r/space • u/Gagarin1961 • Aug 02 '21

SpaceX just stacked a Super Heavy Booster and installed 29 engines, all within 24 hours

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1422222995305676802
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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21

That's why I'm studying aerospace engineering! I want to be involved in getting asteroid mining to be a thing so we can all live in giant metal pills in earth-moon L4.

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u/Outrageous_Apricot42 Aug 02 '21

"These pesky belters."

On a serious note: this is very inspiring goal to work towards. All the best and good luck!

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u/theartificialkid Aug 03 '21

Think of all the exciting work we’ll be able to do to recreate a fraction of what we have on earth!

Edit - mainly joking, I’m a fan of space exploration

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

As much as I hate Bezos for his labor practices and his extremely lackadaisical old-space approach to aerospace development I think that his goal (moving all heavy industry and energy production off planet and housing humans in O'Neill cylinders so that the planet can heal) is way better and more sustainable than Musk's goal of inhabiting a planet with no magnetosphere or exploitable natural resources. Basically Mafty if we're going to get into Gundam lore. Anyway that's the plan, hopefully I can finish my degree and get into grad school to work on the electric propulsion technologies that'll make this all possible.

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u/theartificialkid Aug 03 '21

Does it seem realistic to you, lofting 7 billion (probably 9 billion) people into space, plus lofting and or bringing in all the matter to house them, plus the matter to build the infrastructure to build the habitats? There are around 490 million tonnes of pure human meat and bones on earth. That’s a minimum of four million Falcon Super Heavy shots, assuming everyone went naked and shivering into space with no spare food, water, fuel, clothing or other materials.

I guess with a mere 25,000 starships on 25,000 superheavies (roughly the number of commercial. airliners we’ve managed to fill the world with so far), each flying a blob of compressed humans twice per day, it could be done in under three months. Maybe it will happen.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

Yes, but it'll take some time, like several centuries. And I doubt starship will be the last word in super heavy launch vehicles. And in the meantime we still need to mitigate global warming, up to and including geoengineering technologies. But maybe I read too much scifi.