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Starship Flight 7

spacex.com

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Re: Starship Flight 7

#351

Post by somenameforme »

mrandish wrote: post #342
bigiain wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I know that feeling. That tower catch. That _had_ to be a new version of Kerbal, right? The physics looked good, but there's no way that was real...

Indeed. The one that still flips a bit in my brain is the two Falcon rockets landing in unison side by side. I'd say it was high-end CGI except no director would approve an effects shot of orbital rockets landing in such a perfect, cinematically choreographed way. It would just be sent back to ILM marked "Good effort, but too obviously fake. Rework to be more realistic and resubmit."

Just to link that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c&t=1793s

Such an unbelievable moment. And I also think an indicator of how much better society could be if we focused more on doing amazing things. The comments on YouTube are just filled with hope optimism and general awesomeness. FWIW that link goes straight to the moneyshot - it's always so much better if you watch it all the way through. It's an amazing broadcast.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#352

Post by [deleted] »

enragedcacti wrote: post #230
Kye wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does SpaceX bother with NOTAM for its launches? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAM It seems like the flights should have been planned around it so no diversion would be needed.

They do but its not clear to me whether the area where it broke up was actually included in the original NOTAM. The NOTMAR definitely does not according to the graphic shown on the NASASpaceflight stream. They are still live so I can't link a time code but something like -4:56 in this stream as of posting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nM3vGdanpw

[deleted]

Re: Starship Flight 7

#353

Post by lmm »

dylan604 wrote: post #298
HPsquared wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably similar to if a US ship crashed into your yacht.

Rules of the water says smaller ship yields right of way to bigger ship. Sounds like you screwed up if your yacht got hit by a bigger ship. Of course that applies when the vessels are not tied up. If a big ship his a docked boat, that's an entirely different scenario

> Rules of the water says smaller ship yields right of way to bigger ship. Sounds like you screwed up if your yacht got hit by a bigger ship.

Not necessarily. Steam is obliged to give way to sail, even when the sailing ship is much smaller.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#354

Post by somenameforme »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #174
olex wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inadvertently perfect timing for this footage. Glowing and backlit by the setting sun, against clear and already darkening evening sky... couldn't plan the shot any better if you tried. Let's hope no debris came down on anyone or anything apart from open water.

I take it if SpaceX debris hit and destroyed a boat the owner can claim damages from SpaceX? Does international space law allow for this?

Most things put into space are designed to burn upon uncontrolled descent through orbit. And then the overwhelming majority of Earth is water and even on land the overwhelming majority of land is either completely uninhabited or sparsely inhabited. And then even if against all odds somehow something doesn't burn up in the atmosphere, and somehow lands in a densely populated area - the odds of hitting a spot with somebody or something relevant on it is still quite low. The overall odds of actually hitting somewhere really bad are just astronomically low.

Nonetheless, recently NASA won the lottery when part of some batteries they jettisoned from the ISS ended up crashing through a house in Florida. [1] Oddly enough there are treaties on this, but only from an international perspective - landing on your own country was not covered! But I'm certain NASA will obviously make it right, as would SpaceX. If they didn't, then surely the family could easily sue as well.

[1] - https://www.space.com/space-debris-florida-family-nasa-lawsu...

Re: Starship Flight 7

#355

Post by kryptn »

mrandish wrote: post #347
throw0101a wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (as seen from ground) As seen from a plane in the air with the break up right in front of it: https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_...

While the video post does mention "Right in front of us", and it may have appeared that way to the pilots, it wasn't. Gauging relative distance and altitude between aircraft in flight can be notoriously deceptive even to experts, especially in the case of intensely bright, massive, unfamiliar objects at very high speed and great distance. The RUD was in orbit over 146 kilometers up and >13,000 mph. I'm sure using the…

It's in front of them enough.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#356

Post by muteh »

mrandish wrote: post #347
throw0101a wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (as seen from ground) As seen from a plane in the air with the break up right in front of it: https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_...

While the video post does mention "Right in front of us", and it may have appeared that way to the pilots, it wasn't. Gauging relative distance and altitude between aircraft in flight can be notoriously deceptive even to experts, especially in the case of intensely bright, massive, unfamiliar objects at very high speed and great distance. The RUD was in orbit over 146 kilometers up and >13,000 mph. I'm sure using the…

To be clear, you’re claiming that this was in fact behind them?

Re: Starship Flight 7

#357

Post by [deleted] »

kryptn wrote: post #355
mrandish wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the video post does mention "Right in front of us", and it may have appeared that way to the pilots, it wasn't. Gauging relative distance and altitude between aircraft in flight can be notoriously deceptive even to experts, especially in the case of intensely bright, massive, unfamiliar objects at very high speed and great distance. The RUD was in orbit over 146 kilometers up and >13,000 mph. I'm sure using the…

It's in front of them enough.

[deleted]

Re: Starship Flight 7

#358

Post by coldtea »

dpifke wrote: post #280
terramex wrote: post #76

Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity. Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880060983734858130

[flagged]

Re: Starship Flight 7

#359

Post by Galxeagle »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #323
modeless wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe they throttle the engines up or down much during the second stage burn. Fuel decreases ~linearly and thrust is relatively constant. Acceleration increases as fuel mass decreases.

I would be surprised if that was the case, my reasoning to that is that computing where a thing is going, when it's under going with changing acceleration AND changing mass, is pretty complicated. Especially if you already have the capability to throttle the engines and keep 'a' constant. They might, I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying that I cannot imagine how you would justify the added complexity of doing i…

Any extra time spent during a burn is wasted fuel. Intuitively, any time before the rocket is in orbit, some part of the rocket thrust is resisting the force of gravity or else it would fall back down to earth. The longer that time is, the more thrust (and thus fuel) was spent negating that force. It's the main reason why the Falcon 9 boosters do a 'hoverslam' on return and land at close to full throttle - any extra time during that burn is less fuel efficient.

Better fuel efficiency = more payload to orbit = plenty of justification for the extra complexity.

Admittedly gravity losses are more significant at the beginning when the booster/ship are ascending purely vertically than later in second stage flight which is mostly horizontal, but definitely still a factor.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#360

Post by mrandish »

somenameforme wrote: post #351
mrandish wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The one that still flips a bit in my brain is the two Falcon rockets landing in unison side by side. I'd say it was high-end CGI except no director would approve an effects shot of orbital rockets landing in such a perfect, cinematically choreographed way. It would just be sent back to ILM marked "Good effort, but too obviously fake. Rework to be more realistic and resubmit."

Just to link that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c&t=1793s Such an unbelievable moment. And I also think an indicator of how much better society could be if we focused more on doing amazing things. The comments on YouTube are just filled with hope optimism and general awesomeness. FWIW that link goes straight to the moneyshot - it's always so much better if you watch it all the way through. It's an amazin…

When I was in elementary school back in the 1970s, I read every sci-fi book in the tiny school library. They were all old, even then. Early stuff by Asimov, Heinlein and Bova. Paperbacks on cheap pulp with cover paintings of rockets sitting upright on alien terrain. Tiny people in space suits climbing down ladders to explore a new world.

With the Apollo moon landings in recent memory, I'd read those sci-fi books late at night with a flashlight under the covers of my bed and then fall asleep thinking about how "I'll still be alive 50 years from now. I'll get to actually live in the world of the future. Maybe I'll even work in space." And by the time I graduated from high school it was already becoming clear things were going much to slow for me to even see humans colonizing Mars. And that was reality until about a decade ago.

So, yeah. Watching the live video of the first successful Starship orbital launch with my teenage daughter... I got a little choked up, which surprised me. Felt like discovering a very old dream that's been buried too long. And somehow the damn thing's still alive. Or maybe I just got something in my eye. Anyway, I know it's too late for me to ever work off-planet. But maybe not for my kid... so, the dream lives on. It just had to skip a generation.

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