Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 413 posts

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#341

Post by avmich »

grecy wrote: post #326
avmich wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Foreseeable" is roughly "five years"? Starship HLS (Human Landing System) is currently planned to land on the Moon, with people, in 2026. It may very well slip a year, two or three - but landing on the Moon this decade still seems quite possible. Or you consider "passengers" different enough than "crew"?

Interesting Asterix on that is the humans will only be on Starship from Lunar orbit down to the moon surface and then back to lunar orbit again. No humans aboard during Starship launch, transit to and from the moon or re-entry. (For completeness, humans will do all that other stuff aboard SLS and Orion. Starship literally only ferries them down the moon and back up again)

Yes, but HLS is just one example. In, say, ten years it may look very possible that Starships with people will fly on LEO. Is it beyond foreseeable future?.. I just don't understand why such a pessimistic estimate.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#342

Post by pclmulqdq »

zer0c00ler wrote: post #335
pclmulqdq wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your test case for left pad passes when it outputs a string of the right length, your boss is going to judge whether it's a good test case. Since this is all being done on federal grant money, it's legitimate to have higher expectations. This test was good, though - the previous two were disappointing.

I think each test served exactly its purpose and it's incredible to see the rapid progress. Unclear why you believe the first two were not a success at all? Did you expect a novel vehicle like this would just work the first time?

I do. SLS, Vulcan, and most other rockets from reputable space companies have worked first time.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#343

Post by pclmulqdq »

f-securus wrote: post #334
pclmulqdq wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your test case for left pad passes when it outputs a string of the right length, your boss is going to judge whether it's a good test case. Since this is all being done on federal grant money, it's legitimate to have higher expectations. This test was good, though - the previous two were disappointing.

Holy cow. How are people downplaying something so revolutionary. Without those other tests SpaceX wouldn’t have done what it did today and they show progress each step. They are doing what nasa couldn’t (send stuff to space orders of magnitude cheaper) because they aren’t afraid to blow stuff up.

Nobody has done anything revolutionary and nobody has gotten to space an order of magnitude cheaper. The best estimates of SpaceX's cost advantage per kilo put it at 30-50% better than a Soyuz.

The Starship program so far has soaked up as much money as SLS, and hasn't even left orbit.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#344

Post by dylan604 »

namaria wrote: post #282
dylan604 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but no Twit...er, X account required

I will be deep in the cold cold ground before I recognize Twitter's new name

you see how I refer to it. it gets both names in there, and expresses the disdain and the confusion all in one go.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#345

Post by mgiampapa »

avmich wrote: post #341
grecy wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting Asterix on that is the humans will only be on Starship from Lunar orbit down to the moon surface and then back to lunar orbit again. No humans aboard during Starship launch, transit to and from the moon or re-entry. (For completeness, humans will do all that other stuff aboard SLS and Orion. Starship literally only ferries them down the moon and back up again)

Yes, but HLS is just one example. In, say, ten years it may look very possible that Starships with people will fly on LEO. Is it beyond foreseeable future?.. I just don't understand why such a pessimistic estimate.

In my view, since I was the one that said it, anything more than 5 years away is perpetually 5 years away until it's been proven. Yes, eventually when Starship has enough launches and a track record it will get human rated by NASA to carry astronauts. This is the only actual certification for human space flight worth paying attention to right now. It's possible to get on a rocket otherwise, but the US government isn't going to pay for the ride. Getting flight certified by NASA is expensive and requires a level of experience with the vehicle that doesn't make sense for at least 5 years given we have a cheap and safe ride to LEO via Falcon / Dragon. Nobody is going to rush human flight on Starship, it's only going to have people on it once it's already in space.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#346

Post by imtringued »

ncallaway wrote: post #230
wongarsu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a great pipeline for building ships. They want reusability, but for near-term needs like deploying bigger Starlink satellites and their moon lander contract they could probably power through without reentry survival. It would be expensive, but unlike in-orbit refueling not really mission critical

> but for near-term needs like deploying bigger Starlink satellites and their moon lander contract they could probably power through without reentry survival Starlink sat deployment, probably. I’m not convinced on the moon lander contract though. Each mission requires the moon lander itself, plus a number of tanker launches to refuel the moon lander. I think it’s something like 8-15 tanker launches. If each of those…

If you can't reuse the boosters, then a series of Starship launches to the moon will cost as much as one SLS. The complex launch architecture demands reusability. It's a deal-breaker without it.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#347

Post by imtringued »

cchance wrote: post #229
travisgriggs wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t classify the re-entry survival problem as icing. But otherwise, I agree with you.

Re-entry is icing because every other cargo rocket besides falcon, lands just like IFT3 lol

Artemis 5 only needs three New Glenn rockets. Artemis 3 and 4 need significantly more Starships.

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#348

Post by f-securus »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #339
f-securus wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. How are people downplaying something so revolutionary. Without those other tests SpaceX wouldn’t have done what it did today and they show progress each step. They are doing what nasa couldn’t (send stuff to space orders of magnitude cheaper) because they aren’t afraid to blow stuff up.

They haven't gotten to the revolutionary part yet (fuel tankers in orbit, raptor relight, reusable first stage, reentry).

Re-using rockets isn't revolutionary?

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#349

Post by GuB-42 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #284
bane wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a fun thought, how many Starship launches would it take to put the equivalent mass of the ISS up in the same orbit?

How many launches are required to land on the Moon?

According to this: https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?si=Df6Eq9uq6IJCApUs&t=1730

Six... eight... more like twelve... at least 15

Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]

#350

Post by jiggawatts »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #343
f-securus wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. How are people downplaying something so revolutionary. Without those other tests SpaceX wouldn’t have done what it did today and they show progress each step. They are doing what nasa couldn’t (send stuff to space orders of magnitude cheaper) because they aren’t afraid to blow stuff up.

Nobody has done anything revolutionary and nobody has gotten to space an order of magnitude cheaper. The best estimates of SpaceX's cost advantage per kilo put it at 30-50% better than a Soyuz. The Starship program so far has soaked up as much money as SLS, and hasn't even left orbit.

They did several revolutionary things with starship:

Full-flow staged combustion metholox engines.

Stainless steel construction.

Biggest rocket to have ever flown.

Highest thrust at launch of any rocket by a factor of two or so.

Live streaming of reentry via a space Internet network.

Etc…

Post reply on HN