Trent Telenko Profile picture
Oct 30, 2021 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
CASEY HANDMER'S BLOG has a hugely important piece on Starship. If a space firm misunderstands this passage:

"A dollar spent on mass optimization no longer buys a dollar saved on launch cost. It buys nothing."

It's doomed

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/sta…
His blog's comparison of NASA's SLS based Artemis architecture versus a Lunar program based on Starship makes the point.

This is a phase change difference in access to space akin from the X-Atlantic air travel jump from Charles Lindberg to the wide body jet in 5-years.
2/
For the logistical types, these are your current price points:

$100,000/kg for LEO bulk cargo
$1,000,000/kg(+) for deep space exploration.

Starship will do 100 ton (+) chunks for <$10m per launch.

It will be launching several hundred times a year w/in 5-years.
3/
Starship will be doing 1,000(+) flights a year in about seven to 10 years.

And no one in the NASA or the incumbent space industries world wide are doing jack to prepare for that reality.
4/
Casey Handmer's point is how will...

"NASA and industry will have to find a way to produce 100x as much stuff for 1/10th the price. Rovers will have to be $1000/kg and we will need 100 tons of them every year."

5/
That isn't where NASA is
Nor Boeing,
Nor Lockheed Martin,
Nor Aerojet etc. etc.

They are all pretending the SpaceX's Falcon & Falcon Heavy rockets don't exist
6/
Another of Handmer's point's --

"History is littered with the wreckage of former industrial titans that underestimated the impact of new technology and overestimated their ability to adapt. Blockbuster, Motorola, Kodak, Nokia, RIM, Xerox, Yahoo, IBM, Atari, Sears, Hitachi,
7/
...Polaroid, Toshiba, HP, Palm, Sony, PanAm, Sega, Netscape, Compaq, Enron, GM, DeLorean, Nortel.

What we are seeing here is an industrial/institutional version of Thomas Kuhn's Theory of Scientific Revolutions. People invested in the old ways
8/
amazon.com/Structure-Scie…
...will be displaced by those who believe in the new, relevant, scientific & technological paradigms.

And politics will follow this shift.

9/
Starship's success, and it is looking increasingly successful, will be akin to a seed crystal dropped into a supersaturated solution.

The first fully successful Starship orbital launch & return will kill stock values of every other space launcher firm overnight.
10/
And the NASA SLS architecture - long nicknamed the "Senatorial Launch System" for its major supporters - will not survive past the 3rd launch.

What there will be left of NASA after Starship enters regular daily service is conjecture. I too, like Handmer, hope it can adapt.
11/
But whatever comes after...it won't include the Senatorial Launch System.

/End

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More from @TrentTelenko

Jun 27
The F-35 Big/Expensive/Few Platform & Missile cult is in deep denial of this battlefield reality.

Air superiority below 2,000 feet/600 meters has been lost by crewed aircraft.

F-35's are irrelevant for the Mavic drone threat, save as a budget threat to the C-UAS procurement.
1/
The arrival of the Ukrainian Gogol-M, a 20-foot span fixed-wing aerial drone mothership, with over a 200km radius of action while carrying a payload of two 30km ranged attack drones under its wings, underlines the impact of low level airspace as a drone "avenue of approach."
2/
The Gogol-M flys low and slow, below ground based radar coverage like a helicopter.

It opens up headquarters, ground & air logistics in the operational depths to artificial intelligence aided FPV drone attacks.

3/ Image
Read 9 tweets
Jun 27
This is the main example of one of the most unprofessional delusions held by the US Navalist wing of the F-35 Big/Expensive/Few platform and missile cult.

Russian fiber optic FPV's have a range of 50km - over the horizon!

1/
This means things as the Russians make these FPV's from Chinese commercial drone components in six figure and soon 7 figure (millions!) numbers.

This has huge implications for the impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

2/ Image
Image
Image
When China invades Taiwan, the 1st move will be occupying the small islands around Formosa (left) and making them drone, GMLRS & HQ9 SAM bases.

50 km circles around all those small islands cover almost all the invasion beaches (map right) with PLA 50km fiber optic FPV's.

3/ Image
Image
Read 5 tweets
Jun 24
It isn't just a matter of pre-2023 sniper tactics being obsolete.

Every patrolling tactic taught by the US Army Infantry and Ranger schools are obsolete when you can "just send a drone. "

1/3
Drones simply don't have ground line of sight issues like soldiers do.

Drones can see in more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.

And the US Army refuses to buy enough small drones (1 m +) to train their troops to survive on the drone dominated battlefield.🤢🤮

2/3
"Just send a drone" is the proper tactic for almost everything a 21st century infantryman does from patrolling, raiding enemy positions, sniping and setting up forward observation posts.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jun 23
Please note that Iran _ISN'T_ shooting down IDF drones over Tehran⬇️

There are technological reasons for that.

1/2
The odds are heavily in favor of the IDF having parked Hermes drones with "Gorgon Stare" technology over Tehran to hunt Iranian senior government officials.

2/2 Image
P.S.

This is the wiki on Gorgon Stare technology.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_St…Image
Read 4 tweets
Jun 22
The following photo captures from WW2 bomb damage analysis documents are to calibrate people's eyes as to what to expect from the Fordow strike.

The MOP crater is going to be something called a "Camouflet" because the MOP will dig so deep before exploding.

1/6 Image
The problem with this US strike is the rock density in the Fordow area may be too much for the GBU-57/B MOP (See Grok below)

Unless there is really good intelligence showing a weakness in Fordow or...

2/6
grok.com/share/c2hhcmQt…
...this MOP strike had several bombs with the same aim point and a timer setting for simultaneous detonation. Good results will be difficult.

WW2 testing showed hard crystallized limestone was a pain for semi-armor piercing bombs dropped from 16,000 feet to penetrate.

3/6 Image
Read 7 tweets
Jun 22
Well, it wasn't a TACO moment.

This US strike on the Iranian nuclear program was paddy cake.

The Iranian smart move here is screaming a lot, doing little and waiting for a Democratic US President to build nukes.

1/2 Image
The dumbest of dumb moves by the Iranians would be laying sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

That was what set off Operation Praying Mantis in the late 1980's which sank 1/2 of Iran's navy in a day.

2/3 Image
Image
Image
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If the Iranians choose doing something dumb...

...US has positioned aerial assets in the Mid-East that are sufficient for a modestly large aerial bombardment effort for ~100+ tactical fighters⬇️

3/3
Read 4 tweets

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