How come the stream not cutting off during re-entry "blackout" period? Is it because the re-entry is low / slow enough so no thick plasma layer, or because it is streamed through StarLink which happens to be on the other side of the plasma layer?
Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
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Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#292How come the stream not cutting off during re-entry "blackout" period? Is it because the re-entry is low / slow enough so no thick plasma layer, or because it is streamed through StarLink which happens to be on the other side of the plasma layer?
They indeed started streaming through Starlink on the third (previous) test flight.
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#293How did Boeing fall so far behind?
cost-plus.
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#294What the hell, half melted starship actually did the landing flip and hit the ocean slow!!! That was amazing!
Can someone explain why reentry must be so hellish? The energy gained during the rocket burn into orbit must be bled off during reentry, and that energy is enormous. However, why must reentry occur so quickly? It seems if the descent into the atmosphere was slower, the heat shield would be able to radiate the heat energy away more effectively, thus lowering skin temperatures, and significantly reducing the engineerin…
Scott Manley has a good video looking at this question and goes into a bit of a dive into the physics and engineering issues involved
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
German V1 or V2, presumably.
Only the V2 is a rocket, the V1 is a flying bomb. They're both terror weapons, as actual products they have no direct military value, they exist solely in order to scare the shit out of enemy civilians, but liquid fuelled rockets are an invention with a whole lot of interesting practical applications - the V1 is just a bad idea (unless you have unlimited resources, which the Germans did not, and your goal is to terri…
V1: didn't they have to start somewhere?
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#296> Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
I see a lot of newspeak used with Musk's firm. Is this intentional ?
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
They use the atmosphere to help slow the ship down. It takes most of the tank of fuel to get up there and moving so fast. It would take most a tank to slow down. So, they would need about double the fuel plus some for landing. P.S. I have not done any of the math (I might be able to figure it out but it might take a week or two to figure it out). P.S.S : Maybe if they could refuel in space efficiently (asteroid minin…
I understand the atmosphere is used to slow the vehicle - it's basically free brakes that you don't have to carry with you. I never suggested using rockets in reverse to slow the vehicle down. What I am asking is, instead of effectively standing on the breaks and generating enormous amounts of friction in a short period of time, why can't the vehicle ease onto the breaks and spread the friction out over time so it ca…
The shallower the angle the less energy you lose, but you are still losing altitude.
At some point you lose enough energy that your speed drops enough that your altitude starts dropping significantly. You can't lose the energy without losing altitude, and once you lose altitude you start losing energy whether you like it or not
I think what you are wondering is "can I stay in the thin atmosphere bleeding X Joules of energy for 50 minutes until most of the energy has gone rather than entering more steeply and bleeding 10X Joules for 5 minutes"
However once you lose energy, you lose your altitude, and as you lose altitude the atmosphere thickens and you start very quickly losing 5X, 10X, 20X joules every minute.
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#298How did Boeing fall so far behind?
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Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#299So I'm excited to see this tech develop but I wonder how much of a market there really is for super-heavy lifters. I can't wait to see a future version where they land the various stages rather than just dumping them into the sea. The first Falcon Heavy launch was super impressive. SpaceX already has the Falcon Heavy and there have only been a handful of launches, primarily military. I guess the argument is it'll ope…
For one, Starship+Superheavy will enable launching of large objects like space telescopes without forcing object in question to be engineered with expensive, delicate, failure-prone folding mechanisms (like the James Webb Space Telescope was). Just build the thing as big as it needs to be and launch it in its final form (aside from minor folding bits like solar panels). It could have similar impact on other scientifi…
So JWST has (IIRC) a 6.5 meter mirror once deployed and yes, it was a challenge to develop that tech. Plus it added risk of failure. The Starship Super-heavy seems to have a max payload dimension of 9 meters. I imagine some buffer is required (ie it won't just allow a static 9 meter mirror) but I could be wrong.
So that's larger but not that much larger. Remember the JWST was a huge step up from Hubble's 2.4 meter mirror.
I expect NASA/ESA will take the opportunity to deploy even larger mirror by using the folding tech they've developed.
But here's the main point: these kinds of flagship missions don't support and sustain a commercial launch system. There are only so many JWST 2.0s that you can and will build, launch and deploy. Your bread and butter is going to be commercial communications satellites and other than deploying large constellations like Starlink, I'm not sure what the market is here.
Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
I encourage as many people as possible who are less wacko than Musk to try to beat him at his own game. Will be good for everyone.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1903)
Absolutely.
Steve Jobs, patron saint of tech that he now is, was neither reasonable nor a pleasant person to work with or be around ($hole in today's parlance). (However, this changed considerably as he was nearing the end of his life.)