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Starship’s second flight test

spacex.com

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Re: Starship’s second flight test

#141

Post by rbanffy »

jiggawatts wrote: post #133
rbanffy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if NASA launches are held up for months waiting for information about how many sharks might be directly hit by their rockets. NASA has been actively involved in wildlife preservation since the beginning. By doing that they are effectively in control and can design it into their mission operations. https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/blog/07/the-wild-side-of-... https://www.fws.gov/refuge/merritt-island/abou…

Is that why SLS launches cost billions of dollars?

No. That’s because the SLS was the safe bet, planned at a time when what SpaceX does was considered impossible.

SpaceX was unlikely to succeed and it’d be irresponsible for NASA to not have a human rated launcher in case SpaceX failed.

Also, it keeps a lot of rocket scientists current, sharp, and happily employed while it prevents them from considering moving to North Korea.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#142

Post by rbanffy »

maxlin wrote: post #83
rbanffy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Starship seems to really be the main focus of Elon where he doesn't just lead but is in the weeds There lies the danger, considering his work leading Twitter.

This has to be the most ignorant comment here. Elon has been heading SpaceX as a Chief Engineer for a LONG time now, with undeniable success. How on earth would what he asks X/Twitter to do affect this, even if you considered that bad or the worst thing ever?

You do know that’s just the name of his role, not the job description, right?

He was also quite adamant about not needing a fire suppression system on the pad while everyone else was saying to just dig a water trench and be over with it. Now he got his inverted shower head. It should work, but it delayed the second launch by almost a year.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#143

Post by kcplate »

ric2b wrote: post #135
ekianjo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember ignorant folks commenting on HN a while ago that Twitter would not last 3 months after the massive layoffs. Proven wrong over and over again.

It didn't, and they had to implement very severe rate limiting just to keep it from falling over again. Now when I open a tweet without being logged in I can't even see any replies.

> Now when I open a tweet without being logged in I can't even see any replies.

So…you’re upset that you can’t do something for free now?

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#144

Post by dotnet00 »

rbanffy wrote: post #142
maxlin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be the most ignorant comment here. Elon has been heading SpaceX as a Chief Engineer for a LONG time now, with undeniable success. How on earth would what he asks X/Twitter to do affect this, even if you considered that bad or the worst thing ever?

You do know that’s just the name of his role, not the job description, right? He was also quite adamant about not needing a fire suppression system on the pad while everyone else was saying to just dig a water trench and be over with it. Now he got his inverted shower head. It should work, but it delayed the second launch by almost a year.

People were talking about a flame trench, and it was just the usual "nooo you can't do things differently" kind of whining. Not all too different from people saying suicide burns and barge landings would not be reliable when early Falcon 9 landing attempts failed.

Even the internal engineers (ie the only people who matter in this case due to being the only people with the data) expected the previous pad to at least survive the first test flight (with some ablation).

The shattering was a surprise that did not fit their own models. Beyond that they had already started work on the current system as a long term solution prior to the first flight.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#145

Post by redox99 »

mayd wrote: post #128
rich_sasha wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed it would be absolutely seismic. How well does that look, from a cold, objective, non-Elon-hype point of view? I mean, he might happen to be 100% correct in his optimism but by now I learned to trust nothing that man says.

> I learned to trust nothing that man says. I admit I did get a little caught up in Musk's web of hype in the early days but fortunately my natural scepticism was strong enough to resist him. Eventually, I found a few detailed analyses of some of his technological fantasies which convinced me that some of what he proposes will not be happening any time soon, if ever. I am by no means an Elon Musk hater but he does sp…

> I am convinced that

> 1. A city-to-city Starship shuttle passenger service will never happen.

> 2. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will not happen in the foreseeable future.

Both are in my opinion completely technologically feasible. Just not economically feasible.

If we had another space race I could see a mars colony in the 2040. But I don't think it will happen.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#146

Post by kcplate »

underseacables wrote: post #130
modeless wrote: post #16

If Starship meets its reusability goals it's going to be absolutely nuts. Flying to orbit and back multiple times in a day like an airliner or something, carrying more than the entire habitable volume of ISS every time. It's impossible to overstate how much that would change access to space, and how much of an advantage it would give SpaceX over its competitors (even other nations).

Reminds me of the scene from Gattaca, rockets taking off for space all day long.

I have gone from watching rockets take off into space a couple times a year from my back yard to watching them take off (occasionally) a couple of times a week. It would not surprise me to see that get even more frequent in my lifetime.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#147

Post by Kim_Bruning »

ric2b wrote: post #134
modeless wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the biggest impact for normal people is that Starlink is going to get a whole lot better. Truly worldwide satellite broadband for unmodified cell phones. Faster speeds, lower latency (lower than fiber for intercontinental traffic), smaller/cheaper antennas, better reliability especially with limited view of the sky, and more support for areas of higher population density. More esoteric: Commercial space stations.…

None of that sounds like a big impact on the lives of most people, who are already living in areas well covered by cellphone networks and will never afford to travel to space.

SpaceX Starship is projected to bring the price of space travel down drastically, to the point where non-1%-ers should be able to afford it.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#148

Post by kcplate »

rdtsc wrote: post #33
jiggawatts wrote: post #7

Did Fisheries and Wildlife finally figure out the areal density of whales in the ocean for impact probability estimation? https://youtu.be/JN3KPFbWCy8?t=4742

That's incredible. It's not really about whales and sharks, they know the probability is 0%, those agency people can't be that stupid. What they are really saying is they'll shove all the sticks they have in his spokes. If it was in some other country, I might have guessed they are just plainly asking for a bribe, but here I think they just really don't like the Musk and his company. When some random person interacts…

Little wannabe tyrants with their little fiefdoms with big political axes to grind.

Re: Starship’s second flight test

#150

Post by IshKebab »

maxlin wrote: post #112
IshKebab wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you can't just accept that he makes crazy promises that are sometimes total nonsense. Sometimes his crazy promises do mostly pan out. But he's clearly massively over-promised in driverless cars. I'm really surprised there hasn't been a class action lawsuit from all the Tesla owners who were essentially tricked into paying $5k for a thing that can never exist.

Yes he has over-promised, but Tesla also has the most promising tech on this for many reasons. It seems more like the problem itself is turning out to just be harder to cover properly than foreseen originally. However, cars last long and Tesla's batteries last as long as any, I remember seeing some very promising numbers from very old Model S's remaining battery capabilities, and of course the batteries can be replac…

> the problem itself is turning out to just be harder to cover properly than foreseen originally

Than foreseen by Tesla. Everyone else knew they couldn't possibly achieve what Musk was claiming.

> Tesla also has the most promising tech on this for many reasons

After Waymo maybe.

> considering even the NN chip hardware can be semi-easily upgraded if really needed

Haha there's no way 20 year old cars (minimum; by the time FSD actually works) are going to get sensor and compute upgrades. Not going to happen.

> That sounds like someone saying muskets are a fad.

I'm not sure what your analogy is meant to mean but I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying driverless cars in general can never exist. Clearly they will eventually (maybe 10-20 years?). It's the upgrade to FSD that people have paid for that can never exist.

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