11–20 of 154 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
Seems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
For those who aren’t aware, the next flight is to lunar orbit, with a planned landing on the moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
The incremental improvements to the engine thrust is par for the course. The exciting thing in this announcement is the new 9x4 configuration (9 and 4 engines in the first and second stages vs the current 7x2). They don't mention whether the tanks will get stretched to allow for more fuel, or if this just burns the fuel faster. Starship generations keep getting both more engines and longer.
Additionally, the New Glenn fairings are very large for their weight capacity. New Glenn has 3x the fairing volume compared to the Falcon Heavy, but can throw less mass. So many expected that BO designed it this way because they expected to increase performance of their engines in the future, making the weight/volume ratio of their fairing more balanced.
New Glenn has 45t of capacity now. Increasing thrust by 15% should increase that to 51t, thus making New Glenn 7x2 also just barely a Super Heavy booster. Perhaps they didn't call that out because that would overshadow the 9x4 announcement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
It worked pretty well for F9.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
Seems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
For those who aren’t aware, the next flight is to lunar orbit, with a planned landing on the moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
The incremental improvements to the engine thrust is par for the course. The exciting thing in this announcement is the new 9x4 configuration (9 and 4 engines in the first and second stages vs the current 7x2). They don't mention whether the tanks will get stretched to allow for more fuel, or if this just burns the fuel faster. Starship generations keep getting both more engines and longer.
Yup, the thrust improvements were expected. The BE-4 engines have quite a low chamber pressure for their engine class, so they can gain significant performance just by increasing chamber pressure. Additionally, the New Glenn fairings are very large for their weight capacity. New Glenn has 3x the fairing volume compared to the Falcon Heavy, but can throw less mass. So many expected that BO designed it this way because…
To be fair, the Falcon Heavy has way too little fairing volume for it's lift capacity (and apparently it is in the process of getting an extra 50% or so?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, the thrust improvements were expected. The BE-4 engines have quite a low chamber pressure for their engine class, so they can gain significant performance just by increasing chamber pressure. Additionally, the New Glenn fairings are very large for their weight capacity. New Glenn has 3x the fairing volume compared to the Falcon Heavy, but can throw less mass. So many expected that BO designed it this way because…
> New Glenn has 3x the fairing volume compared to the Falcon Heavy, but can throw less mass. To be fair, the Falcon Heavy has way too little fairing volume for it's lift capacity (and apparently it is in the process of getting an extra 50% or so?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
NASA still had much smaller jumps in capability between flights. Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk.
I don't need a YT influencer to know my NASA history. I'm old enough it was taught in school while young enough to not have lived through any of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
I think SpaceX is taking the re-usability part of Starship as foundation. Meaning they won't move forward until it's solved. With Falcon they added it as a bit of a secondary priority. They've spent so much resources trying to get the second stage back to earth. I think they should have just focused on getting the whole system flying to orbit, throwing away second stage for now, and using that platform to replace fal…