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SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#51

Post by colordrops »

paxys wrote: post #30
colordrops wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of parroting what you read on social media, how about doing a bit of critical thinking on this. What about all the resources going into video games, sports, movies, music, amusements parks, television, weapons systems, desserts, travel and vacations, etc? They dwarf everything put into space exploration, and are arguably less useful. Do you make the same tired comments when those industries are brought up? An…

Yes we can do multiple things at once. In the thread you joined we are discussing the single most important thing. So what really is your point here?

Your comment clearly indicates that we should hold on on space travel until after other problems are solved.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#52

Post by gpm »

milansuk wrote: post #14

In 2019, Elon tweeted[0] that the price of one Raptor engine is under $1M with the goal going under 250K for the next version. Any recent info where there are now? I'm still surprised they moved to this orbital fly so quickly without doing more tests. Going from 3 engines to almost 30 is crazy. Also, If I understand it right, both booster and starship will end up in the ocean. I hope they will be able to reuse at lea…

> Also, If I understand it right, both booster and starship will end up in the ocean.

You mean for the first test flight? Do you have a source?

Long term plan is definitely land landing, but I haven't seen anything about the first test flight.

I assumed that they would try and land it from the start, they've already landed starship a few times, and it seems like that's where a lot of the unknowns still are (e.g. they're apparently adjusting wing size down after the last landing)?

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#53

Post by ncallaway »

colordrops wrote: post #49
ncallaway wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of parroting what you read on social media, how about doing a bit of critical thinking on this Totally unnecessary. That gratuitous dig doesn't advance your argument at all. > What about all the resources going into video games, sports, movies, music, amusements parks, television, weapons systems, desserts, travel and vacations, etc? That doesn't seem like it's u/paxys issue to address. The person they resp…

> Totally unnecessary Good point, I should have restrained myself here. The rest of your comments would be fair, except that u/paxys said the following: > There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that. Which clearly indicates that we should not be working on space travel until AFTER we've solved humanity's problems.

> There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that.

I didn't read it as indicating that we should fully postpone humanity's problems. For example, the next few sentences read:

> The world isn't going to end because his next launch is a month late due to pesky safety regulations or whatever else. This effort is going to play out over many generations and centuries.

That indicates to me that the delay the person is considering is on the order of the delay imposed by FCC regulations (i.e. months or years), not "start working on it after we've solved humanity's problems".

But that's just how it reads to me

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#54

Post by BitwiseFool »

freeopinion wrote: post #37
BitwiseFool wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I'm not saying regulatory agencies are bad. What I am saying, though, is that these agencies don't have an incentive to trim down red-tape in the interest of efficiency. On one level, it would be bad for their employees and budget. On another level, something might slip through the cracks so it makes sense for a safety agency to be far more risk averse than what it watches.

Better efficiencies with significantly more launches per year and eventually interplanetary travel would be bad for the agencies that regulate it? How do you figure? The FAA has no inherent incentive to slow things down. It seems to me that they do have incentive to encourage growth. Without this base for your arguments, they all seem unstable to me. When there are mountains of red tape it is easy to over-simplify th…

Over the long run, more volume would provide more work for the FAA and its employees. For now, though, loosening the rules in hopes of getting more launches would serve to reduce work for the agency and diminish it's purpose. I could see a business making the short term tradeoff in the name of long term gains but not a government bureaucracy. Does that make where I am coming from a little more understandable?

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#56

Post by gridspy »

gpm wrote: post #52
milansuk wrote: post #14

In 2019, Elon tweeted[0] that the price of one Raptor engine is under $1M with the goal going under 250K for the next version. Any recent info where there are now? I'm still surprised they moved to this orbital fly so quickly without doing more tests. Going from 3 engines to almost 30 is crazy. Also, If I understand it right, both booster and starship will end up in the ocean. I hope they will be able to reuse at lea…

> Also, If I understand it right, both booster and starship will end up in the ocean. You mean for the first test flight? Do you have a source? Long term plan is definitely land landing, but I haven't seen anything about the first test flight. I assumed that they would try and land it from the start, they've already landed starship a few times, and it seems like that's where a lot of the unknowns still are (e.g. they…

The test flight trajectories are posted with the FAA and covered in numerous places, for instance

Article: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/13/spacex-outlines-plans-...

Video (Marcus House): https://youtu.be/9-9k513UIVw?t=298

Basically both vechicles (the massive booster and the starship itself (2nd stage) are going to "land" on the water, which means a hover and then sinking into the water.

Booster - Boost and separate, boostback burn and splashdown off the coast. Starship - 90 min orbit at about 120km, reentry and spashdown near Hawaii

It's fairly quite likely that both would crater on this first flight - for instance this is the first booster flight and also the first reentry for the starship itself.

The Falcon 9 booster also had similar flight plans until it could successfully fly a controlled trajectory to the surface of the ocean before they risked a drone ship too.

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#57

Post by piercebot »

lutorm wrote: post #29
jhgb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that cost-wise, they're already putting the RS-25 to shame ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag... ), this seems more like an icing on the cake.

Given that you could probably build a Merlin out of solid gold and it would come in cheaper than an RS-25, that's not exactly saying much...

Maybe not once you consider the R&D costs of figuring out how not to melt a solid gold Merlin engine ;)

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#58

Post by Ajedi32 »

lutorm wrote: post #29
jhgb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that cost-wise, they're already putting the RS-25 to shame ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag... ), this seems more like an icing on the cake.

Given that you could probably build a Merlin out of solid gold and it would come in cheaper than an RS-25, that's not exactly saying much...

Wow, no kidding. The gold Merlin would be a quarter of the price![1][2][3] (At least in terms of materials.)

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag...

[2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=merlin+engine+dry+mass

[3]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28630+kg+of+gold+in+U...

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#59

Post by piercebot »

908B64B197 wrote: post #31
milansuk wrote: post #14

In 2019, Elon tweeted[0] that the price of one Raptor engine is under $1M with the goal going under 250K for the next version. Any recent info where there are now? I'm still surprised they moved to this orbital fly so quickly without doing more tests. Going from 3 engines to almost 30 is crazy. Also, If I understand it right, both booster and starship will end up in the ocean. I hope they will be able to reuse at lea…

Only in America things like this can happen. A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission critical hardware to commodity; SpaceX is doing the same thing with flight hardware. Contrast that with previous generation engines (the RS-25 comes to mind) with a sticker price of 125 millions... per engine! [0] [0] https://spacenews.com/aerojet-rocketdyne-d…

What is it about America (or other countries) that makes you think this couldn't happen anywhere else?

Re: SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night

#60

Post by s5300 »

paxys wrote: post #5
hirundo wrote: post #2

Elon appears to be building a large ground-locked monument to demonstrate his argument in this tweet: Unlike its aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure. Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars. -- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/13548625…

The single most important job for humanity right now is to save this one planet we have from destruction. There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that. I'm as much into spaceships as the next nerd, but people need to get real. The world isn't going to end because his next launch is a month late due to pesky safety regulations or whatever else. This effort is going to play out over many generati…

Consider the fact, that the publicly richest citizen on Earth, as well as one of the people behind one of the largest financial transaction sites, may have genuinely already concluded that, as the history of politics among other things have shown, that the Earth/humanity may simply be unsavable, for whatever reasons they find.

He has a lot of talent at his disposable, and presumably information to a decent bit of otherwise locked away studies/reports. Do I think he is correct? Perhaps not, but my nor your opinion really matters.

If he's made the decision shits truly FUBAR, ala Foundation, then leave him alone while he works on what he may genuinely believe to be a shot at surviving the FUBAR long-term.

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