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Starship Flight 7

spacex.com

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Re: Starship Flight 7

#441

Post by pineaux »

aredox wrote: post #426
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…

Stupid comment. Several flights had to be diverted because of the break-up, and anyone in flight at that time would be rightly concerned about barely-visible high-speed shrapnel showering a much larger area than where the visible debris are - especially when you are responsible for keeping your hundreds of passengers safe in a very unexpected situation with no rehearsed procedure to follow.

this.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#442

Post by krisoft »

lmm wrote: post #353
dylan604 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a lovely bit of complication with it! Not saying to correct you, just because i think it is a lovely bit of trivia even though it has nothing to do with space debris.

Both sailing and power driven vessels need to give ways to (among other things) “vessel restricted in her ability to maneuver”. And an aircraft carrier launching or recovering aircraft is considered to be restricted in her ability to maneuver (quite rightfully so, it is hard enough to land on them without the ship swerving left and right).

So that means that a mighty aircraft carrier needs to (at least according to the regulations) dodge tiny sailing ships, but once they start launching or recovering aircraft it is the responsibility of the sailing ship to avoid them.

Source: Rule 18 of the ColRegs (The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972)

Re: Starship Flight 7

#443

Post by imtringued »

distortionfield wrote: post #377
jeltz wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are making the possible very late.

> very late when was your fully reusable full-flow staged combustion rocket engine scheduled flight, again?

Why does that matter? SpaceX is setting themselves up for failure by insisting that they need to nail re-entry first. Whenever they focused on a test flight for re-entry I'm wondering why they aren't working on more important things like the payload doors or orbital brimming. They will get the re-entry tests for free!

And even if they don't. The upper stage is cheap enough that it can be expended and still be cheaper per flight than Falcon Heavy. So that tells me that the delays are on purpose. Their test flight planning is designed to maximize ego stroking.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#444

Post by ta1243 »

cdbyr wrote: post #365
dylan604 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is a whole hierarchy of right of way on the water, but a better rule of thumb is that the less maneuverable boat generally has priority. https://www.whoi.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Abbreviated-...

And of course there's the old tale:

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_ur...

Re: Starship Flight 7

#445

Post by diggan »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #433
sneak wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that shot is so clean and smooth it feels like a render. Absolutely iconic even after a dozen rewatchings. The iris flares and the framerate… gotta hand it to whoever planned that shot and placed that camera. A+ videography.

As another commenter pointed out, it's down to better cameras; higher resolution and framerates than "traditional" cameras used in this kind of recording. But it could be better still, the camera setup in the clip still gets a lot of shaking from the blasts. IIRC they use regular off the shelf gopro cameras to mount on the ones going into space. Granted, the mount is ruggedized metal else the cameras wouldn't survive…

> it's down to better cameras; higher resolution and framerates than "traditional" cameras used in this kind of recording

It looks cool because of the angle and framing though, someone knew exactly what they were doing. Without the angle/framing, you can have all the resolution and framerates in the world, it still wouldn't look as cool. It's a cinematographic choice that made that shot.

> But it could be better still, the camera setup in the clip still gets a lot of shaking from the blasts.

I'd love to hear ideas how you'd prevent the shaking. Forget gimbals or similar semi-pro setups as they wouldn't be nearly enough. What are you attaching it to, in your better setup? A drone would be blown away, and anything attached to the ground would likely start to shake regardless of your setup.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#446

Post by ceejayoz »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #434
ceejayoz wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, although drag is gonna be… substantially higher like this as well.

Does melting down not reshape metallic particles into ideal droplett parts ?

No.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/world/africa/kenya-space-...

Re: Starship Flight 7

#447

Post by EncomLab »

First Shuttle orbited astronauts and successfully recovered all intended components. Every Saturn 5 was successful, the 3rd flight sent a crew to lunar orbit, and the 6th put a crew on the moon.

To date a Starship has yet to be recovered after flight - and those launched are effectively boilerplate as they have carried no cargo (other than a banana) and have none of the systems in place to support a crew.

Some people are really fetishizing iterative failure - but just because you are wandering in the desert does not mean there is a promised land.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#448

Post by jacobjjacob »

timeon wrote: post #399
vvpan wrote: post #286

I absolutely cannot relate to the HN excitement over rockets. What is the point? What are we going to do with them? It feels like half religion half misplaced techno-positivism. (Also a person who actively platforms outspoken neo-nazis runs the company that is launching them)

> half religion half misplaced techno-positivism It sometimes feels like it: everything blows-up and thread here is like "what a success", Second stage explodes - "beautiful" (while trash is falling into ocean).

Yeah there is a huge amount of rationalizing how the debris aren’t a problem. Everyone is certain it will burn up before hitting the ground, and if it doesn’t, it will land somewhere that doesn’t matter… but I don’t think anyone knows that for sure?

Rockets are cool but it’s everyone’s planet, if this continues to make a huge mess, do us regular earth citizens have recourse?

Re: Starship Flight 7

#449

Post by christophilus »

EncomLab wrote: post #447

First Shuttle orbited astronauts and successfully recovered all intended components. Every Saturn 5 was successful, the 3rd flight sent a crew to lunar orbit, and the 6th put a crew on the moon. To date a Starship has yet to be recovered after flight - and those launched are effectively boilerplate as they have carried no cargo (other than a banana) and have none of the systems in place to support a crew. Some people…

I will say, though, that booster catch is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#450

Post by EncomLab »

christophilus wrote: post #449
EncomLab wrote: post #447

First Shuttle orbited astronauts and successfully recovered all intended components. Every Saturn 5 was successful, the 3rd flight sent a crew to lunar orbit, and the 6th put a crew on the moon. To date a Starship has yet to be recovered after flight - and those launched are effectively boilerplate as they have carried no cargo (other than a banana) and have none of the systems in place to support a crew. Some people…

I will say, though, that booster catch is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

Yes- very impressive feat of engineering.
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