I was there. I have been following spacex for a decade. I watched all the most important launches on livestream. I watched the first dragon cargo mission launch live. But this was the first time actually being present at the launch. Despite all my experience, it was totally unexpected. I had no idea how surreal it feels to watch something that big float slowly towards the sky. The sound physically shakes you. It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.
Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
181–190 of 203 posts
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to prepare for that eventuality, instead of wasting your time and money colonizing Mars, you should be spending your time and money on doing asteroid surveys, and working on deflection strategies. It's far cheaper, and will save billions of lives. Your ROI from doing so is going to be a hell of a lot better. In comparison to that, colonization is a science fiction fantasy, in search of a problem to solve.
I wonder if the people working on asteroid deflection strategies would find it useful to have a giant cheap general purpose factory-produced fully reusable rocket that can refuel itself in orbit and quickly reach various points in the solar system and deliver a significant amount of payload to them?
Nobody's saying space access is a waste of time, space access has measurable utility.
I'm just saying that Mars colonization is a waste of time.
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to prepare for that eventuality, instead of wasting your time and money colonizing Mars, you should be spending your time and money on doing asteroid surveys, and working on deflection strategies. It's far cheaper, and will save billions of lives. Your ROI from doing so is going to be a hell of a lot better. In comparison to that, colonization is a science fiction fantasy, in search of a problem to solve.
Why not do both?
Because we currently don't do either, and if we're going to pick one mitigating strategy, I'd prefer picking one that actually has a point to it.
Money and human effort is fungible, you can spend it on many things. I'd rather it not being spent on pointless pursuits. If someone is going to spend it on pointless pursuits, I suppose they could do that, but they should at least not delude themselves.
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#184I'm so pumped watching this stuff. Everything looked perfect, except perhaps it set down a little hard. I think I saw it bounce a bit, and it might be leaning a little bit. One way or another, a spectacularly successful test. Well done SpaceX! I'm keenly looking forward to seeing the first video of a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon and Mars.
This must've been the perfect one to see live. You got to see it launch, fly, land, AND explode. Nice!
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you share a link to the explosion? The Twitter video cut out with rocket intact.
It's in the stream here, higher res than the twitter video posted below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOQkk3ojNfM
Explosion:
https://youtu.be/XOQkk3ojNfM?t=38340
Either not all the landing legs deployed, or it landed too hard and broke them. It looks like it landed on the engine bells.
There's a lot less clearance under the Starship on landing than the Falcons. Several landing leg designs came out of Space-X; there's one animation with four folding legs, one with six, and one with legs that extend linearly. Not clear what flew.
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#186Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not do both?
Because we currently don't do either, and if we're going to pick one mitigating strategy, I'd prefer picking one that actually has a point to it. Money and human effort is fungible, you can spend it on many things. I'd rather it not being spent on pointless pursuits. If someone is going to spend it on pointless pursuits, I suppose they could do that, but they should at least not delude themselves.
Deflecting an asteroid with current technology would involve launching a rocket at it and either imparting enough kinetic energy to nudge it into an orbit that doesn't intersect Earth or blowing it up with a nuclear warhead. Either of those would require a large rocket capable of throwing a substantial payload well outside of Earth's orbit.
Tracking asteroids can be done with terrestrial radar (that was one of the things Arecibo was used for before it collapsed), or it could be done with space-based radar systems. Radar requires a lot of power, so any space-based radar will need a substantial solar array.
Both of these problems are easier when you have a heavy-lift rocket such as Starship or Falcon 9 (regular and heavy versions) available. If we're regularly ferrying stuff back and forth between Earth and Mars, we're going to need a lot of those rockets. Having a space transportation economy would mean rockets are available for other uses, such as the aforementioned asteroid interceptor or space radar delivery platform. These problems are all connected.
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the lean is expected, I’ve been predicting it. The vehicle lands on only one engine at the end which is off centre, so the landing legs are going to get asymmetric forces on landing. Also these are only interim leg designs. Oh, keeblewey!
I very highly doubt the lean is expected. The fact is that 2-3 of the landing legs deployed but did not lock into their extended position, which resulted in the lean this time. This also caused structural damage to the engines and tanks, causing the rupture and kaboom.
Fair enough, I know the test hops resulted in a lean but didn't know they had a significantly improved leg design.
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don’t equivocate visiting another planet or planets with saving the human species. All it takes is one big, unlucky rock hurlting through space hitting this singular planet of ours, and we're gone like the dinosaurs. Eggs in one basket, and all that.
That is a threat, but the time when humans can survive away from a destroyed Earth is so long away that I don’t understand how a fail fast attitude helps.
> so long away
Even if it'll take 500 years to achieve, which seems longer than realistic, that's still the blink of an eye on a cosmic timescale.
A comet or asteroid could hit us at any moment and cause our extinction. That's one example of a planet-specific existential risk.
Diversifying life across multiple planets would make it much more likely that we'd survive as a species if something like this happened.
Re: Live feed of Starship SN10 flight test [video]
#190I hope my Tesla doesn’t get any ideas.