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Starship Flight 7

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Re: Starship Flight 7

#461

Post by jve »

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…

Apollo WAS an impressive achievement

Starship IS an impressive achievement while they speed up development process with real-world hard data

New Glenn IS an impressive achievement while taking their time to develop a vehicle that reached the orbit on first time

Per wiki on Apollo

> Landing humans on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($25 billion; $182 billion in 2023 US dollars)[22] ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities.[23]

Different budget, different number of people working on this stuff and different mindset. Actually the Apollo program was also iterative and it paid off.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#462

Post by krisoft »

dotancohen wrote: post #416
lmm wrote: post #353

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

Where do Methalox-powered vehicles lie in this hierarchy? And if the Starship is not under power yet falling and using the flaperons for control, is that considered "under sail" for purposes of right of way?

For funsies i would call it a “vessel not under command”. At least after the breakup that feels to fit.

But for real, i think the simple answer is that debris falling from space is outside of the scope of the ColRegs. Simply speaking they come too fast so you can’t maneuver your vessel out of their way, and unless you are a warship you don’t have the tools to even know where exactly they will hit. If you try to run you might even put yourself in their path. After all from the most unlucky position they would be just bright stationary spots on the sky getting ever so slightly bigger. Until they start to get bigger faster and faster. (Constant bearing and decreasing range being the hallmarks of an impending colision.)

Re: Starship Flight 7

#463

Post by pelagicAustral »

bboygravity wrote: post #452
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…

So what does a rocket company need to do to be imrpessive in your eyes?

Go to the moon, land a rover, wander about, come back with everyone alive... should be easy right?, I mean, it's already been done... RIGHT????

Re: Starship Flight 7

#464

Post by onion2k »

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…

The shuttle programme was signed off in 1972, had it's first flight in 1977, and it's first crewed flight in 1981. Starship has been going for 5 years (albeit on the back of lots of other SpaceX work.) It's getting to orbit in the same time that Shuttle took to 'fly' on the back of a 747. A few lost ships is a pretty small price to pay for going twice as fast on delivery.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#465

Post by jve »

tsimionescu wrote: post #460
bboygravity wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what does a rocket company need to do to be imrpessive in your eyes?

Maybe match some achievements from 60 years ago, like having a rocket that can put someone on the moon, back when the largest supercomputer in the space program had less FLOPS than my watch.

Decreasing price of a launch by multiple orders of magnitude and increased cadence is also an achievement that hasn't been achieved previously.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#466

Post by rco8786 »

bboygravity wrote: post #452
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…

So what does a rocket company need to do to be imrpessive in your eyes?

We'll have to get to parity with what we were doing 50-60 years ago.

The reusability is awesome, of course. More of that!

And also, still gotta get the basics right. Oxygen/fuel leaks aren't a great look (spoken as a not rocket scientist).

Re: Starship Flight 7

#467

Post by tsimionescu »

jve wrote: post #465
tsimionescu wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe match some achievements from 60 years ago, like having a rocket that can put someone on the moon, back when the largest supercomputer in the space program had less FLOPS than my watch.

Decreasing price of a launch by multiple orders of magnitude and increased cadence is also an achievement that hasn't been achieved previously.

Increased launch cadence is an operational achievement, not an engineering one.

And I'm not so sure that they actually decreased price to launch all that much. First of all, it's definitely not "several orders of magnitude", the best numbers quoted are maybe half price or so for a Falcon 9 compared to another contemporary rocket. And by my understanding, the US government at least is paying about as much for Falcon 9 as it was for a Soyuz to bring an astronaut to the ISS, at least.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#468

Post by hnaccount_rng »

rob74 wrote: post #431
14 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even NASA years into their existence has suffered catastrophic fatal failures. Even with the best and most knowledgeable experts working on it we are ultimately still in the infancy of space flight. Just like airlines every incident we try and understand the cause and prevent it from happening again. Lastly what they are doing is incredibly difficult with probably thousands of things that could go wrong. I think they…

I you are referring to the two Space Shuttle accidents, both of them could have been avoided with just a little bit more care - not launching in freezing temperatures for Challenger, and making sure insulation foam doesn't fall off the tank for Columbia.

In hindsight yes. The trick is knowing which of the thousands of things to do are necessary. And yes, that’s how you end up with preflight checklists

Re: Starship Flight 7

#469

Post by orwin »

nicky0 wrote: post #454
notorandit wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a code test doesn't require firing a rocket. How would you test a rocket?

Test code by running it. Test a rocket by launching it.

In production? I don't disagree that tests 'in production' are sometimes necessary (canary tests), but most of the quirks are often fixed by then.

Honestly I thought they would be live testing fuel exchange in orbit by now. Seems pretty far from it sadly.

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