NPR has a clear political agenda biased toward a particular party. While I happen to agree with a lot of their politics, I don't think organizations with political agendas should receive public funding. Also, the bulk of their funding is not from the government, so they should do fine. Musk is not pushing for something crazy with this. One other problem with NPR is that they also take money from some seriously questi…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I was simply answering the question, and have no desire to get into an argument over Musk's politics.
Not really replying to you, just adding context the thread.
In response to various people asking "why aren't they also trying..." (starship hover landing on water, booster catch by the tower, etc), remember that the plan has to be approved by the FAA. The more complex the test, the more things they can ask for changes about or deny the request over. Keep it simple and approval is easier.
FWIW no I don't think it has anything to do with the FAA. They don't care about it blowing up on landing and taking lots of SpaceX's extremely expensive infrastructure with it, it wouldn't be any worse then it blowing up at lift off full of fuel which naturally has already been accounted for as part of the safety and environmental review. SpaceX though very much cares, and it's cheaper for them to expend an SS+SH (the whole point of which is to mass manufacture and next version is improved already) then tower, fueling infra etc. Geographic constraints have forced them to have a lot of stuff much closer to the pad than might otherwise be ideal. An explosion at launch would be legitimately painful, would easily be months of delay not due to regulations but just in raw rebuilding, and set back their whole schedule and moment they can start putting it to work. Wouldn't kill it or anything, but it'd suck, which is why "minimum goal" has been stated to be getting high enough above the tower before blowing up to not hurt anything on the ground, then its gravy (obviously everyone would prefer it do much better than that). So they're being quite deliberate, pushing but not reckless gambling. They're running a hardware rich program, they can afford to do that, it's part of their competitive advantage. They'll start trying to land SH for real once they're confident the odds of avoiding any serious tower damage are sufficiently high.
i was at south padre island for the first starship landing. even though it blew up a minute or two after it landed, i consider it the first landing. i had seen pretty much every major launch from spacex on their livestreams but i was still taken aback at seeing starship. its as odd as watching a skyscraper slowly levitate upward into the sky. and to see it standing after the dust settled was unreal. and after it was…
ive made a reservation with another user. show up at the lighthouse inn on south padre island the night of the 16th for a raging party and to save money on a room
It's been interesting to see SpaceX shift from hardware-rich to a more traditional process the last year. I suspect a lot of it is due to the sheer cost of what they are doing, but a lot of it is PR management as well... Plus it's obvious that the US government is doing everything in their power to have Musk on as short of a leash as possible.
The slowdown of testing is not a change in their methodology. It was because they succeeded in all suborbital testing. The orbital testing has been held up by bureaucracy, heat tile iterations, and launch tower refinement. The costs of test articles are pennies on the dollar compared to the launch value of these vehicles once operational. By now they have 2.5 stacks ready, and surely have enough raptor engines saved…
That’s a very charitable interpretation. Testing slowed because of flaws in the Raptor which required a complete redesign. We’ll see if their chaotic development process produces something safe and reliable.
In response to various people asking "why aren't they also trying..." (starship hover landing on water, booster catch by the tower, etc), remember that the plan has to be approved by the FAA. The more complex the test, the more things they can ask for changes about or deny the request over. Keep it simple and approval is easier.
FWIW no I don't think it has anything to do with the FAA. They don't care about it blowing up on landing and taking lots of SpaceX's extremely expensive infrastructure with it, it wouldn't be any worse then it blowing up at lift off full of fuel which naturally has already been accounted for as part of the safety and environmental review. SpaceX though very much cares, and it's cheaper for them to expend an SS+SH (th…
They could still do the re-entry burn and behave as if they would catch the booster/starship but over water without any infrastructure nearby.
I’m a bit surprised they don’t because seeing if the heat shield survives the re-enrty maneuver would have been quite interesting.
Say what you will about Elon Musk, but this is the kind of human creativity that should know no bounds. Here's getting very excited about the species' chase for other worlds.
Here are the TFRs. Two on the 17th and 18th from 6am to 9am MDT. The yellow section. About 15 miles long and averages 7 miles wide. https://ibb.co/H41P6Md
i was at south padre island for the first starship landing. even though it blew up a minute or two after it landed, i consider it the first landing. i had seen pretty much every major launch from spacex on their livestreams but i was still taken aback at seeing starship. its as odd as watching a skyscraper slowly levitate upward into the sky. and to see it standing after the dust settled was unreal. and after it was…
Drive don't fly. Rent van or large jeep. Sleep in it.
Only under 400 mi after that it is cheaper to fly & rent. Current gas prices it's probably 350.
I've been following it since even before that point when it was still called the "MCT", but without any explanation of what the acronym meant. A long time coming. This is the beginning of a new era in space exploration.
MCT was Mars Colonial Transport
It later became that but when MCT was first mentioned it was left up to the fan community to interpret what the acronym meant. Note also there was no images at that time, just a couple of fan artist conceptions on an imagined SpaceX made mars vehicle.