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SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#191

Post by skissane »

lupusreal wrote: post #89
rbanffy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add a couple hours for the trip between town and pad, security and so on. Still it's 3-4 hours.

I don't think there are many cities that have suitable launch sites near them. It's unlikely they'll ever get approval to launch over populated areas, or even from most populated coastal locations. Also, the issue of getting boosters to all of these destinations seems like a problem. Planes don't split in two and have half return to the launch site but Starships do. So you could land the upper stage in Tokyo, but the…

> Also, the issue of getting boosters to all of these destinations seems like a problem. Planes don't split in two and have half return to the launch site but Starships do. So you could land the upper stage in Tokyo, but then what? How do you get a booster there for the return journey?

IIRC, the suborbital point-to-point transport use case doesn’t use the booster (SuperHeavy), just Starship.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#192

Post by 1970-01-01 »

cubefox wrote: post #13

It's funny that SpaceX is using the term "rapid unscheduled disassembly" unironically, despite it originally being a humourous euphemism.

Because the lawyers are not yet involved. If SpaceX blows up over a major city, these terms will be banned.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#193

Post by croes »

ein0p wrote: post #185
croes wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is busy tweeting cringy memes so it's not him doing the hard work.

Do tell, who’s doing the hard work, and why do they only succeed at anything “impossible” if Elon is there?

The engineers who build the rockets, and they didn't succeed and anything impossible.

Building landing rockets was thought to be too expensive not impossible.

Why is Tesla's FSD still not working? Wasn't Musk around?

The Spaceship is also nothing impossible, let's wait for his Mars colony.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#194

Post by croes »

refulgentis wrote: post #181
ein0p wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But NASA money is available to others, too. Elon is not.

Also, anything elon does is by definition not antics, because he made SpaceX.

He founded it, that's not the same, that's like saying Sam Altman made ChatGPT.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#195

Post by thereisnospork »

pfdietz wrote: post #153
somenameforme wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlas 5 is already completely obsoleted by the Falcon Heavy which costs about half as much, for a reusable launch, and carries about 3x as much. But for Starship, most people don't seem to realize what a potential game changer this is. The goal for Starship is to get costs down to about 15x less than Falcon Heavy. When you can start sending stuff to space for a few dollars per pound, we're not talking about just prob…

> ending stuff to space for a few dollars per pound That's about what it costs to fly freight across an ocean.

That begs an interesting comparison in fuel usage (kJ or $ basis): supplying dV for one pound to orbit vs. the energy required to perform the work needed to overcome ~8,000 miles of marginal drag from +1lb of cargo on a ship.

Fuel usage being the limiter of terminal economics once launch systems are commodified to the degree ships are.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#196

Post by iknowstuff »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #192
cubefox wrote: post #13

It's funny that SpaceX is using the term "rapid unscheduled disassembly" unironically, despite it originally being a humourous euphemism.

Because the lawyers are not yet involved. If SpaceX blows up over a major city, these terms will be banned.

Ok? Damn what a negative take.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#198

Post by refulgentis »

croes wrote: post #194
refulgentis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, anything elon does is by definition not antics, because he made SpaceX.

He founded it, that's not the same, that's like saying Sam Altman made ChatGPT.

Yes, satire.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#199

Post by everyone »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #135
neverrroot wrote: post #131

Elon bringing excitement to the human race. His way of pushing through is something that gives me hope in the capabilities of humanity.

Every time Elon says or does something cringey nowadays, I just keep repeating the same mantra to myself: "There's no way he can fuck up SpaceX with his antics now, it's too far advanced for his ego to ruin it all and plunge us back into another space exploration winter, stay calm".

Even if he does, I think SpaceX's success has spurred the creation of some competitors / imitators, perhaps with more sane CEOs.

..

I love "Stokes Space" design for example... https://youtu.be/EY8nbSwjtEY?feature=shared

I cant wait to see that progress.. Imo the upper stage / re-entry design so much more elegant and practical than Starship. It re-enters just like an Apollo capsule, not like the space shuttle or starship's weird bellyflop. Also it doesnt rely on ceramic tiles, which were a big problem with the space shuttle. Even forgetting about Columbia, maintaining and replacing the tiles after each mission was incredibly expensive and time consuming. Imo re-entry is the biggest hurdle to a re-usable upper stage and Stokes Space have based their design around nailing that issue first and foremost.

Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle

#200

Post by mjevans »

dotnet00 wrote: post #23
stoneman24 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect if test flight 3 makes orbit then flight 5 will be delivering starlink satellites and then testing on the way back down. If I remember correctly, a starship can deliver 440+ starlink satellites compared to around 60 for falcon 9.

Probably why they're hoping to get permission for 9 launches this year. Even if they throw away the entire stack, it probably costs less than the equivalent number of F9 launches.

I strongly suspect they'll achieve at least partial re-usability if not full by 9 launches. If not SpaceX will at least have a very clear understanding of the engineering problem by that point. I'm most worried about the final landing which I would not want to be anywhere close to until they've had a solid string of successes without any issues.
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