Author Eric Berger: Why the World Isn't Ready For Starship.

Hi! I am now FULL TIME Ellie in SPACE!
My channel started as a way to keep people up to date on the world of SpaceX's Starlink, the satellite internet service. The channel has grown to include the broader Elon Musk universe.
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[@jeffrey5961]

Solid interview. Difficult for a site to decide between clickbait and real news. Clickbait brings in the money. Appreciate Ellie for all her efforts.

[@richardking43000]

Ellie watched the interview and inspired me to purchase the book "Liftoff" by Mr. Berger. As Eric wrote about each of the four launches in the early days of Space X, I watched them in sequence on KZbin. I'm fascinated by the early history and storylines. I'd encourage anyone watching your interview to purchase and read the book. Great job!

[@marsspacex6065]

Eric is the best space reporter in the business. Of course I know him.

[@ellieinspace]

Yes he is!!! Truly! I can’t wait to read his sequel

[@percurious]

My reaction exactly 😁

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Why don't you ask an expert like Thunderf00t aka Dr Phil Mason and Common Sense Skeptic (CSS)? They show all the math and all the logical contradictions/inconsistencies (i.e. HYPOCRISIES, LIES) of Elon Musk that you are too stupid and lazy to go through. This Eric Burger knows nothing. His book is garbage. All he does is get his UTTERLY BIASED INFO from ONE source: SpaceX. Thunderf00t and CSS are the best space reporters in the world.

[@opj4you]

Yay! I found time to watch the whole thing. Thank you Ellie!

[@FredPlanatia]

That was really excellent: well edited (I can imagine how free ranging this was, and you managed to edit down to a lot of interesting information with no repetition). An rule number 1 you let your interviewee (with a lot of interesting insight) do most of the speaking. Well done Ellie!

[@BoundlessSpace2024]

Awesome interview, maybe your best yet! Great questions and a great guest!

[@grantguy8933]

Will buy and read.

[@jimcabezola3051]

This is a reference work! I've read Mr. Berger for years on Ars Technica. You know...I like to see him so enthusiastic and vigourous. Over the past year or so, I've been reading Stephen Clark who's been doing a great, bang-up job covering Mr. Berger's "beat." This gave me a tiny bit of trepidation: was Eric Berger leaving the scene? Your interview brings me a sigh of relief. He's doing great. Mahalo for this video on your fellow space flight reporter!

[@Aravail]

There's so much space news to cover these days, Ars needed an additional space reporter, so they brought on Stephen to help Eric

[@jimcabezola3051]

@@Aravail I like your take on this! You know? I never thought we'd EVER get to a time in which there was TOO much space news for one person to cover! These times are a lot more pleasant than I give them credit for...

[@nitroflight]

Thanks, Elle 👍🏿 your interviews are always top-notch!

[@TimFrench-tx1xj]

Excellent interview….you’re a pro

[@ellieinspace]

Thank you so much, that means a lot !

[@newsgetsold]

Love Eric's final thought about what do they do with the launch capability. Well, surely Starlink and next level communication and internet infrastructure. But hopefully also cheap space tourism and even rapid human transport around the globe.

[@johncheatham6616]

Thank you Ellie

[@gregwise5377]

Another AWESOME interview, Ellie (Eric is great!) -- thank you!! It needs to get a lot more views and hopefully it will!

[@ellieinspace]

I agree and I’m glad you think so! Wonder why it’s lagging in views 🥲

[@azul29156]

I'm a SpaceX fan and an Ellie fan. I was dubious about this title because I see this author as a little too connected to "the old space establishment" . That and also SpaceX fans don't really want to hear negative stuff about Starship. I'm listening because I try to pride myself on being open-minded. At least enough to listen to the other side. So someone saying that "the world isn't ready yet" sounds like a narrative that the old space establishment would support. Unfortunately after 40 years in low earth orbit I think a lot of the public has very low faith and high skepticism towards anything controlled by the establishment. SpaceX with the falcon 9 gave us hope for the future. Elon is kind of riffing off of that hope. We want it to be true so badly that we may not be all that objective sometimes. I don't know if that's why the views are lagging but that's my two cents. Just explaining how I felt when I saw the video title. Ellie, you do a great job and I support you. Love your content keep it up. ❤️. PS. After listening I think I was wrong about Eric. I'm glad I overcame my initial aversion and listened.

[@techiheed1845]

Profound interview. Many answers for us space nerds

[@johnlynch5007]

Great video Elie.

[@dancingdog2790]

The SpaceX lander contract price was less than the *cost* *overruns* on the SLS engine program.

[@olebloom1641]

Once again an excellent interview. Great questions and interview style.

[@jrdaparker]

Awesome interview! Can’t wait to read Eric’s next book, but a little disappointed that we have to wait 10 years for the Starship book. I see Eric is wearing a Stoke space shirt. I wonder what he thinks about them? Please keep cranking out these videos, you do a great job!

[@nabormendonca5742]

Great interview!

[@richardpgallagher5163]

Awesome content!

[@737smartin]

Good work, Elle! Eric is awesome. Liftoff was fantastic! 32:40 of course the public has lost interest in F9 launches. They’re doing 12 a month! We earthlings lost interest in the Apollo program by Apollo 13, and at that point those were all MANNED missions in a very exciting, new frontier. We’re busy people down here! 😉

[@stephenhumble7627]

The reason NASA never did propellant transfer in orbit is not because it's too hard it's because it was too expensive to send propellant to space. ! The transfer is a relatively straightforward process it will require fluid couplings and pumps and may need a cryocooler and stuff but those are things that they can solve at their leisure over multiple test flights. About if Starship HLS will be ready on time i think NASA must always consider contingency plans but it would be pointless to do Artemis 3 without a landing. Instead it be far better to delay another 6 months than not do a lunar landing on Artemis 3. Also remember that starship will do a unmanned landing as well and dozens of earth landings so it will be far more thoroughly tested than the Apollo lander ever was.

[@michaelwolverton]

once again Ellie you come through with good interview.

[@Thomas-y5m]

With a potential launching of 100 tons, companies like orbital assembly could build their space station.

[@joakimlindblom8256]

My two favorite space reporters together -- an excellent interview! Eric mentioned how SpaceX has managed to keep an entrepreneurial spirit, even after over 20 years... I suspect this is because they're now acting almost like two companies: after a period of intense R&D, the Falcon 9 side of the business has perfected an operational business under Gwen Shotwell, while the Starship side operates as a startup and receives Elon's main attention. This is a bifurcated methodology that Clayton Christensen and collaborators first described over 25 years ago in the "Innovators Dilemma": many companies have attempted this, but few have succeeded in it, so hats off to SpaceX for successfully putting this into practice.

[@Thomas-y5m]

It's a space truck. Just imagine what could be built with it.

[@807800]

Always nice having Eric talk about the space industry. Is there a second part of the Tom Mueller interview, though?

[@ellieinspace]

Yes, still waiting for approval believe it or not

[@807800]

@@ellieinspace Ah, ITAR stuff!. Thanks Ellie!.

[@lorentzinvariant7348]

Read Liftoff. Awesome book.

[@samsanchez8997]

Now that they have passed the technology demonstration, I think SoaceX should start building an orbital refueling station using Falcon 9. They could build a larger than one starship station with the solar capability to keep the cryogenic fuel chilled so that there is Minimal burn off once they start transferring cryogenic fuel to it. It also would mean they could maybe have it built in time for the lunar demonstration mission.

[@Cape_Cod_Steve]

👍👍 Good stuff El ! ! !

[@jameshewitt3747]

May 6th is a great day for space. Space fans watch the NASA coverage at 6:30pm EST.

[@dmytroserdiuk4893]

People and the World are never ready. Also, as unprepared for Artificial Intelligence, or other things that go beyond the scope of their local, everyday understanding. It is not bad, and it is not good. It's just human nature. ⚡️

[@rwmcgwier]

The expense of training the private astronauts is huge.

[@lourdessilva6442]

Maravilha

[@gretco1]

Elon Musk for King 👑✨🪐🎟️🚕🙀🌌🚀👑 Mars-bound 👑🚌👑 King of the World 👑

[@jamescobban857]

Aviation was not ready for the jumbo jet either. There wasnt a single airport with the facilities to service a jumbo jet. Even the Boeing 707 was delivered with no customers signed up! A key economic point is that Starship is a "Swiss Army Knife". It is not specialised for any specific application. For example a common issue with all of the new competitors for medium to heavy launches is that they are optimized to compete with Falcon 9 only for delivery to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. They can never compete with Falcon 9 for LEO until they achieve comparable reuse and comparable cadence. But GEO is a fundamentally obsolete location because there is nothing that can be done better from GEO than from LEO. Long before they become competitive SpaceX will have moved most of its workload to Starship, because even for payloads that are compatible with Falcon 9 Starship is cheaper because of its faster cadence. The only question is *when* Starship will achieve commercial readiness. Based upon the current rate of progress by Q4 2026 Starship will be launching several times a month. It is not impossible that Starship will have launched over 100 times, which is their internal benchmark for crew-rating. SpaceX will have an orbital refilling depot, and will have solved many of the issues of maintaining cryogenic fuels. They will have sent a Starship into lunar orbit. They may have landed an HLS prototype on the Moon and lifted it back off to orbit. They may even have recovered one all the way to LEO. Even if they achieve those objectives that does not signify readiness to risk the lives of humans. But what those tests would clearly demonstrate is that by 2028 SLS will no longer make any sense, since SpaceX will be able to deliver humans directly from the KSC to the Lunar Surface, and back to LEO for less than $1B. Moreover by Q4 2026, with at least dozens if not a hundred Starship launches behind them, and the refilling station in operation, and Musk's obsession with Mars, I am confident that SpaceX will send a Starship to Mars. Therefore anybody who has an interest in planetary exploration should be planning to use some of its 1,000 cubic metre volume and at least 100 tonnes of capacity. Any university engineering department should be able to build a device which can be plugged into the standard SpaceX transport bus. How about a dozen lunar rovers? Now that NASA no longer has a budget to deliver the Mars Sample Return Mission, what could a team of engineers do given that they do not have to worry about Mars Transfer Insertion, low Mars orbit insertion, or having to fit it within the miniscule mass budget of a US Congress approved booster? They have over two years to implement a Starship-based design. My personal belief is that since Deimos and Phobos have the spectral signature of C-type asteroids, they may have vast supplies of subsurface frozen water and hydrocarbons, which would dwarf what a Sabatier reactor on the Martian surface could deliver. But no probes have yet been sent to study these moons so far.

[@k53847]

NASA has gotten very risk adverse, at least in theory. In theory Columbia wouldn't have happened either. I remember the immediate post-accident Columbia conference. Ron Ditmore, shuttle program manager, seemed to be the only person in the room who didn't already know what went wrong. And then he was rewarded for his total lack of safely management by being made a millionaire running ATK after his retirement from NASA.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Mars in the 2030s? We're lucky if we get back to the Moon by then! And then it needs infrastructure first. Starlink to the Moon. Moon base and orbital station. New space stations in LEO. Gas station in LEO and in LLO. A relay station at L1, connecting Moon internet to Earth. The first batch of Starlink to Mars, plus a relay station. That all done, it's possible to start with Mars. Most important is Starship with a fission reactor and nuclear propulsion. These are probably not going to land anymore, but can do the transfer in less than half the time. This is very important, for several reasons. Even after only 90 days zero-grav: people will have trouble crawling out of the ship, on Mars. But a nuke motor can fly under constant 0.5g, or whatever turns out best. 2045 feels realistic. 🚀🏴‍☠️🎸

[@lazarus2691]

Constant 0.5G isn't even remotely possible with near future fission tech. Nuclear thermal rockets are only about twice as efficient as chemical rockets, so can only run about twice as long before running out of fuel. Worse, the weight of the reactor, extra shielding, and low fuel density offset most of that advantage - it ends up only being about 30% overall. And that's ignoring the fact that Starship doesn't have to save fuel to slow down - an NTR stage is difficult to design for aerobraking, and probably wouldn't be allowed at Earth anyway. As for nuclear-electric, that only has a projected acceleration on the order of 0.00001G with current tech. You might manage 0.0001G or so with some effort.

[@yoskarokuto3553]

beacuse this ? NASA SP287 " WHAT MADE APOLLO A SUCCESS ??? " " of course , the way we got this job done was with meeting , big meetings , little meeting hundreds of meetings ! " the thing we always tried to do in these meetings (( was to encourage every one no matter how shy to speak out !!! " )) WHY encourage every one NO MATTER HOW SHY TO SPEAK SOMETHING OUT !!! IS ULTIMATE SECRET TO " MADE APOLLO A SUCCESS ??? " YOU CAN GO TO THE MOON WITH " DON'T SHY TO SPEAK SOMETHING OUT ??? "

[@opj4you]

1st comment for the algorithm haha

[@MrGlenspace]

The world is not ready for starship because starship is not ready. Elon still can nit get into orbit so the moon is along way off. At the current rate I would nit be surprised if moon landing not until 2028 or later.

[@andyonions7864]

War criminal!

[@jamesengland7461]

What on earth?

[@andyonions7864]

@@jamesengland7461 it's a bit of an insider joke. I believe Rogozin, the boss of Roscosmos, called Eric Berger a war criminal

[@ross077]

This is probably your most wide ranging interview Ellie. So many of these questions and answers point to realistic predictions for the future of spaceflight.

[@ellieinspace]

Thank you! I hope more people see it!!

[@favesongslist]

Artemis doing an extra mission to rendezvous to a Starship in LEO to test the docking with Orion and Starship's life support and accommodation in space is a very worthwhile and important step.

[@montymonto6430]

You really know how to interview. Excellent.

[@TheOrsonbuggy]

👀👍🏻

[@stephenhumble7627]

55 million per dragon seat would probably be the incremental NASA crew dragon seat cost (ignoring dev cost) but spacex could easily be charging much less to other customers. NASA flights spend 6 months docked to the ISS vs private flights last under a week and do not have to dock to the ISS. I think they could go under 40 million per seat with the dragon flying so regularly and the greater level of reuse of the capsules which is said will be up to fifteen times. Flights from now on are all using existing equipment so spacex can do missions with less effort and build on the experience having done 10+ crewed flights already.

[@deniszovko8274]

NASA should give SpaceX more room and space and not stand in their way because they are really the ones who are working so hard to accomplish the plans they have

[@zapfanzapfan]

Yepp, a real interview with Jeff Bezos would be great. Get on it Ellie! 🙂

[@spacemanmat]

Another great interview, really hitting them out of the park.

[@hupekyser]

awesome interview

[@timmorel79]

❤

[@steveo6034]

Liftoff is one of my favorite books! Besides Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy, it's the only book Ive read months once!

[@Kram668]

So glad, after reading his work, to hear his voice!

[@jamesengland7461]

I was also really surprised by what Eric said about the relative amounts of money Bezos and Elon have invested into space.

[@737smartin]

Me too! I just hadn’t thought through it. Makes sense, though.