fewer pieces, with thinner walls, a lighter structure, and lower costs, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rate at which we\u2019re going to be building ships will be quite crazy by space standards,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we\u2019ll have Mk. 2 (in Florida) built within a couple of months or less, and Mk. 3, maybe three months, that type of thing. Mk. 4, four months, maybe five months. And we would seek to go to orbit with probably Mk. 4 or Mk. 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to sound totally nuts, but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months,\u201d Musk said. \u201cProvided the rate of design improvement and manufacturing improvement continue to be exponential, I think that is accurate to within a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Starship alone could \u201cprobably\u201d reach orbit without a boost from the massive Super Heavy first stage, but flying it to orbit in that configuration wouldn\u2019t make sense, Musk said. Without the help of a booster, the Starship could not carry a heat shield, extra fuel or other equipment to return to Earth intact.<\/p>\n

So far, SpaceX\u2019s development of the Super Heavy and Starship has been privately-funded through revenues from Falcon and Dragon missions. SpaceX has also raised more than $1 billion this year from investors, largely to fund the company\u2019s Starlink program designed to provide Internet services from space.<\/p>\n

SpaceX says future revenue from the Starlink business could be applied to the Super Heavy and Starship projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe priority is to build at least two Starships at each site \u2014 at Boca and at the Cape \u2014 and then start building the (Super Heavy) booster,\u201d Musk said. \u201cWe\u2019ll complete Mk. 1 through 4 before doing Mk. 1 of the booster. And then we\u2019ll do Mk. 1 and Mk. 2 of the boosters at the Cape and at Boca.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clusters of methane-fueled Raptor engines will power the Super Heavy and Starship vehicles.<\/p>\n

Three Raptors are mounted to the base of the Starship Mk. 1 prototype at Boca Chica, and three more will be installed on the Mk. 2 vehicle in Florida for initial test flights, Musk said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Three methane-fueled Raptor engines have been installed at base of SpaceX\u2019s Starship Mk. 1 vehicle at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: Elon Musk\/SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Raptor is the most powerful engine ever built by SpaceX. The early version of the Raptor engine can produce up to 440,000 pounds of thrust at sea level, roughly equivalent to the main engines flown on the space shuttle.<\/p>\n

The Raptor engine has more than twice the thrust of the kerosene-burning Merlin 1D engine that flies on SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. And the Raptor is the most powerful methane-fueled engine ever flown.<\/p>\n

Orbital-class Starships will have six Raptors \u2014 three gimbaling center-mounted engines for vertical landings, and three engines with expanded nozzles optimized for firings in space.<\/p>\n

The Super Heavy booster could accommodate up to 37 Raptor engines, depending on final design decisions and mission requirements, Musk said. He expects the Super Heavy to generate around 15 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, about two times the thrust generated by the gigantic Saturn 5 rocket used for the Apollo moon landing missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main constraint on launching the booster is engines,\u201d Musk said. \u201cThe booster has a lot of engines. So spooling up the Raptor production rate is extremely important \u2014 vital \u2014 to completing the booster. Doing the tanks and the legs and the grid fins, that is not a constraint. That we can get done fast. I think we\u2019d want to have at least probably 24 engines, but I think really at least 31 engines to launch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Super Heavy will likely fly with seven Raptor engines with the ability to gimbal, or swivel, to provide steering. The rest of the booster engines will have fixed nozzles, Musk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncluding development engines from now through orbit, we probably need 100 Raptor engines. Our production rate right now is maybe one every eight to 10 days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

By next year, SpaceX wants to build a Raptor engine every day.<\/p>\n

The Starship vehicle assembled at Boca Chica stands around 164 feet (50 meters) tall and weighs 200 tons without propellants. It measures around 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter, about one-and-a-half times the diameter of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.<\/p>\n

Combined with the Super Heavy first stage, the entire stack will stand around 387 feet (118 meters) tall.<\/p>\n

The fully reusable Super Heavy\/Starship launch vehicle will be able to loft some 150 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, Musk said.<\/p>\n

Assuming the Starship can be refilled with methane and liquid oxygen in orbit, the vehicle can deliver the same mass to the moon or Mars, he said.<\/p>\n

Musk, an avowed optimist, said people could ride into space on Starship flights before the end of next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we could potentially see people flying next year,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s designed to be a reusable rocket, so we can do many flights to prove out the reliability very quickly. With an expendable vehicle, if you want to do 10 flights, let\u2019s say, to prove out the viability of an expendable vehicle, you need to build and destroy 10 vehicles, whereas we can do 10 flights within basically 10 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I say rapid reusability, I mean you can fly the booster 20 times a day, you fly the ship three or four times a day. That\u2019s what I mean by reusability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa announced last year he plans to fly on SpaceX\u2019s next-generation spaceship, along with a crew of artists, on a flight around the moon as soon as 2023.<\/p>\n

SpaceX says the \u201caspirational goal\u201d is to make the Starship ready for a flight to Mars without humans in 2022. A crewed flight to the Red Planet could follow as soon as 2024.<\/p>\n

While he didn\u2019t mention it Saturday night, Musk has previously said the Starship could be used for point-to-point transportation around Earth, enabling intercontinental flights in minutes instead of hours.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Elon Musk speaks at the Starship test site in South Texas on Saturday night. Credit: Isis Valencia\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Musk\u2019s presentation Saturday was heavy on propulsion systems, structural design, aerodynamics and vision, but light on talk of funding or technologies necessary to sustain Starship crews in space, which SpaceX says may number as many as 100 people at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, you\u2019d want to have a regenerative live support system,\u201d Musk said in response to a question. \u201cThat just means you\u2019re recycling everything. That\u2019s for sure important if you\u2019re on a several-month journey to Mars and on the surface for 18 months. Regenerative is kind of a necessity. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s actually super-hard to do that relative to the spacecraft itself. The life support system is pretty straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk suggested work on life support systems will come later because the Starship\u2019s first flights will be unpiloted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe early flights of Starship would not have any people on-board,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would just be in automatic mode. It would only be later flights that would have people on-board. Even the first flights to Mars, we would send at least a couple of ships, (and) have them land automatically before sending people.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon capsule, designed to ferry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, will be the company\u2019s first human-rated spaceship. But it\u2019s designed for a limited purpose, and has basic life support systems to accommodate crews for a few days during trips to and from the space station.<\/p>\n

And SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon has not yet flown into orbit with astronauts. Musk said in an interview with CNN after Saturday night\u2019s presentation that hardware for a high-altitude abort test will arrive at Cape Canaveral next month, and hardware for the first Crew Dragon mission with astronauts will arrive in November.<\/p>\n

He did not specify any schedule for the Crew Dragon launches themselves.<\/p>\n

Musk hosted a presentation similar to Saturday\u2019s event in May 2014 to reveal details about the Crew Dragon spacecraft. At that time, Musk said the Crew Dragon would be ready to carry astronauts to space in 2016.<\/p>\n

For long-duration voyages to other other worlds, SpaceX\u2019s Starship will need a much more elaborate life support system to regulate oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, store and process human waste, generate drinking water, and perhaps grow vegetables on-board.<\/p>\n

NASA is testing some \u201cclosed-loop\u201d life support system technologies on the space station, with more upgrades set for launch to the orbiting research complex in the next few years.<\/p>\n

SpaceX and NASA have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for more than a decade, beginning with the U.S. space agency\u2019s award of a $278 million agreement to SpaceX in 2006 \u2014 just four years after its founding \u2014 to demonstrate the delivery and return of space station cargo.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has delivered on the cargo contract, and continues to provide regular resupply flights to the station. The Dragon capsule is also the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant mass from the station back to Earth.<\/p>\n

The early NASA investment also gave SpaceX an anchor customer for the Falcon 9 rocket, which has become a market leader in the global commercial launch business, prompting competitors to cut prices. It also pioneered the vertical landing and reuse of rocket boosters, a crucial capability for Musk\u2019s vision of expanding human civilization to Mars.<\/p>\n

Since 2006, SpaceX has received $7.7 billion in contract awards from NASA for space station cargo and crew transportation through 2024, according to a report released last year by NASA\u2019s inspector general.<\/p>\n

NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to develop and fly new human-rated space capsules \u2014 the Crew Dragon and Starliner \u2014 to carry astronauts to and from the space station. The commercial crew program was conceived to limit the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability after the space shuttle\u2019s retirement in 2011.<\/p>\n

Despite the deep bond between NASA and SpaceX, the U.S. government, so far, has little role in the privately-run Starship program.<\/p>\n

NASA is focusing on the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and the development of a commercial lunar lander to achieve the Trump administration\u2019s goal of landing astronauts the moon by 2024.<\/p>\n

SpaceX wrote in an environmental impact statement outlining the company\u2019s future construction plans at the Kennedy Space Center that the development of the Super Heavy\/Starship vehicle \u201cmay support NASA in meeting the U.S. goal of near-term lunar exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delays in the commercial program were revisited Friday in a written statement from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am looking forward to the SpaceX announcement tomorrow,\u201d Bridenstine said Friday. \u201cIn the meantime, commercial crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. It\u2019s time to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

A series of redesigns and technical delays have been partly responsible for schedule slips on the Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew programs. For example, problems with the abort engines on Boeing\u2019s Starliner crew capsule delayed critical testing by nearly a year, and a valve failure led to the explosion of a Crew Dragon spacecraft during a ground test in April.<\/p>\n

But some of the commercial crew delays were caused by Congress, which failed to provide the funding NASA said it needed for the space taxi program prior to 2015.<\/p>\n

In June, the Government Accountability Office raised workload concerns for NASA engineers tasked with reviewing a high volume of data submitted by Boeing and SpaceX teams as they finalize their designs and test plans.<\/p>\n

The reviews are aimed at ensuring the contractors comply with NASA safety requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASA\u2019s ability to process certification data packages for its two contractors continues to create uncertainty about the timing of certification,\u201d the GAO said. \u201cThe program has made progress conducting these reviews but much work remains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk responded to Bridenstine\u2019s apparent criticism Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a SpaceX resource standpoint, our resources are overwhelmingly on Falcon and Dragon,\u201d he said. \u201cJust to be clear, it\u2019s a small percentage of SpaceX that does Starship, less than 5 percent of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Elon Musk says Starship missions could support a base on the moon. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.S. Air Force, which needs powerful new rockets to carry satellites into orbit, has funded a fraction of the Raptor engine\u2019s development costs. But the military did not select SpaceX last year as part of a round of rocket development contracts that went to SpaceX rivals United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n

SpaceX filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in May protesting the Air Force\u2019s rocket development contracts awarded last year to SpaceX\u2019s competitors.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Air Force has received bids from SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman for lucrative military contracts for as many as 34 launches between 2022 and 2026. The so-called \u201cPhase 2\u201d launch service procurement is the next stage in a multi-step, multi-year effort by the Air Force to select two contractors to cover the military\u2019s future satellite launch needs, and end reliance on foreign-made rocket engines, such as those used by ULA\u2019s Atlas 5 booster.<\/p>\n

ULA and SpaceX currently launch most of the U.S. government\u2019s military and intelligence-gathering satellites.<\/p>\n

SpaceX said it was the only one of the four bidders to offer the Air Force a launch system that is currently flying, making the company the \u201clowest-risk solution\u201d for the military\u2019s most critical satellites. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are already certified by the Air Force, and SpaceX indicated it planned to use the Falcon rocket family to compete for the Phase 2 launch service contracts.<\/p>\n

ULA is developing the Vulcan-Centaur rocket to replace its Atlas and Delta rocket fleet. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, is developing the New Glenn rocket, and Northrop Grumman is working on the new OmegA launcher.<\/p>\n

While the ULA, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman rockets are based on new designs, none look quite like the Starship.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin is designing the first stage of its New Glenn rocket to land and be launched again, and ULA says it intends to eventually recover Vulcan main engines for reuse. But neither vehicle comes with the same lofty ambitions SpaceX has attached to the Starship.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Elon Musk\u2019s long-term goal is establishing a permanent settlement on Mars. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A scaled-down version of the Starship with a single Raptor engine, called the Starhopper, completed a 500-foot (150-meter) test flight Aug. 27. The stubby three-legged vehicle, which space enthusiasts likened to a flying water tower, flew with a single Raptor engine, the most powerful rocket powerplant developed by SpaceX to date.<\/p>\n

The Starhopper has been retired as a flight test vehicle in favor of the full-scale Starship.<\/p>\n

About a mile down the road from the current location of SpaceX\u2019s first Starship prototype, teams are readying launch and landing pads for the vehicle. Ground crews will transfer the Starship to the launch pad ahead of the first atmospheric test flight.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for public safety during commercial rocket launches, will have to authorize the Starship\u2019s test flights. It took several weeks for FAA safety analysts to issue a permit for the Starhopper\u2019s test flight in August, and federal regulators ultimately only authorized a 150-meter top test, not the 200-meter flight SpaceX originally intended.<\/p>\n

Musk characterized the delays caused by the FAA as \u201cminimal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the FAA asks good questions and wants to make sure things are safe, as do we,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to make sure the risk to the public is vanishingly small, almost nothing, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nearest residents to SpaceX\u2019s South Texas test site live in a small housing subdivision called Boca Chica Village. SpaceX has distributed offers to homeowners in the neighborhood to buy their property for three times the appraised market value.<\/p>\n

SpaceX broke ground on the privately-owned Boca Chica launch site in 2014 with the intention of launching Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets at the location, which sits just inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and just a couple of miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with the residents of Boca Chica Village because we think, over time, it\u2019s going to be quite disruptive to living in Boca Chica Village because it\u2019ll end up needing to get cleared for safety a lot of time,\u201d Musk said. \u201cProbably not very comforting to Boca Chica Village. I mean, I think the actual danger to Boca Chica Village is low, but it\u2019s not tiny. We want super tiny risks. Probably, over time, it would be better to buy out the villagers, and we\u2019ve made an offer to that effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX\u2019s Starship Mk. 1 prototype stands 164 feet (50 meters) tall at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: SpaceX Standing in front of a shiny full-scale prototype of SpaceX\u2019s Starship vehicle in South Texas, Elon Musk said Saturday night he wants the company\u2019s gigantic next-generation rocket to fly into orbit within six months, a bold schedule that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1648,291,1045,25,316,317,2450,596],"class_list":["post-12926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-boca-chica","tag-commercial-space","tag-elon-musk","tag-launch","tag-spacex","tag-starship","tag-starship-mk-1","tag-super-heavy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}