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Starship's Sixth Flight Test

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Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#281

Post by dwaltrip »

nexus6 wrote: post #76
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.

Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?

Yes, to do anything at all in the rest of the universe.

We are insatiably curious explorers. The cosmos calls to us. Many are willing to do anything they can to answer that call.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#282

Post by gridspy »

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.

I think it's a really responsible decision by SpaceX to not put their StarShip stage into a full orbit until they have demonstrated the ability to get it back out of orbit.

They should be applauded for this, along with their iterative approach.

Note that this next test will demonstrate re-light of the engine in space at micro-gravity. This is the demonstration needed prior to putting the StarShip in orbit. We'll probably see a full orbital test for the flight after this one.

They could have easily put previous tests into orbit - it's a fairly minor change to their existing regime and they have plenty of fuel to use.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#283

Post by modeless »

dmurray wrote: post #278
modeless wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time. In the near term the biggest reason t…

> It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit Require, or just make comfortable? Saturn V had the lift capacity of "only" a couple of Falcon Heavies, but was enough to carry astronauts, a car, a lunar lander with enough fuel to take off, and a command module.

We're not trying to do Apollo again. That would be easier, but we want to build a base this time. For that we need to send a lot more mass and it needs a lot more fuel.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#284

Post by vojtapol »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #262
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.

He's already spent the $3bn funding that was supposed to deliver the rocket to the moon and back.

That's just straight up not true. The $3bn were never meant to fund the entire project in the way you imply.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#285

Post by shkkmo »

rbanffy wrote: post #185
shkkmo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered. One example off the top of my head: https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of...

Starship is an enabling technology. We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.

Which is why I find it exciting and am stoked every time I see progress made.

Howevever, it's hard to view an announcement of the next launch with some minor additions to the experimental flight, as the most exciting space news today. Future launches, once they get the license updated, will he more exciting.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#286

Post by TeMPOraL »

taneq wrote: post #242
hadlock wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big thing is that it dramatically reduces the cost of shipping things into space. Previously it was difficult to ship anything much larger than a compact car in to orbit. Now you can ship half of a basketball court into orbit, including all the vertical space. Until very very recently the roughly bus sized ISS modules were the largest habitable spaces we could ship to orbit (although Skylab in the 70s were basica…

Literally anything but the metric system, huh? ;)

I applaud GP's effort at also avoiding shipping cliches like Olympic-size swimming pools.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#287

Post by righthand »

rbanffy wrote: post #185
shkkmo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered. One example off the top of my head: https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of...

Starship is an enabling technology. We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.

Please list them because right now it is a hugely costly project that has shown no significant capital advancement for society beyond propping up Elon Musk and a “someday the average man will walk on the moon” dream. If anything of capital gain comes from it, it will never actually benefit the financial bottom line of the middle and lower class.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#288

Post by hadlock »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #286
taneq wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally anything but the metric system, huh? ;)

I applaud GP's effort at also avoiding shipping cliches like Olympic-size swimming pools.

Well, basketball courts have a ~12m diameter 3-point line, and the inside of a starship is ~9m. Swimming pools are mostly rectangular from the outside observer's perspective.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#289

Post by fernandopj »

dmurray wrote: post #278
modeless wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time. In the near term the biggest reason t…

> It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit Require, or just make comfortable? Saturn V had the lift capacity of "only" a couple of Falcon Heavies, but was enough to carry astronauts, a car, a lunar lander with enough fuel to take off, and a command module.

Require. I answered that in this same subtopic.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#290

Post by floating-io »

larkost wrote: post #267
adamm255 wrote: post #191

Can someone give me sources for how to debunk this? https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw For me, it’s compelling but I’m no expert. Anyone got any background that can prove this guy is wrong?

I think he is probably right, if you think of Starship has a government-paid program to produce a moon lander. The Starship program has blown though the NASA money to produce the basic version (but not yet the additional money agreed for a more advanced design), but has yet to deliver on any of their contracted goals. So by its own contract, it is just about to be over-budget, behind schedule, and thus a failed proje…

You're ignoring that this is a fixed-price contract. It will never be over-budget from NASA's perspective.

Also, for a project like HLS, you don't fail until you stop trying (or get someone killed, but SpaceX has been pretty good at not killing astronauts).

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