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General question.
NASA won't send crew up with Starship because it doesn't have a crew-abort system, like SLS, or basically any "conventional" rocket system.
But the shuttle didn't really have an emergency abort system either, other than dropping the shuttle off of the booster and fuel tank. Is the difference that Starship can't seperate from it's tank, because it's not like the shuttle could drop its internal tanks either.
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Did NASA ever actually say that about Starship?
Shuttle had abort modes that mostly involve landing "normally". After jettisoning the SRBs, depending on how far it got and the target inclination, it could return to launch site, land in Europe or Africa, do one orbit then land back in the US, or abort to a lower than intended orbit, which actually happened once after an engine failure.
Starship can also do a pad abort, where the whole ship / upper stage separates from the 1st stage.
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Until it learned about musk and putin. Musk must be separated from SpaceX immediately
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dependancy on the whims of a corrupt billionaire is why NASA (and the US DoD, and the EU) are absolutely pushing for non-SpaceX spacetravel, even if it's more expensive. I'm also pretty sure it's why the Artemis program contracted a second lunar lander, despite having paid Musk over 3 billion for one already.
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One day StarShip will get a payload to orbit.
... One day.
Maybe some other day it will return without burning up or exploding!
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Hopefully that day comes soon!
We probably won't see payloads fly on Starship until they demonstrate in-space Raptor relight capability. After that, I wouldn't be surprised if they prioritize ship-to-ship propellant transfer tests over delivering payloads.
What do you think the timeline will be?
As for returning the ship, S30 did better than S29, landed on target, but still experienced a bit of flap burnthrough. I'm looking forward to seeing how S33 fares with the new flap location.
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I'll bet they deploy a bunch of starlink satellites basically as soon as they're able, if only for PR (and probably internal morale) reasons
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Timeline for StarShip delivering a payload of at least 25 tons to orbit and returning from orbit intact, as in, it can be repaired in one to two months and then reflown again?
6 to 8 years, assuming Trump and Elon win the election and Elon just gets to throw infinite taxpayer money at SpaceX via NASA. And it won't be called StarShip, Elon will change its name a few times.
If Trump and Elon lose, probably never, Elon will end up in jail and/or have to greatly downsize SpaceX after NASA stops funding StarShip.
EDIT: You mention orbital fuel transfers.
AFAIK, that hasn't been even designed, at all.
All we've seen are 3D renders.
Oh sure lets mate the fuel booms together at the engines, and then... slosh... the fuel... into the other craft?
Wait, that's a really bad idea? For an astounding number of reasons?
Oh uh, just connect them side to side, sure.
Oh... ok...
Have any actual details of this been explained?
Would that require crew in EVA suits? A fully automatic docking system and fuel connection system?
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