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SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

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Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#101

Post by samcheng »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #80
Mizza wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently read the screenplay to 2001. An interesting thing mentioned in the script, but not shown in the film, is that all of the images of beautiful space ships in the early sequence of the film are in fact space-based nuclear missile launchers, and that there are 27 nuclear nations with space weapons. I sometimes imagine what an alien visitor would think about us if they came to our planet and saw that we had suc…

Any sources for this? Wikipedia seems to state there are no known operative orbital nuclear weapons systems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_weapon#Space-to-Earth_...

The poster is describing the future imagined by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick in 1968, not reality.

We ended up with a lot fewer nukes, and a lot less space. (Also fewer trippy alien wormholes.)

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#102

Post by ChuckMcM »

rbanffy wrote: post #82
ChuckMcM wrote: post #50

Always impressive to me. And I know that people will say "Yeah, basically the only thing 'new' here is the engine" but there are also a bunch of other things that struck me; It did the hop 'off balance' (the final version expects to have 3 raptor engines working together) so the engine out scenario for landing still seems pretty safe. There is something like four more advanced vehicles in the warehouse section at var…

The DC-X still manages to look modern next to it. Had it succeeded, it'd have done something not even SpaceX is doing, which is a fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit craft. I don't think we have the advanced materials for that.

I agree. For a space craft that did it's 150m "hop" in 1992 it was even more impressive (especially considering how much the computers and IMU weighed in that thing!)

I'm not convinced though that it ever really to achieve it's SSTO goals and still land it. With on orbit refueling perhaps (as could Starship in a similar scenario). It was also shooting for much lower mass to LEO.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#103

Post by m0zg »

themgt wrote: post #52
llboston wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another significant thing is that Starship is designed to be mass manufactured at a relatively low cost. SpaceX can crank out thousands of Starships, fly them to Mars and build a million people colony. Starship is truly a game changer!

Yep, and in addition to both of these, Starship is also designed: * to be fueled / ignited such that it can be refueled in-situ on Mars & then launched back to Earth, without advanced rocket fuels or the TEA-TEB chemical igniter. * to be able to refuel from another Starship in-orbit The combination of all of this, if they pull it off, will be the ability to send truly massive payloads to Mars, faster and cheaper than…

I wish I could invest into SpaceX. Such a slam-dunk rarely presents itself, and an opportunity to change the world for the better _while also making money_ is rarer still.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#104

Post by skissane »

rbanffy wrote: post #97
skissane wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass. Unlike other "cheap tests", that one is imposed by US government regulations, not SpaceX's own decisions. I imagine SpaceX would be quite happy if ITAR was loosened, but I doubt that will happen. I honestly can't see why ITAR applies to citizens of friendly countries such as Canada or the UK. The point of ITAR is to stop unfriendly countries like…

A country is friendly until it isn't. I understand it's not a requirement imposed by SpaceX, but it also prevents them from getting a lot of applications they wouldn't be able to turn into hires.

> A country is friendly until it isn’t

If the US can trust the UK with information on nuclear weapon designs and delivery systems, surely it can handle a few UK citizens working for SpaceX?

In the unlikely event that the UK and US had some falling out, the US government could always order SpaceX to lay off UK citizen employees.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#105

Post by rtsil »

fermienrico wrote: post #65

Can someone please explain the significance of this milestone for a space-ignorant person like myself? I thought SpaceX does these types of landings all the time. :)

New rocket, new engines, new targets.

If Falcon 9 (the current rocket) was a motorboat capable of going from one port to a neighboring one on the same sea coast, this is the early prototype for a transatlantic liner.

It's designed to be much bigger, much faster and more powerful, while being fully reusable (like a plane) and extremely cost-effective, potentially 10 times cheaper than the Falcon 9, which is already the cheapest launch vehicle. That opens up all sorts of new possibilities.

And these hops are the first concrete steps toward that.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#106

Post by yreg »

eric-hu wrote: post #46
llboston wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another significant thing is that Starship is designed to be mass manufactured at a relatively low cost. SpaceX can crank out thousands of Starships, fly them to Mars and build a million people colony. Starship is truly a game changer!

Can you recommend resources for reading more about the long term plans of Starship?

Not the parent poster, but there is

[0] Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species / Elon's original presentation from IAC 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Uyfqi_TE8

[1] Starship Update / 2019 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOpMrVnjYeY

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#107

Post by dodobirdlord »

m0zg wrote: post #103
themgt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and in addition to both of these, Starship is also designed: * to be fueled / ignited such that it can be refueled in-situ on Mars & then launched back to Earth, without advanced rocket fuels or the TEA-TEB chemical igniter. * to be able to refuel from another Starship in-orbit The combination of all of this, if they pull it off, will be the ability to send truly massive payloads to Mars, faster and cheaper than…

I wish I could invest into SpaceX. Such a slam-dunk rarely presents itself, and an opportunity to change the world for the better _while also making money_ is rarer still.

It seems you could buy a stake in a number of publicly traded companies and funds that themselves own a stake. Seems like Google and Fidelity each own about 4% of SpaceX, maybe Fidelity is offering it as a component of some fund?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Ownership,_funding_and_...

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#108

Post by xiphias2 »

pinewurst wrote: post #95
dmix wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone even care what your grades were beyond your first job?

Much less one’s college admission test scores - how do they signal a “hard working person” especially 20 years down the road?

Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance?

I prefer investing in Tesla/SpaceX instead of working there, and leave working extra hard to young people who have more energy than me.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#109

Post by menybuvico »

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #55

Does anyone else get super depressed by this? I did some great work today. I coded something pretty cool and useful. I built a little deck to explain it. My coworkers loved it. My job security went up. I enjoyed it. The journey is the reward. But these guys are making rockets in tents. Should I be rethinking life? Because that's how it feels. I love it. I admire them. But it feels unobtainable. I want to make that ki…

Well, won't your pretty cool and useful code make the lives easier for some people, including yourself? The idea is to leave the World a little better place than it was when we got here, and it sounds like you just did something that will help you achieve just that.

Personally, things like this motivate me. If those guys can send a giant steel tube into space then goddammit I will be able to finish project XYZ on time, and provide a useful service to a customer, thereby contributing to the greater whole.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#110

Post by inopinatus »

rbanffy wrote: post #75
pinewurst wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The application forms are pretty ridiculous with theIr insistence on school/graduation dates (some reqs) and SAT/ACT scores (all). As a very experienced engineer, I can’t accept being judged on (historical) trivia.

Same here. Understand they need to somehow weed through their applications. Experienced engineers are costly to assess and having a cheap test to remove the obvious negatives helps them at the cost of a few false ones. :-( I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass.

I've found that all really effective hiring funnels are biased for type 1 errors at the start and type 2 errors later on.

Filtering on inane academic requirements up front is the exact opposite, and you end up rejecting half the real talent pool.

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