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The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

arstechnica.com

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Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#161

Post by kuschku »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #85
Aeolun wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends keeping cats indoors to avoid dangers associated with diseases, parasites, cars, attacks from other animals, poisons and extreme weather Now it’s not only children but cats too? I grew up in a location where cats could go anywhere they pleased (in or outside), and it’s really strange to me that some countries recommend or require them to always be inside.

Outdoor cats are a menace to birds and other wildlife on a scale that's hard to describe. It would be hard for an individual homeowner to do anything else that is even nearly as destructive to their local wildlife than keeping an outdoor cat.

Not in locations where wild cats exist anyway. If wild cats exist in your area, the bird life has already adapted to them over the past millions of years.

Obviously, if cats in your region have been introduced by humans, that's an entirely different situation.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#162

Post by martyvis »

twicetwice wrote: post #122
7e wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a very charitable interpretation. Testing slowed because of flaws in the Raptor which required a complete redesign. We’ll see if their chaotic development process produces something safe and reliable.

I hadn't heard that Raptor 2 was a complete redesign as a results of flaws discovered (I hadn't heard anything at all about why they made Raptor 2). Do you have a link where I can read more about this?

From what I observed (reading the normal Reddit fluff, listening to NSF banter, and Tim Dodd the EA's interview with Musk) the issue with Raptor was being able to produce it reliably and rapidly. In the EA interview with Elon you can see how much less plumbing and paraphernalia there is on V2. I think both versions "worked" (they have been running lots of full duration tests at McGregor) for quite a while. One of Elon's many insightful sayings is something like "The best designed part is no part"

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#163

Post by MayeulC »

reaperducer wrote: post #14

Tragically off-topic, but following the link I see that SpaceX has an online shop. The shop sells a SpaceX sticker pack, and one of the stickers looks like a bunch of cats in a satellite dish. I'm not a SpaceX follower, so can someone who is explain what it means: https://shop.spacex.com/collections/featured-products/produc...

Starlink dishes are heated to melt snow and maintain operating temperatures during winter.

Who doesn't like to seat on a flat heated surface instead of walking in the snow during winter? Not cats.

I had seen a few pictures of it in ukrainian trenches, but apparently ot's quite common: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cat+starlink+dish&t=fpas&iax=image...

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#164

Post by 00F_ »

rnk wrote: post #152
HopenHeyHi wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflatable mattresses are available at Walmart for like $10 :)

older model s came with free lifetime supercharging. I have mine. I'm tempted to go. S Padre Island isn't going to let you sleep on it in your car, I would guess. Are there campgrounds nearby? Only 2 70kwh superchargers on the island. I will watch that video.

im sharing a room with another HN user. 3 ways would be even cheaper.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#165

Post by elif »

efiftythree wrote: post #92
elif wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX previously tweeted that the launch could occur roughly a week after the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) which still has not happened. In fact the rocket is not even stacked at the moment, so 4/20 is more probable than 4/17 imo.

I believe they have stated or otherwise insinuated that the WDR from January 23rd is sufficient, and they will not be performing another prior to the initial launch. As for the de-stacking of Ship 24 that has occurred only to enable the Flight Termination System (FTS) after which Ship 24 will be restacked. This is in line with an April 17th launch date.

"Starship fully stacked at Starbase. Team is working towards a launch rehearsal next week followed by Starship’s first integrated flight test ~week later pending regulatory approval"

Literally what I said is what spaceX said.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1644044484026716160?s=20

I'm glad your "belief" got my factual account downvoted

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#166

Post by sebazzz »

olex wrote: post #32
agrajag wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the flight plan published by SpaceX, the booster is going to attempt a hover in the gulf to simulate a landing, while the Ship isn’t going to slow down at all after reentry and will impact the ocean at a high velocity.

I wonder why they don't plan to execute the flip and landing burn with the ship, just for additional test data. So far it fully worked only once (and _almost_ worked a couple more times), surely it can't hurt to have another go at it, even if the ship is ultimately not being recovered. I guess propellant margins may be a cause, but then they'll likely want to have a "nominal" amount of leftover fuel onboard anyway to…

I would also expect them to want to inspect the heatshield.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#167

Post by usrusr »

Laremere wrote: post #145
usrusr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost sounds like a bit chicken/egg, you can't try landing without a certain amount of confidence, you can't build confidence without trying. Considering the hover capability of the booster (can be throttled to <1G) we might see an unprecedented amount of touch and go testing before the first real attempt?

From the booster's point of view, the catch is a target location and speed. Plus a set of tolerances: however much the arm can swing to catch it, and horizontal speed has to be really low because it needs to drop down vertically into the arms. I would expect that the target on the ocean, even for the first test, is very specific. Once the booster can hit a phantom target, they can change the target to the tower and g…

I imagine that lack of stable reference points would be an issue on the ocean. Both for the algorithms under test and for validation. (I liberally use "algorithm" here as the superset of both algorithm and the hardware it runs on, I think in reality these tests are mostly for correcting parameters that are hard to determine with sufficient accuracy on paper)

If you want to write off an entire booster, adding a dummy tower somewhere in the desert would not add much to the bill and could well be worth it. Or maybe even a not-quite-so-dummy tower, but off-site, where the booster would be scrapped on location (instead of reflown) even in the best case, no matter how hypothetical?

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#168

Post by bumby »

chinabot wrote: post #144
mlindner wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are confused and think the government is against Musk in some way like the public is. The government quite likes SpaceX.

Sadly "The government" is hundreds of separate organizations, agendas and politicians all with separate cover their ass agendas, NASA probably want this to succeed, I doubt the others are as enthusiastic.

“Sadly”? Would the alternative of a monolith be preferable in a pluralistic society?

What reason would the other parts of the govt have to want Musk to fail?

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#169

Post by MichaelZuo »

eco wrote: post #74
bryanlarsen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My email's in my profile, I'm trying to figure out how to get down there. Looks like the flight and renting a car is going to cost more than the hotel room...

Tim Dodd just released an excellent guide on how to visit Starbase. https://youtu.be/aWvHrih-Juk

Thanks for the link.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#170

Post by MichaelZuo »

00F_ wrote: post #113
00F_ wrote: post #18

i was at south padre island for the first starship landing. even though it blew up a minute or two after it landed, i consider it the first landing. i had seen pretty much every major launch from spacex on their livestreams but i was still taken aback at seeing starship. its as odd as watching a skyscraper slowly levitate upward into the sky. and to see it standing after the dust settled was unreal. and after it was…

ive made a reservation with another user. show up at the lighthouse inn on south padre island the night of the 16th for a raging party and to save money on a room

I'm down to share a room, my email is in my profile.
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