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Starship's Sixth Flight Test

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Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#231

Post by modeless »

cryptonector wrote: post #224
modeless wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the last thing they need to do before they can actually launch satellites. I'm surprised there was no attempt on the last launch. Glad to see it this time. The improved Starlink constellation that Starship will enable is going to be awesome.

That and flap sturdiness, if they want to be able to re-enter over land so they can catch the ship.

It's not required for launching satellites. But yeah, they need to figure out the heat shield for the flap hinges before they can recover the ship.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#232

Post by bryanlarsen »

cryptonector wrote: post #223
bryanlarsen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're working off the same license they used for test 5, so they basically have to exactly the same thing they did for test 5. They did manage to add this: "An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions."

And they need to demo that the flaps hold up through re-entry with nominal, minimal damage, otherwise a permit for a plan involving re-entry over land (which is needed to catch the ship) would obviously not issue.

They've addressed that in Block 2. Test 6 still flies block 1, so we won't see any substantive improvements on that until test 7.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#233

Post by ranger207 »

adamm255 wrote: post #183
lasc4r wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a cool achievement, but for some perspective NASA first did a vertical rocket ship landing without chopsticks decades ago. And the whole point of this thing was to do that on the moon, which is never going to happen at this rate.

NASA Landed on the moon in the 60s with an abacus. SpaceX can’t get out of low Earth orbit.

Didn't SpaceX launch Europa Clipper to Jupiter a few weeks ago?

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#234

Post by kibwen »

gridspy wrote: post #129
kibwen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artemis' unworkable design is because of the limitations of Starship. I was all-in on "cool, huge rocket go brr" until I realized that it's going to take between 5 and 20 Starship launches per mission just to get to the moon. That's a clear regression from the Saturn V.

> 5 and 20 Starship launches per mission That is not actually such a big deal when you realize they are just ferrying fuel on a reusable rocket. They're also doing it well in advance of the mission. There is a massive logistics chain making it possible to buy fuel on your road trip, this is similar. > That's a clear regression from the Saturn V. Not exactly, as the fuel provided in orbit by these other missions will…

> Not exactly, as the fuel provided in orbit by these other missions will allow a much larger payload to reach the Moon's surface and return.

Amortized over the number of launches it takes to get a single moonshot.

> StarShip can already deliver a similar payload to orbit as Saturn V

But Saturn V's purpose was not getting things to orbit. We have plenty of rockets capable of getting to orbit. And given that satellites have differing needs when it comes to orbital trajectories, it's unclear whether we even need that capability. By analogy, we've had jumbo jets for decades, but most air routes are not flying on jumbo jets, because the demand isn't there.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#236

Post by rigrassm »

mise_en_place wrote: post #158

Does anyone know how to witness these launch events live? Is it open to the public or only SpaceX employees + friends & family?

Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is the best public spot you can watch from (IIRC it's 3 or 4 miles from the launch pad) and it's an amazing experience, highly recommended to anyone who's able to make it out.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#237

Post by jimnotgym »

starik36 wrote: post #141
jimnotgym wrote: post #116

I imagine SpaceX is on for some pretty juicy government contracts now!

They already have lion's share of NASA and Space Force govt contracts. Cargo runs to ISS, bringing astronauts to and from ISS, NROL missions, scientific missions (like Europa Clipper recently).

Sure they do, but the government could choose to spend more or less on space, couldn't they?

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#238

Post by modeless »

7e wrote: post #228
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

I think the economics of space are are much more likely to be transformed by something like https://www.longshotspace.com/ . Rockets are complex, still costly, and polluting.

The problem with space guns is you can't just yeet rocks into orbit. Any orbit that starts at the surface returns to the surface. So you still need a disposable rocket and avionics and fuel in every payload to change the orbit once out of the atmosphere. Only now the rocket needs to survive being literally shot out of a gun and then traveling at orbital velocity in atmosphere. That puts a pretty high floor on the cost per shot.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#239

Post by lysace »

abulman wrote: post #193
lysace wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nearly four years ago, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak actually sued YouTube over Bitcoin scam livestreams that were using his likeness. So, this has clearly been going on for quite a while now. And, unfortunately, it looks like these fake YouTube livestream schemes are going to continue on, at least for the foreseeable future. I recently reported a bunch of the SpaceX ones that were running for long time. Nothing h…

I'll often spend a little time while watching the flight-tests (usually with Tim Dodd / EverydayAstronaut) just doing a search on YouTube for 'spacex live' and usually report 15-20 each time. They are very easy to spot when you've seen a few of them. I'll usually get a report of a few being shut down later in the day, and more over the next couple of days. But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automa…

Perhaps your account has more Youtube XP.

> But, yes, they should be easy for YT to detect & block automatically - it's frustrating they (and other scams) get to stay online so long.

It's the Google way. It's impossible until it suddenly isn't.

Break up this monster company and regulate the resulting companies until they behave.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#240

Post by JacobThreeThree »

ceejayoz wrote: post #53
llboston wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX did get government contracts, but not subsidies, and saved NASA and US Taxpayers lots of money.

SpaceX's contracts were absolutely subsidies - the contracted Falcon 1 tests and the resulting Falcon 9 contracts were an expensive moonshot for the USG at first - but even if you discount them, Tesla absolutely hoovered up subsidies like the EV tax credits. They even have a page about them: https://www.tesla.com/support/incentives

You can argue that all government contracts are a different form of subsidy, but in common parlance people do not use the term subsidy when describing government contracts.
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