Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico • Hacker News Board

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

#601

Post by shiroiushi » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:29 AM UTC

gadders wrote: post #327

steve1977 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young, there were no rocket landings.

Nor for me, but I'm old enough to have seen re-runs of things like Flash Gordon in black and white which I'm sure had rockets landing vertically. (This could be the Mandela effect though).

It's not a false memory. Lots of old sci-fi in that time had vertically-landing rockets. Even old Looney Toones episodes IIRC, as well as Twilight Zone, and much more.

It's nothing special; it's a logical consequence of the question "how would you land a rocket" when you assume the rocket is single-stage and can just travel from world to world, and you're a fiction writer who doesn't understand (or purposely neglects) the rocket equation. I mean, how else would you land a rocket, so it can be blasted off again? (Again, remember this is sci-fi that's very light on the "sci" part, where they're thinking in the future that humans will have self-contained rocket ships that can just travel from world to world without worrying about supporting infrastructure, the rocket equation, having enough fuel, needing to do any maintenance, etc.)

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

#602

Post by cubefox » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:30 AM UTC

fernandopj wrote: post #486

I've been trying to find an "outside" view of the landing, as it is usual with SpaceX' dropships. So far no luck, they just haven't showed it yet or because it was middle of the ocean they probably don't have one?

They didn't have them either for the previous flight test. Neither for the booster (Gulf of Mexico) nor the ship (Indian ocean I believe).

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

#603

Post by concurrentsquar » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:32 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #462

cletus wrote: post #52

So 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…

Here's where things get really counter-intuitive. If Starship lives up to even a fraction of its potential, it's likely Falcon 9 will be completely retired, because Starship will cost less to launch! The entire point of the Starship is complete and instantaneous reuse. The idea is to have it launching something up, landing right back into its launch pad slot, and then going again. The ridiculous cost saving potential…

Calculating the cost per kilogram for LEO with Starship gives me a new startup idea: small business (or even personal) interplanetary postal service.

It only costs $150 per kg in the near future to send objects into space with Starship; so I could, for example, send a Raspberry Pi (47 grams) into LEO for ~7 dollars (as long as I also had 149 tons of other objects from other people to send). A more useful use case would sending fully automated manufacturing facilities (probably either for semiconductors (https://www.nasa.gov/general/the-benefits-of-semiconductor-m...) or crystals (https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2017/07/proteinxl))

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

#604

Post by me_me_me » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:35 AM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #564

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?

Maybe next time you could do some research before making a bunch of claims. > The one way trip to mars is orders of magnitude more complicated than moon. From an energy perspective its not that much more complex. And from a living perspective, yes it is an order of magnitude, but guess what, the ship is also an order of magnitude bigger. Meaning that for a small crew you have enough space for training rooms, labs, li…

I am reading this and I can't believe it. Was this written by chatgtp?

> From an energy perspective its not that much more complex.

As in what exactly? Its not much more complex because you have to 'burn to moon' and 'burn to mars' which is pretty much the same because you need energy to do both??

Here, have a look at required deltaV. https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ktjfi/deltav_map_of...

how is this 'From an energy perspective its not that much more complex.'?

>And from a living perspective, yes it is an order of magnitude, but guess what, the ship is also an order of magnitude bigger. Meaning that for a small crew you have enough space for training rooms, labs, living quarters and medical facilities and so on.

What ship?!? Labs, medical facilities wtf r u smoking.

https://www.humanmars.net/2021/01/cutaway-schematic-of-space...

here is spaceX graphics? Are you talking about facilities for an ant farm?

And why dont you mention how many fueling launches you need to go to the moon in an essentially 'space liferaft' vs an actual spaceship needed to get to mars?? hm?

> No. the plan is to send robotic ships first to deploy infrastructure. The atmosphere has useful stuff in it. And then you need to get water from the ice. With water and the atmosphere you can make rocket fuel and other useful materials, such as drinking water, plastics and so on.

How? Just how is that infrastructure going to get there deploy itself and... it boggles my mind how you handwave the solutions to colonising a fucking planet.

Sure mate, you played minecraft and all you need is a crafting table on mars and whabang infrastructure poof icewater mining and puryfing faclities "shazam* and your farm is ready! So easy, who thought.

> The whole point of what SpaceX is trying to build is a railroad to Mars. The opposite of flags and footprints.

Who is going to pay for all of it, and why would you do it in a first place? Cuz you are not setting up a colony, you are setting up the most expensive treehouse.

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

#605

Post by concurrentsquar » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:42 AM UTC

simiones wrote: post #151

qsi wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vision is that the cost per unit of mass to orbit will come down massively with Starship, once it's launching like the Falcon. That will open up hitherto unimaginable missions and markets. And customers. It's all about the the cost!

Like? What industry really needs things floating in space that are only constrained by cost to launch? I can see lots of science mission perhaps, but even that seems somewhat limited.

Nobody has mentioned space-based solar power yet (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/otps-sbsp-re...: "Launch is the largest cost driver..."), which would the cheapest (and currently only technologically feasible) route to turn humanity into a Kardashev Type 1 (or 2 if we construct a Dyson swarm) civilization (without really cheap fusion reactors).

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

#606

Post by pxmpxm » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:45 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #344

bearjaws wrote: post #3

The rate of descent is absolutely astonishing, 8km -> 1km in 20 seconds, then just hovers above the water. Absolutely incredible work by the SpaceX team. Living in central Florida I cannot wait for the new launch facility to come online. We're going to have lines of spectators into the space coast like we did for the shuttle. If any of you are heading to Disney World you should stop by the NASA Kennedy Visitor Comple…

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…

[flagged]

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

#607

Post by Fishpants » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:52 AM UTC

vl wrote: post #359

bearjaws wrote: post #3

The rate of descent is absolutely astonishing, 8km -> 1km in 20 seconds, then just hovers above the water. Absolutely incredible work by the SpaceX team. Living in central Florida I cannot wait for the new launch facility to come online. We're going to have lines of spectators into the space coast like we did for the shuttle. If any of you are heading to Disney World you should stop by the NASA Kennedy Visitor Comple…

What is even more impressive to me is that they were able to quite reliably stream all this through Starlink. This shows how mature and usable Starlink is. The fact that you can have live internet connection on re-entering space ship - truly the future is here.

To me,the bandwidth of the live telemetry data was the most impressive part of the whole thing. I think that's a bigger success than the whole launch.

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

#608

Post by FredPret » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:52 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #577

FredPret wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they froze Japanese trade. But only to stop outrages being committed all over the area, including annexing Manchuria and invading China. The Japanese were doing all of this with imported US oil. Stopping the oil exports hardly places responsibility for Pearl Harbor on the US.

If those things the Japanese did were "outrages", so were the things the US, Britain, and other European countries did to build their empires. The Japanese viewed their actions as simply taking their rightful place as an imperial power alongside those other countries. Yes, by today's standards, or at least today's Western standards, such things are Not Done, but if we are going to judge WW II Japan by those standards…

Point me to the rapes of Nanking the allies did. Or maybe just stop spreading Soviet propaganda.

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

#609

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:54 AM UTC

fwip wrote: post #436

avmich wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm saying there is no point whatsoever right now, at least no material or scientific purpose. "No point" here means "no reasonable goal". In this case reasonability is subjective - somebody sees obvious reasons why Mars colony could be useful for humanity, somebody doesn't. Pro arguments are science, learning how to live off another planet, certain insurance against planet-wide cataclysms, general progress in spac…

It's difficult to imagine any cataclysm that would result in the Earth being less habitable (even for us squishy humans) than Mars already is.

It's not even just about habitability. There are many remote places on Earth that we consider a waste of time and effort to inhabit, which are themselves 100X more habitable than Mars. There's a reason we don't have large, thriving settlements on inland Greenland, deep in the Sahara Desert, and Antarctica, even though they are way more habitable than Mars. There's no reason to inhabit them.

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

#610

Post by salesynerd » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 1:55 AM UTC

pxmpxm wrote: post #606

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…

[flagged]

Or, could it be the genuine excitement of the SpaceX team that was getting captured in the stream? As the commentators mentioned, the team were able to read the telemetry data even when the onboard camera became dysfunctional. And, I'm sure that lots of viewers were also cheering for the flap.