- Due to its excessiveness, Starship reinvents space flight
- Starship is a blessing for space exploration
- This huge rocket poses immense problems for SpaceX
5000 tons, 120 meters high and 33 engines. These few figures allow us to take the measure of Starship. The most powerful rocket in the world experienced a very remarkable first flight on April 20. A few weeks after this historic mission, the impact of such a vessel on the space industry raises questions.
How will other companies react to the emergence of this new competition? With Starship, SpaceX isn’t just bringing a super-powerful ship. The company founded by Elon Musk will be able to send satellites weighing several tens of tons into orbit.
With this position of choice on the heavy launcher market, Starship will even be able to overshadow the European rocket Ariane 6 and NASA’s SLS model. Starship will also raise quality standards in the space world. It is impossible to develop a rocket in 2023 without making it reusable. An idea that would have been called science fiction 10 years ago.
Big ambitions
But the most important contribution of the Starship is not measured in the numbers. This is the “vision” that SpaceX brings in its luggage. The company has no limits and hopes to join Mars in the more or less near future. Never has the human species ventured so far.
It is no coincidence that the advent of SpaceX occurs at the same time as NASA’s second manned mission program to the Moon. The American space agency knows that it needs two things to reach our satellite. The first is substantial political support. It was offered by Donald Trump upon his arrival at the White House. The second spring used by NASA is based on the industrial fabric.
To go to the Moon the American space agency cannot work alone. Already in the 1960s during the Apollo program, manufacturers like Lockheed Martin had been essential to the success of the lunar missions. Today it is up to SpaceX to take on this role.
Starship : too big to fly ?
But the arrival of Starship in space does not only make people happy. On April 20, a crowd of engineers in a trance was present not far from the launch pad, a month later, it was climatologists and ecologists who took the floor. They are far from having enjoyed the show.
By exploding at an altitude of 29 kilometers Starship polluted a lot. Several associations have just launched legal actions against the FAA, the American federation of aviation, which by authorizing the launch of the Starship would have committed gross negligence.
Since its maiden flight, the environmental impact of the rocket has been questioned. While the ecological question is taking more and more space in the public debate, the launch of a 5000 ton rocket to send a few billionaires to make tourists into orbit questions the common sense of such a mission.
SpaceX is also trapped in its choice of launch location. With the Starbase, built in Boca Chica, the company has (again) drawn the wrath of environmental protection associations. For good reason, the region is a privileged nesting place for an endemic species of turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.
In order to settle this dispute quickly enough SpaceX could decide to abandon its base at 2 billion dollars to launch its next Starships directly from the historic launch pad of Cape Canaveral in Florida.
