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Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

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Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#91

I'm just so happy to see this level of progress. This another big step for opening up space. To think that one day this will be considered normal. 150 Metric tons sent on a fully reusable rocket. Thats like a 747 to space.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

Economy of scale: starship can be "mass"-produced

Material: stainless steel is much cheaper

Percentage of reusability: boosters of shuttle cannot be reused, maintenance of shuttle itself is also very expensive (heat shields were pricey). whereas the starship stack has higher reuse percentage and allegedly cheaper to maintain.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#92

I'm just so happy to see this level of progress. This another big step for opening up space. To think that one day this will be considered normal. 150 Metric tons sent on a fully reusable rocket. Thats like a 747 to space.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

This is significantly less expensive

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#94
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an AI crypto scam channel. Musk is so scammy that it looked feasible and was shared widely by the looks.

[flagged]

It's not about falling for the crypto scam, but realizing that it is that before you already lost half the launch

It's like a rite of passage, I imagine most people looking for a SpaceX launch fell for it once

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#95

I'm just so happy to see this level of progress. This another big step for opening up space. To think that one day this will be considered normal. 150 Metric tons sent on a fully reusable rocket. Thats like a 747 to space.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

the space shuttle was "reusable". It had to be taken apart and meticulously cleaned and tested and basically had to be rebuilt after each flight, in a process called turnaround. SpaceX's rockets are much closer to what you'd consider reusable.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#96
post #52

Very inspiring, glad I woke up to watch it. Congratulations to the SpaceX team. This is what competition looks like. It’s funny how last decade SpaceX had to sue the government to get more launches.

The FAA needs more funding at this point. They're not staffed for the rate of launch requests which commercial space has grown too.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#98

Uuuh the first stream on YouTube was Musk giving a speech, so I was waiting for the launch but turns out it was on another stream? So I just missed the whole thing, great.

Those are deep fake crypto scams that YouTube does not pull down. My father was scammed by one for over $2000.

The older we get, the likelihood that we get scammed approaches one. Be weary.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#99

I'm just so happy to see this level of progress. This another big step for opening up space. To think that one day this will be considered normal. 150 Metric tons sent on a fully reusable rocket. Thats like a 747 to space.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

Think of the word ‘reusable’ in this case as less a binary descriptor but more of a scale of reusability.

Yes, both systems are reusable, but there are key differences in the refurbishment of the systems that partly explains the cost difference. It took more labor, resources and time to refurbish the shuttle. Also consider rapid reusability was a stretch goal when it was being designed, but we have come a loooong way since, spacex in particular has had it as a driving competitive differentiator for years now.

Another big difference is that NASA post Cold War was a skilled jobs program, with an incentive to do distributed, high overhead work to appease their bosses (congress), while SpaceX has the opposite.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

SRB and tank were not re-usable. That’s the equivalent of the first stage you just saw getting caught

Shuttle SRB segments were fished from the ocean and refilled.
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