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Starship Flight 7

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Re: Starship Flight 7

#721

Post by mrandish »

gusgus01 wrote: post #702
mrandish wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, I'm only familiar with the high level concepts of vehicle launch safety and not qualified to assess detailed scenarios. I'm just a guy interested enough to read some technical articles and skim a few linked papers several years ago when there was a lot of heat about launch safety from Boca and not much light. When there's a lot of heated rhetoric in the mass media, I find it's better to check directly in s…

I know this is just another reddit post so could be fake, but supposedly debris is already washing ashore in Turks and Caicos. Specifically in this post a heat shield tile, but the poster mentions other stuff on the beach. So at least some debris probably dropped nearby. https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1i3na4a/...

As I said above, the safety model predicts some lightweight stuff with a consistency not much stiffer than tin foil and coated styrofoam could fall not that far downrange. However, that's also the exact stuff that doesn't present serious risk to people or property.

So even if those claims are true, just finding a little debris doesn't invalidate the safety model or indicate there was ever unacceptable risk. The real question is if any debris from a higher risk class fell in a place the safety model didn't predict and why. That would certainly be notable and worth incorporating into future safety models.

In the absence of solid confirmation, I'm going to stick with the model and the basic physics. If the debris is just the expected stuff, I'm sure SpaceX regrets littering the beaches and should definitely pay for some crews to pick that stuff up and trash it.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#722

Post by laverya »

wat10000 wrote: post #653
mavhc wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that a) most human rated rockets have had 0 flights before use, and b) I'd expect each starship to have at least 10 flights, and at least 100 in total without mishap before launching, the statistics should be good

I don’t think (a) is true. The Shuttle flew with people on its maiden voyage, but that’s the only one I can think of. (b) is true and should make it substantially safer than other launch systems. But given how narrow the margins are for something going wrong (zero ability to land safely with all engines dead, for example) it’s still going to be pretty dangerous compared to more mundane forms of travel.

Most rockets flew test flights before sticking people inside the same model, but most rockets are also single use and so each stack is fundamentally new.

A future starship could plausibly be the first rocket to fly to space unmanned, return, and then fly humans to space!

Re: Starship Flight 7

#723

Post by [deleted] »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #691
vardump wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero ROI? Isn’t SpaceX the largest launch provider in the world and for the U.S. government? Many times than the rest of the U.S. space industry combined.

*Starship has zero ROI and has sucked up a lot of federal funds. Falcon 9 has had plenty of "ROI" but it wasn't really federally funded. Let's not get carried away though about "more than the entire US space industry combined," though.

[deleted]

Re: Starship Flight 7

#724

Post by [deleted] »

ricardobeat wrote: post #206
Kye wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you bet hundreds of lives and millions of dollars on that?

Yes. Space debris near orbiting speeds doesn't fall straight down, it's simple physics. If anything planes much further downrange (thousands of km) should be diverted, not immediately under the re-entry point.

[deleted]

Re: Starship Flight 7

#725

Post by [deleted] »

ricardobeat wrote: post #206
Kye wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you bet hundreds of lives and millions of dollars on that?

Yes. Space debris near orbiting speeds doesn't fall straight down, it's simple physics. If anything planes much further downrange (thousands of km) should be diverted, not immediately under the re-entry point.

[deleted]

Re: Starship Flight 7

#726

Post by me_me_me »

ricardobeat wrote: post #717
me_me_me wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf does that have to do with Curiosity program? All of these are 2+ decades old. Besides, you make it as if SpaceX couldn't learn from nasa mistakes, not to mention core team of SpaceX are ex-nasa already. what kind of elon musk logic is that?

> wtf does that have to do with Curiosity program? All of these are 2+ decades old. That’s 20 years of learning how to design and land things on mars. They wouldn’t have been able to build Curiosity without the past experiences. The Curiosity program itself started in 2002, just a couple years after the missions above. What people say is that knowledge in the field is extremely hard to transfer, and easily lost. As a…

> What people say is that knowledge in the field is extremely hard to transfer, and easily lost.

So you are saying that Curiosity team had probably not learned anything from those 20 years old programs?

You are literally strengthening my point...

Re: Starship Flight 7

#727

Post by mkl »

mrandish wrote: post #689
zardo wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the incredible speeds Starship was moving (>13,000 mph) by the time it was over the Caribbean, debris from a Starship is expected to burn up by the time it reaches the surface. Don't the heat tiles at least make it through? And possibly large hunks of metal like the thrust frame and engines.

As I said, I'm only familiar with the high level concepts of vehicle launch safety and not qualified to assess detailed scenarios. I'm just a guy interested enough to read some technical articles and skim a few linked papers several years ago when there was a lot of heat about launch safety from Boca and not much light. When there's a lot of heated rhetoric in the mass media, I find it's better to check directly in s…

Everyday Astronaut is Tim Dodd.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#728

Post by WorkerBee28474 »

mempko wrote: post #674

SpaceX started Starship development in 2012. Despite 12 years of work, its best test flight reached space but not orbit, sending a banana to the Indian Ocean. While NASA's SLS began in 2011 and successfully flew around the Moon in 2022. Blue Origin's New Glenn also started development in 2012 and reached orbit on it's first flight with an actual payload. When they say SpaceX is fast, what do they mean exactly?

The last SLS launch was in November 2022. The next one is in April 2026. That is 42 months between launches.

Starship may not go 42 days before the next launch. SpaceX's Falcon 9 + Heavy has launched on average once every 12 days since 2010.

And while Starship was "in development" since 2012, that doesn't mean it was prioritized. The first prototypes were only made in 2018.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#729

Post by mrandish »

mkl wrote: post #727
mrandish wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, I'm only familiar with the high level concepts of vehicle launch safety and not qualified to assess detailed scenarios. I'm just a guy interested enough to read some technical articles and skim a few linked papers several years ago when there was a lot of heat about launch safety from Boca and not much light. When there's a lot of heated rhetoric in the mass media, I find it's better to check directly in s…

Everyday Astronaut is Tim Dodd.

Oops! I somehow conflated two space YouTubers who I sometimes watch and appreciate. Scott Manley is just Scott Manley on YouTube. Thanks for the correction.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#730

Post by cjbillington »

einrealist wrote: post #714

Waiting for the day when they can load more than a banana. But I fear, the planet will be uninhabitable before that's a thing.

They had some Starlink simulators they were planning to deploy (to a suborbital trajectory, to re-enter along with the ship) this launch.
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