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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

#421

Post by causi »

dotnet00 wrote: post #373
somenameforme wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'worst' thing about watching space launches on streams is that you simply cannot grasp how ridiculously huge these things are. Even if, like in the stream today, you see a water tower for some scale, the size discrepancies just make it so hard to intuit. Starship is 121 meters high. That's something taller than a football field, jetting off into space! I've only gotten to see a decommissioned Space Shuttle in per…

I only live close enough to be able to see Enterprise, which didn't go to space, but I like to go there at least once a year, just because seeing the sheer size of it and knowing that all the Shuttles were like that is inspiring (the SR-71 helps too). I'm planning a trip to the space coast when family visits next year though.

Man I hope Musk names one of the Starships Enterprise.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#422

Post by hackernudes »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #357
me_me_me wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything Mars is pure BS. Just anything and everything. The one way trip to mars is orders of magnitude more complicated than moon. Keeping people from being riddled with cancer in 6months trip is not trivial. Landing and then what you plan a flag and die?

Ramsar, Iran has similar levels of background radiation as being on the surface of Mars. And people live completely healthy long lives there. Chronic low-level radiation isn't nearly as bad as we once thought. It's acute high-level doses or consuming radioactive substances that you really need to worry about. Mars really won't be bad at all with some easily implemented mitigation measures.

The commenter is talking about the 6 month trip to Mars in space, not on the surface.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#423

Post by dotnet00 »

mlindner wrote: post #348

For some reason the main hacker news article keeps getting deleted and merged with this one. The link should be changed to: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798715759193096245 Also the title is wrong for the subject. It should be about Starship, not Super Heavy. I don't know who did this but you did it wrong.

It was posted when the booster had just landed and the ship was still coasting. I guess the mods figure the topic should be contained here for being the first related post.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#424

Post by mlindner »

dotnet00 wrote: post #423
mlindner wrote: post #348

For some reason the main hacker news article keeps getting deleted and merged with this one. The link should be changed to: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798715759193096245 Also the title is wrong for the subject. It should be about Starship, not Super Heavy. I don't know who did this but you did it wrong.

It was posted when the booster had just landed and the ship was still coasting. I guess the mods figure the topic should be contained here for being the first related post.

But there was already a growing post with the other link, they forcibly merged that one into this one rather than the reverse.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#425

Post by baq »

bagels wrote: post #249
tocs3 wrote: post #228

Earlier 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…

Its more than double.

It's mind-boggingly more than double. The rocket equation takes no prisoners.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#426

Post by panick21_ »

gitfan86 wrote: post #355
phkahler wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See lift to drag ratio. To get enough lift to maintain altitude you need a certain amount of drag. At those speeds the drag causes the heating while still not producing enough lift to stay up.

If you had extremely big light weight wings it would help, but the materials that can do that don't do well when heated up

You also run into issues of what do with the wings on the way up. You can't just put huge ass wings on that thing. You likely need it deploy-able.

And then the wings would also survive the flip and vertical landing. Or if you want to land like a plane, then you also need landing gear.

So there is really no way to add wings without adding a huge amount of mass. You are building a completely new thing.

There are some super cool mega-space planes designed in the 70s (I think). But of course these were never built or even tested. I remember they had some overlapping metal heat shields and a big ass delta wing. They would also start vertically and use air breathing engines.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#427

Post by dotnet00 »

neverrroot wrote: post #89
tssva wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting things done and being a shitty human being aren’t mutually exclusive.

One of the humans who did the most for humankind. Being called names. Shame.

Most Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg equivalents were similarly divisive and controversial figures while they were alive or active (say, Ford). That only went away when the people who experienced them aged out.

Steve Jobs is a nice, more recent example, being just about old enough to remember his death, I know he was very much an asshole with many strongly held opinions most people would've disliked, but a current teenager is probably only aware that he was the visionary founder of Apple.

Bill Gates is also an interesting example, he was notorious for being cutthroat back in his day, but since he has mostly just been doing charity stuff since retirement, that reputation is fading.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#428

Post by rkagerer »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #330
datameta wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely beautiful! The hypersonic plasma flow was like no footage I've seen!

Their older fairing reentry plasma also looked really cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke_QI7_UtA8

Does the fairing have attitude control thrusters used during descent, or is its orientation maintained passively due to its shape?

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#429

Post by flerchin »

HPsquared wrote: post #255
ryandvm wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful how much wisdom you glean from fiction. The sheer hostility of space kind of precludes the "she's a good ol' ship" trope. When your door doesn't shut on your pickup, you can bang on it a bit. When your door doesn't shut on your spacecraft, you've got a ship full of corpses that look like a blob fish brought up from the Marianas Trench.

The oceans are very hostile to humans too, really not much less than space, and a lot of ocean-going vessels are rusty hulks.

A naked human can survive the ocean for 3 orders of magnitude longer than they can survive space.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#430

Post by mezeek »

bell-cot wrote: post #29
ninjamayo wrote: post #6

Incredible! Catching the booster next JIRA ticket.

I'd put Starship Soft Landing first. That's easy and safe-ish to try in a remote location. Vs. any little oopies on a Booster Catch could damage a load of high-value infrastructure.

they're focusing on booster reuse and ship tile slash entry reliability. Ship reuse will come after.

reason they're going hard on booster reuse is those 33 engines, they cost lotsa money to be dumping them over and over.

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