Comments by "ke6gwf - Ben Blackburn" (@ke6gwf) on "" video.

Ya no, Elon wants to retire Falcon and Dragon as soon as possible. No reason to modify it if the same effort can be put into Starship, which will do it and be much cheaper. Elon said that they will continue flying Falcon as long as customers demand it, but will want to move everyone over to Starship as soon as possible.
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@DoctorMangler funny, everyone that is actually an engineer and has worked with Elon considers him to be an amazing engineer, and he recently got voted in to a national engineering society by the other engineers, so it's kind of rich when I hear non engineers say he isn't an engineer, despite his engineering skills changing the space and the automotive industries.
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A lot of what you described would throw off the balance of the capsule on reentry, and would require a complete redesign. And they hope to have Starship operational by the time they could get the redesign finished. I would be very surprised if they made any major changes to Dragon before it retires to be replaced by Starship.
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@DoctorMangler you can be a great engineer without having that specific degree. Engineering is a skill, not a degree. And again, all the people who work with him, from NASA engineers to SpaceX engineers to Tesla engineers, all speak highly of his engineering skills.
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@DoctorMangler also remember that he has spent the last 20 years working constantly with some of the best engineers in the world, and they have been teaching him engineering. Now, if you think that 4 years reading books and being taught by mediocre engineers is greater training than decades of on the job practical training by the experts, than you don't understand what is really the most valuable kind of training.
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@DoctorMangler you are focused on the ability to sign off on plans, rather than the skills to make good engineering decisions. Since he has teams of certified engineers to sign off on plans, that's not important to him, but the ability to make good engineering decisions is what makes the company so successful. Go look up the video of a NASA engineer Dan Rasky talking about his time at SpaceX on a talent exchange with NASA, and how impressed he was with Elon's skills and abilities to learn rapidly from the people around him. If you think that Elon is LESS CAPABLE than a freshly graduated engineer just because he can't sign off on the plans, then you have a lack of comprehension of the situation.
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@DoctorMangler oh, and I find it rich that you will claim that he's not an engineer on the successful things, but when it's convenient, you act like it was his personal fault that the windows broke. I highly doubt that he was running the glass shop, I think he was busy working on the Dragon at the time.
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@DoctorMangler where do you come up with patents? I never said anything about patents and they have nothing to do with Elon's engineering skills. I am talking about the products that Elon is behind, from Dragon and Falcon to Starlink and Tesla.
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@Asterra2 there is no one who will need to "permit" manned versions of Starship. Once SpaceX is confident that it's safe, they can start launching their own astronauts. And once they have a few successful manned flights, after many many unmanned flights, and have demonstrated abort capabilities, including pad abort for Starship, then NASA won't have many excuses not to allow NASA flights on it. I mean, Starship should be safer than the Shuttle was! So yes, NASA MIGHT insist on Dragon for an occasional ISS mission, but at that point SpaceX will charge a lot more for it, since NASA at that point would be the only remaining customer, and so bear the costs of the entire Falcon program. And the main difference between current Starship design and manned Starship design is the addition of life support. The abort capability is provided by having enough engine power on Starship to be able to launch away from the pad by itself in case of a first stage explosion, and that's as simple as loading less fuel on it to bring the weight down. So for Leo or ISS missions, not much needs to be designed extra compared to current.
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@Asterra2 the shuttle didn't actually have any abort systems. It had no pad abort capability. Once it got high enough it could jettison all the rockets and hopefully glide back to the ground, but there were several parts of the launch that had no abort options available. Starship will have pad abort capability, it's already being designed in, and so will have much wider abort options than the Shuttle did. In addition, SpaceX can and I am sure will, demonstrate the abort modes, from pad abort to Max Q abort, just as they did with Crew Dragon. Remember that the Crew Dragon in flight abort test was not even required by nasa. And they are hardware rich with Starship, so doing abort tests will be fun and exciting fireworks for all, and won't cost them much to do.
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@bobcastro9386 there is also no abort mode if there was a problem with the Shuttle, with Crew Dragon, with Starliner, with the New Glenn Capsule, or on a airliner. The Abort modes are to get away from a failing launch and safely return to earth, but that relies on the primary vehicle remaining in functional condition. So yes, if a wing falls off a plane, or Starship has a failure, or Starliner fires the wrong thrusters, or the Shuttle has a damaged tile, there is no abort mode to rescue the passengers. The problem you are having is not recognizing that Starship is the escape vehicle, rather than something to escape from. And Starship does have multiple abort options, because it has multiple engines and redundant fuel and control systems, so a single failure won't doom it.
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