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Starship's Sixth Flight Test

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Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#341

Post by gridspy »

7e wrote: post #308
gridspy wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, your payload needs to be gun compatible. Not gonna put people in there.

Space is for robots.

While mass to orbit costs as much as it does now, sure. However later on it's gonna be great to have humans closer to the working robots to reduce the round-trip latency. They could also perform tasks robots are not suited for.

Consider operators living on Mars and operating drones near their habitat each day. It would be like modern day drone operators and robot assisted surgery. Like remote operators of mega-trucks today.

Those robots could interact with the operators - driving into a "garage" that can be pressurized for maintenance, upgrades or science.

StarShip promises to reduce the cost of mass to orbit, making larger and more complex scientific, industrial and habitat options feasible.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#342

Post by cwillu »

adamm255 wrote: post #186
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.

I’m with you. As landing the thing means nothing if you can’t get payloads to the destination. To get this thing to the moon would need like 20 refuelling flights to meet it on the way.

Hence the plan to have ten or so launches to refuel the top stage while it's still in orbit, a place that notably _is_ halfway to the moon's surface + the return trip to the earth.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_sy...

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#344

Post by HideousKojima »

roflyear wrote: post #248
HideousKojima wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems he cares about it a great deal, he wants to make sure America is still a country where you can innovate and explore without the state blocking you at every turn. See Arianespace for how things would look if Elon had to deal with infamous European bureaucracy and red tape, the FAA is already bad enough.

Maybe. I don't see Elon saying that much. Mostly it's politically charged crap.

You should have seen his Lex Fridman interview then where he talks about exactly that and brings up things like the need to kidnap a seal (twice!), strap it to a board, and force it to listen to sonic boom noises to comply with braindeas government environmental regulations.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#345

Post by mulmen »

lupusreal wrote: post #4

Note that there will not be an official livestream on Youtube. Every time there are some people who fall for scammers pretending to be one and end up listening to an AI impersonation of Elon Musk try to sell them cryptocoins, missing the real launch. If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.

> If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.

It amazes me that NASA Space Flight managed to rip off the names of both the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Their coverage is good but that name is really misleading.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#346

Post by willy_k »

inglor_cz wrote: post #108
dingnuts wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's always been all-in on the winning candidate. His whole business is getting government subsidies. His single principle is sucking up to people in power. He loved Obama when he was in power, too. Proud to say I've found that asshole annoying since WAY before it was cool.

"His whole business is getting government subsidies." SpaceX absolutely dominates the commercial launch market. No one forces companies from abroad to buy launches from SpaceX - only their reliability and lower prices. For fully subsidized organizations that nevertheless cannot compete on the commercial market, see Roskosmos and Arianespace.

In fairness the wording is “His”, not “their”. I interpret that as a claim about how Musk achieves success, not about how SpaceX makes money.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#347

Post by righthand »

shkkmo wrote: post #340
righthand wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 delu…

> None of that listed technology comes from building reusable rockets. Lower launch costs are a force multiplier for all of those technologies and more. > 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. It sounds like your issue is more with capitalism than space... But lower launch costs decrease th…

Please explain to me how lower launch costs will help weather prediction.

Please give me the benefit of the doubt and help me understand what lower launch costs help with the average american today. I am asking an honest question to a different poster who originally indicated that the benefits were easily imaginable.

> We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.

I am trying to imagine how building reusable rockets leads to improving GPS and weather systems that decades of other fields that use those technologies couldn’t improve on already. What is this special low cost rocket sauce that enables it?

I can see the blind Marvel-movie-like fandom of “but it’s science” and “its our destiny” and “imagine all the wonderful things but don’t let me tell you ;)” but I do not see the actual details of what this will enable besides allowing Musk et al to hollow out planets for mining operations for their own gain.

Why would I want to answer my own question when I don’t understand what the original poster was suggesting?

You seem at a loss for these easily imaginable ideas.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#348

Post by cwillu »

mnau wrote: post #310
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.

I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting. SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)

The next block of starship has altered flap geometry that should largely fix that.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#349

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#350

Post by laverya »

mnau wrote: post #310
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.

I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting. SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)

I think they can probably do both at once - heatshield testing and pez dispenser testing shouldn't interfere with each other, so might as well use whatever spare upmass you have!

Yeah you might lose the payload, but SpaceX has the cheapest satellites in the business from what I understand.

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