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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

#231

Post by gsnedders »

gridspy wrote: post #56
gpm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sep…

> 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.

They also don't yet have any drone ships capable of landing the Starship or booster.

But yes, it'll very much "prove it can more or less land" prior to actually giving them anything (breakable) to land on.

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

#232

Post by allenrb »

How so many educated, intelligent people seem to think that we (as a species, or even as Americans) are so resource-poor that “space exploration” and “improving the earth” yield an either/or decision absolutely mystifies me.

You want to free up resources for either one? Start with global military spending and the financial sector. Both have their place and both have grown far beyond it.

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

#233

Post by Talanes »

colordrops wrote: post #88
Talanes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Clearly" is a bit too much, given that you've had to comment multiple times to people who didn't read it that way.

Can you explain what you meant by that comment then?

You said that GP "clearly" intended one thing, yet I've seen you in two other threads with people who did not share your reading of those words.

It's fine to state your own reading of what they said and respond in kind, but dictating that your reading is universal when your comment is directly under evidence that it is not is a big leap.

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

#234

Post by gridspy »

londons_explore wrote: post #121
gridspy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best way to save the planet is to move heavy industry into space. Move our power generation into space and beam it down. Make advanced technologies in space which benefit those on Earth. Move people into real orbital habitats. Make Earth proper a gigantic park / nature reserve. We can't "wait" for anything, or the window during which we can develop space travel will close. 10 or 100 years from now we migh…

The reason industry likes to be on earth is that so many materials are free or very cheap, and waste can be dumped into the atmosphere or waterways. If industry had to pay launch costs for water, air, and other basic things they need, they wouldn't be financially viable.

If we charged industry fair costs for dumping pollutants into water, land and air on Earth - we would have no uncosted externalities.

If we then pointed out that in space or on the surface of a lifeless rock there are no costs of pollutants there might be a bit of incentive to move.

But you are correct, those companies would need to be self-sufficient in gathering all resource inputs and be able to ship finished products back where they are wanted. Much more complex than renting an industrial unit in an industrial town.

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

#235

Post by InTheArena »

908B64B197 wrote: post #105
treespace88 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost all other countries the rich use the government to keep competition out. All under the banner of national pride. In Canada we lock out all foreign investment in lots of areas.

I never understood why Canada would restrict international players from disrupting sectors like telecom (a commodity really) but didn't seem to have any problem with Airbus taking over the CSeries program for almost nothing.

Canada did prop up this program for quite a long time. It never achieved its sales goals. Moreover the money that they dumped into it was ruled illegal by the WTO. In true Trump fashion the White House overreacted and put 300% tariff to kill the program. Airbus rescued the program.

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

#236

Post by mrDmrTmrJ »

throw0101a wrote: post #220
skissane wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rhetoric of American exceptionalism annoys me a lot. But occasionally I think it has some justification. And I think SpaceX is one of those rare cases. I just can't see a firm like SpaceX existing in any other country. The US offers a unique combination of easy access to capital, relatively low regulation, and high government funding for private space ventures, which I doubt you will find anywhere else.

> The US offers a unique combination of easy access to capital, relatively low regulation, and high government funding […] Yes. And none of those things are historically unique. They just happen to be true now in the US, partly because the US is the large economy in the world. But those things were true during different times in history in other countries. Do you think it was a coïncidence that the Industrial Revolut…

Historically, all three of the examples you site (Industrial revolution in the UK, Chemical manufacturing in Germany, and current commercial space industry in the US) are exceedingly rare*. The vast majority of both countries and time periods show a total absence of new technological development. Roman agricultural productivity was under 0.1% for the entirety of the empire. [1]

You're siting 0.1% historical outcomes when you look across all of the active civilizations across all of human history.

The conditions in the US currently, and Pax Americana more generally, are extremely rare in the history.

[1] Joel Moker's Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. I'd also highly recommend Moker's "The Gifts of Athena"

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

#237

Post by throwthere »

CalChris wrote: post #197
throwthere wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some other country in mind that could support a nascent space company?

The point wasn't just about SpaceX. "A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months". That semiconductor manufacturing industry is largely overseas and has been for awhile.

I don't quite follow you here. Sure, lots of (non-Intel) semi-manufacturing happens outside the US in 2021. But when the industry built itself, a huge portion was in the... USA. Just like the space industry.

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

#238

Post by krastanov »

gengelbro wrote: post #202
darknavi wrote: post #187

Reading some of these comments makes me wonder what it was like when explorers were trying to justify exploring the "New World". Humans have been exploring forever. Why stop now?

I guess you haven't been reading the room lately. In the modern retelling, the explorers that found the "New World" produced only net negatives and we'd have been all much better off had they stayed in western europe.

This is nonsense. I am sympathetic to even the most obnoxiously leftist descriptions of the exploration of the New World, but even then, acknowledging that the large scale conquest of the Americas involved multiple genocides is not in conflict with acknowledging that some of the explorers that found new lands (not only the Americas) were brave visionaries.

Why is it so difficult to just accept that a single person can have both inspiration qualities that we should try to emulate and also grave moral failings we should learn from? No one is perfect and hardly anyone is purely evil either.

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

#239

Post by 908B64B197 »

jollybean wrote: post #196
foxyv wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think it has a lot to do with American sub-culture, the US dollar, our crazy university system, and immigration. This is speculation on my part so take it with a BIG grain of salt. The USA brings in 50 million or so people from other countries. Often they are bloody minded, stone cold, hard workers that will sacrifice everything to give their children the opportunity to be Americans. These people are so…

Those are all good points, but the rest of the world turns out, pound for pound, Engineers that are just as good and crazy. But have access to fewer resources, networks, capital, markets etc.. Also, the % of US immigrants that are on the 'high end' is relatively smaller. Migration to the US, when you include off the books migration, is a little bit towards the low skilled end. But definitely the smaller relative port…

> But have access to fewer resources, networks, capital, markets etc..

So their bankers and politicians just can't compete.

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

#240

Post by dnautics »

CalChris wrote: post #197
throwthere wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some other country in mind that could support a nascent space company?

The point wasn't just about SpaceX. "A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months". That semiconductor manufacturing industry is largely overseas and has been for awhile.

and is, oddly enough, coming back to the US. There's a semiconductor fab opening in Austin courtesy of Samsung, and a semi fab in arizona courtesy of TSMC. I guess they are taking advantage of labor and technical expertise due to intel's chandler site?
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