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Starship's Sixth Flight Test

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Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#321

Post by mnau »

foota wrote: post #176
dbish wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Honestly? I'd first prefer he hadn't gone off the deep end. I feel the same sort of sad that I did when Notch (of minecraft) turned out the way he did. I obviously don't have any person relation to him, but Elon seems to be deeply disturbed. He went from a pretty normal somewhat eccentric millionaire 5 or 6 years ago to his evil villain arc. Maybe he was like this all along, but I feel like he's been too stressed and…

Nah, it was his former son, now daughter Xavier Musk. Elon is basically dead to her and Musk perceives it as if his son died.

Look at some interviews where he talks about it "That's why they call it deadnaming, because that person is dead"

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#322

Post by Animats »

MostlyStable wrote: post #137
paul7986 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.

This article [0] is a pretty good explainer for why Starship is such a big deal [0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...

That's very good. And it's from 2021. Since then:

- Starship is actually launching now

- Boeing's reputation and credibility are in tatters

- Trump won with heavy support from Musk.

Expect a new head of NASA who is pro-Musk, and a cancellation of the Senate Launch System.

On the other hand, it's not clear what a Moon base is good for. The ISS isn't very useful.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#323

Post by sourcepluck »

sourcepluck wrote: post #313
sourcepluck wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, absolutely not! Almost exactly the opposite meaning was intended, and I didn't think for a second that it could be interpreted as you say there. I wrote the comment quickly, thinking the sarcasm was obvious, I apologise for not being more explicit. The comment I responded to (which has now been removed, I think?) referred to how proud the commenter was that Musk is "American". I found this to be totally preposter…

The fact that "Dutch English Canadian American" isn't used as a demonym by anyone anywhere is the reason I thought the joke was "obvious" (this isn't meant as a justification for the comment, just to elaborate in the hope of making it more clear).

Oh and last point - Dang is one person, not an army of people. The Trump thread is very very busy, so I presume he is busy. It's unreasonable to expect real-time or even "quick" addressing of every issue you perceive.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#325

Post by thinkcontext »

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.

It's necessary because the Starship upper stage is so heavy. With a non reusable upper stage Starship's capacity would be enormous.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#326

Post by shirro »

paul7986 wrote: post #67
modeless wrote: post #38

SpaceX just posted this video of the last test. It's one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64

Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.

Honestly of very little significance to the typical individual. It isn't going to pay my bills or provide for my kids. It does nothing for people suffering war and genocide. Nothing for poverty, access to health care and education. Nothing for the biggest threats facing our civilization.

It is still a remarkable technical achievement and I think the people who have designed and built these systems deserve some celebration for their accomplishments. It has the potential to lower costs and increase the capacity for greater commercialization, militarization and exploration of space.

I think the extent you see that as something positive is subject to your faith in humanity. I tend to think technologies connection to social progress is a three steps forward, two steps back sort of thing. We have certainly made gains in my lifetime but we could have gone a lot further.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#327

Post by tim333 »

bandyaboot wrote: post #263
ranger207 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They also flung a Tesla Roadster off into a wayward journey around the Sun. Not nearly as impressive I know, but significantly more amusing.

Yup. Passed by Mars in Oct 2020 which is definitely outside low earth orbit.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#328

Post by mnau »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
vlovich123 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> a two tiered justice system is dangerous grounds We don’t repeal citizenship on such flimsy grounds for anyone. The solution is to amend the law to include a statute of limitations on repealing citizenship.

Can you even deprive people of citizenship? I though Universal Declaration of Human Rights (mostly written by US no less) forbid that

> Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#329

Post by righthand »

shkkmo wrote: post #295
righthand wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Space based technology has massive impact on every day life. From GPS to weather prediction to communications, space infrastructure is critical to modern life. Launch costs significantly reduce what we can build in space and what research we co do there. Decreasing launch costs makes our research funding more effective and reduces the capital costs and projected profit margins needed to build space based infrastructu…

None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets.

The rest of your statement only indicates that Starship is indeed a fat pig when it comes to budget. This “boom” is all private for profit companies spending investment money. Not a “boom” in the sense that any man can get involved and benefit in the tangible future.

Pretending that everyone is going to be better off because of this space dream delusion doesn’t really answer my question.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#330

Post by WalterBright »

MostlyStable wrote: post #137
paul7986 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.

This article [0] is a pretty good explainer for why Starship is such a big deal [0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...

> We need a team of economists to rederive the relative elasticities of various design choices and boil them down to a new set of design heuristics for space system production oriented towards maximizing volume of production.

Great article, but that's not what economists do. It's more what cost accountants do.

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