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In this question (How much fuel does the SpaceX HLS need to do a round trip? Want to estimate the number of launches needed to refuel HLS) the user asks this community for help estimating the amount of fuel the Starship HLS would need to make the round trip to the surface of the moon. While it would be necessary to state some simplifying assumptions and estimate accuracy, I think that it is possible to write a fact-based answer to this question. It mostly involves applying the principles of orbital mechanics and the fundamentals of rocketry. It's not an opinion-based question.

It is the kind of question that lots of young rocket scientists following the Artemis program would love to engage with.

This question is fundamentally about helping people use math and physics to apply the principle of trust-but-verify. This is an incredibly good thing and we should strongly encourage it to make the world a better place.

I'm very concerned that people will begin to think that they can't trust this community if we allow a few of its members to close a question that makes them feel uncomfortable. On the whole, we are not Elon Musk's army of flying monkeys. We are intelligent individuals with our own agency. We should act accordingly.

I encourage everyone to vote to reopen the question.

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    $\begingroup$ Your assumptions here seem to be waaay off base - there is no closing because a question makes anybody "feel uncomfortable." That question, as it is currently written, does not have anywhere near enough info in it to avoid being opinion-based. It is also not a very well written question, so I'd like to see it edited to better meet requirements. Remember, closing is not deleting - and the very helpful comments should help it be steered into a reasonable state, but nobody can know what SpaceX won't tell the public. $\endgroup$
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Jun 20 at 15:56
  • $\begingroup$ OK, your wish is my command! I took a crack at this but feel free to suggest any other improvements you would like to see. $\endgroup$
    – phil1008
    Commented Jun 20 at 18:40
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    $\begingroup$ "On the whole, we are not Elon Musk's army of flying monkeys. We are intelligent individuals with our own agency. We should act accordingly." It's really not necessary to talk about the community this way. $\endgroup$
    – Erin Anne
    Commented Jun 21 at 5:02
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    $\begingroup$ If you are suggesting that this community is a bunch of Musk fanboys I take strong exception to this on my part. I despise the guy. He's like the distillation of every bad engineering manager I worked for. Your purported level of concern is completely irrelevant BTW - the number of close votes it takes, are the number of close votes it takes and "the feels" have nothing to do with it. $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Jun 21 at 19:43
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    $\begingroup$ The question as written now bears no resemblance to the original post (except for the graphic) but in its current state seems OK, so I voted to reopen. $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Jun 21 at 19:48
  • $\begingroup$ I do think this community is made up of independent thinkers. I do occasionally see people regurgitate a statement that Elon Musk made as if it were fact without applying critical thinking skills. That bothers me more than it probably should. But seeing a question that I thought represented good critical thinking get closed so quickly did bother me a lot. Of course, I may have first seen an already improved version of the question. $\endgroup$
    – phil1008
    Commented Jun 21 at 21:21
  • $\begingroup$ A question needs to be practical, if the experts only have a rough guess we can't expect to do better, there's a lot of undecided variables to pigeonhole it so early. There's also a comment about doing research, which provides these best guesses: 1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS#Mission_profile 2. x.com/elonmusk/status/1425473261551423489 3. spacenews.com/… - so it's too soon to calculate, and an average over several flights is the best answer. $\endgroup$
    – Rob
    Commented Jul 4 at 17:52

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Should the how-much-fuel-for-round-trip question have been closed?

I wonder if someone once said "Stack Exchange is the worst question and answer site, except for all the rest."

It is true that very often the community will leave a problematic but well-intentioned question that has a good chance of being improved in real time OPEN and frequently that results in good, answerable question without the several day cycle of closure + reopening.

But sometimes that doesn't happen, and the slower process of question closure voting, closure = answer prevention, edits, reopen voting, and finally (sometimes) reopening happens. It can be a day or two or longer.

For new users, this can sometimes be disheartening, which is why helpful, informative comments are so important.

However, for new users, this can also be a helpful and educational process.

I think that it would be bad if insta-closing were to become endemic on a low question rate SE site. With only a handful of question per day, there's little risk of things falling through the cracks, and if somehow a bad answer is posted the community deals with the quality of that answer promptly!

Without the dangers that quick-closing is supposed to protect the site from and no fires to be put out, and as long as I see the question is getting attention from comments and edits, I don't feel any motivation to help initiate the several day, clunky close and reopen process.

At the same time, others have different views and feel voting to close thereby voting to prevent answers and voting to require the slow, clunky close and reopen process is their civic duty as good SE citizens, and there's no good argument against that.

Since I've just made the fifth reopen vote just now, the question is again OPEN for business... yay! It was closed for about 2.6 days, which is typical for a close/edit/reopen cycle here. That seems to be a potentially avoidable but simultaneously minor inconvenience.

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