When the going gets tough, the tough get going, this is a popular American saying that means when
the situation becomes difficult, strong people are able to step up and handle it. And to be frank,
Elon Musk is one of the toughest guys on the planet, that is why amidst all the challenges
he faced with the starship, he persists to develop the biggest, and heaviest space vehicle,
and also performed several static fire tests to ensure the starship is ready for launch.
But right now, the FAA is an obstacle to Spacex’s dream of occupying Mars,
and Elon Musk being a pioneer of his space company, has regrettably cancelled the
expected launch of the fully stacked starship that would have happened in March this year.
What is happening behind the cotton, and why did Elon Musk suddenly abort the starship
orbital launch schedule for the month of March? Stick around and let’s find out.
Elon Musk is so confident that one day the starship will lift off from the launch
mount at starbase and land on Mars, just that the greatest barrier the company is
facing right now is that The FAA has not been so kind enough to give a go ahead
permit for the starship to soar in Orbit. But at some point, Elon doubt if the starship
will successfully reach orbit at first launch, because in an interview at the Margan Stanley
Conference on the 7th of March, he said that the starship rocket has just one chance to reach
orbit out of two. And this means that just at the first try of launching the starship into space,
something terrible may happen to the starship. And that’s normal because in any adventure there
is always a cause for fear at the first try, but this shouldn’t be the case since the
success we need is right at the back of that fear, only if we pierce through the fears,
then we’ll reach our desired destination. Elon has predicted that the starship has 50 percent
of chance to reach orbit. In his words; "I think it's got, hopefully about a 50% chance of
reaching orbit," Musk said, adding that SpaceX is building more Starship rockets and that overall,
if anything goes wrong, there's about an 80% chance one of them will reach orbit this year.
If the history of Starship's suborbital test flights tells us anything, it's that a failure
to reach orbit could mean the rocket blows up. So, Elon’s statement is just a hint that clearly
means Starship rocket may explode on first orbital launch, predicting 50% chance of
success and 'guaranteeing excitement'. That is why the starship’s static fire
test only lasted in less than 30 seconds, just to avoid damages that may sink cost.
Elon Musk has many times made a tweet that the starship will launch into orbit latest in late
2022, but that didn’t happen. Again, he was very sure that the starship will launch into
orbit In March, now he has cancelled the starship launch plan for March and spacex
enthusiasts are no longer certain of the exact date the starship will launch.
Elon may have deemed it wise to cancel the starship first launch because - as with any
first launch, a small flaws in the rocket's intricate hardware or software engineering
could easily make everything go wrong, leading to explosion and burning up cost.
The starship has gone through some test launch of which some was successful, and others ended up in
flames. Two years ago, when spacex tries to test launch the starship, three ships exploded and a
fourth sticking the landing before it blew up. The fifth attempt proved successful after a
Starship prototype flew 33,000 feet and was able to land upright and gently on its landing
pad. Hence, there are high chance that the starship will face its first launch failure
before it finally gets into orbit. Starship is part of SpaceX’s line of
vessels poised to be the world’s first fully reusable orbital rockets, with both the ship
and its 230-foot-tall booster designed to land themselves back on Earth after the flight.
Though spacex has to work on the necessary systems on the starship component to
be certain of success at first try. Early last year, Elon Musk stood on a stage near
the coast of Southern Texas with a 400-foot-tall stainless-steel rocket made by SpaceX, blending
into the night sky behind him. That rocket was supposed to be the first of a powerful new
class of space vehicles, known as Starship, that SpaceX was preparing to blast into orbit, part
of an ambitious plan to eventually reach Mars. But the rocket in question never made it to orbit.
After months of sitting outside on the SpaceX launch pad as workers cut old railroad ties for
use as a support structure, sawdust collected on the booster rocket’s engines and mushrooms
began to spread throughout them, and according to two SpaceX employees, the harsh coastal
weather also took its toll on the rocket, causing damage that made it even more unfit to fly.
Within a few weeks of Musk’s speech, SpaceX relocated the rocket’s two parts
from the launchpad to a kind of cemetery for retired rockets on the company’s property,
known as the Rocket Garden, where it is currently at rest and growing more mushrooms until there
are needs to resurrect and bring it to live. On the other hand, if at first try the starship
successfully gets into orbit, and everything works perfectly fine, it would create billions
of dollars in cost-cutting measures for future space ventures and move SpaceX one step closer
to fulfilling Musk’s ambition to transport people and cargo to the moon and Mars.
Also, NASA is laying its hopes on a successful Starship launch into orbit, as the agency plans
to use the starship to land its astronauts on the lunar surface latest by 2025.
But the bad news right now concerning the starship future is that a time slot for SpaceX’s Starship
orbital test on NASA’s calendar has been removed, adding new uncertainties around the
flight of the world’s largest privately developed rocket. And what does this mean for spacex?
Well, it means spacex has to wait for another timeline to be rescheduled before the starship
can fly into space, even so, the FAA has to also play its part, by giving spacex
the license to launch the gigantic starship on American soil, spacex continues to wait
for a beautiful day it will be free from the shackles of the FAA. But the FAA doesn’t seem to
be considerate on this matter, not even now. The most amazing feature about the Starship is
that it promise reusability and sheer flight power has made it attractive to NASA, and that is why
NASA selected the vehicle to land its astronauts on the moon again for the first time since 1972.
The agency has since expected spacex to launch the starship into space and back, but sadly,
up till now the starship on the ground, and because of the sluggish spacex consistent failed
voyage of the starship. But to NASA, reusability makes the rocket unique, and the company will not
give up on spacex any time soon – reason being that reusability is a major money-saving measure,
since SpaceX would not have to build a new upper stage for every starship launched.
And it’s also beautiful to know that reusability would increase efficiency to make it cheaper
to send satellites, more starship, cargo, and people into Earth's orbit and beyond,
without severe replacement of parts. Elon Musk praises starship reusability
that place the starship on another level of adoration. He said "We're building a whole series
of Starships in South Texas. ... It'll probably take us a couple more years to achieve full rapid
reusability, which, I can't emphasize enough ... is the profound breakthrough that is needed to
extend life beyond Earth, because it lowers the cost of access to space by orders of magnitude”
Elon Musk is the brain behind spacex success and he will only want to innovate what will
be best for mankind. His ultimate goal is for Starship to make it possible for humans
to establish a permanent presence on the moon, Mars and beyond.
"If things go well ... this vehicle could make life multi-planetary," he said. "That's a really
big deal. It could make life on Mars real." Musk said one of the greatest tests of any
civilization — not just human civilization — is "does that
civilization become multi-planetary or not?" In Musk’s opinion, humans are not supposed to
live only on earth, die and be buried here on earth also, rather, we ought to be living
beings that can travel to any corner of another planet that is human friendly, colonize it and
dominate it as our own territory. Do you think the starship will travel
to Mars this year 2023? Well, in the meantime a new new date has been released after taking
care of FAA $175,000 fine, check out how this would be possible just clicking on the video.